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10 Quotes of Guidance from St. Ambrose of Optina



1. Life will become peaceful and successful only when we will stop being forgetful and stop forgetting God, our Creator and Savior and the Giver of eternal life. Not to forget Him means to live by His Divine Commandments.

2. We need to endure family troubles as we have chosen the path through our own free will. Doubting one’s self here is very harmful. You will find salvation when you pray to God about yourself and your family, so the Lord may give us what we truly need through His holy will.

3.My suggestions is to find the golden middle when interacting with those who are younger and older than you, try not to insist on what you want instead do what you are responsible for and what is possible as you understand it. Be sure you are guided by the fear of God and your conscience.

4. If you believe in God’s providence and rely on God for His All Powerful help, then you will not come across any discomfort and you will always be at peace. When you start to wonder about things that are impossible (because when we assume we tend to be mistaken or wrong) then you will make yourself restless for no reason.

5. We must have reason, this means that we must first worry about receiving the mercy of God and our eternal salvation. We should not think about returning to the old kingdom or in other words temporary earthly joys.

6. You must teach and educate your children, but you also need to learn from your children as the Lord said: “unless you... become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven”(Matthew 18:3). While Apostle Paul explained these words as follows: “do not be children in understanding; however, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature” (1 Corinthians 14:20).

7. An excess of inner feelings can unnoticeably turn into pride and judgement of others; while a lack of feeling and an inner spiritual dryness will humble a person, when one truly beings to understand this.

8. Prayer for your relatives must come with humility to the All-Knowing and All-Powerful God. Where words and actions can not help, we have a commandment to pray for one another, so that we could be healed.

9. The evil one will tempt in any way possible, especially before death in order to inflict a wound or to leave at least some sort of stain. The evil one does this so that the soul could be delayed and held up on its path into eternal life.

10. The sign of the cross has a great power in terms of a person’s actions his entire life. Therefore it is very important to teach children from a young age to make the sign of the cross. Especially before eating and drinking, going to sleep, waking up, going on a trip and before going or returning from somewhere.

Prepared by The Catalog of Good Deeds

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