Thursday, March 13 (February 28), 2025
No Liturgy ─ no New Testament reading appointed     

“Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.” [Pr. 6:4-5].  Everyone who has resolved in his heart, before the face of the Lord, to live henceforth according to His commandments, ought to be guided by this rule.  Do not give sleep to your eyes ─ not to these external eyes, but to the inner eyes of your mind, to make them carefully look into your heart and take notice of anything wrong going on there.  Thus you will be warned of all enemy’s plots in advance and keep yourself safe from harm.

Your heart has now become a battlefield.  The enemy is constantly shelling it, aiming at wrecking and spoiling your thoughts.  Most of those thoughts, however, are far from being openly wicked or evil; by and large, they are sugar-coated with some sort of false goodness.  But the chain of thoughts is like a sophisticated net! If you follow it without proper attention and understanding, you will surely get ensnared and fall.

That’s why, my brother, keep the eye of your mind very sharp by means of keen attention to everything that happens in or about you.  Take notice of any suggestion you get from the enemy ─ from that persistent false adviser of yours, ─ examine carefully, why he is suggesting this or that, where it would lead you, ─  and you will be always safe from his snares.

Only remember that attention alone does not work well; it works only when joined with sobriety, vigilance and unceasing prayer to the Lord.  Keeping all that together makes you really invincible.

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