St. Sabbas of Kalymnos: On what it means to be a monk

 A monk is one who suffers and weeps for his own sins and who pays no attention to the sins of others; who does not judge or get angry, but who endures patiently, with pleasure, every wrong and all contempt in order to achieve intimacy with God, the heavenly Judge and Father of all.

+St. Sabbas of Kalymnos, quoted in The Synaxarion, volume 4, his entry on April 7.

Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos: Life is participation and communion with God.

 The life suitable for noetic nature is participation in God. Each thing has its appropriate organ. The appropriate organ for the enjoyment of light is man's eye and not his finger or any other member of the human body. So it is that vision of God takes place through the noetic in man. Therefore life is participation and communion with God. And naturally this participation is knowledge of God at the depth at which the soul is able to contain it. Ignorance of God, of course, means non-participation in God.

+Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, from Life after Death, Section 2 chapter 7

St. Gregory Palamas: God gives much, asks little

 For this purpose the Son of God bowed the heavens and came down to earth, became the Son of man, spoke and acted as He did, finally suffered and died for us, rose again and went to to heaven once more, to make us heavenly immortal and sons of God. So the things He now asks of us, that we should love our enemies, do good, and lend to those unable to repay, are not only fitting and beneficial for us, as has already been demonstrated, but are also small in comparison with what He gave. He gave Himself for us, who not only had nothing to give in return, but who had previously shown ourselves in many ways to be ungrateful and evil. By contrast, He urges us to lend what we have in excess and to do good with what we possess. What do we have, and how much? And for the sake of these trifles He gives us in exchange likeness to Himself, sublime adoption as sons, and heavenly rewards, saying, "Be ye merciful, even as your Father which is in heaven is merciful" (Luke 6:36, cf. Matthew 5:48).

St. Gregory Palamas, from The Homilies, homily 45 for the Second Sunday of St. Luke

Fr. Alexander Schmemann: The purpose of Lent

 The purpose of Lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to "soften" our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the spirit, to experience the hidden "thirst and hunger" for communion with God.

+Fr. Alexander Schmemann, from Great Lent, chapter 2.