Prophet David: I will seek the Lord.

 My heart said unto Thee: I will seek the Lord. My face hath sought after Thee; Thy face, O Lord, will I seek.

+David the Prophet and King, from The Psalter according to the Seventy, psalm 26.

St. Sophrony (Sakharov): When God comes to us

 God is indivisible in Himself. When He comes, He comes wholly, as He is in His eternal Being. We do not contain Him. He reveals Himself to us at the 'point' where we knock: "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you" (Luke 11:9). He speaks in brief dicta but life is not long enough to uncover their full content. Reverently we sense His Fatherhood, His clemency. We see that He hungers to communicate to us His eternal life: to have us attain the perfection of His Son, Who is the equal mold of the Father. Incomprehensible is His design for us. From 'nothing' He creates gods like Himself. And our whole being bows before Him - not in dread before the stern Master but in humble love for the Father.

+St. Sophrony (Sakharov), from On Prayer, chapter 2 Prayer - The Way to Knowledge.

Matthew the Poor: Growth in Humility

 It is mentioned concerning the pure saintly fathers, that after beholding the Lord, they became even more humble. Thus we hear of righteous Job, who when the eyes of his heart were finally opened and he beheld the Lord, he counted himself as dust and ashes... A1so Isaiah the prophet after rebuking the people for their sins, saw the Lord and immediately humbled himself declaring; “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips." (Isaiah 6:5). And so the saints‘ great humility is in fact owing to what they have seen of God’s glory. Thus the soul attains true humility on earth by beholding - from afar - the glory which it shall receive (undeservedly).

+Matthew the Poor, from St. Anthony, a Biblical Ascetic, Eleventh Ascetic Principle

St. Augustine: Thou dwell in my memory

Thou remainest unchangeable over all, and yet has vouchsafed to dwell in my memory since I learnt Thee. And why seek I now in what place thereof Thou dwellest, as if there were places therein? Sure am I that in it Thou dwellest since I have remembered Thee, ever since I learnt Thee, when I call Thee to remembrance. Where then did I find Thee that I might learn Thee? For in my memory Thou wert not before I learnt Thee. Where then did I find Thee that I might learn Thee but in Thee above me?... Too late loved I thee, O Beauty so old, yet ever new! To late loved I Thee. And behold, Thou wert within, and I abroad, and there I searched for Thee. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee. Thou calledst, and shoutedst, burstedst my deafness. Thou flashedst, shonedst, and scatteredst my blindness. Thou breathedst odors, and I drew in breath, and panted for Thee. I tasted, and hungered and thirsted. Thou touchedst me, and I was on file for Thy peace.
+St. Augustine of Hippo, from Confessions, 10.36-38

St. Nikolai Velimirovich: Love and Joy

The holy king David never saw Christ, nor did he ever partake of Christ through Holy Communion, but only felt a prophetic premonition of His coming into the world. Yet even this mere premonition filled his heart with such joy that with all his strength he danced and leapt for joy (2 Sam 6:14-15). And how much more ought we, dear sisters! How much more ought we to dance for joy, since we were deemed worthy to be born not in the time of the Old Testament, but of the New Testament - and not only to hear about the Savior, the Son of God, but even to eat His body and drink His blood, and to receive Him into our heart and to give our heart to Him - with love, love, and more love; with joy, joy, and more joy.
+St. Nikolai Velimirovich, from The Wise Abbess of Ljubljana, #5, in The Struggle for Faith and other writings of Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich and Archimandrite Justin Popovich

St. John Cassian: The contemplation of God

The contemplation of God is arrived at in numerous ways. For God is not known only through wondering at His incomprehensible substance, because that is still concealed in the hope of the promise, but He is also clearly perceived in the grandeur of the things that He has created, in reflecting upon His justice and in the assistance provided by His daily providence - namely, when we consider with most pure minds the things that He has accomplished with His holy ones over the course of generations; when with trembling heart we admire that power of His by which He governs, directs, and rules all things, as well as the vastness of His knowledge and the eye from which the secrets of hearts cannot be hidden; when we think that He knows the sands of the sea and that He has measured the number of the waves; when we contemplate with amazement the raindrops, the days and hours of the ages, how all things past and future are present to His knowledge; when we look with a kind of overwhelming wonder at His ineffable gentleness, by which He tolerates with unwearying patience the numberless crimes committed in His sight at each and every moment, and at the call through which He has received us, thanks to His mercy and not to our own already existing deserts, and finally at the many occasions of salvation that He has bestowed on those who are to be adopted - because He commanded that we should be born in such a way that grace and the knowledge of His law might be given us from our very cradles, and because He Himself, conquering the adversary in us, bestows on us eternal blessedness and everlasting rewards for the sole pleasure of His good will; and when, lastly, He accepted the dispensation of His incarnation for our salvation and extended the marvels of His mysteries to all peoples. There are also other innumerable things of this sort to contemplate, which come to our minds (where God is seen and grasped by a pure vision) in accordance with the character of our life and the purity of our heart. Certainly no one in whom there still dwells something of carnal desire will lay hold of these things eternally, because, as the Lord says: "You shall not be able to see my face, for no one shall see me and live" (Ex 33:20) - namely, to this world and to earthly desires.
+ St. John Cassian, from The Conferences, First Conference, XV.