St John of Kronstadt on Prayer

     'Those who are trying to lead a spiritual life have to carry on a most skillful and difficult warfare, through their thoughts, every moment of their life -- that is, a spiritual warfare; it is necessary that our whole soul should be every moment a clear eye, able to watch and notice the thoughts entering our heart from the evil one and repel them; the hearts of such men should be always burning with faith, humility and love; otherwise the subtlety of the Devil finds an easy access to them, followed by a diminution of faith, or entire unbelief, and then by every possible evil, which it will be difficult to wash away even by tears. Do not, therefore, allow your heart to be cold, especially during prayer, and avoid in every way cold indifference. 
  
   Very often it happens that prayer is on the lips, but in the heart cunning, incredulity or unbelief, so that by the lips the man seems near to God, whilst in his heart he is far from Him. And, during our prayers, the evil one makes use of every means to chill our hearts and fill them with deceit in a most imperceptible manner to us. 


 Pray and fortify yourself, fortify your heart.'

Taken from 'My Life in Christ' 

"Mean Mother"

                                                              
  I came across this article in a book I was skimming. I think a few of us may find a thing or two we can relate to in it.


                                               Mean Mother

  I had the meanest mother in the whole world. While other children ate candy for breakfast, I had to have cereal, eggs or toast. When other had cokes and candy for lunch, I had to eat a sandwich. As you guess, my supper was different from other children's also.
   
  But at least I wasn't alone in my suffering. My sister and two brothers had the same 'mean mother' as I did.


  My mother insisted upon knowing where we were at all times! You'd think we were on a chain gang. She had to know who our friends were and what we were doing. She insisted if we said we'd be gone an hour that we be gone one hour or less -- not one hour and a minute. I am nearly ashamed to admit it, but she actually struck us. Not once, but each time we did as we pleased. Can you imagine someone actually hitting a child just because he disobeyed?


  Now you can begin to see how mean she really was. 


  While the other girls were wearing miniskirts and smoking cigarettes we had to be little grandmas and were called 'old fashioned'. Mother would not even let us go to the drive-in movies. How could she be so mean?


  My mother was a complete failure as a mother. None of us has ever been arrested, divorced or beaten his mate. Each of my brothers served his time in the service of this country. And whom do we have to blame for the terrible way we turned out? You're right -- our mean mother. The worst is yet to come. We had to be in bed by nine each night and up early the next morning. We couldn't sleep till noon like our friends. So while they slept, my mother actually had the nerve to break the child labor law. She made us work. We had to wash dishes, make beds, learn to cook and all sorts of cruel things. I believe she lay awake at night thinking up mean things to do to us. 


  She always insisted upon our telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, even if it killed us, and it nearly did. 


  By the time we were teenagers, she was wiser -- and our life became even more unbearable. None of this tooting of the car horn by the boys for us to come running. 
  She embarrassed us to no end by making our dates and friends come to the door to get us. I forgot to mention, while my friends were dating at the mature age of 12 and 13, my old , mean mother refused to let me date until the age of 15 and 18. Fifteen, that is, if you dated only to a school function. And that was maybe twice a year. 


  Look at all we missed. We never got to march in a protest parade, nor to take part in a riot, burn draft cards, and a million and one other things kids did. 


  She forced us to grow up into God-fearing, educated, honest adults.


  Using this as a background, I am trying to raise my three children. I stand a little taller and I am filled with pride when my children call me mean.