Brandon Strain

“You know, O friend, any meeting is surely more than parting. There is emptiness before meeting someone, just nothing, but there is no longer emptiness after parting. After having met someone once, it is impossible to part completely. A person remains in the memory, as a part of the memory. The person created that part and that part lives, sometimes coming into contact with its creator. Otherwise, how would we sense those dear to us from a distance?”
― Eugene Vodolazkin, Laurus

“The Lord has forgiven sinners seventy times seven and more, but beyond that, if sinners remain sinners, will the Lord save them against their will? He will not, for that is not the principle of the salvation of men. The principle of salvation is that men voluntarily consent to being saved by God. If men, seventy times seven and more, do not desire to be saved by God, then God will not save them.”
― Nikolaj Velimirović, The Prologue of Ohrid

“Thus, fortune telling can be called a belief in darkness. That is why the Apostle Paul said: But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness (I Timothy 4:7).”
― Nikolaj Velimirović, The Prologue of Ohrid

“Bodily purity is primarily attained by fasting, and, through bodily purity, spiritual purity is also attained. Abstinence from food, according to the words of that son of grace, St. Ephraim the Syrian, means: “Not to desire or ask for various foods, either sweet or costly; not to eat anything outside the designated time; not to succumb to the spirit of gluttony; not to excite hunger in oneself by looking at good food; and not to desire at one moment one kind of food and at another moment another kind of food.” Great is the fallacy that fasting and Lenten food harm the health of the body.”
― Nikolaj Velimirović, The Prologue of Ohrid