Κεφ. ΛΓ'
The Path to Humility
Reflecting on past deliverance and present divine protection fosters a humble heart that resists the influence of pride.
Remember your former life and your past failings: how, while still ruled by passions, you passed into freedom from them through Christ’s mercy, and how you left behind the world that had humbled you so deeply and so often. Consider this, too: who is guarding you in the desert, and who is driving away the demons that gnash their teeth at you? For thoughts like these produce humility and refuse to admit the demon of pride.
Read the original Latin
Μέμνησο τοῦ προτέρου σου βίου καὶ ἀρχαίων παραπτωμάτων, καὶ πῶς ἐμπαθὴς ὢν ἐλέει Χριστοῦ πρὸς τὴν ἀπάθειαν μεταβέβηκας, καὶ πῶς πάλιν ἐξῆλθες τοῦ κόσμου τοῦ πολλὰ καὶ πολλάκις σε ταπεινώσαντος. Λόγισαι δέ μοι καὶ τοῦτο· τίς ὁ ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ φυλάσσων σε, καὶ τίς ὁ ἀπελαύνων τοὺς δαίμονας βρύχοντας κατὰ σοῦ τοὺς ὀδόντας αὐτῶν. Οἱ γὰρ τοιοῦτοι λογισμοὶ ταπεινοφροσύνην μὲν ἐμποιοῦσιν, τὸν δὲ τῆς ὑπερηφανίας οὐκ εἰσδέχονται δαίμονα.
The Praktikos companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent