All who ask receive, those who seek find, and to those who knock it shall be opened. Therefore, let us knock at the beautiful garden of Scripture. It is fragrant, sweet, and blooming with various sounds of spiritual and divinely inspired birds. They sing all around our ears, capture our hearts, comfort the mourners, pacify the angry, and fill us with everlasting joy.
Interpretation
This quote illustrates the idea that those who actively seek truth and understanding will find it through effort and openness.
John Of Damascus emphasizes the importance of seeking knowledge and spiritual enlightenment through the exploration of Scripture. He uses the metaphor of a beautiful garden to illustrate how engaging with sacred texts can bring comfort and joy to our lives, highlighting that spiritual insights are accessible to those who earnestly pursue them.
In practice
During a sermon, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of searching for spiritual truths.
The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God. Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics, and just men who announced the coming of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death so that we may also share their crowns of glory.
If the Word of God is living and powerful, and if the Lord does all things whatsoever he wills; if he said, "Let there be light", and it happened; if he said, "let there be a firmament", and it happened; ...if finally the Word of God himself willingly became man and made flesh for himself out of the most pure and undefiled blood of the holy and ever Virgin, why should he not be capable of making bread his Body and wine and water his Blood?... God said, "This is my Body", and "This is my Blood."
Both angels and demons are ignorant of the future, yet they make predictions. The angels do so when God reveals the future to them and commands them to prophesy, and what they prophesy comes to pass. Demons also make predictions, but these are only guesses based on what they see from afar.
Angels are intelligent reflections of light, that original light which has no beginning. They can illuminate. They do not need tongues or ears, for they can communicate without speech, in thought.
...we shall incur no slight injury, but rather great danger, if we rashly yield ourselves to the inclinations of men who aim at exciting strife and tumults, so as to draw us away from what is good? Let us cleave, therefore, to those who cultivate peace with godliness?
Every man possesses that which is according to the image of God, for the gifts of God are irrevocable (Rom. 11:29). But only a few ? those who are virtuous and holy, and have imitated the goodness of God to the limit of human powers ? possess that which is according to the likeness of God.
Words are things. You must be careful, careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Donβt do that. Some day weβll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.
More knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral.
Our brains are very, very good at self-delusion. What happens is, it releases the stress hormone cortisol in the brain, which leads to foggy thinking, so you're not even able to judge well whether you're working well or not.
Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life.
As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
I'm seventeen and I'm crazy. My uncle says the two always go together. When people ask your age, he said, always say seventeen and insane.
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