Gleanings from Orthodox Christian Authors and the Holy Fathers

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"How I am distressed when I called to mind that in festival days the assembled multitudes are like a broad expanse of the sea. But now, not even the smallest part of those multitudes is gathered here today.

Where are those who oppress us with their presence on Feast Day? I look for them, and am grieved on their account when I mark what a multitude are perishing of those who are in a state of salvation; how large a part of the body of Christ is like a dead and motionless carcass!

They, perhaps, make the summer season their excuse. I hear them saying, 'The heat is excessive; the sun is intolerable; we cannot bear the heat and confined space.' Such excuses are foolish without basis.

When you have spiritual wells and rivers, are you afraid of material heat? No, in the market, where there is much turmoil and crowding and scorching wind, how is it that you do not suffocate and find the heat an excuse for absenting yourself there? It is plain that these silly excuses are the offspring of indolence and of supine disposition, destitute of the grace of the Holy Spirit. St John Chrysostom