| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: understanding what the will of God is, clad in the whole armour
of God to stand in battle against the wiles of the adversary, and
with all prayer and supplication watching thereunto, in all
patience and hope. Therefore, even as thou hast heard from me,
and been instructed, and hast laid a sure foundation, do thou
abound therein, increasing and advancing, and warring the good
warfare, holding faith and a good conscience, witnessed by good
works, following after righteousness, godliness, faith, charity,
patience, meekness, laying hold on eternal life whereunto thou
wast called. But remove far from thee all pleasure and lust of
the affections, not only in act and operation, but even in the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: SOCRATES: Very true. And now let us go back and interrogate wisdom and
mind: Would you like to have any pleasures in the mixture? And they will
reply:--'What pleasures do you mean?'
PROTARCHUS: Likely enough.
SOCRATES: And we shall take up our parable and say: Do you wish to have
the greatest and most vehement pleasures for your companions in addition to
the true ones? 'Why, Socrates,' they will say, 'how can we? seeing that
they are the source of ten thousand hindrances to us; they trouble the
souls of men, which are our habitation, with their madness; they prevent us
from coming to the birth, and are commonly the ruin of the children which
are born to us, causing them to be forgotten and unheeded; but the true and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: No, nor Menalcas, were alive to-day.
LYCIDAS
Alack! could any of so foul a crime
Be guilty? Ah! how nearly, thyself,
Reft was the solace that we had in thee,
Menalcas! Who then of the Nymphs had sung,
Or who with flowering herbs bestrewn the ground,
And o'er the fountains drawn a leafy veil?-
Who sung the stave I filched from you that day
To Amaryllis wending, our hearts' joy?-
"While I am gone, 'tis but a little way,
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