First Sunday of Lent

“The temptation of Christ on the mount" by Duccio di Buoninsegna (Frik Collection of New York)

"When you are in a state of subjection and languid and dejected, and you are bound and fettered before your foe in mournful wretchedness and laborious service of sin, then recall to your mind the previous times of firmness; how you showed painstaking even concerning small things and how you were moved with zeal against the obstructors in your course; how you uttered sighs on account of the small things which were despised by you as accidental and your whole person was winding a wreath of victory over these things. Then, by these and similar recollections, your soul will be aroused as from the depth, and be clad with the flame of zeal; and it will rise from its immersion as if from the dead, and stretch itself and return to its former state, in hot strife against Satan and sin" (from The Mystical Treatises of St. Isaac of Niniveh, Homily 2, 11-12).