St. Symeon the New Theologian Orthodox Church

"0 holy Virgin Mary, tell us, thy children of thy love on earth for thy Son and God. Tell us how thy spirit rejoiced in God thy Savior! Tell us of how thou didst look upon His faircountenance, and reflect that this was He Whom all the heavenly hosts wait upon in awe and love. Tell us what thy soul felt when thou didst bear the wondrous Babe in thine arms. Tell us of how thou didst rear Him, how, sick at heart, thou and Joseph sought Him three long days in Jerusalem. Tell us of thine agony when the Lord was delivered up to be crucified, and lay dying on the Cross. Tell us what joy was thine over the Resurrection! Tell us how thy soul languished after the Lord's Ascension. We long to know of thy life on earth with the Lord but thou wast not minded to commit all these things to writing/ and didst veil thy secret heart in silence. "

- A Prayer of St. Silouan the Athonite

"If you wouid be victorious, taste the suffering of Christ in your person, that you may be chosen to taste His glory. For if we suffer with Him, we shall also be glorified with Him. Blessed are you if you suffer for righteousness' sake. Behold, for years and generations the way of God has been made smooth through the Cross and by death. The way of God is a daily Cross. The Cross is the gate of mysteries. "

- St. Isaac the Syrian

"The Logos has made men equal to the angels. Not only did He 'make peace through the blood of His Cross; between things on earth and things in heaven' (Col. 1:20), and reduce to impotence the hostile powers that fill the intermediary region between heaven and earth, thereby making the festal assembly of earthly and heavenly powers a single gathering for His distribution of divine gifts, with humankind joining joyfully with the powers on high in unanimous praise of God's glory, but also, after fulfilling the divine purpose undertaken on our behalf, when He was taken up with the body which He had assumed, He united heaven and earth in Himself. "

- St. Maximus the Confessor