The sum of the entire ascetic course consists in these three things—repentance, purity, and perfection.
What is repentance? Desisting from former sins, and feeling pain at them.
What is purity, in a nutshell? A heart which has compassion on every natural thing in creation.
What is perfection? Profound humility which consists in the abandoning of everything visible and invisible: visible meaning everything involved with the senses; invisible meaning all thinking about them. The same elder was asked on another occasion, ‘What is repentance?’, and he said, ‘A broken heart’. And what is humility? He replied ‘Embracing a voluntary mortification with regard to everything’. And what is a merciful heart? He replied, ‘The heart’s burning for all cration, for human beings, for birds and animals, and for demons, and everything there is. At the recollection of them and at the sight of them his eyes gush forth with tears owing to the force of the compassion which constrains his heart, so that, as a result of its abundant sense of mercy, the heart shrinks and cannot bear to hear or examine any harm or small suffering of anything in creation. For this reason he offers up prayer with tears at all times, even for irrational animals, and for the enemies of truth, and for those who harm him, for their preservation and being forgiven. As a result of the immense compassion infused in his heart without measure—like God’s–he even does this for reptiles.
What is prayer? The emptying of the mind of all that belongs here, and a heart which has completely turned its gaze to a longing for that future hope. Whosoever departs from this ideal is like someone who sows mixed seed in his furrow, or like someone who ploughs with an ox and an ass at the same time.
——Isaac of Nineveh, Discourse LXXIV. See pp. 250–251 in The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life, introduced and translated by Sebastian Brock. Cistercian Publications, 1987.
This quote appears thanks to bibliomancy. I picked up the book, said ‘Fathers, give me a word’, flipped the pages, and randomly (or was it?) stopped on the pages predominated by the selection above. The selections included in the book are not only skilfully translated, but compassionately chosen. I recommend it to all who, like my own self, may need a reminder to care.