Wherefore I say unto you, and I shall never cease to say this: Those who defiled the first Baptism by transgressing the commandments of God, imitate the repentance of David and all the saints, and show true repentance with all diligence and all good works, that the grace of the Holy Spirit may come again into your soul.

I say this for no other reason than in order to preach the goodness of God, which is ready for all of you, and to dispose you to strive to receive the same good. For the sign of love according to God is not to conceal the good, but to declare it to one's brethren and to move them to seek the same, to gain and to acquire. Wherefore, as you see, I cry out to you, crying out in the words of the Prophet David: "Come unto Him, and be enlightened, and the faces of your conscience shall not be ashamed" (Psalm 33:6). Why, my beloved brethren, have you completely descended into negligence and sloth, into the sweetness and lusts of the flesh, and say that you cannot be cleansed from sins by repentance, draw near to God, receive the grace of the Holy Spirit and through it be reborn, become God-like and sons of God by grace? No, this is not impossible. This was impossible before the incarnate dispensation of Christ, but after the Lord of all and God had pleased to be made man, like us in all things, except sin, He made all this possible and convenient for us, and gave us the power to be sons of God and joint-heirs with Him, to Whom all glory, honor and worship are due forever. Amen.

Homilies of St. Symeon the New Theologian. Part 2. - Moscow: Pravila very, 2001, pp. 76-81.

Homily Sixty-Five. 1. About repentance, and that when one does all the commandments of God, he increases in virtue and becomes perfect.

I said that he must have fear and trembling: this is in order that he may not be deprived of the great blessing that he has received from him, and not be condemned to the eternal fire of hell, as an unsuccessful and unskilled doer of God's commandments. For if he accepts the words of his spiritual father as if they came from the mouth of God Himself, with the assurance that from them comes life, if he fulfills them, and death, if he transgresses, then he will observe them with precision and great attention. If he begins his work and has undoubted faith in the promises given to us by God, then he will prosper in God day by day, and, following the path of the commandments, grow in spiritual life, and, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, will finally become a perfect man.

Listen attentively to the promises that our Lord Jesus Christ has given us. - There is joy in heaven, He says, for one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10), and again: He who comes to me - by this, of course, by repentance, I will not cast out (John 6:37); again: "If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink" (John 7:37); and in another place He says: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28); also: If you have My commandments and keep them, you will love Me: but if you love Me, you will be loved by My Father... and to him - I and the Father through the Spirit - we will come, and make our abode with him (John 14:21,23); and again: if you are evil, you know how to give good things to your children; how much more will the Father, who is from heaven, give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (Luke 11:13). It is in these promises of Christ that we must hope, as we have said, with undoubted faith, and fulfill all the commandments of Christ with great and warm zeal. The first commandment of the Gospel is the following: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven draws nigh" (Matt. 4:17). Again: ask, and it will be given you; seek, and ye shall find; push, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who interprets it will be opened (Matt. 7:7-8). Wishing to show us how and by what deeds we ought to seek, that we may find, Christ said to us: "Whosoever willeth to be first in you, let him be the servant of all, the servant of all, and the least of all... For whoever is exalted, he will humble himself; and he who humbles himself shall be exalted (Mark 9:35; Matt. 23:12).

When the practice of weeping is combined with the fulfillment of God's commandments, then it washes away – oh miracle! - and cleanses the soul from all defilement and expels from it every passion and every lust, carnal and worldly. In this way, at last, man becomes free from all worldly unwillingness and from all passions, both bodily and mental. As a man, having thrown off his garments, becomes completely naked, so the soul throws off, as if it were some kind of garment, first of all insensibility, which the divine Paul calls a veil, which veil of insensibility lies not only on the hearts of unfaithful Jews, but also in every person who with all diligence and with all his strength does not do the commandments of the Gospel, this veil (that is, insensibility) is found and covers his mind, so that he cannot rise from the earthly and know as he ought to know the Son and the Word of God, that is, Christ. Further, just as he who is naked bodily sees the wounds, if there are any on the body, so this one then sees purely the passions of his soul, such as: love of glory, love of money, rancor, brotherly hatred, envy, envy, covetousness, self-conceit and all other passions - and on all these passions of the soul he imposes the commandments of Christ, as medicinal substances, and as cauterizations that burn out, he imposes temptations and sorrows. And in this way he humbles himself, weeps, seeks God's help with great zeal; and then he clearly sees how the grace of the All-Holy Spirit comes into him, and eradicates and destroys the passions one by one, until He frees the soul from all of them, for the grace of the Holy Spirit does not free the soul from one or two passions, but completely from all, purely. Together with the passions, of which we have spoken, it drives away all laziness, negligence and carelessness, all ignorance, forgetfulness and gluttony, all voluptuousness and evil lust. And in this way He renews man both in soul and body, so that he thinks that he no longer wears a mortal and debilitating body, but a spiritual and immaterial one, capable of being raptured into heaven, like St. Paul. And it is not only this that the grace of the All-Holy Spirit accomplishes in him, but it no longer allows him to listen to anything sensual and worldly, and makes it so that he sees all this as if he had not seen it, for then the mind will unite with the mental and the divine, and proceed completely outside of all that is sensual, despite everything that seems to be looking at it.

When at last such a person comes to this good state, of which the divine Paul says: "Our life is in heaven" (Phil. 3:20), which we do not see what is seen, but what is invisible (2 Corinthians 4:18), then he is illumined and enlightened, he daily grows with spiritual growth, he rejects everything that is characteristic of childish senseless wisdom, and he succeeds in perfecting himself, until he attains to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulfillment of Christ (Ephesians 4:13).

By sacraments I mean that which all see, but do not comprehend. But he who is enlightened by the Holy Spirit, Who renews all things, acquires new eyes and new ears, and no longer looks simply, as a man, at the sensual sensuously, but, as one who has become higher than man, looks at the sensual and bodily spiritually, as at the image of invisible things; and he does not hear the voice or voices of men, but the one living word of God, although it is spoken by the word of man. Such a soul receives through hearing only the living word of God, as it knows and desires, and only allows it to enter within itself, and when it enters into it, it kisses it with joy, as Christ said: "My sheep hear my voice" (John 10:27), but they do not know a strange voice (5). As for the rest of all human words, she hears them, but she does not receive them, and does not allow them to enter into herself, but turns away from them and drives them away beforehand, and sometimes she does not feel their presence at all, and their being pushed into her ears, but is like a deaf person who hears nothing, does not hear them, and does not receive them, With all that he hears.

When he becomes such, then God dwells in him, and everything that he desires comes to him, and even more so than what he desires. For God is every good, and in whatever soul He indwells, He fills with every good that is possible for human nature to contain, such good as eye has not seen, of which ear has not heard, and which has not ascended in the heart of man, to that man who has not become such as we have depicted above. When God dwells in such a person, He teaches him everything - both regarding the present and the future, not in word, but in deed and experience, practically. He removes the veil from the eyes of his soul and shows him what He Himself wants, and what is useful for him, but inspires him not to investigate, not to question and not to be curious. And what God shows him, he cannot see without deep reverence and fear, but, looking into the depths of the riches of God's wisdom and understanding, he trembles and is terrified, thinking about himself, who he is and what mysteries he has been vouchsafed to see. Seeing God's boundless love for mankind, he falls into a frenzy, realizing and feeling how unworthy he is to look at such pre-sacred mysteries; Why does he not dare to inquisitively examine them, or to examine what they are, but only cries out with great fear and trembling, saying, "Who am I, O Lord, and what is my Father's house, that Thou hast entrusted to me, and has been pleased to show such mysteries to me, unworthy, and hast done more than I expect, that I should not only see such great Thy blessings, but also become a partaker of them?

Such a person, as one who has become higher than all creatures, no longer has the desire to turn back and consider creatures. Having acquired and having in himself the Lord of the Angels, he no longer likes to investigate the essence and nature of the Angels, the servants of God, knowing that it is not pleasing to God that he should be curious about that which exceeds the powers of man, for if we are commanded not to torture the dogmas of the Scriptures with our minds, how much more is it not at all fitting for us to be curious about what is above what is written.

Such a person beholds God, as far as it is possible for human nature and as much as is pleasing to God, strives to see Him unceasingly here and prays, that he may be vouchsafed to see Him even after his death; he is glad to see Him alone, and does not feel the need to look at anything else. Wherefore he has no desire to tear his attention away from his Lord God, from Whom he is filled with light and accepts eternal life, and to look at His servants like himself.

Such a person, since he sees, is illumined and enlightened by God, and himself beholds the great glory of God that surpasses all intellect, he no longer desires to be seen by others and to guess what he is and in what glory he is. Holy souls are free from vanity. Adorned with the most radiant and royal robe of the All-Holy Spirit and filled with the prevailing glory of God, they not only do not care about human glory, but when people surround them with it, they pay no attention to it at all. For the soul, which is seen by God and sees God itself, will not wish to turn to look at any other person, nor will it desire that anyone else should see it.

Therefore I beseech you, my brethren, let us not study the unspeakable blessings of God by words alone, which, however, is impossible, both for those who teach and for those who listen. For neither those who teach, without experiencing by deed, mental and divine things, can give clear proofs and explanations by examples, and present the truth in practical applications; nor can those who listen understand from words alone what is being said to them. But it is necessary to strive with many illnesses and labors, to come to the state of contemplation of those invisible things and to learn to understand them from deeds and experiences. Then, from such experiences, we will learn and be enlightened about the words about these blessings; may God be glorified in us for the sake of such a divine state, and may we glorify God through the knowledge of such things, and may God glorify us in Christ our God, to whom be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever. Amen.