We find described the path of the spiritual life in the history of the Church written by the Saints. Generally speaking, it is explained like we are trying to keep and fulfill God’s commands and we notice how our passions kill ourselves and how they stop us to keep them. This causes a great pain; one that grows when is linked to the abandonment of God. We suffer both in body and in spirit. Only then we experience Adam’s fall and the repentance appears, the one that opens the deeps of our being in the cleanest way. And the purification of the heart starts with this profound cry. In this moment we receive a new power and we end up by seeing the light. Therefore, when we become nothing, zero, earth, then we become matter for our new building. (Father Sophronius of Essex)

(Translated from Hierotheos Vlachos, Mitropolit de Nafpaktos și Sfântul Vlasie, Cunosc un om în Hristos: Părintele Sofronie de la Essex, traducere din limba greacă de pr. Șerban Tica, Editura Sophia, București; Editura Cartea Ortodoxă, Alexandria, 2011, pp. 302-303)