Mirror of the Honest Life and Eight Points of Spiritual Perfection

in the chamber of your heart; it will, however, be helpful for gaining compunction if you are so secluded, or by lifting up pure hands, or if you are able to hear your own voice; sometimes look toward heaven to lift your intention, so that your heart may be where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. From prayer, return to reading; and again, if reading stirs up weariness in you, let it provoke you to prayer.

Avoid the company of young men, especially those who are beardless, as much as you can conveniently do. Approach food as if you were approaching the cross; never fix your eyes on the face of another, never eat for pleasure, but for necessity. Let hunger, not flavor, provoke your appetite; flee singularity and be content with the community, knowing that the flesh must be nourished and vices must be extinguished. But when something is set before you, accept it as if it were provided by God. Yet, let this be in your mind and always in your will: to prefer to place [food] before another than to keep it yourself. Place a limit on your prudence, so that you do not seem wise to yourself always, everywhere, and in all your works; fear that you might perhaps exceed in something. The blessed Job says: "I did fear all my works, knowing that thou didst not spare the offender" Job 9:28.

When, however, you arrive at your bed tired, compose yourself by lying most honestly. Do not lie supine, nor join your heels to your shins while lifting your knees. And if the pomp of lust strikes you, remember your Beloved placed upon the bed of pain, and His whole frame turned to infirmity. Say these things in your heart: "My God hangs on the gibbet, and I shall give myself to pleasure?" And thus, with the name of the Savior invoked with your whole heart, by groaning and often repeating this name of salvation, the disturbance will cease. Ruminate on the psalms within yourself until sleep occupies you, so that you may dream that you are saying the psalms in your sleep. When you rise for the vigils, praise your Creator with all your strength, and to the praise of your Creator and Redeemer, exalt your voice on high. Finally, have the purest love of Christ; remember to value nothing besides Christ, or that which is outside of Him, or that which is not for His sake. I have described for you more prolixly than I thought what I myself cannot do, but [I hope] to fulfill it in you, deeming myself [unworthy] and...