In looking at life, we should accept all the things which come to us as God’s providence, knowing that they are intended to wake us up from our passions.  We should pray to God to show us some God-pleasing thing that we can do.  When we accept what comes to us, we begin to be like the simple woman in the Gospel who heard the call from God and was thus able to be His minister.  She was proclaimed to the ends of the world, as our Lord says, because of the simple thing she did—pouring out the ointment upon Him.  Let us be like her: sensitive to watching God’s signs around us.  These signs come from everywhere: from nature, from our fellow men, from a seeming chance of events…  There is always, everyday, something that indicates to us God’s will. We must be open to this.

Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose)  Great Lent, 1982