Abba Cassian said, “Saint Germanus and I came from Palestine to Egypt and visited an elder. After he had received us hospitably, we asked him, ‘Why, when you receive visiting brothers, do you not keep our rule of fasting, as we received it in Palestine?’ He said, ‘Fasting is always with me, but I cannot keep you with me all the time. Fasting is useful and necessary, but it is something we choose; the law of God requires the fulfillment of love. Receiving Christ in you, I must serve you with every care. When I send you on your way, I can resume my rule of fasting. For the sons of the bridechamber cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them; when the bridegroom is taken away, then they will fast freely.’”
Abba Cassian said again, “There was an elder who was served by a holy virgin. People said, ‘They are impure.’ The elder heard about it. When he was near death, he said to the Fathers, ‘After I depart this life, plant my staff on my grave. If it sprouts and bears fruit, know that I am pure from her; if it does not sprout, know that I fell with her.’ They planted the staff, and on the third day it sprouted and bore fruit. Then everyone glorified God.”
Abba Cassian said again, “We went to another elder, who made us eat. After we were full, he urged us to eat more. When I said that I could not eat any more, he replied, ‘I have set the table six times for brothers who came, and as I urged each one, I ate with him, and I am still hungry. But you have eaten once and are so full that you cannot eat any more.’”
Abba Cassian said again, “Abba John, the superior of a large cenobium, visited Abba Paesius, who had lived for forty years in the deepest desert. Because he loved him greatly and could therefore speak freely with him, he asked, ‘What have you accomplished in all this time, living so withdrawn and rarely disturbed by anyone?’ Paesius replied, ‘Since I became a solitary, the sun has never seen me eating.’ Abba John said, ‘Nor has it ever seen me angry.’”
When this Abba John was near death and was departing eagerly and cheerfully to God, the brothers gathered around him, asking him to leave them, as an inheritance, a short and saving word by which they might attain perfection in Christ. He sighed and said, “I never did my own will, and I never taught anyone anything that I had not first done myself.”
Abba Cassian also told of another elder living in the desert who prayed God to grant him never to grow drowsy when spiritual conversation was taking place, but if anyone introduced words of slander or idle talk, to fall asleep at once so that his ears would not taste such poison. This elder used to say that the devil is zealous for idle talk and hostile to every spiritual teaching. He gave this example: “Once, while I was speaking to some brothers about what benefits the soul, they were overcome by such deep sleep that they could not even move their eyelids. Wanting to show the demon’s activity, I introduced some idle talk. They were delighted and immediately woke up. I groaned and said, ‘As long as we were speaking about heavenly things, all your eyes were held by sleep; but when idle talk flowed out, you all woke eagerly. Therefore, brothers, I beg you, recognize the activity of the evil demon and pay attention to yourselves, guarding against drowsiness whenever you do or hear anything spiritual.’”
Abba Cassian said again that a senator renounced the world and distributed his possessions to the poor, but kept some for his own use, not wanting to accept the humility that comes from complete renunciation or the genuine submission of the cenobitic rule. Saint Basil said to him, “You have lost the senator and have not made a monk.”
Abba Cassian said again that a monk living in a cave in the desert was told by his relatives according to the flesh, “Your father is seriously ill and is about to die. Come so that you may receive his inheritance.” He replied, “I died to the world before he did. A dead man cannot inherit from a living man.”