On the Necessity of a Sound 'Interior Dwelling'

Amma Syncletica: 

“It is dangerous for anyone to teach who has not first been trained in the ‘practical’ life. For if someone who owns a ruined house receives guests there, harm is done because of the dilapidation of the dwelling. It is the same in the case of someone who has not first built an interior dwelling; loss is caused to those who come. By words one may convert them to salvation, but by evil behavior, one injures them.”

*The Forgotten Desert Mothers, Laura Swan (Paulist Press:2001), p.52.

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