" Attentive prayer ... can be compared to the beneficial rain that irrigates a sown field, gives nourishment to the plants and ensures a rich harvest." God' s rich blessings on " the crown of the year" can be experienced in their fullness throughout the annual cycle of Church services. This penultimate volume of the Collected Works of St Ignatius (Brianchaninov) contains fifty-two sermons given on Sundays, during Great Lent and Paschatide, and other occasions, including the foundation of a new monastery, and a presentation on the teaching of the Orthodox Church on the Mother of God. An eclectic translator and compiler of the writings of the ancient desert fathers, St Ignatius not only freely weaves their words into his own preaching, but exhorts his readers to follow their example, so that they too may reap a rich spiritual harvest in this life and in the age to come. Particularly inspired by the writings of St Isaac the Syrian, St Macarius the Great, and St John of the Ladder, he also applies Holy Scripture and liturgical hymnography in his preaching to monastics and laypeople alike. A towering figure of 19th century monasticism, St Ignatius's influence has spread far beyond Imperial Russia, inspiring Orthodox Christians around the world in our own times.
