Picture Paradise
“Every man, while in the flesh, is like a painter who paints an image in a secret place. When, having finished his picture, the painter brings it out and exhibits it. He is praised by the spectators if he has chosen a good subject and painted it well, and is criticized if the subject chosen is bad or badly painted. In the same way each man, when he comes up for judgment by God after death, will be praised and cherished by God, the angels and the saints, if he has adorned his mind and imagination with luminous, divine and spiritual images and representations, but, on the contrary, will be condemned and put to shame if he has filled his imagination with passionate, shameful and base pictures. ”
Saint Basil the Great
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