“St. Paul called “that mindset which was in Christ Jesus,” the phronema Christou (Phil. 2.5).”…Our phronema is our mindset, but mental attitude can never be separated from behavior. Our phronema is revealed by our manner of life. Conversely, the way we choose to live shapes and reinforces our phronema.” (Dr. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou)
“At the end of his letters, the Apostle Paul often provides practical applications for his teachings. He follows this pattern in Romans…Saint Paul explores is the necessity for us to cultivate a Christ-like mindset. Since we are members of the Body of Christ, our thinking and actions must be formed by the Head of the Body – that is, by Christ Himself. A genuine Christian mindset develops when we embrace our incorporation in the Body of Christ (Romans 12:4-5). Acceptance of our membership in Christ – acknowledging that we belong to Him – is essential to the formation of a right mind within ourselves. A healthy Christian outlook arises from the experience of our union with Christ and with other members of the Church through the Holy Spirit.” (Dynamis 7/19/2021)
“I sympathize with Peter. He thought he was just being an exemplary devoted disciple of Jesus…Peter openly proclaimed…that Jesus was the promised Messiah who would usher in a new age of power for Israel. That was the conventional thinking about the coming of the Messiah. So it was shocking and upsetting to hear Jesus talk of suffering and death, and Peter was bold enough to quietly take Jesus aside and tell Him he really shouldn’t be speaking like that. And then Jesus in the roughest terms turns around and publicly rebukes Peter! This had to be utterly confusing for Peter and the other disciples, all of whose minds were shaped by “normal” human religious assumptions about good things and glory happening for the godly. It would take a long time—not until after Jesus’ death and resurrection—for them to understand what it meant to acquire the self-sacrificial, self-emptying mind of Christ that Saint Paul describes in the beautiful hymn in Philippians (Phil 2:5-11).” (Fr. John Jillions)
“In my own experience, I find that my life is a continuous unseen spiritual warfare. On the outside, my relationships and projects are relatively balanced and stable. On the inside, my mind is often chaotic and turbulent, for a multitude of reasons. I refer to my mental upset in old-fashioned terms, such as a “mumbo-jumbo” mindset. The warfare is intense, and the variations on the theme of temptations are too numerous to count. Sometimes the inner world seems utterly dark and gloomy, even when the sun shines brightly outside. The experience is rather like being in a forest at midnight without any light, moonless and defenseless.” (Albert S. Rossi, PhD)
“If you wish to develop into the mind of Christ, you must pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit and invite the Spirit into your heart and realize that what it means is to have the Spirit of God take control of your life. Spiritual life is not something one can dabble in, nor can one be fooled into assuming he or she has already gone as far as possible on the way to the Kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, once you have overcome the limits of this age and open yourself to mature wisdom, you will see all things in a new way.” (Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky)
“Jesus says not to have an anxious mind (Luke 12:29) and Paul says, ‘Be anxious for nothing’ (Philippians 4:6). Yet we spend so much time being anxious. Some of this is because we actually trust our own thought too much. None of us can perceive the complete reality of any circumstance in its fullness. We will always need the perspective of others. Most important, however, is to gain the mind of Christ through daily and continual prayer, living the life of the Church, and frequent Holy Communion. It is only through our growth in our union with Christ that we see clearer.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)
Today, on the glorious feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, we find encouragement in the Virgin Mary who, as a fellow human being, followed this path, gained the mind of Christ, and even now provides a superb example of what is possible for us. We examine the mind of Christ, beautifully mirrored in the Theotokos herself, to remind ourselves that this mind can be ours.” (Dynamis 8/15/2018)
“…by “repent,” I do not simply mean, “feel sorry for your sins and try to do better.” I mean “undertake the very painstaking, moment-in-and-moment-out work of changing your thinking, which is the root meaning of the New Testament word for repentance: metanoia.” Only by struggling to put on the mind of Christ is the Christian able to grow in the divine image in which she or he has been created.” (Bishop John Michael Botean)
“To distinguish between our own feelings and thoughts and the guidance of the Spirit requires regular prayer, long practice in discernment, and the counsel of a spiritual advisor and wise pastor. The Scriptures help us to prepare our hearts to hear the Spirit. But we must remember that He cannot lead if we simply rush to the Bible, grasping for a verse, or thumb through the writings of the Fathers in search of a word we want to hear. Rather, we must develop a habit of reading and meditating on the great treasures of holy tradition so as to steep ourselves in the mind of Christ.” (Dynamis 7/4/2015)
"The task of repentance is literally a change of mind. Our goal is to acquire the Mind of Christ which is the Mind of the Church. The Scriptures show us this Mind. The Church services reveal to us this Mind." (Archimandrite Sergius)
“We must recover this life of asceticism and self-sacrifice. We must make every effort to flee from our self-centered wills, and enter into the “mind of Christ.” Through this struggle, we can overcome our destructive egos, rejecting the parochial view of “the parish as the universe,” and united to Christ, developing a worldview of “the universe as the parish.” (Father Luke A. Veronis)