Lord, consider me among the despised and nonexistent, but do not deprive me of working with You. Allow me to have an existence before You, although, in my eyes, and perhaps in the eyes of people, I am despised and nonexistent (1 Cor 1:28).
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Lord, it is a blessed hour when I sit with myself. When I sit with myself I sit with You, because, although I might not see You, You are within me. It is the same as when You were in the world and the world did not know You.
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Behold, O Lord, I confess to You that now whenever I sit with myself, I feel every time that my self is more precious than the whole world, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mk 8:36). Whenever I feel that my self is more valuable than the world, the world grows smaller and smaller in my eyes, and I take from You the grace of indifference to everything. When I am thus indifferent, I find You before me, encouraging me: “Do not fear, for I am with you” (Gen 26:24).
When I sit, O Lord, with myself, I discover what is inside me, and I also see how the strangers transgressed Your sanctuaries within me (Jer 51:51). When I see that, and expose it before You, for You to keep my soul from strangers, then our session goes on and on, and I find many things to say to You. Here, human consolations pale in comparison. I do not seek human companionship, but rather I seek solitude, retreat, and stillness, so as not to be deprived of this dire need, my session with You, which provides me with contrition and purity.
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I love You, and love sitting with You more than sitting with other people.
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Give me, O Lord, to leave people, and become occupied with myself, to connect with You.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Dialogue with the Divine
from the poem ‘A Whisper of Love’
Wherever You are, there shall my thoughts be
Family and friends have I forgotten
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Dialogue with the Divine
SO GOOD QUOTES 