While visiting the University of Notre Dame, where I had been a teacher for a few years, I met an older experienced professor who had spent most of his life there. And while we strolled over the beautiful campus, he said with a certain melancholy in his voice, “You know,… my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.”
—Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out
“Anyone who complains about the people surrounding him suffers because of his own fault, because he did not understand: those who are near him are exactly what he needs.”
— Archimandrite Emilian (Vafidis)
When we receive visits from our brethren, we should not consider this an irksome interruption of our stillness, lest we cut ourselves off from the law of love. Nor should we receive them as if we were doing them a favor, but rather as if it is we ourselves who are receiving a favor; and because we are indebted to them, we should beg them cheerfully to enjoy our hospitality.
—St Theodoros the Great, Ascetic A Century of Spiritual Texts
SO GOOD QUOTES 