One of the saints said, “Those who come closest to Christ achieve the greatest victories.” What does that mean? It means that if you’re generous, and kind, you’re giving, you might overcome anger inside your heart, you might overcome resentment, hatred, lack of forgiveness inside your heart.
Author: SO GOOD QUOTES
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He who has forgiven little, loves little. And he who has forgiven much, loves much. For love is born of forgiveness, and forgiveness is the remission of sins. Therefore, the more we forgive, the more we love; and the more we love, the more we are forgiven.
—St John Climacus -
What if God was like, “I forgive you, but I want nothing to do with you?” Is that how it works with us?
—Fr. Elijah Estafanous -
We make a lot of contradicting statements that do not logically make sense. “I love everybody, but I don’t want to talk to this person.”
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As for the one who is self-centred, he never knows love as it should be. And if he does love, his love would not be capable of enduring as it should be. Bear the faults of others as God bears your faults. Bear, but not in distress and bitterness of heart but in love, feeling that everyone has his own weaknesses. Maybe he also has his own excuses that you do not know.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Words of Spiritual Benefit Vol. IV -
Is your love for friends and favoured ones: also firm? Or could any specific event make your heart change towards a love that you had for many years? That is what sometimes happens in a family which makes it collapse and separate after many years. It fails to hold fast against the water, even if it is not many waters.
Does your love change because of a word that did not please your ears? Or a behaviour that annoyed you? Or the effect of others on you? Or for external circumstances, or financial reasons? Then the words of the Bible echo in your ears, “nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” (Rev. 2:4).
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Words of Spiritual Benefit Vol. IV
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If you’re angry at somebody, if you’re bitter at somebody, prayer is the first step. Something mystical happens in prayer: the person you’re angry at, the person you’re annoyed at, when you start praying for them, God melts your heart. If you’re consistently praying for that person, when you approach that person, your demeanor is different, your mentality is different, you’re not looking at that person the same way.
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Indeed, what can God forgive this righteous’ Pharisee? Which sin can He forgive this person who is righteous in his own eyes, who did not mention a single sin before God so as to seek His forgiveness? If he were a sinner like the tax-collector, he would have asked for mercy like he did, but boastfully he said, “I am not… as this tax-collector”. He did not confess any sin that required forgiveness and did not seek forgiveness, thus alienating himself from forgiveness and from justification by the Blood of Christ.
Similarly, the Scriptures did not say that God justified the elder son who also did not find anything to blame himself for, but moreover was angry, casting blame on his brother and on his father, saying, “Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends” (Lk. 15:29). Truly, what forgiveness can be given to the one who says, “I never transgressed your commandment”? This same son did not ask for forgiveness, because he did not see in his behaviour a single mistake that needed forgiveness! But his younger brother was justified because he reproached himself and said to his father, “I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son” (Lk. 15:19).
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge
SO GOOD QUOTES 