Abba Paphnutius, the disciple of Abba Macarius [the city-dweller], said that the elder used to say: “When I was a child, I and the other children used to pasture cattle and they went off to steal some figs. One [fig] fell as they were running along: I took it and ate it and, when I recall that, I sit weeping.”
Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers
Author: SO GOOD QUOTES
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Abba Joseph says to Abba Nisteros: “What am I to do with my tongue for I cannot control it?” The elder said to him: “So when you speak, do you experience repose?” “No,” he said to him, and the elder said: “If you do not experience repose, why do you speak? Better to keep quiet; and if a conversation is taking place, hear a great deal rather than speak.”
Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers
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“If you want to find rest in this life and the next, say at every moment, ‘Who am I?’ and judge no one.”
—Abba Poemen -
“Run away the first time; run away the second time; the third time, become a sword.”
—Abba Poemen -
The holy fathers of Scete predicted concerning the last generation, saying: “What have we accomplished?” In reply one of them, great in life and name, Abba Ischyrion, said: “We have carried out the commandments of God.” In reply the elders said: “But those who come after us, what will they accomplish?” He said: “They are going to attain the half of what we have done.” They said: “And what of those after them?” and he said: “Those of that generation will do no work at all. Temptation is going to come upon them and those who are found to be tried and tested in that age will be found greater both than us and than our fathers.”
Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers
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“People who write in water are engaged in drawing the shapes of the letters in the liquid by writing with the hand, but nothing remains of the shape of the letters, and the interest in the writing consists solely in the act of writing (for the surface of the water continually follows the hand, obliterating what is written). In the same way all enjoyable interest and activity disappears with its accomplishment. When the activity ceases the enjoyment too is wiped out, and nothing is stored up for the future, nor is any trace or remnant of happiness left to the pleasure takers when the pleasant activity passes away. This is what the text means when it says ‘there is no advantage under the sun’ for those who labor for such things, whose end is futility.”
—St. Gregory of Nyssa
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Fortune has no jurisdiction over character. Let him so regulate his character that in perfect peace he may bring to perfection that spirit within him which feels neither loss nor gain, but remains in the same attitude, no matter how things fall out. A spirit like this, if it is heaped with worldly goods, rises superior to its wealth; if, on the other hand, chance has stripped him of a part of his wealth, or even at all, it is not impaired.
—Seneca, Letters from a Stoic -
“If a schoolchild receives a lesson that two plus two is four year after year, but after ten years still cannot solve this simple problem, something is wrong. And if a Christian thinks of himself as still a novice ten or fifteen years after entering the Body of Christ, if year after year he still cannot fast because he is too busy trying not to devour his neighbor (at least, that is the excuse), then he should rethink his strategy. There is a strategy, right?”
—Fr. Sergei Sveshnikov -
“We spent time talking about the gift of the Sabbath, and the actual aim of Lent — which isn’t to give up something you love, but give up something that you grasp in times of turmoil or indecision or boring, as a coping mechanism, instead of confronting what’s actually going on. You don’t give up chocolate cake because God doesn’t want you have things that you love. You give up chocolate cake if it’s what you turn towards instead of God.“
switching between inboxes until i pass out
Anne Helen Petersen
SO GOOD QUOTES 