There will be a storm of issues. Worries will surround you, and maintaining your Christian life will not be easy. But don’t worry. God will help you. Do what is within your power. Can you pray for five minutes a day? Then pray. And if you can’t manage five minutes, pray for two. The rest is God’s affair. Contrary to our expectations, there is no ‘must.’ Such a word does not exist within the Christian life. The idea that something ‘must’ be, or ‘must’ take place, is a product of the intellect,…a logical conclusion….But the word ‘must’ has never moved anyone to do anything. On the contrary, it makes you feel like a slave and discourages you from moving forward.
Category: BEST OF
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In a short time, a man can cut off ten such desires. He takes a little walk and sees something. His thoughts say to him, ‘Go over there and investigate,’ and he says to his thoughts, ‘No! I won’t,’ and he cuts off his desire. Again, he finds someone gossiping, and his thoughts say to him, ‘You go and have a word with them,’ and he cuts off his desires and does not speak. Or again his thoughts say to him, ‘Go up and ask the cook what’s cooking?’ and he does not go, but cuts off his desire. Then he sees something else, and his thoughts say to him, ‘Go down and ask, who brought it?’ and he does not ask. A man denying himself in this way comes little by little to form a habit of it, so that from denying himself in little things, he begins to deny himself in great without the least trouble. Finally, he comes not have any of these extraneous desires, but whatever happens to him he is satisfied with it, as if it were the very thing he wanted. And so, not desiring to satisfy his own desires, he finds himself always doing what he wants to. For not having his own special fancies, he fancies every single thing that happens to him. Thus, he is found, as we said, to be without special attachments, and from this state of tranquility he comes to the state of holy indifference.
—Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses and Sayings -
The Christian concept of parents as being the delegates of God carries with it the inference that they are to be treated with peculiar respect. Children incur the guilt of grievous sin who strike their parents, or even raise their hands to do so, or who give them well-founded reason for great sorrow. The same is to be said of those who put their parents in a violent rage, who curse them or revile them, or refuse to recognize them.
Delany, J. (1911). Parents. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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“In mourning, I have learned that every version of myself must grieve her loss.”
“That sense of longing now extends to feeling outside of my body. Someone recently told me that losing your mother is primal. It is the deepest loss.”
“I had not been vigilant on either occasion and I had missed something. I had missed everything.”
“She had brought me into this world and I was helping her out of it.”
What My Mother Didnt Talk About
Karolina Waclawiak -
“…and it was said that Rossetti never got over his wife’s death, because he thought he had not been perfectly kind to her during the last years of her life, and that she might have lived longer if he had been more kindly. His friends repudiate that, and say it is not true; but if it was not true of Rossetti, it is true of many people.
The sin of neglect, the sin of inattention, the sin of absorption in self, these have wrought a great sorrow in the lives of some, and they never rise out of the dust after.”
The Gift of Suffering
F.B. Meyer -
Many people do not feel the value of something until after they have lost it!
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The son who neglects to honour his parents mistreats them and only feels their value after he has lost them, whether it is through their death or by losing their approval or blessing…
In general, a person is not aware of the value of life and the importance of eternity until after he has lost that life and eternity both together…
How nice it is if a person wakes up to himself and perceives the value of his situation before he loses it, especially something which cannot be retrieved once it has been lost!!
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Experiences in Life -
Fear makes a person always complain, and makes the person have doubts about the love of God and His care. For this reason we often find that fear is responsible for the person remaining inactive and not contributing positively in life.
Fear paralyzes the person, making him incapable of advancing forward. Fear makes the person think that they will not be able to fulfill their dreams and wishes, and it makes the person remain silent, and not say the truth.
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Overcome Fear, The Effect of Fear on the Human Being
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The person has to do their part fully, to triumph over fear. If a person has a fear of an exam, for example, they have to study well, and this will help them overcome the fear. We have to fulfill what we are required to do, and God will give us peace which surpasses all understanding and will take away from us anxiety, trouble and fear.
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Overcome Fear, How Do We Face Fear?
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Fear sneaks into the heart of the person who is idle; the devil begins sowing the seeds of doubt and fear. But the person who is occupied, especially with serving God, fear will not sneak into his heart, but he will receive power unto power.
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Overcome Fear, How Do We Face Fear? -
41. Men of dull wits should not despair of themselves and become lazy, disdaining the life of virtue and of love for God as being unattainable and incomprehensible to them. They should, instead, exercise such powers as they possess and cultivate themselves. For even if they cannot attain the highest level in respect of virtue and salvation, they may, through practice and aspiration, become either better or at least not worse, which is no small profit for the soul.
—St Anthony the Great
On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life
One Hundred and Seventy Texts
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