Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment “as to the Lord.” It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.
—C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
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Growth and change take time, but one of the wonderful things is that the person does not know how growth takes place. The Lord Christ spoke about the changes that happen in the life of a person, and mentioned the following parable. “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.” (Mark 4:26-28) The statement “he himself does not know how,” means that when a person places himself under grace, and with divine truth, he will grow and change, yet he himself does not know how; but he has to begin now.
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Develop Your Personality -
But on the other hand, from the divine perspective, nothing a human being can do forces God’s hand or makes God reveal Himself. When the time is right, when everything is ready, then God comes to us. God comes to us very seldom as a rushing wind or a bright light, but God comes to us most often as a gentle breeze, as an apprehension of some profound beauty resonating deeply in our psyche, in our souls. God comes to us and if we are ready, we perceive Him in some small way, in a way that we can never forget or deny, but almost always in a way that we cannot explain or defend.
A Small Affliction Born For God’s Sake
ARCHPRIEST MICHAEL GILLIS -
But on the other hand, from the divine perspective, nothing a human being can do forces God’s hand or makes God reveal Himself. When the time is right, when everything is ready, then God comes to us. God comes to us very seldom as a rushing wind or a bright light, but God comes to us most often as a gentle breeze, as an apprehension of some profound beauty resonating deeply in our psyche, in our souls. God comes to us and if we are ready, we perceive Him in some small way, in a way that we can never forget or deny, but almost always in a way that we cannot explain or defend.
A Small Affliction Born For God’s Sake
ARCHPRIEST MICHAEL GILLIS -
“I honestly have no idea what happened. One day I was just done with it.”
—Julia E Hubbel -
“He alone knows himself in the best way possible who thinks of himself as being nothing.”
—St. John Chrysostom -
St. Antony sought knowledge from every available source. That was his first quality as a student. He did not seek knowledge just from great teachers, but from everything and everybody, from every event, every person and even from sinners.
He learned his first lesson from a dead man. Isn’t it amazing that he gets his first lesson in monasticism not from a living person but from a dead man, and that dead man was his father? When his father died he looked at his body and learned something from it. He looked at his dead father who owned 300 acres of the best farm land in upper Egypt and who had the wealth, power, and influence and said, “Where is your power, your greatness and your might? You have departed from this world not by your choice; I however, will leave it by my choice before I am forced out.” That was his first lesson about dying to the world. “Behold that great rich man filling the world with power and influence, now lies motionless with no control over his own body!”
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Contemplations on the Life of St. Antony the Great -
St. Mark, in his new reply to these statements, repeats the Orthodox view that “it is possible for one to be a Teacher and all the same not say everything absolutely correctly, for what need then would the Fathers have had for Ecumenical Councils?—and such private teachings (as opposed to the infallible Scripture and Church Tradition) “we must not believe absolutely or accept without investigation.” He then goes into great detail, with many citations from his works, to show that St. Gregory of Nyssa actually did teach the error ascribed to him (which is nothing less than the denial of eternal torment in hell, and universal salvation), and gives the final authoritative word on this matter to Augustine himself.
“That only the canonical Scriptures have infallibility is testified by Blessed Augustine in the words which he writes to Jerome: ‘It is fitting to bestow such honor and veneration only to the books of Scripture which are called “canonical,” for I absolutely believe that none of the authors who wrote them erred in anything…. As for other writings, no matter how great was the excellence of their authors in sanctity and learning, in reading them I do not accept their teaching as true solely on the basis that they thus wrote and thought.‘ Then, in a letter to Fortunatus [St. Mark continues in his citations of Augustine] he writes the following: ‘We should not hold the judgment of a man, even though this man might have been orthodox and had a high reputation, as the same kind of authority as the canonical Scriptures, to the extent of considering it inadmissible for us, out of the reverence we owe such men, to disapprove and reject something in their writing if we should happen to discover that they taught other than the truth which, with God’s help, has been attained by others or by ourselves. This is how I am with regard to the writings of other men; and I desire that the reader will act thus with regard to my writings also.” (St. Mark, “Second Homily on Purgatorial Fire,” chs. 15-16; Pogodin, pp. 127-32).
The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church
Fr. Seraphim Rose -
He read a little in the Bible and did not stop at the literal meaning of words, or their superficial implications, but rather should put the spiritual depth of the words. As Paul the Apostle has said, “Nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1. Cor. 16:19).
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Contemplations on the Life of St. Antony the Great
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