Think of their loneliness on holidays or Sundays, when single people find themselves alone upon leaving Mass, whereas the others are going to spend the day with their family; think of the loneliness in the evenings, when once the day is done, they go back home to find…four walls! Think of the loneliness of heart, even in the midst of friends, which is often made even more bitter at the sight of those who are not alone.
Category: BEST OF
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“Being alone never felt right. Sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.”
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“The narrow way is difficult, and it can be very lonely.”
—Archpriest Konstantine Feodoroff, Narrow is the Way -
If you’ve been taught that it is okay to be in this self-sacrificed type of environment and stay away from relationships, you will never—ever—grow. That is not spirituality.
That spirituality that says, I’m going to be on my own—read, pray, do whatever, and I don’t care about anybody else – you are not part of the body of Christ. You are dismembering yourself from the body of Christ.
Fr. Paul Girguis, Redeeming the Time: Setting Boundaries
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“There is nothing more freeing in life than when a friend forgives you. There is nothing that feels quite as liberating as knowing you’ve wronged someone that you love so much and, feeling it — feeling it in your chest — and they graciously forgive you. They graciously let it go. It’s the most liberal. It’s it feels like you were in jail and you were taken out of jail. It feels like, it feels like you were in despair, and they lifted you out of their despair. And it’s a unique position where only they have right, only the friend you’ve wronged has the ability to graciously forgive you. So let’s do that with our friends. Let’s model the good behavior. Let’s do this. Let’s do this with our friends.”
—Fr. Mark Eskandar -
Humility is not losing your true personhood. It is losing the false self that is exhausting you.
—Fr. Elijah Estafanous -
The drunkard, the fornicator, the proud – he will receive Gods mercy. But he who does not want to forgive, to excuse, to justify conciously, intentionally … that person closes himself to eternal life before God, and even more so in the present life. He is turned away and not heard.
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He bore guilt and shame so that you can be free. That even when the devil wants to beat you up into your guilt and make you feel defeated of sins that I have confessed, of sins that I have repented and the devil is telling me, “No, don’t think that it just goes away that easy” yes it does, by the blood of Jesus. That when the devil tells you, “Don’t forget what you did last week or last year or when you were a teenager; don’t forget that”, you say, “I don’t know who you are talking about. I died with Christ. It is no longer me. You are no longer talking to me, i am not that person. And even if i were to look for him, i would never be able to find him because i am new in Christ because he died on the cross. The cross breaks the chain of our emotional bondness.
—Fr. Paul Girguis
SO GOOD QUOTES 