“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
Category: BEST OF
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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 -
I’ve seen lives changed on the sick bed, monsters turn into babies on the sick bed—monsters—people that no one can talk to, and they’re babies, holding the hands of their loved ones, saying, “Forgive me, I know I was difficult. I’m sorry—you endured a lot from me. I caused you a lot of pain, and I was a monster, and I was a terrible person, and I hope God can forgive me.”
—Fr. Paul Girguis -
A man’s life or death comes from his neighbor.
—St. Antony the Great -
If we hide the faults of our brother, God will also hide our faults. If we expose our brothers’ faults, God will also expose ours.
—Abba Poemen -
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.”
