SO GOOD QUOTES

Category: BEST OF

  • Once again, be silent! Let no one notice what you are about. You are working for the Invisible One; let your work be invisible.

    Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth
    Tito Colliander

  • I am not responsible for the war in Syria, and I have nothing to contribute to resolve that tragedy.  In contrast, I am responsible for my neighbor down the hall if I learn that he is sick or alone.

    The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise
    Cardinal Robert Sarah, Nicolas Diat

  • One Sunday, Met. Anthony Bloom gave a sermon as follows: “Last night a woman with a child came to this church. She was in trousers and with no headscarf. Someone scolded her. She left. I do not know who did that, but I am commanding that person to pray for her and her child to the end of his days to God for their salvation. Because of you, she may not go to church ever again.” He turned around and entered the altar. That was the entire sermon.

    source

  • 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

  • “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

  • “Rather, our problem is that we pay too much attention to resisting sin and not enough attention to fleeing to Christ.”

    —Fr. Michael Gillis 

  • “Every single thing you do is work on a physical level. Every single thing you do is work. To get up and eat, you did work. Like, even that was a work right. I think the sensitivity is about merit. Is this concern about earning it, as though you weren’t good enough to have it, and I think that’s where the conversation went wrong. Like, am I? Did I earn it by being good enough for God to give me money? Right? And that’s the age old fight between, like, the Protestants and traditional Christianity, where it’s like, I don’t think anyone’s actually fighting about that, right? What we’re saying is, if you don’t eat, you die, right? Like, that’s what we’re saying. We’re not saying if you’re good enough, you eat. We’re saying you must eat, right? And that you have to eat him. And he gave himself, we didn’t give him, right? And so that differentiation maybe matters, like philosophically. But no, I don’t think it was actually making the argument right, actually making the argument about that. And I get, I guess I get, that there can be a mistakenness Even with what I’m saying, that when I’m saying, you have to work to receive grace, I have not once said that you You’ve earned it right or deserved it, right? That’s not a that’s not a thing, right? And that’s why, that’s what I’m saying with God, one out of 100 is amazing, right? Good job buddy, right? Like, that’s why he doesn’t have this scale that we created. But he’s saying, but participate with me, right? That this is, this is all for us.

    And so grace can come as different gifts, right? And so, like the things we’re talking about yesterday, God can grace you with these things, right? So if you had, if you were cognitively, the reason for your falls or incapacity or your weakness is cognitive. grace can fix that.”

    —Fr. Antony Paul

  • In hindsight, it’s incredible how trivial some of it seems. At the time, though, it was the perfect storm. I include wording like “impossible situation,” which was reflective of my thinking at the time, not objective reality.

    Tim Ferriss on How He Survived Suicidal Depression and His Tools for Warding Off the Darkness

  • Those who have not found Christ live in this life without hearty faith; they think and care more about worldly things—how to enjoy themselves, how to eat and drink pleasurably, how to dress exquisitely, how to satisfy their carnal desires, how to kill time, with which they do not know what to do, though time seeks them and, not finding them, quickly flies away before their eyes. Day flies away after day, night after night, month after month, year after year, until, finally, the last terrible hour strikes, and they hear a voice: “Stop, the course is finished; your time has been lost; your sins and iniquities have preceded you; they will fall upon you with all their power, and will crush you with their weight eternally.”

    —St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ

  • St. Dorotheus of Gaza says there are two kinds of fear: one is the kind of fear that a beginner has and the other the kind of fear that a Saint has. The first person [the beginner] fears God because he is afraid of hell, he is afraid of punishment, he is afraid that at the end of days, he’ll be cast into darkness.

    The other Saint fears God because he seeks to please God because he loves Him. The fear is not of somebody being afraid of some kind of punishment, but because somebody has tasted the sweetness of God, the sweetness of being with God, and because of that, fears losing his relationship with God. St. Dorotheus of Gaza calls this the perfect fear: not a fear of punishment—not a fear of hell, but a fear of upsetting the one he loves.

    —Fr. Daniel Fanous
    Fear God, but don’t be afraid