This thought of yours is wicked; for it wants to prevent you from correcting your brother. Therefore, do not prevent yourself from speaking; but rather, speak according to God.
For, indeed, even sick people that are being healed will speak against their doctors; yet, the latter do not care, knowing that the same people will thank them afterward.
Letters from the Desert: A Selection of Questions and Responses (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press Popular Patristics Series)
Category: DISCERNMENT
-
-
“It is alarming to consider how many major life decisions we take primarily in order to minimize present-moment emotional discomfort.”
― Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking -
If God often speaks to and through the least, leaders themselves do not have all that they need in order to lead; therefore, leaders must listen very carefully to those whom they lead.
—Fr. Michael Gillis
Listening To The Least: The Myrrh-Bearing Women -
All of a sudden, something began to stir within me, something began to push me, to prompt me. It was a movement that spoke like a voice.
“What are you waiting for?” it said. “Why are you sitting here? Why do you still hesitate? You know what you ought to do. Why don’t you do it?“
—Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain
-
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
Remember that the Lord is in every Christian. When your neighbor comes to you, always have great respect for him, because the Lord is in him, and often expresses His will through him. ‘It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure’ (Phil. 2:13). Therefore, do not grudge anything to your brother, but do unto him as unto the Lord; especially as you do not know in whom the Lord will come and visit you; be impartial to all, be kind to all, sincere and hospitable. Remember that sometimes God speaks even through unbelievers, or disposes their hearts towards us, as it happened in Egypt when the Lord gave Joseph favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. (Gen. 39:21).
—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ
-
And this I think is the third matter that has to be addressed in looking for a spiritual father or mother: humble discernment. My bishop once wisely said that it is the responsibility of each of us to listen carefully and respectfully to those God has placed in our lives as teachers, priests, parents and mentors. However, it is also our responsibility to separate, or discern, what is useful to us in what they say and in the example of their life, keeping and emulating those things which we find helpful; and then, to politely ignore the rest.
—Fr. Michael Gillis, Finding A Spiritual Father, Praying in the Rain
-
God does tell us. You know how He tells us? In that tension, in that hesitation, in that uneasiness, in that gut feeling.
The minute you start convincing yourself, you are on the sure path to regret – the sure path to regretting that decision at some point in the future because what begins as an uneasy gut feeling today, tomorrow may be supported by facts and evidence.
“Too much indecision is a decision.”
— Brianna Wiest -
“The more a man’s tongue flees talkativeness, the more his intellect is illumined so as to be able to discern deep thoughts.”
—St. Isaac the Syrian -
So those who wish to live virtuously should not hanker after praise, be involved with too many people, keep going out, or abuse others (however much they deserve it), or talk excessively, even if they can speak well on every subject.
SO GOOD QUOTES 