SO GOOD QUOTES

Category: FAITH

  • “Life on earth seemed so insignificant in comparison with the permanence of eternal life.”

    Orthodox Afterlife
    John Habib

  • ”Only struggle a little more. Carry your cross without complaining. Don’t think you are anything special. Don’t justify your sins and weaknesses, but see yourself as you really are. And, especially, love one another.”

    —Fr. Seraphim Rose

  • for even now in his declining years, time has not blunted the keen activity of his soul, nor was his youth active in the sphere of youth’s well-known employments; in both seasons of life he has shown a wonderful combination of opposites

    —Saint Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

  • …and he changed them all. By what means? By means of the earnest. How was he sufficient for these things?

    By the grace of the Spirit. Unskilled, ill-clothed, ill-shod he was upheld by Him Who also has given the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore he says, “And who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:16). “But our sufficiency is of God, who has made us sufficient as ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter but of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:5-6).

    —Saint John Chrysostom, On the Vanity of Riches
    HOMILY Two
    After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive

  • God is not an author of confusion

    Another principle is that God is not an author of confusion. That is to say, God will not send you a certain message through the Scriptures, a different message in your heart, a third message through your father of confession, a forth message through your parents, a fifth message through your friends, and so on. God is not an author of confusion. So, if it is the will of God, God will change the heart of everyone, almost to be in consensus, to declare that this is the will of God, except if some people are clearly against His will; and this will be outside our calculation. But anybody who is willing wholeheartedly to know the will of God, all will be in agreement: whether you read in the Scripture, or the voice in your heart, or the counseling you are receiving from your spiritual father, or you hear from your parents; everything will be in harmony together.

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Know the Will of God

  • we need to be persistent in seeking the will of God. When we are persistence and seeking His will and seeking His guidance, He told us, “Ask, and you will receive.” Also, the Lord said to us, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. This means that if you seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness, if you live righteously, God will reveal to you in a way or another His will in everything else. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you. And here is the rule, one rule that is very important: if you are faithful and honest in keeping the general will of God— to do good, sanctification, abstain from sexual immorality, giving thanks in everything—if you are faithful in this area, then God will reveal to you His will in other areas. But if you are not faithful but are careless about fulfilling the will of God in this general area, why would God reveal to you His will in other areas. So, the more you are faithful, the more the will of God will be revealed to you regarding the specific questions.

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Know the Will of God

  • Hope is a trust in God, that the Lord will take me out of this problem and will give me the grace of endurance, or He will defend me even after many years. After the cross, there is resurrection, and after darkness, there is light. Have hope in the Lord even if all doors are closed shut. As we have previously mentioned concerning the events of 1981, with the mind it was hopeless, but the Lord is our hope: “The hope of those who have no hope and the help of those who have no helper”‘!? For if you have no help, the Lord is your helper. If you are thinking, “How will these issues be resolved? The person who is causing trouble, how will he change?” Our Lord is the hope: “The hope of those who have no hope and the help of those who have no helper.”

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Endure Injustice

  • When we become unduly distressed at falling ill, we should recognize that our soul is still the slave of bodily desires and so longs for physical health, not wishing to lose the good things of this life and even finding it a great hardship not to be able to enjoy them because of illness. If, however, the soul accepts thankfully the pains of illness, it is clear that it is not far from the realm of dispassion; as a result it even waits joyfully for death as the entry into a life that is more true.

    —St. Diadochus

  • But if we looked to the tribulation through a perspective that is heavenly, eternal, we would see the tribulation as it really is: light and transient. And as our teacher Pope Shenouda III said, “It is bound to end. It is all for the good.”

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Pray

  • FOR all the long years of this present life disappear when you have regard to the eternity of the future glory: and all our sorrows vanish away in the contemplation of that vast bliss, and like smoke melt away, and come to nothing, and like ashes are no more seen.

    John Cassian, Institutes
    CHAPTER XII: That no toil is worthy to be compared with the promised bliss.