SO GOOD QUOTES

Category: FAITH

  • Our continual mistake is that we do not concentrate upon the present day, the actual hour, of our life; we live in the past or the future; we are continually expecting the coming of some special moment when our life will unfold itself in its full significance. And we do not notice that life is flowing like water through our fingers, sifting like precious grain from a loosely fastened bag.

    Constantly, each day, each hour, God is sending us people, circumstances, tasks, which should mark the beginning of our renewal; yet we pay them no attention, and thus continually we resist God’s will for us. Indeed, how can God help us? Only by sending us in our daily life certain people, and certain coincidences of circumstance. If we accepted every hour of our life as the hour of God’s will for us, as the decisive, most important, unique hour of our life – what sources of joy, love, strength, as yet hidden from us, would spring from the depth of our soul!

    Let us then be serious in our attitude towards each person we meet in our life, towards every opportunity of performing a good deed; be sure that you will then fulfill God’s will for you in these very circumstances, on that very day, in that very hour.

    —Alexander Elchaninov, The Diary of a Russian Priest

    There are zero coincidences, right? If I understand the whole universe is operating under God’s provision, then actually, there are literally no coincidences. So that’s why, actually, even from an Orthodox perspective, how should I look at things? There are really no coincidences. Things are, you know, planned, or things are, at least, are happening, if not with God’s, you know, explicit desire and will, but with his permission.

    —Fr. Theodore

    Every encounter is an encounter in God and in his sight. We are sent everyone we meet on our way, either to give or to receive, sometimes without even knowing it. It is for us to be Christʼs presence on earth, sometimes victorious and sometimes crucified. We must be able to be quiet and meditative, look calmly at all the things that puzzle us, for we will not be able to understand everything until we see Godʼs whole plan… Human wisdom must give way to the capacity to contemplate the mystery before us, to try and discern the invisible hand of God whose wisdom is so different from human wisdom. But his wisdom is in the human heart…. We must learn to wait till we understand. We must try and discern Godʼs plan by attentive prayer and silent meditation….

    —Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, Courage to Pray

    “Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you.”

    — Saint Augustine

    “Every person you meet, God has sent your way for your spiritual benefit — if you realise how you can benefit from them. The righteous man offers you a good example and a blessing, and from the evil man you can benefit endurance, patience and forgiveness of others.”

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • “To stand firm in certain painful circumstances can demand much courage: the long night of waiting, the loneliness of not being understood, unjust treatment, poor health, personal defects, etc. We have to know how to stand firm in pure faith when we seem to be only weakness, seem to be only sin. We have to consent in advance to all that, to the desert of the desert. We have to desire the purity which suffering alone can teach.

    It seems to me perseverance is a great school of humility: a gradual coming to know this self which persist in time, whose features become defined, whose character traits recur, whose limits take shape. Through trial one discovers one’s own heart, and becomes an authentic person situated in the real.

    We are at times reduced to a material or animal perseverance, or even simply to being there, like a rock, without really knowing why, nor to what purpose. It is like a narrow room without light or air. Still, one goes on by a sort of gravitational law. Later, one realizes that perseverance is a pure grace, independent of personal merit. Then, the Spirit once again breathes life into our dried bones; we get up and go on.”

    (A Carthusian)

  • “To grieve excessively over one’s sins and to become despondent is a sign not of humility, but of pride. We must feel contrition and regret for offending the Lord with our sins, ask His pardon and try not to repeat them.

    — Abbot Nikon Vorobiev 

    “But do not be troubled or sad. The Lord sometimes allows people who are devoted to Him to fall into such dreadful vices; and this is in order to prevent them from falling into a still greater sin–pride. Your temptation will pass and you will spend the remaining days of your life in humility. Only do not forget your sin.”

    — St. Seraphim of Sarov

    How could I fall into something like that? How could I hurt God’s loving heart? How could I disloyally betray God who has done me good all my life? How could I defile the heart that has been cleansed in baptism and which Christ cleansed by His Blood? How? How could I fall from the high tower in which I was? How could I, a son of God, live as the children of the world and as a defilement of the whole earth? How could I anger God’s heart? How could I grieve the Holy Spirit who dwells in me? How could I defile myself and make myself unclean? How? Indeed the sin has been forgiven, but how could I have done that?

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge

    It is wrong to regard as a virtue the excessive grief, which men feel after committing a sin, not realising that it is caused by pride and a high opinion of themselves, based on the fact that they rely too much on themselves and their own powers. For by thinking that they are something important they undertake too much, hoping to deal with it by themselves. When the experience of their downfall shows them how weak they are, they are astounded, like people, who meet with something unexpected, and they are cast into turmoil and grow faint-hearted. For they see, fallen and prone on the ground, that graven image which is themselves, upon which they put all their hopes and expectations. This does not happen to a humble man who trusts in God alone, expecting nothing good from himself. Therefore, when he falls into some transgression, he also feels the weight of it and grieves) but is not cast into turmoil and is not perplexed, for he knows that it happened through his own impotence, to experience which in downfalls is nothing unexpected or new to him.

    —Lorenzo Scupoli, Unseen Warfare

    Sometimes we hear many people say the following statement: “I have confessed, and the priest read the absolution and said to me, ‘That is it, God is not upset with you,’ but I am not able to forgive myself.” The statement,

    “I am not able to forgive myself,” means that the ideal self is pressuring the true self, saying to it,

    “Even if God forgave you, I will not forgive you.” And so, the person is tormented because he cannot forgive himself. He cannot actually accept the gift of remission and forgiveness from the hand of God, because the ideal self says to the true self that it is not worthy of forgiveness and remission. And the struggle continues, because the ideal self continually attacks the true self. But if it [i.e. the ideal self] accepts it with its weakness and helplessness, then remission is offered it from the hand of Christ, and through the Holy Mysteries, on the basis of them being a healing and growth for the soul, so the true self grows from glory to glory, till it becomes conformed to the image of His Son.

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Develop Your Personality

    When a man once truly repents, he needs to avoid thinking about the sins he committed, so that he will not sin again. St. Anthony counsels: “Be careful that your mind be not defiled with the remembrance of former sins-that the remembrance of those sins not be renewed in you.” He also says: “Do not establish your previously committed sins in your soul by thinking about them, so that they not be repeated in you. Be assured that they were forgiven you from the time that you gave yourself to God and to repentance. In that, do not doubt.” It is said of St. Ammon that he attained such perfection that, in his abundance of godliness, he no longer recognized that evil even existed. When they asked him what is that “narrow and difficult path,” he replied: “It is the restraining of one’s thoughts, and the severing of one’s desires, in order to fulfill the will of God.” Whoever restrains sinful thoughts does not think of his own sin or the sins of others, or of anything corruptible or earthly. The mind of such a man is continually in heaven, where there is no evil. Thus, sin gradually ceases to be in him-not even in his thoughts.

    —The Prologue of Ohrid by Saint Nikolai Velimirovic

    If remembering your sins stops you from loving yourself, know that this is from Satan and not God. Because once you’ve repented and confessed, your sins are forgiven, and you’re as good as new, as we read in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new cre-ation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

    —Lilyan Andrews, Waiting & Dating

  • “The person that is struggling to the best of his abilities, who has no desire to live a disorderly life, but who – in the course of the struggle for faith and life – falls and rises again and again, God will never abandon. And if he has the slightest will not to grieve God, he will go to Paradise with his shoes on.

    The Benevolent God will, surprisingly, push him into Paradise. God will ensure that he takes him at his best, in repentance . He may have to struggle all his life, but God will not abandon him; He will take him at the best possible time.”

    —Saint Paisios of Mt. Athos

  • “St. Augustine asserted that God considers more the purity of the intention of our actions above the actions themselves.”

    All That I Have Is Yours: 100 Meditations with St. Pope Kyrillos VI on the Spiritual Life

    Fr. Kyrillos Ibrahim

  • To Abba Pambo, who asked him, “What ought I to do?”  the old man said: “Do not trust in your own righteousness, do not worry about the past, but control your tongue and your stomach.”

    The Way of the Heart: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers
    Henri Nouwen

  • Within the repentant person there is first fear, then the lightness of hope; sorrow, then comfort; terror to the point of despair, then the breath of the consolation of mercy. One thing replaces another, and this supplies or keeps a person who is in a state of corruption or parting with life in the hope, however, of receiving new life.

    —St. Theophan the Recluse,The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation

  • A lot of times, we think there is a problem in my life because of this or that. We rarely think that it’s my sins that are causing a problem. 

    It’s not my coworker, it’s not my life situation, it’s not my illness, not my family situation, or anything else; it’s my sins. My sins are making me incapable of dealing with this problem in a way that a true christian would deal with it. No matter your problems, no matter whose fault it is, it’s also always your fault. That’s the way a Christian thinks.

    —Fr. Seraphim Holland

  • “If you are weak, do not despair of your weakness… and if you see a person who is weak, do not despise their weakness.”

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • “I will not forsake you; I will not desert you.” If a person made such a promise, you would trust him. God makes it, and you hesitate?

    —St. Augustine