Category: FAITH
-
Your wishing should always be free from yourself; that is, you should have no wishes of your own, and if you have a wish it must be such that whether it comes to pass or not, or even if what comes to pass is opposed to it, you are not in the least grieved thereby, but remain serene in spirit, as though you wished absolutely nothing.
Unseen Warfare
Lorenzo Scupoli -
Another Father of the Holy Church, Saint John Chrysostom takes a different view, very human and ecclesiastically sound: that of the expression of love for those in sin and for the Lord Jesus. He says that indifference on our part towards those who are sinning demonstrates that we don’t love them and also that we don’t love the body of the Church, of which the sinners are members. He calls upon us to show an interest in our brothers and sisters who have sinned and to rebuke them, but calmly and with good sense, not in a spirit of anger.
We shouldn’t say that we’re not interested in what others are doing, nor say that each of us will bear the burden of our own sins. (Gal. 6, 5). We’re also guilty if we see others going astray and don’t bring them back onto the right path. In fact, if, according to Mosaic law, we shouldn’t be indifferent even towards an animal belonging to our enemy, how will we be forgiven by God if we’re indifferent not towards an animal, nor even towards the soul of an enemy who is lost, but towards the soul of a friend (and our brother or sister in Christ)?
We can’t, therefore, use Cain’s excuse, when he said to God: ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ and so say that we’re not interested in people who are sinning. Chrysostom considers this attitude not merely unacceptable but inhuman and in conflict with that of the Church. He stresses that all wickedness arises from the fact that we consider as foreign something that belongs to our own body. He goes on to say: ‘So don’t be inhuman, uncaring or indifferent. Because the words you speak are words of great harshness and indifference, as is shown by the following: if a part of your body is suffering from an illness, why don’t you say that you’re not interested? Why don’t you ask how we know that we’ll get well if we look after ourselves and show an interest? In fact you everything you can so that, even if you don’t get better you can’t berate yourself for not doing something you should have. If we take such good care of the members of our body, is it right to ignore the members of Christ?
Indifference to those who are sinning is itself a sin
Christos Karadimos -
“People who write in water are engaged in drawing the shapes of the letters in the liquid by writing with the hand, but nothing remains of the shape of the letters, and the interest in the writing consists solely in the act of writing (for the surface of the water continually follows the hand, obliterating what is written). In the same way all enjoyable interest and activity disappears with its accomplishment. When the activity ceases the enjoyment too is wiped out, and nothing is stored up for the future, nor is any trace or remnant of happiness left to the pleasure takers when the pleasant activity passes away. This is what the text means when it says ‘there is no advantage under the sun’ for those who labor for such things, whose end is futility.”
—St. Gregory of Nyssa
-
Fortune has no jurisdiction over character. Let him so regulate his character that in perfect peace he may bring to perfection that spirit within him which feels neither loss nor gain, but remains in the same attitude, no matter how things fall out. A spirit like this, if it is heaped with worldly goods, rises superior to its wealth; if, on the other hand, chance has stripped him of a part of his wealth, or even at all, it is not impaired.
—Seneca, Letters from a Stoic -
“If a schoolchild receives a lesson that two plus two is four year after year, but after ten years still cannot solve this simple problem, something is wrong. And if a Christian thinks of himself as still a novice ten or fifteen years after entering the Body of Christ, if year after year he still cannot fast because he is too busy trying not to devour his neighbor (at least, that is the excuse), then he should rethink his strategy. There is a strategy, right?”
—Fr. Sergei Sveshnikov -
“Rather, our problem is that we pay too much attention to resisting sin and not enough attention to fleeing to Christ.”
—Fr. Michael Gillis -
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 -
“Above all let us be convinced that nothing can happen to us apart from the providence of God.”
—Dorotheos of Gaza
SO GOOD QUOTES 