After a careful study of your disposition, which life has encouraged you to undertake, you have at last come to see that you have never loved; nor do you know or understand anything about love.
Letters of Elder Macarius of Optina
Category: FORGIVENESS & REPENTANCE
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Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up. If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other’s faults and burdens. If we love enough, we are going to light that fire in the hearts of others. And it is love that will burn out the sins and hatreds that sadden us. It is love that will make us want to do great things for each other. No sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much. Yes, I see only too clearly how bad people are. I wish I did not see it so. It is my own sins that give me such clarity.
—Dorothy Day -
If it happens to any God-fearing person to go to sleep without having repented of the sin, or the sins, he has committed during the day, and which have tormented his soul, these torments will accompany him the whole night, until he has heartily repented of his sin, and washed his heart with tears (this is also from experience). The torments of sin will wake him up from sweet sleep, because his soul will be oppressed, bound a prisoner by sin.
—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ -
“If you are weak, do not despair of your weakness… and if you see a person who is weak, do not despise their weakness.”
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If a man has a friend and he is absolutely certain that his friend loves him, and if that friend does something to cause him suffering and be troublesome to him, he will be convinced that his friend acts out of love and he will never believe that his friend does it to harm him. How much more ought we to be convinced about God who created us, who drew us out of nothingness to existence and life, and who became a man for our sake and died for us, and who does everything out of love for us?
—Abba Dorotheos of Gaza -
Parents, after all, recognize their imperfections, yet they strive to shield their children, even if the façade eventually unravels as kids grow up, detest their all-too-human parents, and understand and hopefully forgive them.
Bimbo Ubermensch, The Ocean
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The sun did not set before God initiated the reconciliation process in the same day, as we read in Genesis 3:8: “In the cool of the day.” When Adam sinned, he hid from the presence of God, but before the sun went down, God was looking for him: “The Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9).
Note that the reconciliation process takes time.
Nevertheless, our Lord started on the same day that Adam sinned. He did not wait, being upset with him, or avoid him for a month or so and then begin to look for him. He looked for Adam on that very day, “in the cool of the day,” before the sun went down.—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, Inner Healing
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For example, in trying to reconcile a couple, you might say, “Come, let us talk to your wife.” If the husband replies, “No! She offended me, so she must come to me” —that is a worldly response. But the Bible says clearly that you should go first to the person who sinned against you.
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, Inner Healing
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In Ephesians 4:25, Saint Paul says, “Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor.” If I come to ask if you are upset with me, and you answer, “No, nothing is wrong,” but in your heart you are upset, then you are lying. If I ask you if something is wrong, you could answer, “Yes, actually something is bothering me.” The verse continues, “For we are members of one another. Be angry, and do not sin.”
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, Inner Healing
SO GOOD QUOTES 