Category: GRACE

  • Do not be this person, who does not have the grace of God. Do not be the person who embitters those around him, causing trouble in the community.

    Do not be the person by whom others become defiled, through a thought of judging someone, a thought of / anger, a thought of revenge, and so on. Do not be this character.

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

  • Often we are greatly exaggerated with our sorrows, we observe every sorrow, but we do not observe the graces we receive from the Lord, believing it to be a given thing and therefore remain ungrateful to the Lord.

    And only when our sorrows visit us do we begin to properly appreciate the happy moment when the sorrows were not there, and we promise that if the sorrows pass, we will be grateful to God for a peaceful, tranquil existence and gratitude.

    —Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov)

  • Be not anxious about the future; it is opposed to grace. When God sends you consolation, regard Him only in it, enjoy it day by day as the Israelites received their manna, and do not endeavor to lay it up in store. There are two peculiarities of pure faith; it sees God alone under all the imperfect envelopes which conceal Him,4 and it holds the soul incessantly in suspense. We are kept constantly in the air, without being suffered to touch a foot to solid ground. The comfort of the present instant will be wholly inappropriate to the next; we must let God act with the most perfect freedom, in whatever belongs to Him, and think only of being faithful in all that depends upon ourselves. This momentary dependence, this darkness and this peace of the soul, under the utter uncertainty of the future, is a true martyrdom, which take place silently and without any stir. It is death by a slow fire; and the end comes so imperceptibly and interiorly, that it is often almost as much hidden from the sufferer himself, as from those who are unacquainted with his state. When God removes his gifts from you, He knows how and when to replace them, either by others or by Himself. He can raise up children from the very stones.

    —Francois Fenelon, Spiritual Progress

  • As he advances through this humility towards divine and unfailing love, he accepts sufferings as though he deserved them. Indeed, he thinks he deserves more suffering than he encounters; and he is glad that he has been granted some affliction in this world, since through it he may be spared a portion of the punishments which he has prepared for himself in the world to be. And because in all this he knows his own weakness, and that he should not exult, and because he has been found worthy of knowing and enduring these things by the grace of God, he is filled with a strong longing for God.

    —St Peter of Damaskos

  • Woe to our times: we now depart from the narrow and sorrowful path leading to eternal life and we seek a happy and peaceful path. But the merciful Lord leads many people from this path, against their will, and places them on the sorrowful one. Through unwanted sorrows and illnesses we draw closer to the Lord, for they humble us by constraint, and humility, when we acquire it, can save us even without works, according to St. Isaac the Syrian.

    —St. Macarius of Optina

  • Or perhaps God wants to give you a period of rest
    from the burden of sin, so that your soul is not swallowed
    up by despair.

    Since the continual succession of falls, drags the sinner to
    despair. That is why God’s mercies reach out to him, giving him rest, even if it is for a short while, and lifts the war from him. Grace protects and supports him, even if it is for some time. So he passes through a period of calmness, in which sin does not trouble him. Not because he has been purified, but because he is not fighting.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Life of Repentance and Purity

  • “Those who have been humbled by their passions may take courage. For even if they fall into every pit and are trapped in all the snares and suffer all maladies, yet after their restoration to health they become physicians, beacons, lamps, and pilots for all, teaching us the habits of every disease and from their own personal experience able to prevent their neighbours from falling.”

    —St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

  • “If you examine your life well, you will find many instances when God showed His unmistakable mercy to you. Trouble was brewing, but it passed you by for some reason. God delivered you. Acknowledge these and thank God, Who loves you.”

    —St. Theophan the Recluse

  • If you are suffering from a trial, which you are going through because of [your] upbringing and education, and if you endure this suffering with your true self and you expose it to the light of the grace of Christ, then Scripture says to you, “That you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”(James 1:4) The following will take place: your true self will grow and become complete and lacking nothing, through this suffering.

    As for the grumbling soul, which is not joyful, but is always complaining about its upbringing in such a home, it will neither grow nor be healed.

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

  • Keep in mind one thing that’s very important, controlling the tongue cannot happen without asking the grace of God. Sometimes people say, You know what, I held my tongue, but I couldn’t. Well, of course, when you control yourself and your feelings and you don’t offer them to God, you will only be able to do it in a natural way, which only would last you for a small part of time. But this is not the Christian way of controlling. The Christian way of controlling is to lift all our pain and suffering to the Lord that he may use his suffering to transform us and transform our community and transform people around us.

    —Fr. Mina Dimitri