Mercy is not getting what we deserve. Grace is getting what we do not deserve.
Category: GRACE
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“You were within me, but I was outside myself.”
—St. Augustine -
Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment “as to the Lord.” It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.
—C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory -
If there is a time for everything under heaven, as the Preacher says, and by the word ‘everything’ must be understood what concerns our holy life, then if you please let us look into it and let us seek to do at each time what is proper for that occasion. For it is certain that for those who enter the lists there is a time for dispassion (I say this for the combatants who are serving their apprenticeship); there is a time for tears, and a time for hardness of heart; there is a time for obedience, and there is a time to command; there is a time to fast, and a time to partake; there is a time for battle with our enemy the body, and a time when the fire is dead; a time of spiritual storm, and a time of spiritual calm; a time for heartfelt sorrow, and a time for spiritual joy; a time for teaching and a time for listening; a time of pollutions, perhaps on account of conceit, and a time of cleansing by humility; a time for struggle, and a time for safe relaxation; a time for quiet, and a time for undistracted distraction; a time for unceasing prayer, and a time for sincere service. So let us not be deceived by proud zeal and seek prematurely what will come in its own good time; that is, we should not seek in winter what comes in summer, or at seed time what comes at harvest; because there is a time to sow labours, and a time to reap the unspeakable gifts of grace. Otherwise we shall not receive even in season what is proper to that season.
—St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent -
For the Lord demands of you that you be angry with yourself and engage in battle with your mind, neither consenting to nor taking pleasure in wicked thoughts. The uprooting of sin and the evil that is so embedded in our sinning can be done only by divine power. For it is impossible and outside man’s competence to uproot sin. To struggle, yes, to continue to fight, to inflict blows and to receive setbacks is in your power. To uproot, however, belongs to God alone. If, indeed, you could have done it on your own, what would have been the need for the coming of the Lord? For just as an eye cannot see without light, just as one cannot speak without a tongue, nor hear without ears, nor walk without feet, nor carry out one’s works without hands, so you cannot be saved, nor enter into the kingdom of heaven without Jesus.
(St Macarius the Great,Homilies 3.3,4, in Spiritual Homilies)
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Growth and change take time, but one of the wonderful things is that the person does not know how growth takes place. The Lord Christ spoke about the changes that happen in the life of a person, and mentioned the following parable. “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.” (Mark 4:26-28) The statement “he himself does not know how,” means that when a person places himself under grace, and with divine truth, he will grow and change, yet he himself does not know how; but he has to begin now.
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Develop Your Personality -
First, we must confess that God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth. Secondly, there can be no doubt that all who actually come to the knowledge of the truth and to salvation, do so not in virtue of their own merits but of the efficacious help of divine grace. Thirdly, we must admit that human understanding is unable to fathom the depths of God’s judgments”
The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church
Fr. Seraphim Rose -
Many of you, all of us have sins – that we can’t get over, we can’t change. Happens to all of us. Some of us have sins that are very pernicious, very shameful to us, very repetitive.
Things that we can’t even whisper to ourselves, maybe not even whisper to the priest. And how do you get over such things?
You cannot overcome your sins by your own efforts, and by prostrations, by repentance and all the rest. You can’t do it. It is by the grace of God that you overcome your sins. And God has to be in the heart for you to overcome your sins and God is love. So if we love, as well as do the repentance, absolutely. It’s all necessary.
—Fr. Seraphim Holland -
“How close God is to us when we come to recognize and to accept our abjection and to cast our care entirely upon HIm! Against all human expectation He sustains us when we need to be sustained, helping us to do what seemed impossible. We learn to know Him, now, not in the ‘presence’ that is found in abstract consideration – a presence in which we dress Him in our own finery – but in the emptiness of a hope that may come close to despair. For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair when, instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on the air. Hope is always just about to turn into despair, but never does so, for at the moment of supreme crisis God’s power is suddenly made perfect in our infirmity. So we learn to expect His mercy almost calmly when all is most dangerous, to seek Him quietly in the face of peril, certain that He cannot fail us though we may be upbraided by the just and rejected by those who claim to hold the evidence of His love.”
—Thomas Merton
SO GOOD QUOTES 