Category: JUDGMENT

  • “If we only could realize that there is no evil in a person that is not at the same time a suffering in this person.”

    — Met. Anthony Bloom

  • Trials and temptations subject to our volition are chiefly caused by health, wealth and reputation, and those beyond our control by sickness, material losses and slander. Some people are helped by these things, others are destroyed by them.

    —Ilias the Presbyter

  • It is a great mistake to suppose that those who have inherited the material for their life from suffering generations, and who have poor health and a timid approach or some vice or weakness, have not been designed and planned by God as much as others who seem luckier in the world’s eyes.

    Christ has said: “I am the Way,” and He has been there in every generation, blowing with the Divine Breath of the Spirit on that little flame of life. He is the Way, but He is not limited as we are: He can manifest Himself in countless ways we do not dream of. He can will to live in lives of suffering and darkness we cannot conceive of; He can choose what seems to us the most unlikely material in the world to use for a positive miracle of His love.”

    —Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God

  • “So in every test, let us say: ‘Thank you, my God, because this was needed for my salvation.’”

    —Elder Paisios of Mount Athos

  • I reminded him of all the people who love him and all the people he’s loved. I told him I thought it was unfair for a man to be judged by a moment, by a season. We are all more complicated than that. Certainly my friend will have to face the consequences of his actions, and those consequences will be severe. He is being pruned, as it were. His limbs are being cut back. But I hope he doesn’t live into his failures the way so many people do.

    —Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

  • Souls that have known pain and suffering and that are tormented by their passions win most especially the love and grace of God. It is souls such as these that become saints, and very often we pass judgment on them. Remember what Saint Paul says, ‘Where sin abounded, grace flowed even more abundantly’ (Romans 5:20). When you remember this, you will feel that these people are more worthy than you and than me. We see them as weak, but when they open themselves to God they become all love and all divine eros. Whereas previously they had acquired different habits, they now give all the power of their soul to Christ and are set on fire by Christ’s love. That is how God’s miracle works in such souls, which we regard as ‘lost’. We shouldn’t be discouraged, nor should we rush to conclusions, nor judge on the basis of superficial and external things.

    —St. Porphyrios

  • Does God rule over me, or does the world rule over me? Does God rule over me, or does fear rule over me? Am I always afraid? Do I always the slightest thing brings me terror in my heart. Does God rule over me or does anxiety rule over me? I’m always anxious. Once more thing happens and I start crying, and that’s the end of the world. I’m anxious about my family, I’m anxious about my health, I’m anxious about my finances. I’m anxious about my children and their and their careers and their academic and their schooling and so forth. I’m anxious. I’m anxious. I’m anxious. What rules over me, that or anxiety, or, God, what rules over me? Pride. And pride is a funny thing, because pride has many, many faces. Sometimes pride can be arrogance, where you look at somebody and say, yeah, they are a prideful person. And believe it or not, pride can be something as simple as gossiping. Why do I gossip? Why do I talk about other people? Because something about them bothers me, something about them that maybe they have I wish I had, or they think they’re all nice because of a fancy car, or that’s gossiping. And gossiping comes from envy. And where does envy come from? Pride? Pride has money. Pride can even manifest as, forgive me, insecurity; insecurity in yourself, insecurity in your personality, low self-esteem. Why? Because you think that you should be better than the other person, and because you’re not, you feel bad about yourself. So pride can have many, many faces. So does pride rule over me? Does lust and pornography rule over me? Am I in that kingdom where that rules over my time and my thoughts and my actions and everything? What else rules over me? Could it be an anger? Does anger rule over me? The slightest thing makes me angry and resentful, and I don’t want to talk to that person. and I give them the cold shoulder.

    —Fr. Benjamin Girgis

  • Every bad behavior comes from an unmet need.

    —Fr. Paul Girguis

  • Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world.

    —May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

  • “People will love you, people will hate you, and none of it will have anything to do with you.”

    — Abraham Hicks