Even if some people are foul and have reached the extremes of evil, often they have done one or two or three good things…. We ought to suspect the same also in the case of good people. Just as the most worthless people often do something good, so those who are earnest and virtuous often fail completely in some other respect.
—St. John Chrysostom, On Wealth and Poverty
Category: JUDGMENT
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In giving alms, we are to be neither niggardly nor choosing. We are to be generous and hospitable. We are not to inquire into the lives of the poor, setting standards for help beyond their need. We are to be almsgivers, not judges! We are to fill the need of the poor, regardless of their sins. We have our own sins, in any case, and as we judge so shall we be judged. The poor man has one plea, his need. We are to correct his poverty, fill his need, and must not require anything else.
On Wealth and Poverty
St. John Chrysostom -
And once I begin to realize that my own life is a life full of compromise, a life full of little steps toward the Kingdom of Heaven (a calling that I fall so miserable short of), then I will start to have compassion on others. You know, there are some sins I have never tempted with. Drunkenness, for example, has never been a temptation to me. There are some commands of Christ that are less difficult for me to fulfil than others—mostly, it seems, because I am seldom seriously tested in those areas. And, surprise, surprise, it seems that the sins that are not struggles for me are the very sins that I find most offensive in others. The commandments that are least difficult for me to understand and strive to keep are the very ones that cause the most offense in me when others do not seem to keep them. I find this phenomenon quite predictable, at least in myself.
But when I keep myself aware of the many and great compromises in my life, the great distance between the life I actually live and the life in the Kingdom of Heaven I strive to enter, then it is easier for me to have compassion on others. When I realize that there are whole swaths of disobedience to Christ’s commands in my life, whole areas where the teaching of Christ has made little or no impact, then it is easier for me to be compassionate on the blindness of others.
Your Kingdom Come: Look To The Monastics
Archpriest Michael Gillis -
“If you see your neighbor in sin, don’t look only at this, but also think about what he has done or does that is good, and infrequently trying this in general, while not partially judging, you will find that he is better than you.”
—St. Basil the Great -
Setting yourself as the good example for the other person, is of the utmost importance. For what the other one needs is your example and silence and love… Nothing else… This is what experience has taught me, both for children and grown ups – particularly for the grown ups. If you happen to express an opinion, make a comment or pass judgement on whatever the other one believes or practices, you will be hitting straight at his Ego. And the Ego will not admit, even inwardly, that what you are saying is correct. The Ego does not want to be told anything by anyone else. Unfortunately this is so… Therefore, keep your silence. Do not say anything until you are asked for your opinion. The Lord has said it clearly: “Give to every man that asketh of thee”. On all matters… Are you asked for your opinion? Then give it. That is my experience. Love and silence: with these two I am so happy, so quiet, so peaceful… I cannot describe it adequately to you. It is Heaven on Earth. I wish for nothing else…
—Mother Gavrilia -
When people say something in judgment of you, it is almost always really a judgment of themselves. So if they open their mouths to criticize you, you just file that away as a shortcoming that they believe they have and that they feel ashamed of. Similarly, if I find myself judging and reacting to someone else, I’m probably in reality mad at myself for something I’ve done or felt and I need to find a way to be at peace with my own shortcomings so that I can forgive those things in others. In both cases, these shortcomings can be great opportunities to understand and connect more with other people, rather than to judge and isolate, because it is our weaknesses and vulnerabilities that let us relate most to each other.
Marian, June 22, 2013 at 2:25 pm -
We never know what someone is working through and where they are on their spiritual journey. We make judgments based on what we see, but they are only skin-deep judgments. If only we knew people’s hearts, their struggles, we would pray instead of entertaining the judgmental “whys” that come to us…
—Presvytera Constantina Palmer in ‘The Sweetness of Grace’ -
It is a kind of self-projection of our own when we insist on other people becoming good. In reality, we wish to become good, but because we are unable to, we demand it of others and insist on this. And whereas all things are corrected through prayer, we often are distressed or become outraged and pass judgment on others.
—Elder St Porphyrios, ‘Wounded by Love’ -
When Silvanus was sitting one day among the brethern, he was taken up into a rapture, and fell on his face. After a while he got up and wept. The brothers asked him, ‘What is the matter, abba?’ But he was silent, weeping. When they pressed him for an answer, he said to them, ‘I was taken before the judgement seat, and I saw many of our kind going down to torment,and many from the world going into the kingdom.’ Silvanus grieved and after that he would not leave his cell: and if he was forced to go out, he covered his face with his shawl and said, ‘Why should I see the light of this world, where nothing is any use to me?’
The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks
Benedicta Ward
SO GOOD QUOTES 