Category: KNOWLEDGE & SELF-KNOWLEDGE

  • “He [Pope Kyrillos VI] also really emphasized reading as a part of prayer. Reading is intellect to prayer.”

    —Fr. Antony Paul

  • we want to keep ourselves from putting blame for our misfortune on anybody else, no matter how obviously it may appear to be the fault of another person. Misfortune is meant to give us a bigger purpose than looking for someone to blame. It is to draw our attention to God and our need for God to bring us to repentance.

    —Dee Pennock, God’s Path to Sanity

  • When looking at our personal circumstances, then, we never measure them by someone else’s circumstances. The teaching of our holy counselors is: Do not compare yourself to others in anything (Barsanuphius). Just compare your performance (your response to God’s calling and purpose for you, they say, with the gifts you have been given to enable you to obey that calling. Then instead of regretting that we do not have the good fortune some others have, our only regrets are for occasions when we’ve failed to use the gifts God has given us to fulfill the blessed purpose for which he has called us.

    We are all called to overcome different obstacles. You are called that you should inherit a blessing (I Pet. 3:9), says the Bible. Some people are called to overcome psychological problems, some physical illnesses, some persecution, some slavery, some injustices of all kinds, some martyrdom.

    —Dee Pennock, God’s Path to Sanity

  • Our various trials and weaknesses and disadvantages are perfectly in proportion to our callings and our given abilities—those gifts, that grace has put into each of us to handle our life circumstances so we can succeed in fulfilling God’s purpose for us.

    —Dee Pennock, God’s Path to Sanity

  • You can’t resent other people because you let yourself down. But you can try.

    —John Tottenham

  • No one should be burdened with the “failure” label just for playing their hand in the grand game of life. It’s undeniable that some people have the fortune to start with a strong hand, graced with physical beauty, social grace, or remarkable talents. Or, perhaps, they simply emerged from the right door, under the right star.

    Bimbo Ubermensch
    The Ocean

  • We all have value. 

    We all contribute. We all give back—if not through paid work, then as part of the human ecosystem. 

    “All Parasites Have Value:” Why Valuing Those Who Don’t Work is Key to More Sustainable Work Practices for Those Who Do

  • However, I know that it is not because of your strength, your long hours of studying, or your own understanding that you passed this milestone, but it was through God’s great strength and blessings that you succeeded. Do you also believe this?

    —Fr. Mina the Hermit (Pope Kyrillos VI) to his nephew Hegumen Philemon Labib

    via Pope Kyrillos: The Patron and Beloved of the Children, Fr. Rafael Ava Mina

  • Perfect Days (2023)

  • I fell silent, with a sense of satiety, of futility. I might, I reflected, go on questioning my mother for hours and still not come to a conclusion about anything: her life, and she herself, had by now attained a degree of utter meaninglessness which amounted, in the long run, to a sort of mystery at the same time both dull and impenetrable.

    Boredom
    Alberto Moravia