“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.”
—Thomas Merton, Love and Living
Category: LONELINESS & SOLITUDE
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“Examine yourself to see whether you have within you a strong sense of your own self-importance, or negatively, whether you have failed to realize that you are nothing. This feeling of self-importance is deeply hidden, but it controls the whole of our life. Its first demand is that everything should be as we wish it, and as soon as this is not so we complain to God and are annoyed with people.”
—St. Theophan the Recluse -
When I understood that neither parents, nor family, nor friends, nor anyone in the world could offer me anything but pain, insults, and wounds, I resolved to stop living for the world and to dedicate my few remaining days in this life to the Lord. I understood that I had no one in the world except God.
—Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives -
“The greater the intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.”
—Blaise Pascal, Pensées -
We are children, and as children of the Heavenly Father we should ask for the support of our Parent. Because we were born of earthly parents, we seek support from them. But they have their cares and their worries; they are beset by all kinds of trouble and difficulties. We look to them for guidance and support, but they do not look after us. “You should have a head on your shoulders—use it. You’re a grown man,” they tell us. The Heavenly Father, however, never avoids helping us. He is always looking after us, always guiding us, if our heart is united with Him. But if we look for support in the world, it will be very difficult to find. It is very hard to find a person who is of one mind and thought with us.
—Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives -
“Although one can be supported, comforted, and helped throughout one’s life, the step of death itself, the moment of death, well that has to be taken all alone.”
—Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise -
This, also, I am ever urging, and shall not cease to urge, that you give attention, not only to the words spoken, but that also, when at home in your house, you exercise yourselves constantly in reading the Divine Scriptures. This, also, I have never ceased to press upon those who come to me privately. Let not any one say to me that these exhortations are vain and irrelevant, for “I am constantly busy in the courts,” (suppose him to say;) “I am discharging public duties; I am engaged in some art or handiwork; I have a wife; I am bringing up my children; I have to manage a household; I am full of worldly business; it is not for me to read the Scriptures, but for those who have bid adieu to the world, for those who dwell on the summit of the hills; those who constantly lead a secluded life.” What dost thou say, O man? Is it not for thee to attend to the Scriptures, because thou art involved in numerous cares? It is thy duty even more than theirs, for they do not so much need the aid to be derived from the Holy Scriptures as they do who are engaged in much business. For those who lead a solitary life, who are free from business and from the anxiety arising from business, who have pitched their tent in the wilderness, and have no communion with any one, but who meditate at leisure on wisdom, in that peace that springs from repose—they, like those who lie in the harbour, enjoy abundant security. But ourselves, who, as it were, are tossed in the midst of the sea, cannot avoid many failings, we ever stand in need of the immediate and constant comfort of the Scriptures. They rest far from the strife, and, therefore, escape many wounds; but you stand perpetually in the array of battle, and constantly are liable to be wounded: on this account, you have more need of the healing remedies. For, suppose, a wife provokes, a son causes grief, a slave excites to anger, an enemy plots against us, a friend is envious, a neighbour is insolent, a fellow-soldier causes us to stumble—or often, perhaps, a judge threatens us, poverty pains us, or loss of property causes us trouble, or prosperity puffs us up, or misfortune overthrows us;—there are surround us on all sides many causes and occasions of anger, many of anxiety, many of dejection or grief, many of vanity or pride; from all quarters, weapons are pointed at us. Therefore it is that there is need continually of the whole armour of the Scriptures.
—St John Chrysostom, On Wealth and Poverty -
False obligations are all the kind of things that, if you could do them, would make you abnormally wonderful, outstanding, quite a lot better and more sensitive-looking than other people with abilities and opportunities similar to yours. Our ordinary obligations—like cleaning house, gardening, repairing things, being faithful to friends, and doing our fair share of the work in family life—don’t make us look us especially wonderful or exceptional. People who are burdened with a lot of false obligations invariably fall down on what most of us consider to be normal obligations. They tend not to help others with anything. They make promises and then break them without giving it a second thought. They tell you they’ll be at your party or meet you on a certain afternoon, and nine times out of ten they’ll back out the last minute with a very unconvincing excuse. Even though they are constantly getting after themselves for not loving and being kind to everybody, they have almost no sense of obligation to other people and are completely inconsiderate most of the time. They rarely notice or feel guilty about the everyday obligations they could be living up to. But they feel terribly guilty and miserable about the false obligations they can’t live up to.
Who is God? Who Am I? Who Are You?
Dee Pennock
SO GOOD QUOTES 