If a man has a friend and he is absolutely certain that his friend loves him, and if that friend does something to cause him suffering and be troublesome to him, he will be convinced that his friend acts out of love and he will never believe that his friend does it to harm him. How much more ought we to be convinced about God who created us, who drew us out of nothingness to existence and life, and who became a man for our sake and died for us, and who does everything out of love for us?
—Abba Dorotheos of Gaza
Category: LOVE
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Long-suffering and readiness to forgive curb anger; love and compassion wither it.
—St. Thalassios the Libyan, On Love, Self-control and Life
in Accordance with the Intellect -
Even if our mother or father or brother or sister or spouse or friend couldn’t love us in every way we might have liked, Père Thomas began to show me that each one did reflect an aspect of God’s love, and when taken together they reflected the fullness of God in a way I had often missed in focusing on what each one was not able to offer.
—Henri Nouwen, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life
However bad it may be at home, anyway they are your father and mother, and not enemies, strangers. Once a year at least, they’ll show their love of you.
—Notes from the Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Remember people’s love for you and their good past with you, whenever you are fought by doubts of their sincerity and whenever you see them erring against you, for then their past love will intercede for them and your anger will subside.
I felt miserable because I had failed so many times in the past to respond to her help, to accept the warmth and love she tried to give me. Another wave of loneliness overcame me as I considered the times when I fought her, hated her, and pushed her away from me.
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This was my mother; the word “mother” brings on a flow of feeling and past experiences and years of living together, loving together, and hating, too. The fighting and conflicts do not seem important anymore, the arguments and intense pains and emotions that clouded the relationship have evaporated. This was my mother, and I realize the uniqueness of our relationship.
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In her dying, I was able to become open to myself and to my mother, to claim our relationship, to look back upon the past in quick moments while at her bedside and realize the times she did give me warmth and love, and the times when pain and emotional conflict blocked the giving and the receiving.
—Clark E. Moustakas, Loneliness
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 -
When you love much, you are forgiven much-and when you are forgiven much, you love much.
—Søren Kierkegaard, But One Who Is Forgiven Little Loves Little Luke 7:47 -
H.H. Pope Shenouda III on Fr. Faltaous El Souriany:
Despite the fact that Fr. Faltaous led a life full of struggles, solitude, and silence, he still has a great sense of humour. I recall that one time when we were baking pita bread, I noticed that the bread he was baking was very large in size, so I asked him, ‘Why are you making the bread so large, father?’ So he responded, ‘Some of the monks are training themselves to eat only one pita, so I am making the pita bread bigger so that it would be equivalent to three pitas
Combined!’ -
Frankness
You want to be sincere in defending the Truth. But your frankness often hurts people, they become upset and take a stand against you…
Take a good look at yourself. With how many people have you employed this hurtful ‘frank’ manner and done a lot of damage for no reason?! What is more, you have not won their souls for the Lord either.
You ought to have spoken gently and wisely, with consideration for the feelings of others, as our Lord spoke to the Samaritan woman, so that he won her soul without hurting her feelings (John 4) .
If God were to send an angel to speak to everyone about his actions, the hidden ones and those that are plain to see, could anyone bear it?
We thank God that He does not use this method, this hurtful ‘frankness’, with us, out of His great love and kindness and His sympathy for people’s feelings
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Experiences in Life
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You mustn’t wage your Christian struggle with sermons and arguments, but with true secret love. When we argue, others react. When we love people, they are moved and we win them over. When we love, we think that we offer something to others, but in reality we are the first to benefit.
— St Porphyrios
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“You will always be able to tell your parents or siblings or close friends’ voices even if you can’t see them or they are really far away. If you love someone, you can easily recognize their voice. Can you say the same for Christ? Do you know His voice? You must be able to recognize God’s voice even if you can’t see Him.”
—Fr. Bishoy El Antony -
It says in Proverbs, “He who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends.”(Proverbs 17:9) If I learn that my brother has sinned, and I accept him and cover his sin, then I am seeking love, but if I begin speaking about his sin, and continue talking about him, I separate people.
“We should not snoop on people, and places, to discover others’ sins. If the sins of others were presented to us, being forced upon us, we should not examine them nor turn to them.”
—Abba Pimen the Solitary—
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Develop Your Personality
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When God has granted you a degree of spiritual knowledge, do not neglect love and self-control; for it is these which, once they have purified the soul’s passible aspect, always keep open for you the way to such knowledge.
SO GOOD QUOTES 