“…and it was said that Rossetti never got over his wife’s death, because he thought he had not been perfectly kind to her during the last years of her life, and that she might have lived longer if he had been more kindly. His friends repudiate that, and say it is not true; but if it was not true of Rossetti, it is true of many people.
The sin of neglect, the sin of inattention, the sin of absorption in self, these have wrought a great sorrow in the lives of some, and they never rise out of the dust after.”
The Gift of Suffering
F.B. Meyer
Category: PARENTS
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“Yea but this is what parents should do”
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When you start thinking this way—that you’re giving blows to the righteous, the people who love you the most and care about you the most, then you’re a fool, you’re wicked, you’re stupid. You are not able to see the reality of life, you’re not able to see the moral obligation you have.
—Fr Mina Dimitri -
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.
God’s Path to Sanity
Dee Pennock -
When parents grieve over their children, they will not live a healthy life. They’re not going to enjoy their life, they won’t do well in life. It physically and spiritually and emotionally impacts them.
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But rather than this let us suppose a happier case. The danger of childbirth is past; a child is born to them, the very image of its parents’ beauty. Are the occasions for grief at all lessened thereby? Rather they are increased; for the parents retain all their former fears, and feel in addition those on behalf of the child, lest anything should happen to it in its bringing up; for instance a bad accident, or by some turn of misfortunes a sickness, a fever, any dangerous disease. Both parents share alike in these; but who could recount the special anxieties of the wife? We omit the most obvious, which all can understand, the weariness of pregnancy, the danger in childbirth, the cares of nursing, the tearing of her heart in two for her offspring, and, if she is the mother of many, the dividing of her soul into as many parts as she has children; the tenderness with which she herself feels all that is happening to them. That is well understood by every one. But the oracle of God tells us that she is not her own mistress, but finds her resources only in him whom wedlock has made her lord; and so, if she be for ever so short a time left alone, she feels as if she were separated from her head, and can ill bear it; she even takes this short absence of her husband to be the prelude to her widowhood; her fear makes her at once give up all hope; accordingly her eyes, filled with terrified suspense, are always fixed upon the door; her ears are always busied with what others are whispering; her heart, stung with her fears, is nearly bursting even before any bad news has arrived; a noise in the doorway, whether fancied or real, acts as a messenger of ill, and on a sudden shakes her very soul; most likely all outside is well, and there is no cause to fear at all; but her fainting spirit is quicker than any message, and turns her fancy from good tidings to despair.
—St. Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, Chap. 3 -
Many people do not feel the value of something until after they have lost it!
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The son who neglects to honour his parents mistreats them and only feels their value after he has lost them, whether it is through their death or by losing their approval or blessing…
In general, a person is not aware of the value of life and the importance of eternity until after he has lost that life and eternity both together…
How nice it is if a person wakes up to himself and perceives the value of his situation before he loses it, especially something which cannot be retrieved once it has been lost!!
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Experiences in Life -
65. Nothing is more precious to man than intelligence. Its power is such as to enable us to adore God through intelligent speech and thanksgiving. By contrast, when we use futile or slanderous speech we condemn our soul. Now it is characteristic of an obtuse man to lay the blame for his sins on the conditions of his birth or on something else, while in fact his words and actions are evil through his own free choice.
—St Anthony the Great
On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life
One Hundred and Seventy Texts
SO GOOD QUOTES 