Category: PARENTS

  • Poor are those who limit their thoughts to the past with all its troubles, mistakes and its sweet dreams. There would not be any time or strength left for them to do something for the future.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, WORDS OF SPIRITUAL BENEFIT VOL III

  • Do not remember from the past except what could make your present better and gives you a push forward in repentance or in growth.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, WORDS OF SPIRITUAL BENEFIT VOL III

  • Many people do not feel the value of something until after they have lost it!
    …
    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

  • Living in the world, surrounded by your family, you cannot possibly give away all your possessions. So you must aim at finding the golden mean, and strive to keep to it: never turn your back on the world, but see to it that the world does not engross you.

    Letters of Elder Macarius of Optina

  • Here’s the part that will make you cry. Try to see this moment as though it’s actually in the past, and this person is gone now. You’re remembering this one ordinary moment, in perfect detail, from that precious window of time when your lives still overlapped.

    It’s important that it’s an ordinary moment, because those are the kinds of moments that often seem neutral in value. Abundant and unremarkable. You might be tempted to spend it checking your phone.

    But if your mind can find that place, even for a just a second, where you see that this might not be so, you’ll break that sense that nothing special is happening.

    Then there will be a moment when you come back to reality. And the reality is that the precious, fleeting time when you got to be near this person, the time you’d do anything to revisit, is happening right now.

    HOW TO CREATE GRATITUDE
    David Cain

  • People who do not know where they are going or what kind of world they are heading toward, who wonder if bringing forth children into this chaotic world is not an act of cruelty rather than love, will often be tempted to be sarcastic or even cynical. They laugh at their busy friends, but have nothing to offer in place of their activity. They protest against many things, but do not know what to witness for.

    —Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

  • Then there is the memory of former days, curses on those who advised the marriage, recriminations against friends who did not stop it; blame thrown on parents whether they be alive or dead, bitter outbursts against human destiny, arraigning of the whole course of nature, complaints and accusations even against the Divine government; war within the man himself, and fighting with those who would admonish; no repugnance to the most shocking words and acts. In some this state of mind continues, and their reason is more completely swallowed up by grief; and their tragedy has a sadder ending, the victim not enduring to survive the calamity.

    On Virginity, Chap. 3
    St. Gregory of Nyssa