Category: PRIDE

  • Coping with Being Honoured 

    Saint Antonius the Great said: “Many people can endure being insulted, but they cannot bear to be honoured. For to be able to endure being honoured is harder than to put up with insults .”….

    Being honoured might push some people towards pride so that they feel superior to others or ignore them, or mistreat them. It may make them change their surroundings, friends and way of life. It might induce them to become conceited and talk arrogantly with people…

    All this goes to show that they have not been able to cope with being honoured since it has changed their character and behaviour towards others. As the poet said, “When my friend’s family becomes a rich family, I can be sure that I have lost my friend.”

    As for the person who is inwardly strong, or the person who is as humble as the Virgin Mary, then being honoured cannot change him.

    Whatever position he gains, whatever wealth or titles, power or knowledge, and however much the people praise him, he remains the same…

    It is a wonder how in spite of all this he does not lose his simplicity and humility or his good relationship with people and does not abandon his former friends or seek a new environment which he considers more in keeping with his new dignity… !

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Experiences in Life

  • “You should know that you have been greatly benefited when you have suffered deeply because of some insult or indignity; for by means of the indignity self-esteem has been driven out of you.”

    — St. Maximos the Confessor

  • If God often speaks to and through the least, leaders themselves do not have all that they need in order to lead; therefore, leaders must listen very carefully to those whom they lead.

    —Fr. Michael Gillis
    Listening To The Least: The Myrrh-Bearing Women