SO GOOD QUOTES

Category: SUFFERING

  • Nevertheless, as powerful as despondency can be, he is convinced that she can overcome it, through the power of her own will, working in cooperation with God’s grace—and inspired by his ardent desire and will for her to be free from his affliction.

    —Saint John Chrysostom, Letters to Saint Olympia

  • Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.

    —Emil Cioran

  • A source of spiritual death, despair can also lead a man to suicide: inciting him to no longer expect anything from life, it implants ideas of suicide in his soul and prompts him to accomplish them. In explaining this matter, St. John Chrysostom maintained the possibility of a demonic influence, but stressed that it was not the only cause, as he wished to once again insist on the responsibility of the individual himself. ‘These baneful thoughts’ he wrote to Stagirius, do not only come from the demon; your own melancholy is also very much to blame. Yes, indeed, this dark sadness even more than the evil spirit provokes these thoughts, and perhaps they are the only cause. It is certain that some individuals, quite apart from any demonic obsession, suffer from this mania for suicide after excessive suffering.

    Mental Disorders & Spiritual Healing: Teachings from the Early Christian East
    Jean-Claude Larchet

  • 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.

    —Dee Pennock, God’s Path to Sanity

  • When looking at our personal circumstances, then, we never measure them by someone else’s circumstances. The teaching of our holy counselors is: Do not compare yourself to others in anything (Barsanuphius). Just compare your performance (your response to God’s calling and purpose for you, they say, with the gifts you have been given to enable you to obey that calling. Then instead of regretting that we do not have the good fortune some others have, our only regrets are for occasions when we’ve failed to use the gifts God has given us to fulfill the blessed purpose for which he has called us.

    We are all called to overcome different obstacles. You are called that you should inherit a blessing (I Pet. 3:9), says the Bible. Some people are called to overcome psychological problems, some physical illnesses, some persecution, some slavery, some injustices of all kinds, some martyrdom.

    —Dee Pennock, God’s Path to Sanity

  • Our various trials and weaknesses and disadvantages are perfectly in proportion to our callings and our given abilities—those gifts, that grace has put into each of us to handle our life circumstances so we can succeed in fulfilling God’s purpose for us.

    —Dee Pennock, God’s Path to Sanity

  • In life we pass through stages. The heart, thoughts, feelings and spirit all pass through them. Each stage has its impact and effect. It has a duration of time beyond which it does not go.

    Happy is the one who looks continually with hope for the next stage. 

    Happy is the one whom difficulties do not send to the other extreme. For a difficulty is only a stage in life and the solution of that difficulty is yet another stage. 

    Live with faith that there will be a solution and rejoice as you look forward to what cannot be seen. 

    The world itself is only a stage in life that will arrive at another stage, that of eternity.

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

  • ”Only struggle a little more. Carry your cross without complaining. Don’t think you are anything special. Don’t justify your sins and weaknesses, but see yourself as you really are. And, especially, love one another.”

    —Fr. Seraphim Rose

  • If somebody refuses to do the will of God, let them suffer the consequences of their wrong choice. Let them suffer, but pray for them, and they will return back.

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Know the Will of God

  • And he endured injustice and the harshness of the rich man, who walked in front of him day and night without paying him attention, not even giving him some food. And it is amazing that when the Lord told us the story of Lazarus, he did not mention any other virtue in the life of Lazarus, except this virtue, that he endured poverty, being in need, without grumbling or complaining.

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Endure Injustice