“He who has died to all things remembers death, but whoever is still tied to the world does not cease plotting against himself.”
—St. John Climacus
Category: TRANSCIENCE
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I say these things, and shall not cease saying them, causing continual pain and dressing the wounds. And this is done not for the sake of the fallen, but of those who are still standing. For they have departed, and their career is ended, but those who are yet standing have gained a more secure position through their calamities. What then, you say, shall we do? Do one thing only, hate riches, and love your life— cast away your goods; I do not say all of them, but cut off the superfluities.
Saint John Chrysostom, On the Vanity of Riches
HOMILY Two
After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive -
“A famous story, often retold, illustrates what is implied in being a pilgrim on earth. In the nineteenth century, a tourist from America paid a visit to the renowned Polish rabbi Hofetz Chaim. The tourist was astonished to see that the rabbi’s home was only a simple room filled with books, plus a table and a bench. “Rabbi,” asked the tourist, “where is your furniture?” “Where is yours?” replied Hofetz Chaim. “Mine?” asked the puzzled American. “But I’m only a visitor here. I am only passing through.” “So am I,” said the rabbi. We are all only passing through!”
The Restless Heart: Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness
Ronald Rolheiser -
I have found, in my own life, that the wages of living only for oneself, living in the pursuit of pleasure or burning out oneself on the things of this world, are ones of unrest. Just when one thinks they have found peace in something, just when one is comfortable or feels contentment of a kind, the transient nature of all things is revealed. We lose our favourite things, we lose our jobs we thought were secure, our friends and family turn on us, pass away, forget about us; nothing ever seems to last. As one looks closer and closer at the world, it seems to me to be only a transient thing, a signpost that points somewhere else.
It’s Easy to Give Up and Give In
Anthony N -
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What difference can we discover between two persons who lived a century ago? The one died twenty years before the other, but now they are both gone; the separation which then seemed so abrupt and so long, appears as nothing to us, and was, in fact, but short.
—François Fénelon, Spiritual Progress -
When scientists study people on their deathbed and how they feel about their lives, they usually find that many of them feel some serious regrets. I think a lot of those regrets stem from the fact that most of us aren’t really taught about path-making in our childhoods, and most of us also don’t get much better at path-making as adults, which leaves many people looking back on a life path that didn’t really make sense, given who they are and the world they lived in.
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“We are sad, or panicked, because a part of us recognises that time is running out and that we are not presently doing what we should with what remains of our lives. The anguish of Sunday evening is our conscience trying to stir us inarticulately into making more of ourselves.”
What Is That Sunday Evening Feeling?
SO GOOD QUOTES 