Category: VOCATION

  • Consider how an ear of corn is produced. Most of us would point to the labor of the farmer in tilling the soil, sowing the seed, and harvesting the grain. But it is not as simple as that. The farmer needs the blacksmith to make the spade, ploughshare, sickle and axe. He needs the carpenter to make a frame from the plough and to make a yoke for the horse. He needs the leather worker to make the harness. He needs the builder to make a stable for the horse, and a barn to store the hay and grain. He needs a baker to turn the grain into bread, otherwise his labors are worthless. And he needs the forest worker to provide wood for the carpenter to saw, and wood for the baker to heat the oven. So just to produce corn many different people are needed. Since we depend on one another for our very survival, why do we ever try to exploit and cheat one another? Nothing could be more stupid and irrational than to try and get the better of someone else; people who cheat and exploit others are cheating and exploiting themselves.

    On Living Simply
    St. John Chrysostom

  • The fact alone that we perceive that He loves us is sufficient in place of the work we ought to do if we are not capable of it.

    —St. Isaac the Syrian

  • Stay inside your commitments and your family—they will teach you where life is found and what love means.

    —Ronald Rolheiser, Domestic Monastery

  • “Christians should regard their occupations as sidelines and prayer as their work.”

    —St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite

  • While visiting the University of Notre Dame, where I had been a teacher for a few years, I met an older experienced professor who had spent most of his life there. And while we strolled over the beautiful campus, he said with a certain melancholy in his voice, “You know,… my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.”

    —Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out

    “Anyone who complains about the people surrounding him suffers because of his own fault, because he did not understand: those who are near him are exactly what he needs.”

    — Archimandrite Emilian (Vafidis)

    When we receive visits from our brethren, we should not consider this an irksome interruption of our stillness, lest we cut ourselves off from the law of love. Nor should we receive them as if we were doing them a favor, but rather as if it is we ourselves who are receiving a favor; and because we are indebted to them, we should beg them cheerfully to enjoy our hospitality.

    —St Theodoros the Great, Ascetic A Century of Spiritual Texts

  • At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I am rising to do the work of a human being. What do I have to complain about, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” But it’s nicer here …

    So were you born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? But we have to sleep sometime… Agreed. But nature set a limit on that, as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There’s still more of that to do.

    You don’t love yourself enough. For if you did, you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts. Is not then your labor in the world just as worthy of respect and worth your effort?

    —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

  • If you fall under discipline, know for sure that this is a great profit, for God chastises the soul that has forgotten its weakness and has been puffed up by its talents and success. This is carried on until it realizes its weakness, especially when God does not provide in tribulation a way of escape. He besieges the soul from all sides and embitters it with inward and outward humiliation, whether by sin or by scandal, until it abhors itself, curses its own intelligence, and disowns its counsel. Finally, it surrenders itself to God, feeling crushed and lowly. At such a time, it becomes easy for man to hate himself. He even wishes it to be hated by everybody. This is the way of true humility. It leads to total surrender to divine plan. It ends up with freeing one’s soul from the tyranny of the ego, with its deception, its stubbornness, and its vanity.

    —Matthew the Poor, Orthodox Prayer Life

  • Fear makes a person always complain, and makes the person have doubts about the love of God and His care. For this reason we often find that fear is responsible for the person remaining inactive and not contributing positively in life.

    Fear paralyzes the person, making him incapable of advancing forward. Fear makes the person think that they will not be able to fulfill their dreams and wishes, and it makes the person remain silent, and not say the truth.

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Overcome Fear, The Effect of Fear on the Human Being

  • The person has to do their part fully, to triumph over fear. If a person has a fear of an exam, for example, they have to study well, and this will help them overcome the fear. We have to fulfill what we are required to do, and God will give us peace which surpasses all understanding and will take away from us anxiety, trouble and fear.

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Overcome Fear, How Do We Face Fear?

  • Fear is what bridles the tongues of people, preventing them from expressing themselves freely without embarrassment or fear. It is what makes many remain silent from [saying] the word of truth and defending those suffering wrong. It is what makes a person unsuccessful in his life, taking them away from their hopes and dreams, not realizing the achievements they desire to reach.

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Overcome Fear, The Effect of Fear on the Human Being