By directing its power toward destruction of this support on which the sinner’s selfishness has established itself and rests, divine, salvific grace carries out the following to awaken the sinner from his slumber: He who is enslaved by pleasing the flesh shall fall ill, and by weakening the flesh, shall give the spirit freedom and power to come to its senses and become sober. He who is preoccupied with his own attractiveness and strength shall be deprived of this attractiveness and kept in a state of utter exhaustion. He who finds refuge in his own power and strength shall be subject to slavery and humiliation. He who relies greatly on wealth shall have it taken from him. He who shows off great learnedness shall be put to shame. He who relies on solid personal connections shall have them cut off. He who counts on the permanence of the order established around him shall have it destroyed by the death of people he knows or the loss of essential material possessions. Is there any way to sober up those kept in the bonds of indifference through outward happiness other than by sorrows and grief? Isn’t our life filled with misfortunes so that it may assist with the divine intention of keeping us sober?
Each destruction of the supports of indifferent self-indulgence constitutes a turning point in life, which, because it is always unexpected, operates in an overwhelming and salvific manner. The sense that one’s life is in danger operates strongest of all in this respect. This sense weakens all bonds and kills selfishness at the very root; the person does not know where to run. The sense of total abandonment is of the same character and special circumstance. Both sense leave a person alone with himself. From himself, the most miserable of creatures, he immediately turns to God.
—St. Theophan the Recluse, The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation
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The divine grace that is everywhere-present and fills all things directly inspires the spirt of man, impressing thoughts and feelings upon it that turn it away from all finite things and toward another better, albeit invisible and mysterious world. The general characteristics of such arousals are dissatisfaction with oneself and everything pertaining to oneself, and anguish over something. The person is not satisfied by anything around him; not by his accomplishments or possessions, even if he has incalculable wealth; and he walks around as if heart-broken. Because he finds no consolation in visible things, he turns to the invisible, and receives it with a readiness to acquire it for himself sincerely and to give himself over to it.
—St. Theophan the Recluse, The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation
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“There are many who live in the mountains and behave as if they were in the town, and they are wasting their time. It is possible to be a solitary in one’s mind while living in a crowd, and it is possible for one who is a solitary to live in the crowd of his own thoughts.”
—Amma Syncletica -
Within the repentant person there is first fear, then the lightness of hope; sorrow, then comfort; terror to the point of despair, then the breath of the consolation of mercy. One thing replaces another, and this supplies or keeps a person who is in a state of corruption or parting with life in the hope, however, of receiving new life.
—St. Theophan the Recluse, The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation
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People who are so full of pride that they become overly dependent upon their parents are bound to resent their parents, because leaning on one’s family keeps increasing the feeling of failure—a feeling everybody just naturally hates. The only reason so many younger people are full of resentment and anger against their parents—or institutions or the establishment or whatever—is that they are so filled with pride, so mixed up about what God is and what human beings are, that they were expecting the older generation to be gods. A lot of the older generation had just as much pride and really tried to play God. But that’s their problem. Your problem is only to get rid of the pride in yourself, so you don’t play God and pass the game on to your children. Anyone who expects his parents to be gods, and wants to lean on them as if they were, will end up disliking them intensely. If you put your parents first, above God, you’ll hate them and also hate God because of the way things will turn out. But if you always put God first and lean completely on Him, you will end up truly loving both God and your (merely human) parents.
Who is God? Who Am I? Who Are You?
Dee Pennock -
For lack of wood the fire goes out,
and where there is no whisperer,
quarreling ceases.
PROVERBS 26:20A brother asked a hermit, “Abba, if someone brings me gossip, should I ask him to stop speaking?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because we also gossip. We would be asking someone else to do what we cannot do.”
“Then what is the best thing to do?”
“The best thing is to remain silent. Silence is better for us and for others as well.”By Way of the Desert: 365 Daily Readings
Bernard Bangley -
“A healthy man is always an earthly, material man…But as soon as he falls ill, and the normal, earthly order of his existence is disturbed, then the possibility of another world makes itself known to him at once; and as the illness worsens, his relationship with this other world becomes ever closer.”
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoyevsky -
Illness often challenges our former, false equilibrium, and leads us to question the very foundations of our existence. It effectively weakens our impassioned attachments to this world. And in so doing, it reveals the vanity of those attachments and leads us to surpass their limits.
The Theology of Illness
Jean-Claude Larchet
SO GOOD QUOTES 