If people expect too much from each other, they can do each other harm; disappointment and bitterness can overpower love and even replace it.
—Henri Nouwen, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life
-
May God allow you to participate in that wondrous picture of a lamb led to the slaughter, with the knife placed at its throat while it is calm and silent. It is silent because its owner is the one slaughtering it; it trusts him, because he was the one who fed it. How incredible that we learn from lambs and sheep! O Lord, what is this amazing example that You have placed in animals for us? Can you believe that Christ was symbolized as a lamb led to the slaughter? I myself have many times seen a lamb being prepared for slaughter: it exhibits the utmost calmness. You tie its legs, but it doesn’t move; you place the knife, and it doesn’t move. It trusts the person who is its owner, and feeder, and caretaker. Ah, beloved, let us trust exceedingly that the One who shepherds us is the One who will “slaughter” us. It is not at all the work of our adversary; for as He said, “You would have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above.” The knife descends from above. The nails were driven by a heavenly hand, and the hammer was sanctioned by the Father, who permitted the Crucified One to be hung on the Cross. Man himself can never bring you to be slaughtered, or harm your reputation, or steal your rights, unless it be allowed from above. Step forward, therefore, and fear not, but accept the cross and the knife—just like your Lord.
—Matthew the Poor, Words For Our Time: The Spiritual Words of Matthew the Poor -
on monasticism
He was his mother’s little boy; although he was a grown man, the umbilical cord was still intact. He was tied to his mother, tied to the family, tied to the neighborhood, tied to the friends, tied to the country, tied to his life. This is one of the most troublesome personality types when it comes to obeying the call. Its possessor is extremely weak. His eyes are riveted on the past. The smallest hardship or the slightest rebuke makes him shudder. He constantly thinks of forsaking the call and going back. To put it bluntly, he is not a man.
—Matthew the Poor, Words For Our Time: The Spiritual Words of Matthew the Poor -
on monasticism
Woe to the man who offers those last goodbyes to his father and mother! They will remain stuck like an odor to his clothes and to his mind at all times. He who returns to say goodbye to his family does not actually say goodbye to them but to the Kingdom. He can no longer enter the Kingdom with the same intensity of zeal and power. And if he goes out to serve while still conscious of an attachment to his family, it becomes a hundred times harder to sever them than if he had done so while he was in the world. It requires a heavy knife to cut the emotional ties that bind a person if already on the road; but if he cuts them while still near his family, the issue is sealed.
—Matthew the Poor, Words For Our Time: The Spiritual Words of Matthew the Poor
-
on monasticism
“Fine. Go, say your last goodbyes to your mother and family.” But ah, not one was able to say a last goodbye to his mother and peel himself away from her bosom again! That last goodbye will remain fastened to your mind even until your beard greys. But if you were able to leave the world without a last parting greeting to anyone, then the call of Christ will be able to gain you even while in the world. And every time the world comes to mind, you will remember your severance from it, as though by the clean cut of a knife.
—Matthew the Poor, Words For Our Time: The Spiritual Words of Matthew the Poor -
If a person truly and utterly wants something, even against his own best interests, the Lord will patiently and at length through various people and new circumstances plant obstacles and try to dissuade the person from the needless and fatal goal. But when we are stubbornly implacable in our desires, then God steps aside and lets our blind and powerless freedom take its course.
Everyday Saints and Other Stories
Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov
SO GOOD QUOTES 