Remember people’s love for you and their good past with you, whenever you are fought by doubts of their sincerity and whenever you see them erring against you, for then their past love will intercede for them and your anger will subside.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III
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13. She also said, ‘It is good not to get angry, but if this should happen, the Apostle does not allow you a whole day for this passion, for he says: “Let not the sun go down.” (Eph. 4.25) Will you wait till all your time is ended? Why hate the man who has grieved you? It is not he who has done the wrong, but the devil. Hate sickness but not the sick person.’
Sayings of Amma Syncletica -
Those who scorn to grasp what is profitable and salutary are considered to be ill. Those, on the other hand, who comprehend the truth but insolently enjoy dispute, have an intelligence that is dead; and their behavior has become brutish. They do not know God and their soul has not been illumined.
Anthony the Great: On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life: One Hundred and Seventy Texts
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I should like to add that Isaac the Syrian insists on penitence, necessary alike for those who are conscious of sinning greatly and for those who are not; there is no perfection in any of us here on earth. The true signs of sincere penitence are the taming of the beast of anger, and the abstinence from all condemnation of others. Anger is always a sign of great pride. Our Lord calls him who condemns others, oblivious of his own faults, a hypocrite.
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I can assure you I have not the slightest suspicion that you are seeking to hide any detail of your life from me; nor have I ever thought you double-faced. But I cannot fail to see how subtly you contradict yourself, how you misunderstand and misinterpret yourself. Remember always that the whole of our human misery is the consequence of pride.
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When someone hurts you, do not answer back, but meet the hurt with silence.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, A Whisper of Love: Poems, Prayers and Sayings -
Keep in mind one thing that’s very important, controlling the tongue cannot happen without asking the grace of God. Sometimes people say, You know what, I held my tongue, but I couldn’t. Well, of course, when you control yourself and your feelings and you don’t offer them to God, you will only be able to do it in a natural way, which only would last you for a small part of time. But this is not the Christian way of controlling. The Christian way of controlling is to lift all our pain and suffering to the Lord that he may use his suffering to transform us and transform our community and transform people around us.
—Fr. Mina Dimitri
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Why do you lose your peace because something’s not going the way you want?
Right? Otherwise you’d be very peaceful, right? So either you had an opinion that wasn’t gratified, you had a will that wasn’t fulfilled, you wanted something that they didn’t do, right? Something disturbed, something that you prefer. That’s how you lose peace.
So the solution is to only want one thing, which is reality, which is God, right?
If the Gospel is true, if Christ is who He said He is, don’t forget what it means to be a Christian. If Christ is who He says, If Christ is God, not some good guy that lived, right? If He’s really who He is, then what He says really matters. And he said, this is what it means to be you—not idealistically you; who you are, right? Not something you’re trying to become. It’s already who you are. You’ve done stuff to cover up who you are. You didn’t stop being who you were, right? This is a very deep Antonion teaching—the best saint—where some people talk about virtue like it’s out there in the air. I pluck it out and put it in, right? Anthony says the complete opposite. He said you already have all the virtues.
—Fr. Antony Paul
full sermon
SO GOOD QUOTES 