• Recall the memory of hell and punishment and vengeance during the time of your prayer, and you will not be able even to receive your enemy into your mind. Make your mind contrite, humble your soul by the memory of the offences you committed, and wrath will not be able even to trouble you.

    But the cause of all these evils is this: that we scrutinize the sins of all others with great exactitude, while we let our own pass with great remissness. Whereas we ought to do the contra-ry-to keep our own faults unforgotten, and never even to admit a thought of those of others. If we do this we shall have God propitious and shall cease cherishing immortal anger against our neighbors, and we shall never have anyone as an enemy.

    —Saint John Chrysostom
    HOMILY FIVE,On the power of prayer and forgiveness

  • Considering all these things then, and counting the recompense which is given in this case and remembering that to wipe away sins does not entail much labor and zeal, let us pardon those who have wronged us. For that which others scarcely accomplish, I mean the blotting out of their own sins by means of fasting and lamentations and prayers and sackcloth and ash-es, this it is possible for us easily to effect without sackcloth and ashes and fasting if only we blot out anger from our heart, and with sincerity forgive those who have wronged us.

    —Saint John Chrysostom
    HOMILY FIVE, On the power of prayer and forgiveness

  • If someone says something harsh to you, pretend that you did not hear it and that he didn’t mean it. Take it with gentleness, laugh, turn it into something funny, don’t turn it into something serious. You can’t win people with absolute seriousness, you can’t… Christ the Lord endured all our sins.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda Ill

  • For if you are reconciled here, you are delivered from judgment in the other world; but if in the interval while the hatred is still going on, death interrupting steps in and carries the enmity away with it, it follows of necessity that the trial of the case should be brought forward in the other world. Just as many men when they have a dispute with one another, if they come to a friendly understanding together outside the law court save themselves loss and alarm and many risks—the issue of the case turning out in accordance with the sentiment of each party—but if they severally entrust the affair to the judge the only result to them will be loss of money, and in many cases a penalty and the permanent endurance of their hatred; even so here if we come to terms during our present life we shall relieve ourselves from all punishment.

    Saint John Chrysostom
    If Thine Enemy Hunger, Feed Him
    Homilies on Profitable Subjects

  • For even if at first the man who has been annoyed feeds his enemy in the hope of punishing him, yet becoming his friend by the act of giving him food he will be able to expel the desire of vengeance.

    Saint John Chrysostom
    If Thine Enemy Hunger, Feed Him
    Homilies on Profitable Subjects

  • Remember the great love and great achievements involve great risks. The measure of love is when you love without measure. In life, there are very rare chances that you meet the person you love and who loves you in return. So once you have it, don’t ever let go—the chance might never come your way again. It’s better to lose your pride to the one you love than to lose the one you love because of pride. We spend so much time looking for the right person to love or finding fault with those who we already love, when instead, we should be perfecting the love we give. When you truly care for someone, you don’t look for faults, you don’t look for answers, you don’t look for mistakes. Instead, you fight the mistakes, you accept the faults, and you overlook excuses. Never abandon an old friend. You will never find one who can take his or her place. Friendship is like fine wine—it gets better as it grows older.

    —Fr. Mauritius

  • Sometimes the devil tries to make me feel I am my thoughts or my desires—”you have committed this sin and…” It’s not true.

    —Fr. Mina Dimitri

  • One of the saints said, “Those who come closest to Christ achieve the greatest victories.” What does that mean? It means that if you’re generous, and kind, you’re giving, you might overcome anger inside your heart, you might overcome resentment, hatred, lack of forgiveness inside your heart.

    —Fr. Mina Dimitri

  • He who has forgiven little, loves little. And he who has forgiven much, loves much. For love is born of forgiveness, and forgiveness is the remission of sins. Therefore, the more we forgive, the more we love; and the more we love, the more we are forgiven.

    —St John Climacus

  • What if God was like, “I forgive you, but I want nothing to do with you?” Is that how it works with us?

    —Fr. Elijah Estafanous