When you live your life witnessing as an icon of the resurrection, even your parents can be inspired and their lives transformed. Kids will sometimes come and say, I don’t know what to do with my parents—I don’t know what to do. I’ll tell you what to do. If your parents are difficult or if they’re hard people or if they are mean to you sometimes, I’m telling you, live by the power of the spirit in your home, in humility and in love, and let the resurrection in your life transform your entire household. It can have a huge impact. I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes.
—Fr. Michael Sorial
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For inner healing to occur, two very important components are needed. One is forgiveness, and the other is reconciliation. Without these two, the inner healing process cannot be completed. Many people say, “Let me calm down first, recover a little, and then I will forgive and reconcile.” This is exactly like someone saying, “Let me heal first, and then I will take the medicine.” This does not work. This is the reason the Lord Jesus, while in the midst of His pain on the cross, did not say, “Give Me some time to calm down and then I will forgive,” but rather said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34).
INNER HEALING
H.E. Metropolitan Youssef -
Attend, and let us learn what corporeal and what spiritual beauty are. There is soul and body: they are two substances. There is a beauty of body, and there is a beauty of soul. What is beauty of body? An extended eyebrow, a merry glance, a blushing cheek, ruddy lips, a straight neck, long wavy hair, tapering fingers, upright stature, a fair blooming complexion. Does this bodily beauty come from nature or from choice? Confessedly it comes from nature. Attend that you may learn the conception of philosophers. This beauty whether of the countenance, of the eye, of the hair, of the brow, does it come from nature or from choice? It is obvious that it comes from nature. For the ungraceful woman, even if she cultivate beauty in countless ways, cannot become graceful in body, for natural conditions are fixed and confined by limits which they cannot pass over. Therefore the beautiful woman is always beautiful, even if she has no taste for beauty, and the ungraceful cannot make herself graceful, nor the graceful ungraceful. Wherefore? Because these things come from nature.
Well! You have seen corporeal beauty. Now let us turn inwards to the soul: let the handmaid approach the mistress! Let us turn, I say, to the soul. Look upon that beauty, or rather listen to it, for you cannot see it since it is invisible. Listen to that beauty. What then is beauty of soul? Temperance, mild-ness, almsgiving, love, brotherly kindness, tender affection, obedience to God, the fulfillment of the law, righteousness, contrition of heart. These things are the beauty of the soul. These things then are not the results of nature, but of moral disposition. And he who does not possess these things is able to receive them, and he who has them, if he becomes careless, loses them. For as in the case of the body I was saying that she who is ungraceful cannot become graceful; so in the case of the soul I say the contrary: that the graceless soul can become full of grace. For what was more graceless than the soul of Paul when he was a blasphemer and insulter; what was more full of grace when he said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 47)? What was more graceless than the soul of the thief? What was more full of grace when he heard the words, “Verily I say unto you today shall you be with me in paradise (Lk. 23:43? What was more graceless than the publican when he practiced extortion? But what was more full of grace when he declared his resolution? (Lk. 19:8). Do you see that you cannot alter grace of body, for it is the result not of moral disposition, but of nature. But grace of soul is supplied out of our own moral choice.
You have now received the definition. Of what kind are they? That the beauty of the soul proceeds from obedience to God. For if the graceless soul obeys God it puts off its un-gracefulness and becomes full of grace. “Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute Me? and he replied, And who are You Lord? I am Jesus” (Acts 9:4-5). And he obeyed, and his obedience made the graceless soul full of grace. Again, He says to the publican, “Come follow Me (Matt. 9:9), and the publican rose up and became an apostle, and the graceless soul became full of grace. Whence? By obedience. Again He says to the fishermen, “Come ye after Me and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19), and by their obedience their minds became full of grace.
Saint John Chrysostom
HOMILY TWO, After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive
On the Vanity of Riches -
Inasmuch then as our Master knew that if He carved out only one road for us, many must shrink from it, He carved out various roads. It may be you cannot enter the Kingdom by the way of virginity. Enter it then by the way of single marriage.
Can you not enter it by one marriage? Perchance you may by means of a second marriage. You cannot enter by the way of continence? Enter then by the way of almsgiving. Or you cannot enter by the way of almsgiving? Then try the way of fasting. If you cannot use this way, take that—or if not that, then take this. Therefore the prophet spoke not of a garment of gold, but of one woven with gold. It is of silk, or purple, or gold. You cannot be a golden part? Then be a silken one. I accept you, if only you are clothed in My raiment. Therefore also Paul says, “If any man builds upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones” (1 Cor. 3:12). You cannot be the precious stone? Then be the gold. You cannot be the gold? Then be the silver, if only you are resting upon the foundation. And again elsewhere, “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars” (1 Cor. 15:41). You cannot be a sun? Then be a moon. You cannot be a moon? Then be a star. You cannot be a large star? Be content to be a little one if only you are in the Heaven. You cannot be a virgin? Then live continently in the married state, only abiding in the Church. You cannot be without possessions? Then give alms, only abiding in the Church, only wearing the proper raiment, only submitting to the queen. The raiment is woven with gold; it is manifold in texture.
I do not bar the way against you, for the abundance of virtues has rendered the dispensation of the King easy in operation. Clothed in a vesture woven with gold, manifold in texture. Her vesture is manifold: unfold, if you please, the deep meaning of the expression here used, and fix your eyes upon this garment woven with gold. For here indeed some live celibate, others live in an honorable estate of matrimony being not much inferior to them; some have married once, others are widows in the flower of their age. For what purpose is a paradise? And wherefore its variety? Having various flowers and trees and many pearls. There are many stars, but only one sun; there are many ways of living, but only one Paradise; there are many temples, but only one mother of them all.
There is the body, the eye, the finger, but all these make but one man. There is the same distinction between the small, the great, and the less. The virgin has need of the married woman; for the virgin also is the product of marriage, that marriage may not be despised by her. The virgin is the root of marriage. Thus all things have been linked together, the small with the great, and the great with the small. The queen stood on your right hand clothed in a vesture wrought with gold, manifold in texture.
Saint John Chrysostom
HOMILY TWO, After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive
On the Vanity of Riches -
Do not be aloof from the Church; for nothing is stronger than the Church. The Church is your hope, your salvation, your refuge. It is higher than the heavens, it is wider than the earth.
Saint John Chrysostom
HOMILY TWO, After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive
On the Vanity of Riches -
Where worldly things are concerned there is ill-will, but where spiritual there is love. Meditate daily on these things, and if two days hence you see someone riding in a chariot, arrayed in raiment of silk and elated with pride, be not again dismayed and troubled. Praise not a rich man, but only him who lives in righteousness. Revile not a poor man, but learn to have an upright and accurate judgment in all things.
Saint John Chrysostom
HOMILY TWO, After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive
On the Vanity of Riches -
Do you not know that the present life is a sojourn in a far country? For are you a citizen? Nay you are a wayfarer. Do you understand what I say? You are not a citizen, but you are a wayfarer and a traveler. Say not: I have this city and that. No one has a city. The city is above. The present life is but a journey. We are journeying on every day, while nature is running its course. There are some who store up goods on the way, and some who bury jewelry on the road. Now when you enter an inn do you beautify the inn? No, you eat and drink and hasten to depart. The present lite is an inn: we have entered it, and we bring the present life to a close. Let us be eager to depart with a good hope, let us leave nothing here, that we may not lose it there. When you enter the inn, what do you say to the serv-ant? Take care where you put away our things, that you do not leave anything behind here, that nothing may be lost, not even what is small and trifling, in order that we may carry everything back to our home. You are a wayfarer and traveler, and indeed more insignificant than the wayfarer. How so? I will tell you.
The wayfarer knows when he is going into the inn, and when he is going out; for the coming as well as the going is in his own power. But when I enter the inn, that is to say this present life, I know not when I shall go out. And it may be that I am providing myself storehouses with sustenance for a long time when the Master suddenly summons me saying,
“You fool, for whom shall those things be which you have prepared? For on this very night they are taking your soul from you” (Lk. 12:20). The time of your departure is uncertain, the tenure of your possessions insecure, there are innumerable precipices, and billows on every side of you. Why do you rave about shadows? Why desert the reality and run after shadows?
I say these things, and shall not cease saying them, causing continual pain and dressing the wounds. And this is done not for the sake of the fallen, but of those who are still stand-ing. For they have departed, and their career is ended, but those who are yet standing have gained a more secure position through their calamities. What then, you say, shall we do? Do one thing only, hate riches, and love your life—cast away your goods; I do not say all of them, but cut off the superfluities. Be not covetous of other men’s goods, strip not the widow, plunder not the orphan, seize not his house. I do not address myself to persons but to facts. But if any one’s conscience attacks him, he himself is responsible for it, not my words.
Saint John Chrysostom
HOMILY TWO, After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive
On the Vanity of Riches -
Never call the rich man happy; never call any man miserable save him who is living in sin: and call him happy who lives in righteousness. For it is not the nature of their circumstances, but the disposition of the men which makes both the one and the other.
Saint John Chrysostom
HOMILY TWO, After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive
On the Vanity of Riches -
No man will do you harm, if you do not deal a blow to yourself. If you have not sin, ten thousand swords may threaten you, but God will snatch you away out of their reach. But if you have sin, even should you be in Paradise you will be cast out.
Saint John Chrysostom
HOMILY TWO, After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive
On the Vanity of Riches -
The rich are my children, and the poor also are my children. The same womb has travailed with both, both are the offspring of the same travail-pangs. If then you fasten reproaches on the poor man, I denounce you, for the poor man does not suffer so much loss as the rich. For no great wrong is inflicted on the poor man, seeing that in his case the injury is confined to money; but in your case the injury touches the soul. Let him who wills cast me off, let him who wills stone me, let him who wills hate me; for the plots of enemies are the pledges to me of crowns of victory, and the number of my rewards will be as the number of my wounds.
Saint John Chrysostom
HOMILY TWO, After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive
On the Vanity of Riches
SO GOOD QUOTES 