Where else can we find rest other than the church, and of course, the altar? I remember my second day as a priest. I was ordained on Sunday, and then Monday night I spent the night at St. Mary in Dallas. The next morning, we prayed the Divine Liturgy, and there was a priest visiting. I actually—please forgive me—I don’t remember his name, but I remember his advice.
After we prayed the Liturgy, I think during the Liturgy, he saw me. I didn’t have a beard, nothing, so he said to me:
“There are some things that have no solution. What are you going to do? You’re going to take it, and you’re going to put it on the altar. And that’s it.”
And I never forgot this. I wish I remembered his name, but I don’t. I remember the advice: “There are some things that only the altar can solve.”
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If you can’t keep your distance, you have to be good. If you can’t be good, at least keep your distance.
Late Summer Warnings
Paul Skallas -
Once some brothers praised someone before St. Bimen saying that he hates evil. The saint asked them what did they mean by ‘hates evil’, and when they were confused the saint explained, “To hate evil is to hate the evil things we do, not the things which the others do.”
Judge Not Others
H.H. Pope Shenouda III -
How strange that everyone sets himself in charge of others!
How strange that one thinks of the others and of their deeds and the judgments he should utter against them, and the last thing about is himself.Believe me, it is a war from the devil by which he wants to attract our attention from ourselves to thinking of the people’s sins, and from repentance to thinking of the people’s acts.
On the Last Day, God will charge you for your own sins not for the sins of the others.Judge Not Others
H.H. Pope Shenouda III -
The hardness may be in the use of hurting words.
It may be in the form of ascribing very bad attributes to the condemned person or uttering such accusations that prejudice his honor, his character, or his mentality. For example the words “you fool” are hurting words which should be punished by hell fire as the Lord said (Mt. 5: 22). How many, actually, are the words and expressions used by people bearing the same meaning of “you fool”.
Judge Not Others
H.H. Pope Shenouda III -
What is the guilt of the hearer that he loses his simplicity and have bad thoughts because of you?
Because of you, the image of the others may change in his mind and may remain so, affecting his relationship and his dealings with them without the other person knowing the cause of all this! Why all this destruction?
Therefore, the fathers said that a person who talks wickedly against others, destroys the souls of the hearers and his own as well.
Judge Not Others
H.H. Pope Shenouda III -
When you judge the others, you expose yourself to have your weaknesses revealed.
You will have your weakness revealed by him whom you judged, by that person’s friends, his beloved ones, and those defending him, or even be revealed for any reason whatsoever by God’s permission, so that you may not sit yourself a judge to condemn others as if you were without blame.
Judge Not Others
H.H. Pope Shenouda III -
Moreover, one who judges others may be treated in the same way by people.
As the saying goes, ‘Who sifts people, will be bolted by them’. One who always finds faults with the others is often treated the same, and as he reveals the weaknesses of the others, his own weaknesses are revealed by them. All are under the same weakness, he who condemns, and he who is condemned.
Judge Not Others
H.H. Pope Shenouda III
