• “I went to my home parish, and was awaiting a Bible Study to conclude so that I could speak to the person affected. During the Bible Study, I asked our God for help, and looked to Saint Mary’s icon and asked her to help me with what to say, that I wanted to be obedient but was also scared of the repercussions of the conversation I was about to have. I found myself, by His grace and the  prayers of our Lady, finding words that I know I didn’t have.”

    Confession and Guidance: An Approach by Antony Paul

  • If only we could go back and do something differently, perhaps we would feel differently right now. But perhaps not. If things unfolded differently, we may be suffering a different hurt, and wish for that to be different.

    On moving things forward
    Madeleine Dore

  • “Poignancy, she told me, is the richest feeling humans experience, one that gives meaning to life—and it happens when you feel happy and sad at the same time. It’s the state you enter when you cry tears of joy—which tend to come during precious moments suffused with their imminent ending. When we tear up at that beloved child splashing in a rain puddle, she explains, we aren’t simply happy: “We’re also appreciating, even if it’s not explicit, that this time of life will end; that good times pass as well as bad ones; that we’re all going to die in the end. I think that being comfortable with this is adaptive. That’s emotional development.”

    Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
    Susan Cain

  • Clement possessed all the characteristics of the talented master: a flashing intellect, a fiery enthusiasm, and an ever youthful soul. He believed that teaching was a divine mission, and gave himself wholeheartedly to it. He went as far as opening his School to all who came, regardless of age and sex. And the people from all walks of life crowded to hear him: the rich and learned aristocrats; the women of high rank, powdered and perfumed; young “ne’er-do-wells,” coming from sheer curiosity, philosophers and rhetoricians. A medley of a crowd, if ever there was one. A cynic, looking at such a crowd, might well have declared that it was void of all good.


    THE STORY OF THE COPTS
    THE TRUE STORY OF THE CHRISTIANS OF EGYPT WHO HAVE LIVED THE BIBLE FOR 2,000 YEARS

    BY IRIS HABIB EL MASRI

  • There is another fear which is caused by lack of self-confidence.

    The fear of failure or of the unknown future, or the fear of meeting a superior or facing a specific situation.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Words of Spiritual Benefit Vol. 1

  • An ordinary person is concerned with his own comfort, even if it comes at the expense of others. But a person with values finds true rest when he toils for the sake of making others comfortable.

    To him, the meaning of rest is providing comfort to other people, not to himself. He believes rest is that of his conscience, not of his body.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Characteristics of the Spiritual Path

  • “Love is the simplest, still most difficult thing you’ll ever have to do.”

    —Fr. Antony Paul

  • Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One’s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done.

    —Bertrand Russell

  • Always keep the same measure of self-control; otherwise through irregularity you will go from one extreme to another.

    —St. Thalassios the Libyan

  • The intellect that has shut out the senses, and has achieved a balance in the body’s temperament, has to fight only against its memories.

    —St. Thalassios the Libyan