SO GOOD QUOTES

  • For some, confession turns into complaining about others! They may complain about their circumstances at home or at work or in the church, like the wife, for example, who sits with the father confessor to confess. She narrates to him her husband’s ill-treatment, and so confesses her husband’s sins, and not her own. Or she may confess the difficulties and troubles in her life, but regarding herself, she says nothing because before going to confession, she did not reproach herself.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge

  • “It is befitting that I keep silent, seeing that God has covered me. If God permitted that I be uncovered, would I be able to utter a word?”

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge

  • A person blames and condemns others in order to justify himself. He does not want to blame himself nor to be blamed by others, so he affixes his sin onto someone else, that he might be justified!

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge

  • The person who reproaches himself is preoccupied with rectifying himself. In his shame over his errors, he does not look at the sins of others. Regarding this the saints said, “He who is preoccupied with his own sins has no time to condemn his brother’s sins”

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge

  • Jonah was one sinner on the ship, yet the whole ship was about to sink because of that one person. Someone might say, “It is perhaps because of my sins that problems are happening everywhere.”

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge

  • Beware of tranquilising words such as, “Oh! God is kind! Don’t trouble yourself! The least thing will do, the least word will take you there”. No- talk not so; these words are desensitizing. They are said to people to make them feel happy and not disturbed- but the truth is the truth, and that is that we shall stand before the Just Judge.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge

  • If one person were to say to another, “I will continue to be disloyal to You until death, but at the hour of death, I will stop being disloyal”, would you consider this acceptable? Can one person say to another, “I am still young; I will continue to be unfaithful to you, but when I am older, I will stop being unfaithful”? What does this mean? It means, “It is still early days- do not disturb us by talking about the hour of death”. But what about your relationship with God? Let us leave the hour of death aside. Suppose you will live for a hundred years. Would you betray the Lord now, challenge Him now, grieve the Holy Spirit now?

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge

  • Do you love God, or do you not love Him? Is there a relationship between you and Him, or not? Is there friendship, is there knowledge, is there communion, or not?

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge

  • Now, you have an opportunity to repent, but when you reach the dust, there will be no opportunity.

    If you reach Hades, there will be no chance. After death, there is no chance. After death, the Holy Bible says that

    “the door was shut” (Mt.25:10) and the foolish virgins stood outside- they had lost the chance.

    All the inhabitants of Hades long to have one minute of your lifetime, in which to offer repentance, but they cannot find it. All the inhabitants of Hades yearn for just one minute of your lifetime in which they would offer repentance, yet they cannot find that minute- that one minute they cannot find. And you have a lifetime granted you by God in which to offer repentance. So do not be negligent.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge

  • It is true that repentance leads to forgiveness of sin if the person confesses in regret and obtains absolution and forgiveness, yet the sensitive heart, even after it has repented, weeps over its sin. David Prophet wept over his sin after it had been forgiven, and not before.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge