“If you do good to one person, you may be wronged by another and so feel injured, and say or do something stupid, thus dissipating by your bad action what you gained by your good action. This is just what the demons want; so always be attentive.”
—Evagrios the Solitary
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“If a humble person commits some minor sin, it does not surprise him. But if an arrogant person commits a sin, it comes as quite a surprise.”
— St. Theophan the Recluse -
And beware you do not blindly insist that things must work out according to what you consider to be right and good. God sometimes does permit such blind insistence to be followed by the fulfilment of our ardent desires. This always leads to misery and disaster (intended to open our eyes on our folly), and happens particularly often when our desires are founded on wild passions.
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Do not misunderstand me: I am not denigrating your rule of prayer, or your reading of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. I want to leave you quite free to continue these occupations or to modify them according to your own light. But do try to remember that love of the neighbor is the first work you must strive for. And you do not even have to leave your house to find that neighbor: your husband is that neighbor; your mother is that neighbor; and so are your children.
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A home is a Christian one, when all the members of the household bear each other’s burdens, and when each one condemns only himself.
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After a careful study of your disposition, which life has encouraged you to undertake, you have at last come to see that you have never loved; nor do you know or understand anything about love.
Letters of Elder Macarius of Optina -
“Above all, what sets us a part as Christians is love. We shall be asked by God: how much did you love? Whom did you love? Did you love everyone or only some? How did you love them? Nothing can transform people the way love can. Nothing can transform your children the way love can. Nothing can transform your service the way love can. Nothing can lead others to repentance the way love can. Neither logic, nor sermons, not even miracles, can have the same transformative effect which pure Christian love has. Christian love is derived; meaning, that it is the love of Christ towards his children through you. Christian love is a grace from God above all.”
— Fr. Dawoud Lamei -
Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up. If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other’s faults and burdens. If we love enough, we are going to light that fire in the hearts of others. And it is love that will burn out the sins and hatreds that sadden us. It is love that will make us want to do great things for each other. No sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much. Yes, I see only too clearly how bad people are. I wish I did not see it so. It is my own sins that give me such clarity.
—Dorothy Day -
If it happens to any God-fearing person to go to sleep without having repented of the sin, or the sins, he has committed during the day, and which have tormented his soul, these torments will accompany him the whole night, until he has heartily repented of his sin, and washed his heart with tears (this is also from experience). The torments of sin will wake him up from sweet sleep, because his soul will be oppressed, bound a prisoner by sin.
—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ -
“When harmed, insulted or persecuted by someone, do not think of the present but wait for the future, and you will find he has brought you much good, not only in this life but also in the life to come.”
—St. Mark the Ascetic
SO GOOD QUOTES 