53. Those who know God are filled with good impulses; desiring the heavenly, they despise worldly objects. Such men neither like nor are liked by many people. Consequently numbers of idiots not only hate but also ridicule them. And they patiently endure all that comes from their poverty, knowing that what seems to many to be bad, for them is good. For he who comprehends the celestial believes in God, knowing that all are creatures of His will; whereas he who does not comprehend the celestial never believes that the world is a work of God and was made for man’s salvation.
—St Anthony the Great
On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life
One Hundred and Seventy Texts
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41. Men of dull wits should not despair of themselves and become lazy, disdaining the life of virtue and of love for God as being unattainable and incomprehensible to them. They should, instead, exercise such powers as they possess and cultivate themselves. For even if they cannot attain the highest level in respect of virtue and salvation, they may, through practice and aspiration, become either better or at least not worse, which is no small profit for the soul.
—St Anthony the Great
On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life
One Hundred and Seventy Texts -
“He who has died to all things remembers death, but whoever is still tied to the world does not cease plotting against himself.”
—St. John Climacus -
“When you give God time in your weariness, He will recompense you and lift the weariness away from you”
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III -
I asked Bill if we would ever be able to share what we did for a living. He said we could, on the last day, right before everybody left. He said he learned people were going to share anyway, but they wanted to keep the group pure as long as possible. He also said when people finally revealed their jobs, it made him sad. He said friendships and relationships would develop over the intensity of the week, but when people learned some people made a lot of money and others didn’t, or some people were slightly famous and others weren’t, they divided into perceived categories. Interestingly, he said, it wasn’t the rich who separated from the poor, but the opposite. He said people who didn’t feel like they’d accomplished much felt insecure around those who had. Bill said he wished we lived in a world where people couldn’t say what they did at all. He said the world would be a healthier place if nobody were allowed to wear a costume.
Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy
Donald Miller -
Through this dichotomy, human love is assuredly differentiated from divine love. Many fathers of the Church therefore caution against this self-seeking approach to one’s relationship with God. For example, St. Basil writes:
“[A] beginning is made by detaching oneself from all external goods: property, vainglory, life in society, [and] useless desires, after the example of the Lord’s holy disciples. James and John left their father Zebedee and the very boat upon which their whole livelihood depended. Matthew left his counting house and followed the Lord, not merely leaving behind the profits of his occupation but also paying no attention to the dangers which were sure to befall both himself and his family at the hands of the magistrates because he had left the tax accounts unfinished. To Paul, finally, the whole world was crucified, and he to the world.”[22]
By cultivating this selfless love for God and all His creation, we come to learn the truth of the Lord’s saying, “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light,”[23] for when one loves God for Who He is, and not merely on account of the blessings He provides, he realizes the profound joy and gladness that ensue from walking with the Lord.
Imperfect Love: Struggling to Love Like God
Hilana Said -
It is better to elude the passions by the recollection of the virtues than by resisting and disputing with them. For when the passions leave their place and arise for battle, they
imprint on the mind images and idols, and this warfare has great force, able to weaken the mind and violently to perturb and confuse a man’s thinking. But if a man acts by the first rule we have mentioned, when the passions are repulsed they leave no trace in the mind.—St. Isaac the Syrian
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Vainglory and pride are very like each other. But vainglory incites us to show off our piety or intelligence and to put much store by the opinion others hold of us; it makes us love praise and go out of our way to get it, and fills us with false shame; whereas pride is chiefly manifested through anger and embarrassment, through the despising, condemnation, and humiliation of others, and through holding oneself-one’s own actions and achievements-in high esteem. Pride has made great men-men spiritually great-fall very low. All human misfortunes and all un-Christian actions spring from pride; all good comes from humility.
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CHAPTER IV: How vainglory attacks a monk on the right had and on the left.
For where the devil cannot create vainglory in a man by means of his well-fitting and neat dress, he tries to introduce it by means of a dirty, cheap, and uncared-for style. If he cannot drag a man down by honour, he overthrows him by humility. If he cannot make him puffed up by the grace of knowledge and eloquence, he pulls him down by the weight of silence. If a man fasts openly, he is attacked by the pride of vanity.
CHAPTER VI: That vainglory is not altogther got rid of by the advantages of solitude. IN solitude also it does not cease from pursuing him who has for the sake of glory fled from intercourse with all men. And the more thoroughly a man has shunned the whole world, so much the more keenly does it pursue him. It tries to lift up with pride one man because of his great endurance of work and labour, another because of his extreme readiness to obey, another because he outstrips other men in humility. One man is tempted through the extent of his knowledge, another through the extent of his reading, another through the length of his vigils. Nor does this malady endeavour to wound a man except through his virtues; introducing hindrances which lead to death by means of those very things through which the supplies of life are sought. For when men are anxious to walk in the path of holiness and perfection, the enemies do not lay their snares to deceive them anywhere except in the way along which they walk, in accordance with that saying of the blessed David: “In the way wherein I walked have they laid a snare for me;” that in this very way of virtue along which we are walking, when pressing on to “the prize of our high calling,” we may be elated by our successes, and so sink down, and fall with the feet of our soul entangled and caught in the snares of vainglory. And so it results that those of us who could not be vanquished in the conflict with the foe are overcome by the very greatness of our triumph, or else (which is another kind of deception) that, overstraining the limits of that self- restraint which is possible to us, we fail of perseverance in our course on account of bodily weakness.
CHAPTER VII: How vainglory, when it has been overcome, rises again keener than ever for the fight. ALL, vices when overcome grow feeble, and when beaten are day by day rendered weaker, and both in regard to place and time grow less and subside, or at any rate, as they are unlike the opposite virtues, are more easily shunned and avoided: but this one when it is beaten rises again keener than ever for the struggle; and when we think that it is destroyed, it revives again, the stronger for its death. The other kinds of vices usually only attack those whom they have overcome in the conflict; but this one pursues its victors only the more keenly; and the more thoroughly it has been resisted, so much the more vigorously does it attack the man who is elated by his victory over it. And heroin lies the crafty cunning of our adversary, namely, in the fact that, where he cannot overcome the soldier of Christ by the weapons of the foe, he lays him low by his own spear.
CHAPTER XIII: Of the ways in which vainglory attacks a monk. Is the case also of beginners and of those who have as yet made but little progress either in powers of mind or in knowledge it usually puffs up their minds, either because of the quality of their voice because they can sing well, or because their bodies are emaciated, or because they are of a good figure, or because they have rich and noble kinsfolk, or because they have despised a military life and honours. Sometimes too it persuades a man that if he had remained in the world he would easily have obtained honours and riches, which perhaps could not possibly have been secured, and inflates him with a vain hope of uncertain things; and in the case of those things which he never possessed, puffs him up with pride and vanity, as if he were one who had despised them.
—St. John Cassian, Institutes
SO GOOD QUOTES 