Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Found it!!!

Well, *I* didn't actually find it, but our amazing pastoral assistant had another copy left over from last week, and he let me have it =D So, without further adieu, here is the quote that has totally impacted my life for the past week!

I am fairly certain that this is St. Maximos the Confessor.

He who loves God, lives an Angel's life on earth, fasting, and being vigilant, praising God and praying, having kind thoughts about every human being.

He who loves God does not inflict grief on anyone, and he himself doesn't feel aggrieved over temporary things. He inflicts grief and is aggrieved only with that redeeming sorrow about which the Apostle Paul wrote and who aggrieved the Corinthians, being aggrieved himself (2 Cor. 2:4).

He that loves something, will attemt to secure it in every way possible, setting aside anything that impedes its possession. Likewise, a person that loves God is concerned about having pure prayers, and banishes every passion that is an impediment to him.

If you hate some people, treat some indifferently and greatly love the others, then you should conclude from this how distant you are from complete love, which induces a person to love everyone equally.

Absolute love does not differentiate between even one personal characteristic in human beings but loves all people equally. It treats kind people as friends, and the unkind, as enemies (in accordance with the commandments), doing good to them and patiently enduring everything that is inflicted by them - not only refraining from responding with evil for evil, but through necessity, suffering for them so that as far as possible, to make them your friends. Likewise, our Lord and God Jesus Christ, revealing His love toward us, suffered for the whole humanity and gave all of us the one hope of resurrection. Incidentally, every person makes himself worthy of either glory or sufferings of hell.

He who is inquisitive about other people's sins, or through suspicions judges his brother, has not laid even the beginnings of repentance and is not attempting to recognize his personal sins, which are truly heavier than a massive lead weight. He doesn't know why a person should "love worthlessness and seek falsehood?" (Psalms 4:2-3). That is why, having forgotten about his personal sins, he wanders in the darkness like a senseless individual, concerned about others' real or imaginary ones.

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