It’s better to ruin business but keep peace with others. Don’t forget it.
Featured image: Photographer Samuel Bourne, ca. 1868. Rijksmuseum
It’s better to ruin business but keep peace with others. Don’t forget it.
Featured image: Photographer Samuel Bourne, ca. 1868. Rijksmuseum
The fragrance of a costly aromatic oil, even kept in a vessel, pervades the atmosphere of the whole house, and gives pleasure not only to those near it but also to others in the vicinity; similarly, the fragrance of a holy soul, beloved of God, conveys to those who perceive it the holiness that lies within.
When in the presence of one whose tongue utters nothing harsh and discordant, but only what is a blessing and benefit for those who listen, whose eyes are humble, whose ears do not listen to improper songs or words, who moves discreetly and whose face is not dissolute with laughter but rather disposed to tears and mourning, which of us will not feel that such a soul is filled with the fragrance of holiness?
Thus the Savior says: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:16).
– St. Theodoros the Great Ascetic of Edessa, Philokalia, Vol. 1
Featured image: “Glass and shadows.” Photographer Adolphe de Meyer, ca. 1912. Museum of Arts & Crafts, Hamburg
God is a fire that burns and warms the heart, our internal parts. If we feel coldness in our hearts, which comes from the enemy because the enemy – the devil – is cold, then we need to call our Lord. He will come and will warm our hearts with our love for Him and our neighbor. This warmth will drive away the coldness of the enemy.
The Desert Fathers used to say: Seek the Lord, but do not ask Him strange things like where he is. Because where God dwells, there is nothing bad and harmful. Everything that comes from God is peaceful and beneficial and guides us to humility and to recognize only our own faults.
God shows us how much He loves us not only when we are doing good things, but when we are also insulting Him and making Him unhappy with our sins. How forbearing He is with our faults! And even when something that we believe is a punishment from Him comes to us, it is not! It has love that we eventually recognize.
Featured image: Great Tit Eating out of the Hand of a Horticulture Student. Photographer Richard Tepe, ca. 1915. Rijksmuseum
He who loves God both believes truly and performs the works of faith reverently.
But he who only believes and does not love, lacks even the faith he thinks he has; for he believes merely with a certain superficiality of intellect and is not energized by the full force of love’s glory. The chief part of virtue, then, is faith energized by love.
– St. Diadochos of Photiki, “On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination.” Philokalia, Vol. 1
Featured image: From a series of photos of Athonite monks, likely Russian, early 20th c. source