Gleanings from Orthodox Christian Authors and the Holy Fathers

remembering_wrongs

2 Entries

He who says that he loves the Lord but is angry with his brother is like a man who dreams that he is running. St. John Climacus, "The Ladder of Divine Ascent," (Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1978), Step 30: Concerning the Linking Together of the Supreme Trinity Among the Virtues

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Why is it that we always remember offences of men, are angry and bear malice against the offenders, whilst the most wicked, the most hurtful and continual offences of the Devil we very soon forget, even though we have been thus offended by him a thousand times a day, while we bear in remembrance the offences of men sometimes for longer than a day?

This is the enticement of the Devil! He knows how to deceive us cleverly: whilst offending us himself, he ever screens himself behind our own self-love, as though wishing to gratify us in the beginning by means of the development of a certain passion, though afterwards he always destroys, and bitterness comes to us from him for our foolish, unreasonable self-love. The offences of other people against us he always magnifies a hundredfold, representing them in a false light; and here again he screens himself behind our own self-love, as though he were jealous of our welfare, which other people are seeking to destroy by their offence! St. John of Kronstadt (My Life in Christ, Part 1; Holy Trinity Monastery pg. 54)

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