Two Quotes...

I have read a couple of quotes which I really liked in the last couple of days and I wanted to share them.  The first is from St. John Chrysostom.  I stumbled across this quote while reading,  Women and Men in the Early Church:  The Full Views of St. John Chrysostom by David C. Ford.  It’s a good book.  And in case you were wondering, St. John is most definitely not a misogynist.  Here’s the quote:

Of a mild man and beautiful in soul nobody would be afraid; on the contrary, we all respect, honor and venerate him.  Do you not see how the man who causes terror is also an object of hatred and abhorrence to us all?

I kind of thought that one was apropos of the time we now inhabit.

The second quote I found on the Antiochian.org website in an article written by Father Joseph Honeycutt.  The quote is from Father Alexander Elchanininov and is as follows:

Our continual mistake is that we do not concentrate upon the present day, the actual hour, of our life; we live in the past or in the future; we are continually expecting the coming of some special moment when our life will unfold itself in its full significance. And we do not notice that life is flowing like water through our fingers, sifting like precious grain from a loosely fastened bag.

Constantly, each day, each hour, God is sending us people, circumstances, tasks, which should mark the beginning of our renewal; yet we pay them no attention, and thus continually we resist God’s will for us. Indeed, how can God help us? Only by sending us in our daily life certain people, and certain coincidences of circumstance. If we accepted every hour of our life as the hour of God’s will for us, as the decisive, most important, unique hour of our life — what sources of joy, love, strength, as yet hidden from us, would spring from the depths of our soul!

Let us then be serious in our attitude towards each person we meet in our life, towards every opportunity of performing a good deed; be sure that you will then fulfill God’s will for you in these very circumstances, on that very day, in that very hour.

That’s a good quote for a worry wart like myself!

Comments

[lydia]

i struggle with being a worrywart, too.

[JustinM]

thanks for posting the quote by Fr. Joseph. I wish I could remember that every day.

[jen]

I'm just reading and reading and catching up on old posts, have been away a bit.

Your writing about your daughter, your children, just moves me deeply. I do not have a daughter, but I can still relate with my sons. One of my mother's big sorrows (well, maybe not that big) is that I don't have a daughter to have the kind of relationship with that she and I have.

But on the other hand, my puppy is a girl...

Ana is SO beautiful! That hair! Marvelous.