Abba Paul the Barber and his brother Timothy lived in
Scetis. They
often used to argue. So Abba Paul said, “How long shall we go on like this?”
Abba Timothy said to him. “I suggest you take my side of the argument and in my
turn I will take your side when you oppose me.” They spent the rest of their
days in this practice.
The
life of a man who found God is characterised by absence of anger, by meekness,
humility, constant vigilance of the soul and being watchful to keep sinful
movements of his soul at bay because they destroy the peaceful mood. A man sees
God's Providence in his life and does his best in order to cherish this peace
of Christ but as soon as he forgets God, he is in for struggle. It is
impossible to have victory over sin using only our own efforts. We need God's
help to do this.
If we
seek human justice, we are certain to justify ourselves, to decide that we were
offended and to pity ourselves in any conflict. When we hear an angry or
irritated word, we are unable to forgive and to humble ourselves down before
our neighbour.
We need
to remember God and His love in order to quench down the sinful movements in
our souls. Apostle Paul writes, “Bear ye one another's burdens” (cf.
Gal. 6:2). There is no other way to fulfil the law of Christ. The path of a
Christian is truly a narrow one, but it is this path that allows one's soul to
acquire inner peace and to abide in God's love.
The
Lord humbled himself unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2:8).
The Lord defeated the sin, the evil of the entire world by His humility and
meekness. He teaches us to seek love instead of human righteousness. He is the
source of this love. “I am the Way... I am the beginning and the end of this
way.” (cf. John 14:6; Rev. 1:8). The Lord brought us His righteousness,
and it is according to this righteousness that we ought to concede, to humble
ourselves and never scandalize our neighbour. Even if we see that our brother
or sister does or says something wrong, we ought to correct it and help that
person to get rid of the lie and the sin. We can only do that if we have
compassion, if we do not reject that person and do not add our own sins to his.
God's
love has enlightened the whole universe. If we are patient enough to carry the
burdens of the people around us, if we are humble and forgiving, our world will
become brighter, our homes will become warmer because of God's love. How can we
help our neighbour if we do not understand or hear him? One cannot defeat the
sin with nice words and clever advice. One cannot teach another person to love
if his own heart is cold and empty. This is why we all need God's forgiveness,
God's blessing; this is why we all are enormously indebted to God for his love.
We receive it, we survive only thanks to it but we are so quick to forget it
and to lose it as we are looking for our unique place in this world.
The
Lord says, “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all,
and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35). And, “Judge not, that ye be not
judged.” (Matthew 7:1). The Lord leads us to Mount Golgotha. He stretches
His holy arms out to us from the Cross, and we see wounds from the nails on His
hands. The Blood of Christ that pours from these wounds washes away the sins of
the entire world. We
consider ourselves to be Orthodox Christians, we go to church but how often we
cannot humble ourselves down before a brother. How often we forget about God
who loves our offender as much as He loves us even though we humiliate, insult
and ignore him because of our own understanding of truth and justice.
The
world did not accept the love of Christ. Man crucified God but God who had come
to save man did not take revenge on him and did not renounce His love. He drank
the cup of suffering for the sake of our salvation. That is why we must
reconcile with all our offenders before we take communion in church; only after
reconciliation can we approach the Chalice of Life.
We follow Christ by subduing ourselves, by surmounting our personal view of the truth and justice, by learning the commandments of Christ, which are based not on human laws but on the all-forgiving and ever-winning love.
May God
help us to follow the example of these holy elders who found such a simple
answer to the problems in their monastic life! They decided to ignore angry
words, to be patient with their brother, and thus remained peaceful and helped
their neighbour.
Peace
in our homes with the people around us will be easily restored and maintained
if we eliminate excess words, bad looks or thoughts.
CONVERSATION