"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Evagrius said that there was a brother who had no possessions except a Gospel book and he sold it in order to feed the poor. He said something worth remembering: “I have sold even the word that commands me to sell all and give to the poor”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
Poemen said, “The character of the genuine monk only appears when he is tempted”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
A hermit said, “Chastity is born of tranquility, and silence, and inner prayer”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
Today’s quotation comes from a Desert Mother, Syncletica:
“Just as one cannot build a ship unless one has some nails, so it is impossible to be saved without humility”
– Syncletica of Alexandria
When Macarius was living in Egypt, one day he came across a man who had brought a donkey to his cell and was stealing his possessions. As though he was a passer-by who did not live there, he went up to the thief and helped him to load the beast, and sent him peaceably on his way, saying to himself, “We brought nothing into this world but the Lord gave, as he willed, so it is done: blessed be the Lord in all things”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
Two hermits lived together for many years without a quarrel.
One said to the other, “Let’s have a quarrel with each other, as is the way of men.” The other answered, “I don’t know how a quarrel happens.” The first said, “Look here, I put a brick between us, and I say, ‘That’s mine’. Then you say, ‘No, it’s mine’. That is how you begin a quarrel.”
So they put a brick between them, and one of them said, “That’s mine.” The other said, “No; it’s mine” He answered, “Yes, it’s yours. Take it away.” They were unable to argue with each other.
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V, 17:22
Today is Valentine’s Day, a day on which we celebrate the life of a 3rd Century Roman Saint, as well as trying to stave off the tremendous societal pressure to be romantic and lovey dovey 😉
“The human heart is not shaped like a valentine heart, perfect and regular in contour; it is slightly irregular in shape as if a small piece of it were missing out of its side. That missing part may very well symbolize a piece that a spear tore out of the Universal Heart of Humanity on the Cross, but it probably symbolizes something more.
It may very well mean that when God created each human heart, He kept a small sample of it in heaven, and sent the rest of it into the world of time, where it would each day learn the lesson that it could never be really happy, that it could never be really wholly in love, that it could never be really whole-hearted until it rested with the Risen Christ in an eternal Easter…” – Archbishop Fulton Sheen
(Thanks to Alexandra for this one)