About the family: words of saints and aphorisms of writers
Sirs and ladies, allow me today to bring to your attention a small collection of wise sayings dedicated to the institution of the family by the Holy Fathers, Church leaders, scientists and writers. Somewhere they will be encouragement, and somewhere they will be advice that each of us sometimes needs:
“Family relationships must be subordinated to spiritual needs. Marriage has a lot of consolation, but it is also accompanied by many anxieties and sorrows, sometimes very deep. Keep this in mind, so that when something like this comes, you do not greet it as a surprise. Now you two are alone. And joys are stronger, and sorrows are more easily divided in half. Take care of your love with your wife. This is the source of a happy family life. But you need to take care of it so that it doesn’t get clogged. Above all, be afraid of losing trust in each other or having it shaken in some way.” Saint Theophan the Recluse.
“When you love, you don’t want to drink any other water than the one you find in your favorite source. Loyalty in this case is a natural thing. In a loveless marriage, in less than two months the water of the spring becomes bitter.” Stendhal
“One person asked me: “Geronda, what most of all connects a husband and wife?” “Gratitude,” I answered him. One person loves another for what he gives him. A wife gives her husband trust, devotion, obedience. The husband gives his wife confidence that she is under his cover and protection. The wife is the mistress of the house, but also the main servant in it. The husband is the ruler of the house, but also the bearer of its burdens. Spouses must have purified love among themselves in order to receive mutual consolation from each other and be able to fulfill their spiritual duties. In order to live in harmony, they must, first of all, put love at the foundation of life - that precious love that lies in spiritual nobility, in sacrifice, and not false, worldly, carnal love. If there is love and sacrifice, then one person always puts himself in the place of another, understands him, and experiences pain for him. And by accepting his neighbor into his suffering heart, a person accepts Christ into his heart, Who again fills him with His inexpressible joy.” Venerable Paisiy Svyatogorets
“Good spouses have two souls, but one will.” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“In marriage, one must sacrifice everything and endure everything in order to preserve mutual love; if it is lost, everything is lost. True wealth and the greatest happiness is when a husband and wife do not disagree with each other, they are united with each other as one flesh. Such spouses, even if they lived poorly and were ignorant, can be the happiest of all, because they enjoy true happiness and live in constant peace. Value unanimity in the family above all else and do everything in this way and strive to ensure that peace and silence are constantly preserved in the marriage. Then the children will imitate the virtues of their parents, and virtue will flourish throughout the house, and there will be prosperity in all matters.” Saint John Chrysostom
“You can’t live even a minute without a crown. Don't have abortions. It will be terrible to answer before the Living God for violating God’s holy commandment: “Thou shalt not kill!” Elder Nikolai Guryanov
“A just husband commands his wife not as the owner of property, but as the soul of the body: taking into account her feelings and invariably benevolently.” Plutarch
“During a wedding, they drink from a common cup: wine mixed with water and drunk to the bottom. Wine - the joys of living together, water (and more of it) - common sorrows, troubles and pains... Roses will only appear at the beginning of the journey, and thorns (no family can avoid them) will appear later. But their number and severity will depend on your wisdom, and most importantly, love. If your feelings include the apostolic definition of love, then you will not be far from happiness.” Elder John (Peasant)
“The dependence of family life makes a person more moral.” Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin
“Celibacy is created by promiscuity. Both sexes avoid the union that should make them better, and remain in a union that makes them worse." Charles Louis Montesquieu
“The main misconception regarding family life today is that everyone is looking for and expecting happiness from family life as something ready-made that they must certainly find without work or effort. But there is no such ready-made happiness of any kind or anywhere on our earth: here everything is obtained through labor. Imagining that family happiness is ensured forever by a happy choice of a party and that it is strengthened by the first inclination, many spouses now lose sight of the fact that at the first time of marriage they do not yet know each other as they should, or even themselves in their new position. Only standing close to each other, as spouses stand, and only over time can they study each other’s way of thinking, tastes, inclinations, habits, and, to the surprise of many, in the chosen ones of the heart, along with the virtues that attracted love, significant shortcomings are also revealed. The discovery of shortcomings, unexpected thoughts, desires and demands sometimes strike both spouses as something extraordinary, dangerous for happiness and proof of a mistake made in the choice. With the further discovery of shortcomings, this idea is confirmed, and multiplying clashes, disputes and disagreements with a lack of self-observation and condescension towards each other are taken as proof that happiness is flying away, that the marriage has failed, that it is impossible to live together, that it is necessary to separate. Meanwhile, the rules of Christian life required both spouses, while grateful to God for the virtues found in each other, to be on guard and wait for the discovery of shortcomings as an inevitable part of every person; study them, treat them with all the forbearance that mutual love requires, and accept with meekness and patience the correction of each other.” Archbishop Ambrose (Klyucharyov)
“From our parents we received the greatest and most priceless gift - life. They fed and raised us, sparing neither strength nor love. And now that they are old and sick, it is our duty to cure them and nurse them back to health!” Leonardo da Vinci
“The legitimate purpose of union with a woman should be the birth and upbringing of children. When a person entering into marriage has only sensual pleasures in mind, and strives only to please the lusts of his flesh, then he is deeply mistaken and by such a union with a woman he introduces disorder into life relationships, the bad consequences of which quite naturally respond to himself and his offspring.” Venerable Maximus the Confessor
“Life with a wife is not easy, but life without her is absolutely impossible.” Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder
“My wife and children teach humanity; bachelors are gloomy and stern.” Francis Bacon
“The spirit of obvious or secret pride and vanity possesses us, so that almost each of us thinks a lot and highly about himself and little and lowly about others... Hence, in the family and society, instead of love, harmony and mutual services, mutual intransigence, mutual ill will, and envy reign and hatred of each other, quarrels, strife, discord.” Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov)
“A good wife is like an ant in the house, and an evil wife is like a leaky barrel.” Menander
“In family life, everyone must forget himself completely, think only about others - such an attitude towards each other of family members binds the family together so that they all feel that it is impossible for each of them to live without the others. The groom, wise from experience, tries to treat himself as strictly as possible, and more attentively towards his new life partner, and if some shortcomings are noticed in the bride, then attribute them not to her, but to her parents, and try to cover everything with love. Seeing the love and disposition of her husband, in turn, the wife tries to repay the same and, noticing the roughness of her husband’s character, the wife, not wise with experience, covering everything with love, quietly tries to correct these shortcomings, roughness and acts as a leader of the heart very skillfully, and through this mutual loving relationship towards each other, two beings, perhaps at first completely opposite to each other, come closer and become close and live to the point that one heart and one spirit are formed.” Righteous Alexy Mechev.
“A happy marriage is a marriage in which the husband understands every word that the wife does not say.” Alfred Hitchcock
Compiled by Andrey Szegeda
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About love
No one can comprehend how God loves man! His love is incomparable! It has no boundaries! It is so great that if a person feels even a small part of it, his heart cannot stand it, it dissolves, because it is made of clay.
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God often allows the abundance of His love to come to His creation, and then our soul warms up, we see how sweet Divine love is, how great...
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The more the heart is cleansed, the more its capacity increases and the more we can accept Divine love, limitless, incontainable, inexhaustible.
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As soon as love and humility develop, pride and anger will become exhausted and the agony of passions will set in.
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The easiest path to salvation is love and humility. If we don't have them, we will be judged. These two virtues bend God to mercy and elevate His creatures to Heaven.
About witchcraft
They said to one woman: “They have damaged you. Let’s come to your home and remove the damage from you using the cross that we have.” And people, seeing how sorcerers come to vigils and talk about spiritual things, think: “But since they go to vigils, that means they are believers” - and open their hearts to deceivers. How they fool people with their lies!
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One such liar, wanting to deceive the girl, told her: “Father Paisius had a vision that you and I would get married. So take this little thing and put it around your neck. But don’t look what’s inside!” And he gave her some kind of witchcraft talisman. Fortunately, the girl did not put it on herself. “Oh, so it means that Father Paisiy is engaged in such “stuff!” - she boiled. Without thinking twice, she sat down at the table and wrote me a letter - full of strong expressions. Four pages of neat handwriting! She scolded me with the very last words! “Have a fight, have a fight,” I said, reading the letter, “it’s okay. For me, your swearing is like a balm - after all, you didn’t let yourself be deceived and didn’t put the demonic amulet on yourself!”
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They put a glass of water on the table and draw a circle around it with the alphabet: alpha, vita, gamma, and so on. Then they dip their fingers into the water and call upon the spirit, that is, the devil. The glass begins to move around the table, stops in front of the letters and thus words are formed. The children who came today called the spirit and when he came they asked: “Is there a God?” - "There is no god!" - the devil answered them. "And who are you?" - the children asked. "Satan!" - he answered them. “Is there a Satan?” - the children asked. "Eat!" - he answered them. That is, such nonsense that it doesn’t fit into any gate! There is no God, but there is a devil! And when they asked him again if there was a God, he answered them: “Yes, there is.” Either yes or no. So the children themselves didn’t know what to think. God arranged it this way to help them. And then one girl from their company took and broke this glass. She broke it according to God’s providence, so that the rest of the guys would also come to their senses.
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Today, many, wanting to do evil to someone, resort to the help of sorcerers who use wax dolls. Wax dolls are like a toy, a hobby for sorcerers.
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For a sorcerer to heal a sick person? A sorcerer can “heal” a person who is tormented by a demon by sending this demon to another person. After all, the sorcerer and the devil are friends and comrades. The sorcerer says to the devil: “Get out of this man and enter that one.” That is, when casting out a demon from a person who is under demonic influence, the sorcerer usually sends it to one of his relatives or acquaintances who has given the devil rights over himself. Then the person who had a demon in him says: “I suffered, and such and such a healer healed me.” So the sorcerer creates advertising. But in the end, the demon that comes out of a person circles around his relatives and acquaintances. Suppose, having fallen under demonic influence, a person became hunchbacked. The sorcerer can cast the demon out of this person and send it to another person. This way the hunchbacked person will straighten up. However, if he became hunchbacked due to an accident, the sorcerer cannot heal him.
About anger
If you get angry, you should see if you have the passion of anger. It’s one thing if a person in irritation says a harsh word because he is tired, something hurts, he has some problems, etc. Another may respond to a greeting: “Leave me alone!” - although they didn’t say anything bad to him, they just said “hello.” But the person is tired, he is in pain, that’s why he reacts this way. After all, even the most patient donkey, if overloaded, will kick.
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You get angry because you think that others are always to blame. Anger in you comes from the fact that you accept thoughts regarding others that come from the left.
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If you accept thoughts coming from the right, you will not pay attention to what they told you and how they told you. You will take responsibility and will not be angry.
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It looks like you have some hidden pride. Look, be careful, because anger carries self-justification, pride, impatience, and arrogance.
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Now even the flies are getting irritated! They have stubbornness and persistence! Previously, if you shooed away a fly, it would fly away. Now he sits stubbornly... But it is also true that today some types of activities not only do not help to achieve peace of mind, but can also make a naturally calm person nervous.
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A spiritual person can become angry, indignant, or scream, but for a serious spiritual reason. He has no evil inside, and he does not harm others. “Be angry and do not sin” - isn’t that what the prophet David says?
