…Every time when someone
insulted him or sneered at him, he took the piece of paper out of his belt,
read it, remembered the promise of endurance which he had made to God, and calmed
down. Some of the brothers wondered
at his patience and began to love him.
Others, in their malice, said, “He is doing some kind of magic to calm
himself. Whenever we annoy him, he takes
a piece of paper out of his belt, and when he looks at it, his anger passes
away. This business is not good. He must be a magician…”
With such suspicions in their hearts, the spiteful monks went to
the abbot and slandered the young brother before him. The abbot investigated the matter, found out
the innocence of the brother, and for his justification and as a lesson to all,
he summoned all monks to himself. When
the accusations against the young brother were repeated, the abbot ordered him
to show the piece of paper before everyone. The young monk obeyed, took out the paper and
read the writing, “I will endure
everything for Jesus Christ’s sake.”
Then the accusers were ashamed and silenced, and the brother, acquitted
and praised, lived peacefully with the respect and love of the monks.
In the same way, if we endure everything for Jesus Christ’s
sake, we will be saved.
When we quarrel and fight, we always consider ourselves right
and the others guilty. This is a result
of our pride, and pride is the greatest obstacle to the peace of our soul. When no one bothers us, we are calm and
consider ourselves very good. But when
someone offends us, we get insulted and enraged and think that the other person
is the cause of our anger. No, he is not
to blame for it! The real cause is in
the passions that are dormant in us.
They have dozed quietly while they were not irritated, but at the first
occasion they show their sting.
The man who has insulted us is not to blame that we are so
proud, touchy, and sensitive that we cannot endure even the least offense. The fact that the offender can even bring
benefit to a meek and humble soul, and that he becomes a cause of sin only for
the proud one, testifies very clearly that the offender cannot be considered
guilty for our spitefulness and strife.
He only provides an occasion for the feelings that are already hidden in
our soul to gush forth.
If a man breaks moldy bread which has grown musty inside but has
retained its good outward look, is he to blame for the mold on the bread? With our hidden passions we resemble
whitewashed tombs wonderful on the outside and filled with stench on the
inside. According to the instructions of
the Holy Fathers, if we want to be corrected, we should blame ourselves and not
get angry at others. Instead of getting
angry at the brother who has become the occasion for our passions to explode,
we should rather thank him for helping us to know ourselves.
Happy is he who has learned that he himself is to blame for his
own sins. This realization will lead him
to repentance; the repentance—to humility; the humility—to endurance; and the
endurance—to salvation.
Text found in The
Meaning of Suffering and Strife & Reconciliation, by Archimandrite
Seraphim Aleksiev, pp 101-107. Book is
available from St. Herman Press and can be ordered from their web site: http://www.sainthermanmonastery.com/ This is a book that can be read again and
again and always be found edifying and profitable to the soul.
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