Feast Day Quote

...."Come now, I am going to ease the soreness of your despondency and scatter the thoughts which have given rise to this sombre cloud. What bewilders your mind, why do you grieve and torment yourself? Because the storm that has rushed upon the Churches is fierce and threatening, because it has shrouded all in moonless darkness and is working up to a crisis, day after day bringing cruel shipwreck while the whole world is toppling over into ruin? I am aware of this too; there is no one to deny it. Whenever you hear that one of the Churches has been submerged, another tossed in dire distress, this one drowned by the angry flood, that mortally injured in some way, that a certain Church has received a wolf instead of a shepherd, a second a pirate instead of a helmsman, a third an executioner instead of a physician, be saddened by all means, for one ought not to endure such things without pain. But since grieve you must, at the same time set a limit to your sorrow." .....

..."I am conscious of these disasters, yet for all that I do not relinquish a most firm hope. I keep my mind fixed on the Pilot of all things; He does not ride the storm by steersmanship, but by a mere nod He breaks the surging of the sea, and if not immediately, if not at once, that precisely is His way. He does not cut calamities short at the outset, but averts them only as they approach their climax when almost all have abandoned hope. Only then does He show forth wonders and miracles and display that power which is His alone, while he schools the sufferers in patience.

Do not lose heart then. There is only one thing to be feared, Olympias, only one trial, and that is sin. I have told you this over and over again. All the rest is beside the point, whether you talk of plots, feuds, betrayals, slanders, abuses, accusations, confiscation of property, exile, sharpened swords, open sea or universal war. Whatever they may be, they are all fugitive and perishable. They touch the mortal body but wreak no harm on the watchful soul."....."Why then fear the things that are temporal which will roll on in an ever-flowing stream? Whether pleasant or painful, the present does not last forever.

Do not be perturbed therefore by all that is going on. Give up crying for help to this person or that and chasing shadows -for such is all human endeavour. Rather should you incessantly invoke Jesus whom you adore, that He may but turn His face towards you. Then, in one decisive moment, all your trouble is ended."

~St John Chrysostom,

in a letter to Olympias, June, 404 A.D.