My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE. Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ.

THE SAYINGS (Part II)
by Mother Gabriel [From Mother Gabriel, the Ascetic of Love]

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Never wish for anything but the Will of God and accept with love any trials that may come your way.
Never identify a person with the wrong way in which he is treating you, but see Christ in his heart.
Never ask: "Why has this happened to me". When you see somebody suffering from gangrene or cancer or blindness, never say: "Why has this happens happened to him". Instead, pray to God to grant you the vision of the other shore...Then, like the Angels, you will be able to see things as they really are: Everything in God's plan. Everything.
A wise man said: If you are to live only for yourself, it would have been better if you had not been born.
When thoughts of passing judgment on another person cross your mind, pray to God to take them away at once, so that you may love this person as He does. Then God will help you see your own faults. If Christ were visible, could you have such thoughts?
If you do not like somebody, think that you see Christ in that person. Then, you would not even dare utter a word of criticism.
We must love people and accept them in our hearts as God presents them to us. It has been thus ordained by the Lord Himself and by the Orthodox Holy Tradition.
The faculty of judgment (Krisis) comes naturally to man. Criticism (Katakrisis) and reproval spring from malice. Discernment (Diakrisis) is a gift from God and we should pray for it. It is essential to our protection and progress.
The life of the Church extends beyond moral discipline and religious duty. It is the transcendence of Morality to Spirituality.
The voice of God is silence.
When we must be helped, God will send someone to us. We are all fellow-travelers.
Whoever lives in the Past is like a dead man. Whoever lives in the future in his imagination is naive, because the future belongs to God. The joy of Christ is found in the Present, in the Eternal Presence of God.
Our destination is to worship God and love our fellow-man.
We find happiness and peace only by living according to God's Commandments.
Let God intervene between you and your purpose instead of letting your purpose intervene between you and God.
The agony of dying is the effort made by the soul to free herself and run towards the Lord.
A miracle is the normal course of events according to God's Will. What we call a miracle is only what is natural to God.
If we meet with an adversity, let us not ask who is to blame. Because the blame is only ours. We shall find the reason if we ask for it in our Prayer: perhaps we have not loved enough, or we have disobeyed another Commandment, or we have mishandled the situation, or we have moved faster than we should, or we have relied on the wrong person.
Anxiety is for those who have no Faith.
Love is only on the Cross.

(To be continued)

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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!"--Saint John Chrysostom

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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George