Have great care of your children. We live at a time when much freedom is given to the expression of thought, but little care is taken that thoughts should be founded on truth. Teach them to love truth.
He who speaks dispassionately of his brother's sin does so either to correct him or to benefit another. If he speaks for any other reason, either to the brother himself or to another person, he speaks to abuse him or ridicule him.
The most important thing during illness is to offer to God patience and thanksgiving for His merciful visitations. Sickness purifies sins and gives one time to meditate on the past.
Some temptations bring men pleasure, some grief, some bodily pain. The Physician of souls by means of His judgments applies the remedy to each soul according to the cause of its passions.
Just as the human word which proceeds naturally from the mind is messenger of the secret movements of the mind, so does the Word of God, who knows the father by essence as Word knows the Mind which has begotten it (since no created being can approach the Father without Him), reveal the Father whom He knows. As the Word of God by nature, He is spoken of as the 'messenger of the great plan of God'.
A man of good sense, realizing how beneficial are the judgments of God, thankfully endures the tribulations they bring him, holding none guilty but his own sins. But a foolish man, when he sins and is punished, regards as the culprit of his ills either God or men, not discerning the wisdom of Divine Providence.
Do not lend your ear to the tongue of the slanderer, nor your tongue to the ear of him who likes malicious talk, speaking or listening with enjoyment to words against one's neighbor. Cut yourself off from them, lest you fall away from love of God and find yourself exiled from eternal life.
Someone may say: 'I have faith, and faith suffices for salvation.' St. James gives him the answer: 'Even the demons believe, and shudder. Faith without works is dead.' (James 2:17-19)
In the eyes of God, it is always preeminently right that a man should spend himself in devising new means for spreading consolation to his subordinates, who are his charges.
How harmful is the praise of man! Even though a person may have done something worthy of praise, when he enjoys the sound of praise he is already deprived of future glory, according to teachings of the holy fathers.
