Abba Sisoe asked a brother: `What are you doing?` And he answered:`I’m wasting my time, father.` The elder said: `I am thankful to God even when I waste my time.` (Sisoe, 54) In the ascetic strain of the live in the desert it is hard to imagine how is to waste time. And today when we are all exceedingly busy to waste time is almost a blasphemy. But it is important to convert even the wasted time in a spiritual benefit. Meaning to bring it back to God, the One who created the time of the world. It is not known what gain may be found in the human waste of time. It is not known what you can found in change for the wasted time.
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Some elders went to abba Pimen and asked him : `If we see the brothers drowsy at the holy liturgy should we shake them to keep them awake ? And he said: `When I see a brother falling asleep, I keep his head on my knee to let him rest.` (Pimen, 92) The kindness of the heart is beyond any other ascetic endeavour. In the sweetness of the innocent rest, under the protection of a loving brother the liturgy is not lost, but fulfilled. The one who sleeps and the one who guards his sleep participate at the same mystery. There is no place for any military exigencies, for formal discipline, for pedantic rebukes. Everything is filled by the uncomplicated nature of faith.
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They also said about him that late on the nights from Saturday to Sunday he left the sun behind him and raised his hands to the sky in prayer until the sun shone before him. Then he sat. (Arsenios, 30) In this posture abba Arsenios resumes the archetypal position of the believer: crucified between East and West, with the face towards darkness waiting for the daylight. The evening (and autumn) represent the initial phenomenon of faith. That is why the ecclesiastical year begins in autumn, at the end of the calendar year) The first gesture is a plunge in the great shadow of the world and in the bright divine darkness. You stay and wait praying. You make from the fact of being apprehensive the settlement of your life.
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Abba Theodotos said: `Do not judge the fornicator only because you refrain. You break the law too but in a different way.». And indeed Who said: Do not commit adultery» also said «Do not judge the others!»“ (Theodotos, 2)
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Makarios the Egyptian, 39: A bad word makes even the good ones bad and a good word makes good even the bad ones.`
Source: Patericon
