Let's not jump to conclusions easily

– Elder, what will help me not to judge?

– Is everything always as you think?

– No.

– Well, then you should say: “I do not always think correctly; I am often wrong. Here, in this case I thought this way, but it turned out that I was wrong. In the other case, I judged in one way, but I was mistaken, and thus I wronged the other. Therefore, I must not listen to my thoughts.” Each of us, more or less, has had cases when he was mistaken in his judgment. If he remembers the cases when he judged and was mistaken, then he will avoid judging. But even if he was never mistaken, but was right, how does he know the intentions of the other? Does he know how this or that thing happened? Let us not jump to conclusions easily.

When I was young, I too was always judging. Because I lived with little thoughtfulness and had a false piety, I judged everything that seemed to me wrong. When someone lives in the world a little more spiritually, he can see many flaws in others, and almost none of the virtues. He cannot see those who cultivate virtue, because they live in secret, but he sees those who do wrong and condemns them. “This one does this, that one walks this way, the other looks that way…”.

Do you know what happened to me once? I went with an acquaintance of mine to attend the Holy Liturgy at a monastery in Monodendri, located nine hours away from Konitsa. When I entered the Church, my acquaintance went to the pew to sing, and I went to the pew behind the psalter; from there I followed the service and quietly chanted. At one point, a rather young woman dressed in black came, sat down next to me, and kept looking at me. She looked at me and crossed herself. She looked at me and crossed herself… I started to get worried. “Wow, I said to myself, what kind of person is this woman? Why is she looking at me so shamelessly in the Church?” I didn’t even see my sisters when they passed me on the road. They would then go and complain to my mother: “I met Arsenie[1], they would say, but he didn’t talk to me!” “Well,” my mother would say, “you meet your sisters on the road, and you don’t talk to them?” “Am I looking to see if the one passing by me is my sister?” I told her. We have a lot of relatives[2]. Don’t I have anything else to do?” I mean, I would go to such extremes. Let your sister pass you by and don't talk to her! Finally... As soon as the Holy Mass was over, this woman in black went and asked the priest to tell me to go to her house, because I looked a lot like her son, who had been killed in the war. When I got to the woman's house, I saw the photo of her son. Indeed, we looked as if we were brothers. The poor woman looked at me in the Church and crossed herself as if she saw her son. And I said to myself: "Why is this woman looking at me like that in the Church, without any fear of God?" But afterwards, do you know how much this incident changed me inside? “Look, I said to myself, you have such thoughts that who knows what kind of woman she is to be not ashamed at all in the Church…, and she, the poor thing, had lost her child and was in grief!”.

Another time, I judged my brother, who was in the military at the time. The quartermaster of the unit had sent me a message: “I gave your brother two cans of oil. What happened to them?”. “But he,” I said to myself, “was bringing soldiers home and hosting them. How could he do this now, to take oil from the army?” And immediately, full of indignation, I wrote a letter to my brother. And he answered me: “Ask the cans from the chaplain of the Church in the valley!”. He had sent the oil to Koniţa to the Church in the valley, because it was poor. "Well done, Paisius!" I said to myself then.

The other time you judged that poor woman, and now your brother. Next time, don't judge anyone!" I mean that when I saw that I was wrong in my judgment, I would examine myself: "In such and such a situation, I said about the other that he acted in a certain way, but things were different. Another time I drew a conclusion, but it was wrong." In this way, I put myself in order. "Next time, I said to myself, you will not judge at all! It's over! You have a crooked mind, and you see everything wrong. Try to become a fair person!" Afterwards, when something seemed crooked to me, I would say to myself: "I think things are different here, but I am the one who doesn't understand well. Whenever I put the wrong thought, I was wrong." I came to justify everyone only when I began to loathe myself; for others, I always found[1] extenuating circumstances and judged only myself. But if a man does not watch himself, he treats everything with indifference, and then at the Judgment he will have no word of justification. It takes manhood to break the habit of condemning[3].

So:

Get off to a good start! STOP.

STOP the thoughts of judgment! Amen.

I wish you a good cleansing of mind and heart.

[1] The Abbot's baptismal name.

[2] The Abbot had seven brothers. At that time, his three older sisters had already started families.

[3] The Abbot wrote these words in the form of a telegram to a novice sister.

Saint Paisios the Athonite