To endure the other, you must love him


- Elder, how is patience acquired?

- Patience is based on love. Love endures all things, says the Apostle. To endure the other, you must love him, to hurt for him. If you don't hurt for him, you feel him as a burden.

- Elder, when the mother I work with is agitated, I sympathize with her and am patient with her. Does this behavior have love in it?

- And how do you know that you are not the reason why she is agitated and that she is not patient with you? If you believe that you are in a better spiritual state and that you endure her, then you must pity yourself. When there is true love and patience, then you justify the other and accuse only yourself. “My God, I am guilty! Do not consider me! Cast me aside and help the other!” This is the correct attitude, the one full of humility, and as a result of which a person receives the Grace of God in abundance. I will pray that you will become spiritually like a lion cub, like bronze lions, who support the candlesticks of the church with their backs and who neither get agitated, nor hear, nor speak, but carry the burden on their backs. Amen.

Saint Paisios the Athonite

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