True knowledge: seeing afflictions as ours

Abba Mark’s teaching pierces the heart because it strips away our worldly sense of “justice” and places us before the wisdom of the Cross. The lawyer’s questions are not unlike our own: What do we do when wronged? What about fairness? What about the law? But the Elder directs him beyond human reasoning toward the spiritual law of Christ.

For the world, the offense is external, and the “solution” is measured by punishment and recompense. For the ascetic, the wound of injustice exposes what is hidden in the heart. If resentment rises, then the wrong is ours as much as the other’s. To forgive is not indulgence or naiveté—it is participation in the very judgment of God, who alone knows how to weigh every soul. Vengeance, on the other hand, is a kind of blasphemy: it accuses God of judging wrongly, and so it becomes a heavier sin than the original injury.

Here the Evergetinos reveals the paradox of the Gospel: to suffer wrong with gratitude is not weakness but true knowledge. To pray for those who wrong us confounds the demons and makes us sons of the Crucified. The magistrate may punish, but the monk endures; the court may balance debts, but love “endures all things.”

The Elder’s words burn away excuses. To forgive is not optional—it is the very condition of our own forgiveness. To harbor vengeance is to live in fantasy, enslaved to illusions of fairness. But to embrace affliction as one’s own and to entrust judgment to God is to step into the reality of mercy, where the only true justice is love.

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Text of chat during the group:

00:06:42 Adam Paige: Philokalia combined volume 1 to 5 by Nun Christina is indeed 825 pages long

00:06:54 Anna: I'm looking for The Philokalia St. Peter of Damascus

00:07:57 Bob Čihák, AZ: One of our current books is “The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, revised 2nd Edition” 2011, published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery, https://www.bostonmonks.com/product_info.php/products_id/635 . This hard-covered book is on the expensive side but of very high quality.

00:09:53 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 287, D

00:17:59 jonathan: st nick

00:18:02 Adam Paige: Jolly ol St Nick

00:18:30 Una: Santa Clause!

00:25:56 Nina and Sparky: It is a hard teaching, but it matches 1 Cor 6:7 Now indeed [then] it is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated?

00:26:19 Nina and Sparky: Sorry, It is Forrest!

00:31:35 Rick Visser: Should we not protest injustice?

00:37:44 Anthony: The decision of the Opus Dei Priest in the movie There Be Dragons has been one of my examples

00:38:21 Maureen Cunningham: What happens if you do not like them . How can you love them ??

00:41:08 Bob Čihák, AZ: Yet Christ threw over the tables of the money changers in the Temple, and maybe did even more?

00:43:35 Maureen Cunningham: Nelson Mandela  when went prisons. They were so hateful

00:44:57 Catherine Opie: I used to be an avid protestor and activist until one day at an anti nuclear protest outside the French Embassy in London I realised I was getting angry with people and pointing the finger at others when I lacked a great deal myself and am far from perfect. So who am I to rage at others?  After my conversion to Catholicism I have realised its not up to me, I certainly am not to participate in evil or condone it and can stand firm in my principles and do positive things to help others. But that it is simply necessary to pray for those who commit evil and injustice to others just as I would pray for those suffering injustice. I find I am less angry and wound up when I know I can offer these things up to God and that its way above my job description to save the world. Activism is such a distraction. And we can be manipulated by the agendas of man through our emotions.

00:46:10 Rick Visser: Simone Weil said: "The greatest and most efficacious vehicle for social and political change is sacrificial love."

00:46:22 Catherine Opie: Reacted to "Simone Weil said: "T..." with ❤️

00:47:18 jonathan: A Priest once told me, once you have the heart of Christ, then you can go flip tables, until then, be quite, be gentle and be peaceful. Blessed are those persecuted for my sake. Blessed are the meek, and poor in spirit.

00:47:37 Bob Čihák, AZ: Reacted to "A Priest once told m..." with 👍

00:48:03 Jacqulyn: Reacted to "Simone Weil said: "T..." with ❤️

00:49:14 Rick Visser: Her view was that sacrificial love is the very structure of divine reality and the only path to justice.

00:52:51 Anthony: The message of Peace after 9/11 from Pope St John Paul 2 and Bishop Michael of the Romanian Catholics helped bring me back to the Church.

01:08:18 Maureen Cunningham: Many women have died by staying with an abuser. God would never want that

01:09:47 Larry Ruggiero: The landowner gave from his abundance and in doing so he secured workers for tomorrow.

01:09:59 Rick Visser: Radical

01:11:33 Janine: Thank you Father!

01:12:10 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you🙂

01:12:30 Catherine Opie: God bless