Saints

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. The other day I came across one of those memes (you know the ones) — an icon or photo of a beloved saint or ascetic with a quote beneath it. We’ll ignore for now how often those quotes are misattributed (and how much that grates on me like fingernails on a chalkboard). In this case, however, the words were correctly attributed to Nun Gavrilia (I know because I pored over her writings to check for it before I started writing this). ...

On October 7th in the Prologue from Ochrid (sometimes Ohrid) written by Saint Nikolai Velimirovic, the “For Consideration” section has a story about St. Andrew the Fool-for-Christ. In the story, St. Andrew is having a vision of a demon who says to the saint: “You’re the greatest enemy I have in the whole of Constantinople!”. Keep silent, refrain from judgement. This will raise you above the deadly arrows of slander, insult, outrage, and will shield your glowing hearts against the evil that creeps around. — St. Seraphim of Sarov The story continues: instead of driving the demon away, St. Andrew let him speak for a while. This is what the devil said: ...