No vice or passion appears under its real name. Fornication goes by the name of love, covetousness calls itself prosperity, gambling by fun, drunkenness and partying, by friendship, envy by justice and equality. In fact, often behind the rebellion against injustice and inequality is ordinary envy!
Nikolaj VelimirovicMore Nikolaj Velimirovic quotes
Bless my enemies, O Lord. And I bless them and do not curse them. My enemies have driven me into Your arms more than my friends have. My friends have bound me to the earth; My enemies have loosened my bonds from the earth and have torn up all my hopes in the earth. They have turned me into a stranger in the kingdoms of this earth and into a superfluous inhabitant of this earth. Like an animal that finds a safer shelter when hunted down rather than when not, so have I, hunted down by my enemies, found the safest shelter by hiding under Thy tent where neither friend nor foe can slay my soul. Bless my enemies, O Lord. And I bless them and do not curse them. They, instead of me, have confessed my sins before the world.
Nikolaj Velimirovic
That God may forgive us, let us forgive men. We are all on this earth as temporary guests. Prolonged fasting and prayer is in vain Without forgiveness and true mercy. God is the true Physician; sins are leprosy. Whomever God cleanses, God also glorifies. Every merciful act of men, God rewards with mercy. He who returns sin with sin perishes without mercy. Pus is not cleansed by pus from infected wounds, Neither is the darkness of the dungeon dispelled by darkness, But pure balm heals the festering wound, And light disperses the darkness of the dungeon. To the seriously wounded, mercy is like a balm; As if seeing a torch dispersing the darkness, everyone rejoices in mercy. The madman says, "I have no need of mercy!” But when he is overcome by misery, he cries out for mercy! Men bathe in the mercy of God, And that mercy of God wakens us to life! That God may forgive us, let us forgive men, We are all on this earth as temporary guests.
Nikolaj Velimirovic
