[The topic is spending time in Church at the Liturgy and the Prayer Offices] Don't, then, be careless, beloved, about spending time here. For if some despondency is troubling you, here it is chased away; if business concerns, they turn away; if irrational passions, they are extinguished. We go home from the marketplace and the theatre and other gatherings in the outside world trailing a great number of worries and despondencies and sicknesses of the soul. If you constantly spend time here, you will completely discard those evils which you received out in the world. But if you turn away and flee, you will completely destroy even those blessings you acquired from the divine Scriptures, while your wealth is gradually sucked down the drain by the gatherings and conversations in the outside world. And that these assertions are true, when you go home from here make an effort to catch sight of those who stayed away today and you will see how substantial the divide between your cheerfulness and their despondency. - St. John Chrysostom, *On Saint Lucian* par. 2
2 comments:
I like that very much, I can envision the cares of the world trailing after me, like Pigpen.
Amen, mimi! Me too.
"Let us lay aside all earthly cares that we may receive the King of all, invisibly upborne by angel wings..."
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