God tolerates, endures, understands …. and us?
+ Saint Evmenios the New (Saridakis)
Many of us want the thieves to go to jail, the murderers to be executed, the offenders to be punished ... When you repay evil with evil, evil multiplies. When you see someone being punished justly and you rejoice, it shows a hard-hearted person ... When you judge others by purely external criteria, you are not fair. When you do not tolerate them, you make your life difficult in the name of your justice and you will be shown the same treatment for your own crimes. God tolerates, waits, understands, sympathizes, is crucified for every human being. He only knows how to love, to speak to our conscience discreetly, to hinder with kindness. Christ said, “Blessed are the meek, the quiet, the lowly, and the one who weeps for his own sins, for they will inherit the earth...” Love, forgive, justify and endure in order to be loved, to be forgiven, to be accepted, to be deeply calmed from this life. Live as the last of all, like the soil we tread on, but which supports us all. A Saint of our day was telling us: “Never accuse any priest or one who has dedicated his life to God, neither the worldly nor the greatest sinners, even if you see them sinning. View all the people who live on earth and those who have fallen asleep since the creation of the world, them as holy and righteous, and view only ourselves as sinners, the least of the all people, and worthy of condemnation and of many punishments. It is good and God-pleasing to die for the world and to live eternally with God.”
Source (in Greek): http://trelogiannis.blogspot.com/2022/05/blog-post_797.html