“Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.” Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Hurt people..hurt people”…assume that behind every difficult person, there is a lot of hidden hurt!
Creating lists…
“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.” Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
Focus on the good in others…
The key to happiness
Selflessness = happiness
Germinal (Émile Zola)
“If people can just love each other a little bit, they can be so happy.”
Hope
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl
The virtue of hope
Suffering with nobility
“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.” Fyodor Dostoevsky
We all suffer…the question is, do you embrace it out of love for Jesus with a spirit of trust and Faith? And do you lean into Christ with “daily” prayer to gain the necessary graces for this to happen?
3 ingredients to holiness
Obedience, fasting and prayer
“Obedience, fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real true freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud and wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God’s help I attain freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy.” Fyodor Dostoevsky
Obedience to God’s plan, fasting your pride, vanity and laziness, and dedicating serious time to prayer= deep joy and peace. God notices and blesses this effort to imitate his son!