"God created man with two ears; one to hear the first opinion and the other to hear the contrary opinion, and the mind in the middle of them to weigh both opinions and choose the best"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"God gave you the capacity to be angry in order for you to direct your anger to your own faults and thus correct yourself and revolt against your falls. In so doing, you would be carrying out the Lord's command in the psalm, 'Be angry, and do not sin' (Ps.4:4)"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"Do not measure your prayer by its length, but by its depth and its purity"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"It is not right to be angry and enraged, and it is also not right to make decisions at the time of your anger, and a third error is to swear in the name of the Lord"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"If the loving and humble person has to criticise, it will be for a specific situation on a vital matter; criticism is not a continuous and constant part of his life"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"For some people, if the mirror reveals to them a fault which they need to correct, instead of correcting the fault, they break the mirror!"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"The love that 'does not seek its own' is the love that can 'bear all things'. The self-centred person, however, does not know how to love as love ought to be, and if he does love, his 'love' cannot bear as it ought"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"In your relationships with others, try to understand the other person, even if they are opposing you. Understand their point of view and their way of thinking and their psyche, in order to know how to deal with them. Do not see the other person continually as the enemy, but try to study their point of view and to reason with them and reach a solution, in love"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"Be certain that God does not forsake you, however much you forsake Him. In the same instance in which you say, 'I sought Him, but I did not find Him' (Song 3:2), He is with you, working for your sake"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"Do not despair if you go through periods of [God's] abandonment; do not assume that it is a real abandonment, and do not assume that the abandonment will continue; how beautiful are the Lord's words about one of the periods of abandonment, 'For a mere moment I have forsaken you, but with great mercies I will gather you' (Isaiah 54:7)"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"The talkative person has no opportunity for prayer, and has no opportunity for the interior spiritual work. True is the saying of one of the saints: 'The talkative person indicates that he is void within', that is, void of the interior spiritual work"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"Tears have a voice that God hears even if without prayer, but they have a response from God's tender Heart"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"Many are attracted by numbers, any number! And assume that success in life is linked to numbers! Some priests rejoice at the number of those who confess to them or the number of those who attend church, and not with the number of repentants among them, and the number of actual repentants may be very small indeed!"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"The contrite prayer is a prayer of confession of sin and of unworthiness; in it there is no justification of self, nor giving excuses, it is a prayer in which the tax collector was not able to lift his eyes upward, and in humbleness stood afar"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"The contrite heart feels that he is not worthy of anything; he gives profuse thanks for the little that he has"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"The number of chapters that you read in the Holy Bible is not important, but what is important is the understanding and contemplation and application"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"He who works for his eternity, is always meticulous in all things lest he forfeit his crown though error or carelessness"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"How incredible that some who are given graces by God turn them into curses. Money is a grace, beauty is a grace, art is a grace, freedom is a grace, likewise knowledge and authority and administration. But how easy it is in practice for all these to become curses, in different ways! Through misuse these graces can turn into curses... And these graces, though competitiveness, can turn into curses!"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"Many will not accept surrendering to God unless their own human ways have failed"

+ Pope Shenouda +

"The spiritual servant does not work with his own personal abilities, but with the gifts of the Holy Spirit working in him; he is merely a vessel moved by the Holy Spirit in the ministry of the Kingdom. He lives in continual fellowship with the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit works in him and through him and with him"

+ Pope Shenouda +