We spend an enormous amount of energy making up our minds about other people. Not a day goes by without somebody doing or saying something that evokes in us the need to form an opinion about him or her. We hear a lot, see a lot, and know a lot. The feeling that we have to sort it all out in our minds and make judgments about it can be quite oppressive. The desert fathers
It is with charity as with happiness and holiness. It is not possible for you to say that you are happy because the moment you become conscious of your happiness you cease to be happy. What you call the experience of happiness is not happiness at all but the excitement and thrill caused by some person or thing or event. True happiness is uncaused. You are happy for no reason at all. And true happiness cannot be experienced. It is not within the realm of consciousness. It is unself-consciousness.
The Archbishop of Caesarea, Saint Basil is revered—together with Saints John Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzos—as one of the “Three Holy Hierarchs” of the Church. Together with that same Nazianzos and Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Basil is revered as one the “Cappadocian Fathers,” whose homiletical and mystical writings helped establish what is now considered the heart of Orthodox theology and spirituality.
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