وجبـــــــة روحيـــــ(†)ــــــــــة يوميـــــــــة

[Mary Naeem]

The fourth step is not to resist. This attitude was advised by Christ: “But I say unto you, That ye resist no evil.” (Mt 5:39)
The fifth step is not to be irritated by what our enemies do to us [footnote: St. Maximus the Confessor, Centuries on Charity I,38, II,49], but to bear [5], to show patience [6], to endure all we are made to suffer, following the example of the Apostle: “Being persecuted, we suffer it” (I Cor 4:12) and following what he describes elsewhere as an ideal: “For ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face.” (II Cor 11:20)

[Mary Naeem]

The sixth step is not to get inwardly upset about insults, abuse, trials and affliction that our enemies make us suffer [7], or as St. Simeon the New Theologian puts it: “not to turn a hair during trials and to have an equable and uniform attitude towards those who abuse one face to face, who accuse, persecute, condemn, insult, spit, or even to those who make a show of friendship and behind one’s back act in the same way that they can’t completely hide.” We must add that this can happen on different planes, as this attitude also has different steps. On the lowest step it can be allied to contempt, and so be the opposite to love; one step higher it can be allied to indifference, and so still not be in accordance with love; on a higher plane it can show that one has attained impassibility, and higher still, be allied to true charity.

[Mary Naeem]

The seventh step is to consider offenses as a gift , to rejoice about them , and to thank God for them. He who has reached this step understands the meaning of these words of Christ: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.” (Mt 5:11) The Fathers advise us to consider the person who offends us as a physician providentially come to cure our souls of its diseases, particularly pride and vainglory [10], they emphasize the profit one can gain from what one is made to suffer. St. Zosima said: “If someone remembers a brother who has hurt, injured or insulted him, he must regard him as a doctor and benefactor sent by Christ. If you get upset in these circumstances, it means your soul is sick. Indeed, if you were not sick, you would not suffer. So give thanks to this brother, for through him you know your illness. Pray for him and receive what comes from him as medicine sent to you by the Lord.” St. John of Gaza writes, “If we are just, the trial sent us [by our enemies] is for our progress, and if we are unjust, it is for the remission of sins and our improvement; it is also an exercise and a lesson in endurance.”

[Mary Naeem]

The eighth step is to offer yourself voluntarily to suffer offenses . This attitude is advised by Christ: “Whosoever shall strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Mt 5:39)
The ninth step is to want to suffer more than one is asked to endure .
The tenth step is to feel no hate for those who ill-treat us .
The eleventh step is to feel no rancor, wrath or resentment [14] towards our enemies. St. John Climacus wrote: “Charity is first of all to reject every thought of enmity, because charity thinks no ill.” (I Cor 13:5)

[Mary Naeem]

The twelfth step is not to accuse our enemies, not to criticize them, not to speak ill of them, not even to reveal the harm they have done to us .
The thirteenth step is not to despise them .
The fourteenth step is to feel no trace of aversion or repulsion towards them .
The fifteenth step is not to feel the slightest bitterness towards them or to the memory of what they have done to us, nor the slightest sadness .
The sixteenth step is not to judge them at all and only to consider one’s own faults. This in answer to Christ’s teaching: “Judge not, that ye be not judged . . . And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” (Mt 7:1-3)

[Mary Naeem]

The seventeenth step is to sincerely forgive them . This attitude makes us worthy to invoke God for the forgiveness of our own faults in the prayer the Lord taught us: “And forgive us for our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Mt 6:12), and shows that we take these words of Christ seriously: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Mt 6:14). This forgiveness in its highest form does not even remember what one has suffered. St. Simeon the New Theologian notes that in this degree love of enemies consists in “covering with total oblivion what one has suffered, think of nothing that has happened, whether the persecutors are present or absent.”

[Mary Naeem]

Still these seventeen first steps don’t yet take us into what is love proper, although they are its indispensable conditions and preparatory stages that one must pass. Love is not simply the absence of enmity and it is very superior to it [22]. In this respect St. Maximus the Confessor writes: “To feel no envy, nor wrath, nor bitterness towards the offender does not yet mean to have love for him. One can, without any love, avoid rendering evil for evil because of the commandment. Not to hate someone, does not yet mean to love him. One can feel for him something between the two: not love and not hate. It is the following steps that will bring us to real love.

[Mary Naeem]

The eighteenth step is to strive to be reconciled with one’s enemies , as ordained by Christ: “First be reconciled with thy brother” (Mt 5:24), “Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him” (Mt 5:25). By this attitude we show a desire of union that is the foundation of love, contrary to this is the tendency to division and separation.

[Mary Naeem]

The nineteenth step is to feel pity and compassion for them . This attitude is in answer to Christ’s counsel, given in the context of His teaching on the love of enemies: “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful” (Lk 6:36). This is how St. Isaac the Syrian describes him who has real compassion for all beings in creation, and so also for his enemies: “When he thinks of them, and when he sees them, tears run from his eyes. So strong and so violent is his compassion, and so great is his constancy that it wrings his heart and he can’t bear to hear or to see the least harm or the slightest sadness in creation.”

[Mary Naeem]

The twentieth step implies not only that one renounces being avenged by God, but also wishing that He will not punish our enemies. The Apostle’s instruction — “Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Rom 12:19) — seems to have been given to beginners hardly able to give up their own revenge. This twentieth step consists positively in wanting God to forgive our enemies, to keep and save them .