Imparting Peace and Words of Comfort
One Friday they were out harvesting and it was Simeon’s turn to cook the midday meal. Forgetting that it was Friday, he prepared a dish of pork for their lunch, and they all ate of it. Six months later, on a feast-day in winter, Simeon’s father turned to him with a gentle smile and said,
St Silouan the Athonite ‘Son, do you remember how you gave us pork to eat that day in the fields? It was a Friday. I ate it but, you know, it tasted like carrion.’‘Why ever didn’t you tell me at the time?’‘I didn’t want to upset you, son.’Recalling such incidents from his life at home, the Staretz would add, ‘That is the sort of staretz I would like to have. He never got angry, was always even-tempered and humble. Just think - he waited six months for the right moment to correct me without upsetting me!’
+ Archmandrite Sophrony, "Part 1: The Staretz' Life and Teaching," in "Saint Silouan the Athonite." Translated by Rosemary Edmonds. (New York: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1999) 12-13.
"Therefore, you have to choose the appropriate time at which people can endure your speech. You should perceive that everybody you talk to is a human being who has emotions that can be hurt, or at least affected and fatigued. You should regard the sensitiveness of people and should not use an iron hammer where a significant hint would be sufficient. You should be kind and compassionate so as to relieve others. You should also keep away from oppressive judgment."
+ HH Pope Shenouda III
Good shepherds are willing to lay down their lives for their sheep (John10:11). As spiritual leaders walking the footsteps of Jesus, we are called to lay down our lives for our people.
This laying down might in special circumstances mean dying for others. But it also means first of all making our own lives - our sorrows and joys, our despair and hope, our loneliness and experience of intimacy - available to others as sources of new life.
One of the greatest gifts we can give others is ourselves. We offer consolation and comfort, especially in moments of crisis, when we say, "Do not be afraid, I know what you are living and I am living it with you. You are not alone." Thus, we become Christ-like shepherds.
+ Fr Henri Nouwen
"And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."
+ Ephesians 4:11-16
"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you"
+ John 14:27
