Quote of the Week

“Do not measure yourself in any deed” (St. Isaiah the Solitary). Do not stay to judge yourself for something you have done
—good, bad, virtue, sin—or to compare it with others. How often we are dealing with this! Let us forget those that are
behind us and show no interest in what we have done. Because, by examining what we did, we discover that we have done
something important or something bad, something greater and nicer and more successful than someone else, or something
smaller. Whether we judge the thing in itself, or in connection to someone else, we will fall into one of two traps: either into
pride, if it will be something good or better, or into discouragement, into misery, into the disintegration of our being, if it
will not be good. Because, for as much as we think that we are mature, for as much as we believe that we have power, we
carry in ourselves the ineptitude of Adam and Eve, the frail ego that our ancestors bequeathed us. Therefore, in order to
remain untroubled in your thoughts, never stay to think of what you have done. Tis is valid for everything that happens
with us. But how will I confess, if I don’t judge? In confession I don’t make an analysis of my deeds, but the revealing of my
sins. Tis is a different thing, since I do not evaluate my deeds, I simply relate them. I don’t stay to think what I have done
earlier and what I have not done, since this creates in my soul a suffocating atmosphere. If we fnd out that we have done
something better, you do understand into how much egotism we can fall. The word “do not measure yourself in any deed” is
real wisdom. Most, when they fell, they also fell for this reason, or we use it to justify our passions. For example: I sinned
once and afterwards I say, “What good is it now to repent?” What misery! How much is our self torn to shreds this way!

Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra (trans. Fr. Silviu Bunta from Αρχιμανδρίτου Αιμιλιανού Σιμωνοπετρίτου,
Λόγοι Ασκητικοί. Ερμηνεία στον Αββά Ησαΐα [ΣΤ ́ έκδοση; Αθήνα: Ινδικτος, 2020], 52-53, in Silviu N. Bunta,
‘Your Life Will Be Hung Before Your Eyes. Meanings of Our Life in Orthodox Liturgy [Dayton: Cherubim
Press, 2022], 20-21)