27. If you are holding a grudge against someone,
pray for him so that the prayer — in banishing your sorrow from the inflicted
hurt — halts any rancor developing within you. If you are friendly and loving,
you will completely drive out this passion from your soul. When another person
is angry with you, be gentle and humble with him,
fraternize in a friendly spirit, thereby helping him to rid himself of malice.
27. Depending on how you pray for the one that has
denigrated you, God will assuredly reveal the truth to him accordingly.
27. When somebody insults you, beware of angry
thoughts, so that in excluding you from love they do not transfer you into the
realm of hatred.
28. When the demons observe that we despise earthly
things and because of them are unwilling to hate others or fall away from love,
they begin to raise slander against us, so that through not being able to
endure the vexation, we would hate our slanderers.
28. God is not glorified by that person who reverently
honors Him in words only, but by the one, who for His sake and His
commandments, patiently endures sufferings and trials. He glorifies God with
his life. In receiving the blessing of not having passions — as a reward for
attaching himself to the Savior’s virtues — such a person is reciprocally
exalted by God’s glory. Because, everybody who glorifies God
within himself through sufferings for righteousness, and while in a
contemplative state — is himself glorified through God’s pure rays of enlightenment.
That is why our Lord, in voluntarily submitting Himself to sufferings, said: "Now
the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified
in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself" (John 13:31-32).
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