In conclusion, I would like to
read a few lines from a discourse by Saint Basil the Great: "Let words of
consolation leap forward before the rest of your speech, confirming your love
for your neighbor."
You who are in the monastery,
when you approach your brother; you who are married, when you approach your
spouse; you who are a father or a mother, when you approach your child:
"Let words of consolation leap forward before the rest of your
speech." Whatever you say, whatever you think of saying, say it only after
you've said a word or two which will give the others joy, consolation, a breath
of life. Make them say, "I feel relief; I feel joy."
Make others... dance for joy when
they see you. Because everybody in their life, in their home, in their body,
and in their soul, has pain, illness, difficulties, torments, and everybody
hides them within the secret purse of his heart and home, so that others won't
know about it. I don't know what sort of pain you're in, and you don't know
what pain I'm in. I may laugh... and appear happy, but deep down, I'm in pain,
and I laugh to cover up my sorrow. And so, before anything else, greet the
other person with a smile.
And Saint Basil adds this:
"Let your face be bright, in order to give joy to him who speaks with
you." Once you've made the other person smile, don't stop smiling. This is
what it means to have a "bright face." Let your face be a radiant
sun, so that throughout the conversation the other will continue to feel the
same happiness. "Take delight in every achievement of your neighbor."
With respect to whatever achievement your neighbor has, rejoice along with him.
"For his achievements are yours, and yours are his." Let the one
share in the joy of the other.
In this way, there can be a
meeting, a true social relation, of monks and married people, of all people,
saints and sinners, giving is all the right and ability to pray. And when we
say, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me," everybody is included:
my husband, my wife, my brothers and sisters, my children, the whole world.
When God sees such love, when He sees the paradise in my heart, that my heart
has room for everybody, then it will be impossible for Him not to find room in
His paradise for me and for you.
~Archimandrite Amilianos of
Simonopetra, The Church at Prayer, p. 88.
