Fr. Paisios Jung, the Abbot of St. Maria Schutz Monastery, Austria, talks about an easy way to help your partner: stop judging and teaching them and try to live together as children of God.

Languages: English, German, Romanian

Fr. Paisios Jung:

Women come to confession more frequently than men and they criticize their husbands…
“He doesn’t fast, he doesn’t pray, he is angry, he criticizes everything…”
And I tell them, “You are not his teacher, you are not his judge… and vice versa. You are partners, you are children of God, which God brought together. One should be a constructive presence for the other, and not to bring him or her down… And then we will see how our families will flourish and shine.
Because when Christ seeks a family, everything is going to change… But this also means asceticism, spiritual practice… I have to fight with self-love [philautia], with my selfishness… All these things make the joy of Christ to stay with me always so that I can “contaminate” others …

I always tell my fathers at the monastery (I talk to them a lot… and I give them a lot of teachings): “We are not teachers! We are obedient to the teachings of Christ!”
And so it must be in our lives and in the lives of our families. We are not teachers, we are not judges, we are children of God who listen to their heavenly Father, what He wants from us, that we may do His will…

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