And a belated "Happy Christmas" to all following the Julian Calendar!
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Learn from your own experience to sympathize with those in trouble, and never to terrify with destructive despair those who are in danger, nor harden them with severe speeches, but rather restore them with gentle and kindly consolations.
This excerpt was taken from the book “The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series Vol. XI”
Piotr Ilyich Kamenev: This is you. Political prisoner 103592R, Kiril Pavlovich Lakota. All of you is here, from the day you were born until now. Except for the answer to one question. What have you learned in twenty years of confinement?
Kiril Lakota: That is a big question, Piotr Ilyich.
Piotr Ilyich Kamenev: The answer is important to me, you know.
Kiril Lakota: What I have learned? I have learned that without some kind of loving a man withers like a grape on a dying vine.
Piotr Ilyich Kamenev: Is that all?
Kiril Lakota: [Chuckles] I am trying to learn more.
(The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968 MGM)