One of the reasons this particular excerpt stood out, is that I was recently self-caught (OK Spirit caught! Give credit where credit is due!) redhanded with this sin. This told me what the right attitude is:
REFLECTION At the time of the First Ecumenical Council [Nicaea, 325], the quarreling clerics wrote accusations one against the other and presented them to the emperor. Emperor Constantine received all of these accusations and, not opening them, burned them over a lit candle. To the amazement of those around him, the emperor said: “If I saw with my own eyes a bishop, a priest or a monk in a sinful act, I would cover him with my cloak, so that no one would ever see his sin.” Thus, this great Christian emperor embarrassed the scandalmongers and sealed their mouths. Our Faith prohibits us from being spies of the sins of others and stresses that we be merciless judges of our own sins. The sick person in the hospital is concerned with his own particular malady, so that he has neither the will nor the time to question others who are ill or to mock their illness. Are we not all in this world as patients in a hospital? Does not our own common sense emphasize that we look at our own illness and not at another’s? Let no one think that he will be cured of his illness in the other world. It is this world that is the hospital and place for healing; in the next world there is no hospital; there is either a palace or a prison.
Velimirovich, Saint Nikolai. The Prologue of Ohrid (p. 608). Sebastian Press. Kindle Edition.
REFLECTION At the time of the First Ecumenical Council [Nicaea, 325], the quarreling clerics wrote accusations one against the other and presented them to the emperor. Emperor Constantine received all of these accusations and, not opening them, burned them over a lit candle. To the amazement of those around him, the emperor said: “If I saw with my own eyes a bishop, a priest or a monk in a sinful act, I would cover him with my cloak, so that no one would ever see his sin.” Thus, this great Christian emperor embarrassed the scandalmongers and sealed their mouths. Our Faith prohibits us from being spies of the sins of others and stresses that we be merciless judges of our own sins. The sick person in the hospital is concerned with his own particular malady, so that he has neither the will nor the time to question others who are ill or to mock their illness. Are we not all in this world as patients in a hospital? Does not our own common sense emphasize that we look at our own illness and not at another’s? Let no one think that he will be cured of his illness in the other world. It is this world that is the hospital and place for healing; in the next world there is no hospital; there is either a palace or a prison.
Velimirovich, Saint Nikolai. The Prologue of Ohrid (p. 608). Sebastian Press. Kindle Edition.
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