Love does not envy others

Envy and jealousy, its counterpart, are sinful because they lead us to
sorrow over what should make us rejoice - namely, our neighbor's good.
The reason we may grieve over our another's good is that somehow we
see that good as lessening our own value or excellence. Envy forms
when we believe that the other person's advantage or possession
diminishes or brings disgrace on us. Envy is contrary to love. Both
the object of love and the object of envy is our neighbor's good, but
by contrary movements, since love rejoices in our neighbor's good,
while envy grieves over it.

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July 5th - St Athanasius the Athonite, Abbot

(c..1000)
FOR a 1000 years Athos, the Holy Mountain, the most easterly of the 3
large headlands which the peninsula of Chalcidice thrusts out into the
Aegean Sea, has been the chief centre of Byzantine monasticism; for
nearly all that time this " monastic republic" has been out of
communion with the Holy See, but at the time of its inception and
organization, and during the preceding centuries when it was occupied
by little colonies of hermits, Athos was Catholic and a stronghold of
orthodoxy in a different sense from that in which it is so today. The
father of Mount Athos as a congeries of regular monasteries was one
Athanasius, who was born at Trebizond about the year 920, the son of
an Antiochene, and baptized Abraham.

He studied at Constantinople, where he became a professor; and while
he was teaching he met St Michael Maleinos and his nephew, Nicephorus
Phocas, who as emperor was to be Abraham's patron. He received the
monastic habit in St Michael's monastery at Kymina in Bithynia, taking
the name of Athanasius, and lived there till about the year 958.
Kymina was a laura, the name then reserved for monasteries wherein the
monks lived in separate cells grouped more or less closely round their
church. When the abbot St Michael Maleinos died Athanasius saw that he
would be pretty surely elected in his place; he therefore fled, and
eventually found his way to Mount Athos, to avoid this responsibility
--only to find that God was reserving for him a greater.

He disguised himself as an ignorant fellow, assuming the name of
Dorotheus, and hid in a cell near Karyes, but he was soon traced and
found by his friend Nicephorus Phocas. He was about to undertake an
expedition against the Saracens, and persuaded Athanasius to come to
Crete to help him organize it (it is so often found that the
contemplative soul is a capable man of affairs which, after all, is
only to be expected) and to support it with his blessing and prayers. Athanasius was very unwilling to make this sally out into the world
and its concerns, but he went; the expedition was victorious, and
Athanasius asked permission to return to Athos. But before he was
allowed to, he was forced to accept a large sum of money, with which he
was to build a monastery. This, the first monastery proper on Athos,
was begun in the spring of 961 and the church two years later; it was
dedicated in honour of the All-holy Mother of God, but is now called
"of St Athanasius", or, more often, simply Laura, "The Monastery".

When Nicephorus Phocas became emperor, Athanasius feared that he might
be called to court or to other honours and disturbing offices, so he
ran away from Athos to Cyprus. Phocas again found him and told him to
go back and govern his monastery in peace, giving him more money, with
which was built a harbour for Athos. In adopting the laura system for
his monks, Athanasius had deliberately reversed the policy of St Basil
and St Theodore Studites and returned in a measure to the ancient
monastic tradition of Egypt; his monks were to be as "out of the
world" as is possible for human beings (even now the Athonite monks
are still extraordinarily "out of touch with things", as a general
rule). But in spite of this he was involved in great difficulties with
the solitaries who had been on Athos long before he came and who felt, understandably, that generations of predecessors had given them a
prescriptive right to have the place to themselves; they resented his
coming there and building monasteries and churches and harbours,
imposing rules and keeping order generally.

Twice attempts were made to murder St Athanasius. Criminal violence
spoils the best of causes, and the Emperor John Tzimisces interfered;
He confirmed the donations and rights granted by Nicephorus Phocas,
forbade opposition to Athanasius, and recognized his authority over
the whole of the mountain and its inhabitants. He thus became superior
general over 58 communities of hermits ,and monks, and the monasteries
of Iviron, Vatopedi and Esphigmenou were founded, which still exist as
living communities. St Athanasius died about the year 1000, being
killed with 5 of his monks by the falling of a keystone of the vault
of the church on which they were working. He is named daily in the
preparation of the Byzantine Liturgy, and is sometimes called "the
Lauriote "or “of Trebizond ".

There exists a very full Greek life of St Athanasius the Athonite
which was edited in Russia by J. Pomialovsky in 1895. The author was a
monk, also named Athanasius, who lived in close relation with the
saint's immediate successor in office. Another long biography in
Greek, based upon the earlier text, was published by L. Petit in the
Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxv (1906), pp. 1-89, with the addition of
valuable notes;....


Bible Quote:
Let love be without dissimulation. Hating that which is evil, cleaving
to that which is good,
Loving one another with the charity of brotherhood: with honour
preventing one another. [Romans 12:9-10] DRB

Saint Quote:
"He who knows himself, knows God and he who knows God, is worthy to
worship Him as is right. My beloved in the Lord, know yourselves. For
they who know themselves, know their time and they who know their
time, are able to stand firm, and not be moved about by diverse
tongues."
--St. Anthony the Great.

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Short prayers to our Lord:

Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, light of the world,
I adore Thee; for Thee, I live, for Thee I die. Amen.

O sweetest Jesus, hide me in Thy Sacred Heart,
permit me not to be separated from Thee,
defend me from the evil foe.

Sweetest Jesus, be not my Judge, but my Saviour.

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