Family Life
Elder Paisios of Mount Athos
“In the old days,” he would say, “life was more peaceful and serene; people had patience. Nowadays, everyone has got a short fuse – people flare up right away; no one can tell them anything. And then, automatically, they go straight for divorce.”
Published by the Holy Hesychasterion “Evangelist John the Theologian”, Vasilika, Thessaloniki, Greece
Softcover, 327 Pages
3rd reprint 2022
The interesting perspective of a contemporary Saint on themes of family life faced by Orthodox Christians in our day, when society faces increasing attacks on the institution of family. The Elder said that the majority of letters he received were from people who had family problems. He attributed these problems to people having withdrawn from God and to their self-centeredness. Topics include: love and trust, forbearance, prayer, obligations of parents and children, practical advice on how to live a spiritual life within the family, illness, disability, the proper understanding of trials and temptations.
Excerpt from the book:
“Some men tell me: ‘I don’t see eye to eye with my wife; we have opposite personalities. She has one temperament, I have another! How can God do such strange things? Couldn’t He have arranged a few things so that couples matched, and they were able to live more spiritually?’ I tell them, ‘Don’t you understand that the harmony of God is hidden within a diversity of personalities? Different temperaments actually create harmony. Alas, if you had the same personalities! Think what would have happened if, for example, you both got angry easily: you would destroy your house. Or, consider if both of you had mild temperaments: you would sleep standing up! If you were both stingy you would get along, yes, but you would both end up in hell. Likewise, if both of you were open-handed, would you even be able to keep your house? No. You would disperse everything, and your children would be turned out to the streets. If a spoiled brat marries a spoiled brat, between themselves they get along fine, right? But, one day someone is going kill them! For this reason God arranges it so that a good person marries a spoiled brat, that the latter may be helped. It may be that he or she has a good disposition, but was never instructed correctly when young.’
Little differences in the characters or personalities of spouses actually help couples to create a harmonious family, for the one completes the other. In a car it is necessary to use the gas pedal to go forward, but also the brake pedal to stop. If the car only had brakes it wouldn’t go anywhere; and if it only had gears, it wouldn’t be able to stop. Do you know what I said to one couple? ‘Because you are similar, you don’t match!’ They are both sensitive. If something happens at home, both of them lose it and start-up: The one, ‘Oh, what we suffer!’ The other, ‘Oh, what we suffer!’ In other words, the one causes the other to lose hope even more! Neither is able to comfort the other a little by saying, ‘Hold on, our situation is not that serious’. I’ve seen this in many couples.
When spouses have different personalities it helps in the raising of children even more. One spouse wants to put on the brakes a little, but the other says, ‘Give the children a little freedom’. If they both are overbearing they will lose their children. If, however, they leave them on their own, again their children will be lost. Therefore, when the parents have different personalities, the children enjoy a certain stability.
What I’m trying to say is that everything is needful. Naturally, one’s personality quirks shouldn’t go beyond their limits. Each spouse should help the other in his own way. If you eat a lot of sweets, you’ll want also to eat something a little salty. Or if you eat, let’s say, lots of grapes, you’ll want a little cheese to cut the sweetness. Vegetables, if they are very bitter, are not eaten. But a little bitterness helps, as does a little sourness. Some people, however, are like this: If someone is sour, he says: ‘Let everyone become sour like me.’ And whoever is bitter says, ‘Let everyone become bitter.’ Likewise, those who are salty say, ‘Everyone should become salty.’ Bridges aren’t built like that!”
Another excerpt:
—Geronta, why do temptations often occur on feast days?
—Don’t you know? On feast days, Christ, the Panagia, and the Saints are joyful. They treat people, giving blessings and spiritual gifts. If parents give gifts when their children celebrate their namedays and kings release prisoners when a prince is born, why shouldn’t the Saints care for us on special occasions, too? Certainly the joy they give greatly endures and our souls are greatly helped. Knowing this the devil creates temptations in order to deprive people of the Divine gifts: they neither rejoice nor benefit from the feast. Sometimes you even see when a family is preparing to commune on a feast day, that the devil will send them a temptation to fight and then not only do they not commune, but they don’t even go to church! That’s how the little demon does it, so as to be deprived of all Divine help.
The same thing can be seen in our own monastic life. Many times the little demon—tempter that he is, because he knows from experience that we will be spiritually helped on some feast—will, beginning on the eve of the feast, create an atmosphere of temptation. For example, he might get us to quarrel with another brother, and then afterwards torment us in order to overpower us both spiritually and bodily. In this way he doesn’t allow us to benefit from the feast, with its joyous atmosphere of doxology. But the Good God helps us when He sees that we had not given occasion, but that this happened only by the envy of the evil one. And God helps us even more when we humbly reproach ourselves, blaming neither our brother nor even the devil, who hates everything good. For his work is this: to create scandals and spread evil—while man, as the image of God, should spread peace and goodness.
