ВРАЖДА

The devil, with cunning, encourages us, instead of being irritated with himself, instills in us to notice the sins of our neighbor in order to embitter us, irritate us against a person, arouse contempt for him, and thus keeps us at enmity with our neighbors and with the Lord God Himself. Therefore, one must despise the sins themselves, the mistakes, and not the neighbor who does them at the instigation of the devil, out of weakness, habit, while pitying the neighbor, with meekness, with love admonishing him as forgetting or as sick, as a captive, a slave of his sin. But our malice and contempt for our sinning neighbor only increases his illness, oblivion, his spiritual captivity, and does not reduce it, and it makes us seem insane, sick, captives of our own passions and the devil - their culprit (6). It is better not to convey reproachful words sent to us from someone, but to remain silent about them or convey, albeit falsely, words of love and goodwill, then our spirit will remain calm. But conveying words of enmity and envy is very harmful; they often produce a mental storm in the impatient and proud people they relate to, arouse extinguished enmity and create discord. One must have Christian patience and wisdom for the serpent (7). Avoid by all means occasions, occasions, words that feed enmity, and take advantage of every occasion and occasion to show sincere and holy love: in the first case, the hostile mood of the soul is little by little eradicated, in the second case love is nourished and strengthened. Do not have an evil heart for a minute, always be kind to everyone, conquering your evil disposition with love that endures everything and conquers everything, avoid stubbornness, self-will and opposition to your neighbors, do not rely on your own to fulfill your evil whim, to deliberately harm someone (7). A great good, a great virtue, is gentleness before God and people: it covers a multitude of sins. Let us not listen to the devil, who teaches us to harbor evil against our neighbors, but in the simplicity of our hearts we will forgive offenses caused by our neighbors, also at the instigation of the enemy. Let no one think evil against each other, let no one be carried away by evil suspicion regarding their neighbor, for this is the charm of the enemy of our salvation, who is trying in every possible way to destroy the union of love and brotherhood in us and to instill demonic enmity and hostility (8). Contempt (obsolete) – contempt, disdain. You might be interested in: