Pints With Aquinas - Comparison is the Thief of Joy! | Mthr. Natalia

Episode Date: February 18, 2024

Mthr. Natalia talks about why we shouldn't compare ourselves to others. How comparison makes up Despair. Is Comparison ever good? 🟣 Join Us on Locals (before we get banned on YT): https://mattfradd.locals.com/ 🎧 Mother's Podcast: https://whatgodisnot.com/ 🖥️ Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ 🟢 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas 👕 Merch: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com 🚫 FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/fradd 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd We get a small kick back from affiliate links

Glory to Jesus Christ. I'm Mother Natalia, a Byzantine Catholic nun from Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, and this is Pines with Aquinas. Today I want to share with you something that a priest said recently in a homily here at the monastery. He gave this great line, comparison is the thief of joy. In other words, what my best friend used to tell me in college was compare and despair was the phrase that she used. And I know that we all do this often in our lives, especially with our gifts and our faults. I think that's where it's the most common, right?

Although someone pointed out to me recently, when we do this, we're typically comparing our gifts with someone else's weaknesses. And our weaknesses with their gifts or their strengths. And I think what happens is if we are not convinced of our own goodness, then the differences become threats. And I don't just mean the goodness of what we do or the goodness of our attributes. I don't even mean the goodness of our gifts. I mean the goodness of who we are in our being. Because if we don't know that we're good in our being,

then it does become about our gifts and the things that we're doing. And then it becomes, well, this person has this skill and I don't or this person likes this thing and I don't and then we either cave and try to match whatever it is that they have either the gift or the preference or whatever it is or we get overly defensive and try to I think convince ourselves of our good opinion by putting down theirs. The thing is though, if we have all of the gifts and there's no strength that we're lacking, that makes us God.

And if we are God, that means we don't need God. So in this sense, the lacking and the fact that we don't have every gift, that we don't have every strength, helps us to know that we need God. Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, amazing author. I would really recommend his book, Beginning to Pray. But in another book, Living Prayer, he says, beginning to pray. But in another book, Living Prayer, he says, Saint John Chrysostom says that the poor man is not so much he who does not possess, but he who wants what he does not possess. Poverty is not rooted in what we have or have not, but in the degree to which we long for that which is out of reach. Poverty is not rooted in what we have or have not, but in the degree to which we long for that which is out of reach. Poverty is not rooted in what we have or have not, but in the degree to which we long for what is

out of reach. If we apply that definition of poverty to blessed are the poor in spirit, then it's good for us to be weak. It's good for us to to be longing for that which is out of reach. The other thing is, we're all part of the body of Christ, right? Which means if someone else has a gift that I don't have, that means that the body of Christ has this gift and I'm part of that body and in that sense I also have this gift. So if we can recognize, appreciate, embrace the differences, that also in some sense allows us to recognize, appreciate, embrace the similarities. We can rejoice in differences because we see that the people around us can offer something that we can't.

And then we're not spending our energy trying to have their gifts and we can actually put the energy into utilizing the gifts that God has given us. into utilizing the gifts that God has given us. Evagrius, Evagrius is one of my favorite of the Desert Fathers. And he says, blessed is the monk who looks with great joy on everyone's salvation and progress as if they were his own.

Do we do that? Do we rejoice in the progress of other people as though it was our own progress? We talk about this a lot in our monastery of the differences in gifts because we've really come to embrace these differences in our community so beautifully, I think. And, you know, the nun who writes icons for our community, she would tell you that she should not be doing the tax receipts. And I, as the one who does the tax receipts, should not be the one taking icon commissions.

When I did my psyche valve for the monastery, the psychologist had me draw pictures to like something, I don't know, I don't really understand what was happening. And I was like, can I use stick figures? And he said, no. And I'm like, that's... Anyways, but we certainly don't want me writing the icons, right? I'm very gifted at tax receipts.

And similarly, I had a, I had the chance to go for a walk recently with Father Gregory Pine and I was just so struck by, I am not Father Gregory Pine, right? And any of you who have watched his videos and have watched my videos know that I am not Father Gregory and he is not Mother Natalia and praise God for that, right? It's so evident too, right? It's actually kind of comical of him and his white and me and my black and he's a foot taller than me, 11 and a half inches to be precise. But it's just so good that we have different gifts. If I were sitting here and just thinking, what do I have to offer anyone? I'm not an academic. Then I'm not actually appreciating what the Lord has given me to share with you from my heart. And that's a great disservice to you and

to myself and to Father Gregory. And he's not over there trying to be Mother Natalia and none of you are Mother Natalia and none of you are Father Gregory. Yeah, so anyways, we do this with gifts and weaknesses, but I think we also really struggle with this comparison in our relationship with the Lord. We look at what someone else's relationship with Him looks like and we think that's what it's supposed to look like for us. And I think the devil can really use this as a distraction because we are so unique, right? God made each of us particularly treated differently in our relationship with the Lord, then we can start to appreciate the fact that we're not treated the same, right? It's like, okay, you could have their gifts.

Are you also going to take on their crosses? Are you also going to take on their weaknesses? Or do you want to just like keep all the gifts that you have now and also have theirs? Again, do you want to just be God? Are you just grasping to have all of this fulfillment and all of this self-reliance so that you don't need anyone else and so that you're complete in yourself? There were two scripture references that came to mind when I was thinking of this concept of comparison. And the first is from John 21. Saint Peter and Jesus go through the threefold, Peter, do you love me? And then immediately after that, Jesus is talking to Peter about his death, basically. And then Peter's like, okay, yeah, I got it. And then he immediately moves on. He sees John there and he says,

but Lord, what about him, right? He's immediately moving on to focus on this other relationship that's not his own. And I think there's a great problem with this for a lot of reasons, but one of which is he has now pulled himself out of this present encounter with the Lord. And this is what we're doing when we're so worried about what other people are doing in their relationship with the Lord. You know, the fathers use this phrase, keep your eyes on your own plate. You know, when you're in it, they're referencing, like when you're in a fasting season,

don't worry about how your brother or sister is fasting. Just focus on your own fasting, but this is applicable to everything. The other obvious scripture reference that came to mind was the publican and the Pharisee. Because the publican is this great sinner, right? He's acknowledging his sinfulness and begging the Lord for mercy. And the Pharisee is kind of boasting about how great he is. And I think, you know, that's a problem. But I think the

greater problem is the fact that he says, thank God that I'm not like this man. He just thinks, well, if I'm better than him, then I must be in the right. I must be good. And I think this is a big temptation for us, is when we start to doubt that we're doing well in the spiritual life, we look to those around us, and we're just looking for someone who's doing worse so that we can feel a little bit better

I do want to make one one nuance before wrapping up which is that There is there is like a good kind of comparison, right? There's there's the comparison which calls us forward There's the comparison that inspires us forward. There's the comparison that inspires us, that edifies us, that we see these particular virtues in other people. And we're like, I want to strive for that virtue. But we have to be really discerning in this and talk to someone who's further along in the spiritual life than us.

Because if we're just kind of picking and choosing which things we want to emulate, which places we want to grow, then we might actually be missing the place that the Lord wants us to grow. You know, I've done this so many times in my life where I'm like, okay, I'm going to focus on this flaw and I'm so focused on it that actually there's this huge other thing happening in my life that I've totally set aside that the Lord is trying to draw my attention to, but I'm so focused on fixing this flaw. And it's like, well, yeah, it is a flaw, but we can only expend so much energy rooting out our flaws,

letting the Lord root out our flaws more precisely. And so, are we using the energy working on the ones that he wants us to right now? We have a service, a liturgical service in the Byzantine, in the Byzantine church called the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete. It's my favorite service of the year. It's a part of a service. So it's part of Matins, which is morning prayer, on the fifth Thursday of the great fast of Lent. And this canon is, the canon itself is probably about three hours long and we do 250 prostrations and it's just this amazing service.

And the whole thing is actually a comparison. It's comparing our soul to basically everyone in the Bible that you can think of going through both the Old and the New Testament and comparing how we were like Cain in murdering our brother, the soul, and so on and so forth. There's this line that I just copied down before coming here. I am the traveler who has fallen into the thievery of my thoughts. Completely wounded, I am covered with bruises. Come to save me, O Christ, and heal me.

So Saint Andrew, who supposedly wrote this canon, he compares himself and asks us to compare ourselves, our soul, to the traveler in the story of the Good Samaritan. And, but it's beautiful because it's like, these comparisons that he's making are very much the ones that are supposed to convict us of our sinfulness, right? But it's always for the sake of helping us to come out of our sin, right? This ends with completely wounded, I'm covered with bruises. My sinfulness has wounded me. Come

to save me, O Christ, and heal me. And I think this is a surprised by this, but Jesus and the devil oftentimes both want us to see our sin. We would think that the devil wants to hide our sin from us, but he doesn't always. The difference is this. Jesus wants us to see our sin and to do so in light, in the glory of the resurrection, in hope. He wants us to have a self-awareness that leads to contrition, that leads to repentance. The devil wants us to see our sin and to be self-focused, which leads to self-hatred, which leads to despair. The primary difference we see here is that when the Lord reveals our sin to us, there's always a way forward.

He's always offering out a hand. When the devil wants us to see our sin, it's because he wants us to feel stuck, like we're never getting out of this. In other words, Jesus reveals our sin to us to lead us into relationship and the devil wants us to be led into isolation. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for the gift of Matt and Thursday and all those who helped to make Kinds with a Coin as possible.

Thank you for those who are listening to this video. I ask that you grant them and myself all of the necessary graces to appreciate our unique gifts, to lean into those gifts, to use those gifts in the way that you desire them to be used. Help us to keep our minds and our hearts focused on your son,

to keep our gaze on him, not on the waves that are around us. Help us to trust and surrender, to have a confidence in our goodness, the goodness with which you created us in your image and likeness. I ask all of this through the prayers of St. Peter, St. John, St. Nathaniel, St. John Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Christopher, Saint Matthew, the most holy Theotokos and all the saints, amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.