The Law cannot forgive, for the law has not been wronged, only broken; only persons can be wronged. The law can pardon, but it can only pardon what it has the power to punish. If the lawbreaker is stronger than the legal authorities, they are powerless to do either. The decision to grant or refuse pardon must be governed by prudent calculation – if the wrongdoer is pardoned, he will behave better in the future than if he were punished, etc. But charity is forbidden to calculate this way: I am required to forgive my enemy whatever the effect on him may be.

Justice is able to pardon what love is commanded to forgive. But to love, it is an accident that the power of temporal justice should be on its side; indeed, the Gospels assure us that, sooner or later, they will find themselves in opposition and that love must suffer at the hands of justice.

- W. H. Auden, 'The Prince's Dog'

Be suspicious of your love for God if you worry about being lost but not about losing Him.

- Francisco J. Garcia-Julve

How are we to journey on that long and unending road, if we have not obtained the necessities for the journey?

How are we to journey on that long and unending road, if we have not obtained the necessities for the journey? How are we to take our stand at the judgement seat of Christ, to whom ‘every knee shall bow and every tongue confess’, if we have a bad conscience? Will we not inevitably be sent away from there to the place ‘where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die’, where there is ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’. But, brethren, so that this does not happen, ‘Come, let us worship and let us weep to our good God. Let us come into his presence with confession’, supplication, compunction, tears, prayers, fasts, purity and every form of good conduct. ‘He is expiation for our sins’, and he has not shut the doors against us, he has not turned away from someone who turns back, but he lets them approach like the harlot, the prodigal and the thief. Yes, brethren, I beg you, let us stand up, let us rouse ourselves and let us compete, so that, like school children, who are ready learners, when they are dismissed, go home rejoicing, we too, as genuine disciples of the Gospel, when we have been dismissed from the life here, may depart with joy for the everlasting life in Christ Jesus our Lord....

- St Theodore the Studite, Catechesis 103

no compulsion is contemplated in Him but all is voluntary

Concerning the natural and innocent passions.

We confess, then, that He assumed all the natural and innocent passions of man. For He assumed the whole man and all man's attributes save sin. For that is not natural, nor is it implanted in us by the Creator, but arises voluntarily in our mode of life as the result of a further implantation by the devil, though it cannot prevail over us by force. For the natural and innocent passions are those which are not in our power, but which have entered into the life of man owing to the condemnation by reason of the transgression; such as hunger, thirst, weariness, labour, the tears, the corruption, the shrinking from death, the fear, the agony with the bloody sweat, the succour at the hands of angels because of the weakness of the nature, and other such like passions which belong by nature to every man.

All, then, He assumed that He might sanctify all. He was tried and overcame in order that He might prepare victory for us and give to nature power to overcome its antagonist, in order that nature which was overcome of old might overcome its former conqueror by the very weapons wherewith it had itself been overcome.

The wicked one, then, made his assault from without, not by thoughts prompted inwardly, just as it was with Adam. For it was not by inward thoughts, but by the serpent that Adam was assailed. But the Lord repulsed the assault and dispelled it like vapour, in order that the passions which assailed him and were overcome might be easily subdued by us, and that the new Adam should save the old.

Of a truth our natural passions were in harmony with nature and above nature in Christ. For they were stirred in Him after a natural manner when He permitted the flesh to suffer what was proper to it: but they were above nature because that which was natural did not in the Lord assume command over the will. For no compulsion is contemplated in Him but all is voluntary. For it was with His will that He hungered and thirsted and feared and died. 

 

- St John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (III.20)

Marriage changes our loneliness but rarely cures it

 .... Marriage changes our loneliness but rarely cures it. There’s a reason the final section of Sigrid Undset’s great novel of marriage, Kristin Lavransdatter, is entitled “The Cross.” 

But for a long time American Christianity has sought to fix loneliness and suffering rather than accepting them as part of the core of Christian experience. We’re a prosperity-gospel, “Go out and get that blessing!” people, enthusiastic and hardworking and unwilling to believe that some things can’t be fixed.... 
- Eve Tushnet, 'Coming Out Christian'  

.... It is not that physical 'sex' is basic and 'God' ephemeral; rather, it is 'God' who is basic, and 'desire' the precious clue that ever tugs at the heart, reminding the human soul - however dimly -  of its created source. Hence... desire is more fundamental than 'sex'. It is more fundamental, ultimately, because desire is an ontological category  belonging primarily to God, and only secondarily to humans as a token of their createdness 'in the image'. But in God, of course, 'desire' signifies no lack - as it manifestly does in humans. Rather it connotes that plenitude of longing love that God has for God's own creation and for its full and ecstatic participation in the divine, trinitarian life.

.... a deeper, and more primary, question: that of putting desire for God above all others, and with judging human desires only in that light. Ascetic transformation, ascetic fidelity: these are the goals that so fatally escape the notice of a culture bent either on pleasure or moral condemnation. And to escape between the horns of that false dilemma is necessarily a spiritual and bodily task, involving great patience and commitment. From 'sexuality' and 'self' to participation in the trinitarian God: this way lies a long haul of erotic purgation, but its goal is one of infinite delight.

- Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality and the Self