Make it clear that your house is not the place for indecent talk, unchristian behaviors, and uncharitable criticism of your neighbors or other people. If the evil deeds of another are being discussed in your home, the punishment for that crime will fall on your home. There was a man who habitually went round speaking ill of others. He ended his days as a mad man biting his own tongue and to festering with worms and boils.
Saint Kuriakose Elias of the Holy Family Chavara
Testament of a Loving Father, 10
Chavara, K, Pathaplackal, T 2014, Testament of a Loving Father, translated from Malayalam by Calzolari, E, Chavara Central Secretariat, Chavara Hills, Kochi.
I will share this one with our Parish. We have many Keralan Parishioners who no doubt love him.
It’s solid, old-fashioned wisdom!
From the days when a chair could intervene in a dispute with “Let us behave like Christians”!
Very appropriate for the end of today’s Mass reading from I John!
1 John 3:7-10:
“… anybody not living a holy life
and not loving his brother
is no child of God’s.”