How Should I Judge?

September 2, 2015 | A Word From the Desert

One of the marks of the elders was that they did not judge. Macarius, they said, was like God ‘who shieds the world and bears the sin of all;  so he shielded the brethren and when anyone sinned he would not hear or see it.’

Moses, the black man who had been a robber, heard one day that a brother was to be brought before the council and judged;  so he came also, carrying a basket full of sand, and he said, ‘How should I judge my brother when my sins run out behind me like the sane in this basket?’

From The Wisdom of the Desert
Drawing: Phyllis Nicoll