What Is Happiness?

Your Holiness, are you a happy man?

"I cannot answer that question without making sure that we understand the word "happiness" in the same way. If you are talking about a continuous state of mind, a permanent interior disposition where there is no regret, no suffering, no feeling of dissatisfaction, that state is foreign to me. But I believe that the state of mind is simply not human. In human life, happiness is a victory: the overcoming of doubt, despair, temptation. If this is how you understand happiness, then yes, I am happy!"

His Holiness Karekin I (1932-1999)

Who Are The Saints?

I reading a book called "Between Heaven and Earth", which is a convestation with His Holiness Karekin I, my all time favorite Armenian pop. In there the journalist asks him who does he think is a Saint? He said, "The saints, to me. are the interprestation of Chirstian fath in the context of lived, human life," and then recalls these two quotes:

"I cannot respect pure and saintly hands that have always been protected by gloves. I prefer hands that have remained pure in mud."

~ Daniel-Rops

"In our times. the path to sainthood passes necessarily through the world of action"

~Dag Hammarkold