Do not scorn sinners, but pray for them

Venerable Justin Popovich

The world is a sick man, whom sin has made sick, for sin is a sickness, and to scorn sinners is to scorn the sick. With prayer our healer walks around the grievously sick patient. With prayer he walks, with prayer he heals and makes whole. Do not scorn sinners, but pray for them, feel pity and compassion for every creature, but do not condemn. Expand and deepen your soul with prayer and you will begin to cry over the mystery of the world bitterly and vehemently. Make your heart prayerful, together with your soul and your mind, and they will become inexhaustible fountainheads of tears for all mankind.

It is pitiful to suffer shipwreck in harbor

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 2 ~ On Detachment

¶12. If young people who are prone to the desires of physical love and luxurious ways wish to enter the monastic life, let them exercise themselves in all sobriety and prayer, and persuade themselves to abstain from all luxury and guile, lest their last state be worse than their first. This harbor provides safety, but also exposes one to danger. Those who sail the spiritual seas know this. But it is a pitiful sight to behold those who have survived perils at sea, suffering shipwreck in harbor.

This is the second step. Let those who run the race imitate not Lot's wife, but Lot himself, and flee.

Grief over loss indicates attachment

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 2 ~ On Detachment

¶11. If anyone thinks that he is without attachment to some object, but is grieved at its loss, then he is completely deceiving himself.

He who is detached escapes sorrow

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 2 ~ On Detachment

¶7. The man who has come to hate the world has escaped sorrow. But he who has an attachment to anything visible is not yet delivered from grief. For how is it possible not to be sad at the loss of something we love? We need to have great vigilance in all things. But we must give our whole attention to this above everything else. I have seen many people in the world, who by reason of cares, worries, occupations and vigils, avoided the wild desires of their body. But after entering the monastic life, and in complete freedom from anxiety, they polluted themselves in a pitiful way by the movements of the body.

Do not worry about anything that cannot help in the hour of death

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 2 ~ On Detachment

¶2. After our call, which comes from God and not man, we have left all that is mentioned above, and it is a great disgrace for us to worry about anything that cannot help us in the hour of our need, that is to say, the hour of our death. For as the Lord said, this means looking back and not being fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. Knowing how fickle we novices are, and how easily we turn to the world through visiting, or being with, worldly people, when someone said to Him: 'Suffer me first to go and bury my father,' our Lord replied, 'Let the dead bury their dead.'

Follow Christ without anxiety or hesitation

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 2 ~ On Detachment

¶1. The man who really loves the Lord, who has made a real effort to find the future Kingdom, who is really pained by his sins, who is really mindful of eternal torment and judgment, who really lives in fear of his own departure, will not love, care or worry about money, or possessions, or parents, or worldly glory, or friends, or brothers, or anything at all on earth. But having shaken off all ties with earthly things and having stripped himself of all his cares, and having come to hate even his own flesh, and having stripped himself of everything, he will follow Christ without anxiety or hesitation, always looking Heavenward and expecting help from there, according to the word of the saint: My soul hath cleaved after Thee; and according to that other ever-memorable man who said: I have not wearied of following thee, nor have I desired the day or rest of man, O Lord.

Do not be overly concerned with the judgements of fate

Elder Ambrose of Optina
The Will of God

Do not allow yourself to be overly concerned with the judgements of fate. Just have an unwavering desire for salvation and, standing before God, await His assistance until the time comes.

[Living without Hypocrisy, p. 19]