58. Do not listen gleefully to gossip at your neighbor’s expense or chatter to a person who likes finding fault. Otherwise you will fall away from divine love and find yourself cut off from eternal life.

St. Maximus the Confessor Four Hundred Centuries on Love: #58

In the soul's garden, vigilant guards stand at the heart's gate, differentiating between love's seeds and malice's thorns. Gossip and fault-finding, these twin forces of disruption, threaten to penetrate divine love's defenses and stir discord in the soul's fertile grounds.

Envision a circle of friends around a hillside fire, their energy amplified in companionship. Here, gossip emerges, whispered secrets that weave through the air like poison, eroding the trust and tarnishing friendships.

Yet, some find pleasure in others' misfortunes, eagerly tearing down rather than uplifting. These individuals, reveling in gossip, fail to see the darkness within, becoming tools of division and discord.

Sacred scriptures caution against gossip and criticism, warning that indulging in them veers us from divine love's illumination into eternal separation's darkness—a path marked by bitterness and devoid of salvation.

Thus, let us heed Maximus the Confessor's advice, protecting our speech from gossip and criticism. Instead, fostering compassion and understanding, speaking kindness and encouragement, and uplifting one another in love. For ultimately, love prevails, knitting together the human heart and guiding us into divine grace's boundless realm.