Silouan the Athonite: The Closeness of the Saints and the Presence of the Holy Spirit Tuesday, Oct 23 2012

In heaven all things live and move in the Holy Spirit. But this same Holy Spirit is on earth too.

The Holy Spirit dwells in our Church; in the sacraments; in the Holy Scriptures; in the souls of the faithful.

The Holy Spirit unites all men, and so the Saints are close to us; and when we pray to them they hear our prayers in the Holy Spirit, and our souls feel that they are praying for us.

The Saints live in another world, and there through the Holy Spirit they behold the glory of God and the beauty of the Lord’s countenance.

But in the same Holy Spirit they see our lives, too, and our deeds. They know our sorrows and hear our ardent prayers.

In their lives they learned of the love of God from the Holy Spirit; and he who knows love on earth takes it with him into eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven, where love grows and becomes perfect.

And if love makes one unable to forget a brother here, how much more do the Saints remember and pray for us!

The holy Saints have attained the Kingdom of Heaven, and there they look upon the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ; but by the Holy Spirit they see, too, the sufferings of men on earth.

The Lord gave them such great grace that they embrace the whole world with their love.

They see and know how we languish in affliction, how are hearts have withered within us, how despondency has fettered our souls; and they never cease to intercede for us with God.

The Saints rejoice when we repent, and grieve when men forsake God and become like brute beasts.

They grieve to see people living on earth and not realizing that if they were to love one another, the world would know freedom from sin.

And where sin is absent there is joy and gladness from the Holy Spirit, in such wise that on all sides everything looks pleasing, and the soul marvels that all is so well with her, and praises God.

Call with faith upon the Mother of God and the Saints, and pray to them. They hear our prayers and know even our inmost thoughts.

And marvel not at this. Heaven and all the saints live by the Holy Spirit and in all the world there is naught hidden by the Holy Spirit.

Once upon a time I did not understand how it was that the holy inhabitants of heaven could see our lives.

But when the Mother of God brought my sins home to me I realized that they see us in the Holy Spirit, and know our entire lives.

Silouan the Athonite (1866-1938; Eastern Orthodox): from St. Silouan the Athonite, by Archimandrite Sophrony Chap. XII, pp. 395-397; longer extract @ Kandylaki and Full of Grace and Truth.

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Elder Sophrony: Communicating in the Divine Being through Prayer Tuesday, Jan 5 2010

Often one can remark a disposition [in some people] to draw a parallel between prayer in the Name of Jesus and yoga or “transcendental meditation” and the like.

[…] All contemplation arrived at by [these other] means is self-contemplation, not contemplation of God.

In these circumstances we open up for ourselves created beauty, not First Being. And in all of it there is no salvation for man.

The source of real deliverance lies in unquestionable, wholehearted acceptance of the Revelation, “I am that I am…I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last”. God is Personal Absolute, Trinity One and Indivisible.

Our whole Christian life is based on this Revelation. This God called us from nonbeing into life.

Knowledge of this Living God and discernment of the manner of His creation releases us from the obscurity of our own ideas, coming  from beneath, about the Absolute; rescues us from our attraction unconscious but for all that ruinous to withdrawal from existence of any sort.

We are created in order to be communicants in the Divine Being of Him Who really is. Christ indicated this wondrous way: “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life”.

Apprehending the depths of the Creator’s wisdom, we embark on the suffering through which Divine eternity is to be attained.

And when His Light shines for us we unite in ourselves contemplation of the two extremes of the abyss on the one side, the darkness of hell, on the other, the triumph of victory. We are existentially introduced into the province of Uncreated Divine Life.

And hell loses power over us. We are given grace to live the state of the Incarnate Logos Christ Who descended into hell as Conqueror.

Then by the power of His love we shall embrace all creation in the prayer: “O Jesus, Gracious Almighty, have mercy upon us and Thy world”.

Revelation of this Personal God imparts a wondrous character to all things. Being is not some determined cosmic process but the Light of the indescribable love between Divine and created persons.

It is the free movement of spirits filled with wise knowledge of all that exists, and consciousness of self.

Without this there is no sense in anything but only death. But our prayer becomes a living contact of our created persona and the Divine Person that is, something absolute.

And this is expressed when we address the Word of the Father: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Unoriginate Word of Thine Unoriginate Father, have mercy upon us. Save us and Thy world”

Elder Sophrony (1896-1993; Orthodox): On Prayer p.168-170 (taken from a more extended version at Orthodox.net).

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Elder Sophrony: We Shall Not Care What People Think Of Us Thursday, Dec 3 2009

We shall not care what people think of us, or how they treat us.

We shall cease to be afraid of falling out of favor.

We shall love our fellow men without thought of whether they love us.

Christ gave us the commandment to love others but did not make it a condition of salvation that they should love us.

Indeed, we may positively be disliked for independence of spirit.

It is essential in these days to be able to protect ourselves from the influence of those with whom we come in contact. Otherwise we risk losing both faith and prayer.

Let the whole world dismiss us as unworthy of attention, trust or respect – it will not matter provided that the Lord accept us.

And vice versa: it will profit us nothing if the whole world thinks well of us and sings our praises, if the Lord declines to abide with us.

This is only a fragment of the freedom Christ meant when He said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8.32).

Our sole care will be to continue in the word of Christ, to become His disciples and cease to be servants of sin.

Elder Sophrony (1896-1993; Orthodox); H/T to The Handmaid

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Elder Sophrony: Fear of God Friday, Oct 16 2009

Fear of God…has many degrees and forms, of which just now let us consider the one most effective for our salvation: fear of proving unworthy of God made manifest to us in Light that never sets.

This righteous apprehension liberates us from all earthly terrors. Our Fathers, dauntless servants of the Spirit, withdrew into the desert to live among wild beasts and poisonous snakes, in conditions of utmost poverty such as people of our day cannot imagine. And they did this to be free to weep over their remoteness from their beloved God.

…Hermits weep when they contemplate the black abyss within themselves: the roots of the ‘knowledge of evil’ grow deep and are not to be torn up by one’s own strength.

Those who are ignorant of this state of the spirit will never understand. Because this mystery is hidden from casual eyes is does not mean that God is a ‘respecter of persons’ [cf. Acts 10:34] but that grace is entrusted only to those who entrust themselves to Christ-God. And this grace is also the gift of God’s love, without which tears will not flow…

…Inestimable are the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Every true gift is none other than a flame of love. But for our hearts to become capable of receiving the love of Christ in its glowing manifestations we must all, every one of us, endure many trials.

…Gifts from on High are commensurate to our ascetic struggle. All who walk the way of Christ’s commandments are regenerated in their very following of Him – some more, some less, depending on the ardour manifested.

Through being crucified together with God the Word-made-flesh, grace descends on the believer, likening him to God made man. This great gift also embraces in itself  life-giving theology through a real dwelling in the Light of love.

Elder Sophrony (1896-1993; Orthodox): We Shall See Him As He Is (Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, Essex, UK, 1988), pp. 19-20.

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Elder Sophrony: The Effects of Sin Thursday, Oct 15 2009

Sin is primarily a metaphysical phenomenon whose roots lie in the mystic depths of man’s spiritual nature.

The essence of sin consists not in the infringement of ethical standards but in a falling away from the eternal Divine life for which man was created and to which, by his nature, he is called.

Sin is committed first of all in the secret depths of the human spirit but its consequences involve the individual as a whole.

A sin will reflect on a man’s psychological and physical condition, on his outward appearance, on his personal destiny.

Sin will, inevitably, pass beyond the boundaries of the sinner’s individual life, to burden all humanity and thus affect the fate of the whole world. The sin of our forefather Adam was not the only sin of cosmic significance. Every sin, manifest or secret, committed by each one of us affects the rest of the universe.

The earthly-minded man when he commits a sin is not conscious of its effect on himself as is the spiritual man. The carnal man does not remark any change in himself after committing a sin because he is always in a state of spiritual death and has never known the eternal life of the spirit.

The spiritual man, on the contrary, does see a change in himself every time his will inclines to sin – he senses a lessening of grace.

Elder Sophrony (1896-1993; Orthodox); H/T to Milk and Honey

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