St. Silouan the Athonite

- spiritual thoughts -

God’s love is unlimited

And there is no end to God’s love.

I know a man whom the Lord in His mercy visited with His grace. And had the Lord asked him: ‘Would you have Me give to you more?’ From weakness of the flesh his soul would have made answer: ‘You see, Lord, that I cannot bear more and would die,’ for man is compassed about and cannot carry the fullness of grace.

Thus, on Mount Tabor the disciples fell on their face before the glory of the Lord. And no man can conceive how the Lord gives grace to the soul.[1]

The Church is the place where the Holy Spirit reveals God’s love

Good and gracious are You, O Lord. I give thanks for Your mercy: You have poured down Your Holy Spirit on me and given me to taste of Your love for me, grievous sinner that I am, and my soul is drawn to You, O Light inapproachable. What man could have knowledge of You, did You not graciously deign to reveal Yourself to the soul? And the soul beheld You, and knew her Creator and her God, and longs insatiable for You, O gracious Lord….[2] 

No man of himself can know what God’s love is unless he be taught of the Holy Spirit; but God’s love is known in our Church through the Holy Spirit, and so we speak of this love.[3]

Man’s mind contemplates the Holy Trinity

O brethren let us forget the earth and all that therein is! The earth entices us from contemplation of the Holy Trinity, which our mind cannot apprehend but which the saints in heaven behold in the Holy Spirit.

We, for our part, should continue in prayer without imaginings, and ask of the Lord a humble spirit, and the Lord will love us and give us here on earth all things whole-some for soul and body.[4]

Relationship between love and various virtues

The greater the love, the greater the sufferings of the soul.

The fuller the love, the fuller the knowledge of God.

The more ardent the love, the more fervent the prayer.

The more perfect the love, the holier the life.[5]

Incomprehensibility of God and His condescension in order to know Him

Great and inapprehensible is our Lord, but for our sakes He belittled Himself that we might know Him and love Him; that for love of Him we should forget the earth, and live in heaven and behold the glory of the Lord.[6]

Salvation is universal

The Lord bestows such a rich grace on His chosen that they embrace the whole earth, the whole world with their love, and their souls burn with longing that all men should be saved and behold the glory of the Lord.[7]

Conditions conducting to the knowledge of God and various degrees of love for God

If you would know the Lord, humble yourself to the utmost, be obedient and sober in all things, love truth, and the Lord of surety will give you to know Him through the Holy Spirit; and then you will know by experience just what love towards God is, and what love towards man is. And the more perfect the love, the more perfect your knowledge. There is love in small measure; there is a mean of love; and there is great love.

The man who fears sin loves God; the man with a gentle heart loves Him more; still greater is the love of the man in whose soul dwell light and joy; but the man with the grace in soul and body knows perfect love. This is the grace that the Holy Spirit gave to the martyrs, the grace that helped them to bear every suffering with fortitude.[8]

Degrees of love

I would speak for a moment – in so far as the grace of God will enlighten me – of the various degrees of love for God.

Where a man fears to distress God by sinning in any way – that is the first degree of love. The man whose mind is undistracted has love in the second degree, which is greater than the first. A third and still higher degree of love is when a man is aware of grace in his soul. And, finally, the man who has the grace of the Holy Spirit both in soul and body is in a state of perfect love; and if he preserves this grace, the bones of his body will become sacred relics, as did the bones of the holy martyrs, the prophets, the blessed fathers and other great saints.[9]

(Collected by HG Bishop Ioan Casian)

[1] Archim. Sophrony Sakharov. St. Silouan the Athonite. (Translated from Russian by Rosemary Edmonds. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press: Crestwood, New York 1999), p 362

[2] ibidem

[3] idem 363

[4] idem 364

[5] idem 365 - 366

[6] idem 367

[7] ibidem

[8]  idem 368

[9] idem 369