Episode 8: “On Love”, Part 2, Saint Silouan the Athonite, with Prof. C. Veniamin

Episode 8: “On Love”, Pt 1
 Unit 16: “Sts. Silouan and Sophrony the Athonites: Principles of the Christian Life”, by Prof. Christopher Veniamin
 Series: “Mystical Theology"

Based on the reading of excerpts from the chapter, “On Love”, from St. Sophrony’s masterpiece, Saint Silouan the Athonite, this eighth episode includes such theme as love for one’s enemies, angelic song, repentance, and the practice of humility. Dr. Christopher Veniamin is a spiritual child of St. Sophrony.

It is hoped that these presentations will help the enquirer discern the interwoven character of Orthodox theology and the Orthodox Christian life, and to identify the ascetic and pastoral significance of the Orthodox ethos.

Chapters:

0:00 Reading Chapter "On Love”, Pt 2

Q&As related to Episode 8 available in The Professor’s Blog.

Recommended background reading: Saint Silouan the Athonite, by St. Sophrony the Athonite; and The Enlargement of the Heart, by Archimandrite Zacharias

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I wish to express my indebtedness to the spoken and written traditions of Sts Silouan and Sophrony the Athonites, Fr. Zacharias Zacharou, Fr. Kyrill Akon, Fr. Raphael Noica, Fr. Symeon Brüschweiler; Fr. John Romanides, Fr. Pavlos Englezakis, Fr. Georges Florovsky, Prof. Constantine Scouteris, Prof. George Mantzarides, Prof. John Fountoulis, Mtp Kallistos Ware, and Prof. Panayiotes Chrestou. My presentations have been enriched by all of the above sources. Responsibility however for the content of my presentations is of course mi

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Chapters

• 0:01 The Power of God's Love
• 24:22 Path to Divine Love and Deification
• 31:39 Meeting Saints and Love of Christ
• 43:30 True Theology and Prayer's Purpose

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Reading from Saint Sylla on the Athonite on Love by Saint Saphroni the Athonite, page 367. 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. The Lord bestows such 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. The Lord said to His holy disciples Children, have ye any meat? What great love those tender words express. The Lord calls us children. What could rejoice us more? We should ponder these words and think on the Lord's sufferings for us on the cross. O, how the Lord loves His creation. And behold, the Lord has vouchsafed us to speak together of these things and our spirit rejoices that the Lord is with us. Humbly, I entreat you. Pray for me and the Lord will reward you.

Speaker 1: 1:59

Brother R told me how once, when he lay seriously ill, his mother said to his father how poorly our little lad is. I would gladly let myself be cut in pieces if that would help him and ease his sufferings. The Lord's love for mankind is like that he said Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. The Lord's compassion for men was so strong that he wanted to suffer for them as a mother suffers and even more. But no man can conceive of this great love without the grace of the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures tell of this love, but neither are they to be understood by the mind, for in the Scriptures too speaks the same Holy Spirit. The Lord's love is such that he would have all men to be saved and abide eternally with him in heaven and behold his glory. We do not know the fullness of this glory, but through the Holy Spirit we may conceive of it in part. But the man who has not come to know the Holy Spirit can have no conception of this glory. He can only believe in the promise of the Lord and keep his commandments. However, he too is blessed, as the Lord explained to St Thomas, and will have equal place with those who beheld the glory of God while still here below.

Speaker 1: 4:17

If you would know the Lord, humble yourself to the utmost, be obedient and sober in all things. Love, truth and the Lord of assurity 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 is love towards man. 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.

Speaker 1: 5:05

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 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.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Is it possible to tell of paradise and what it will be like there? Only the man who, in the Holy Spirit, has come to know the Lord and his love for us can speak of paradise. The Lord is so dear and so kind that from love of him the soul can think of naught else. The grace of the Holy Spirit is so wondrous, sweet and so transforms a man that he will even forget father and mother. The soul that has come to know the Lord in His fullness and delighted in Him, desires naught else and clings to naught on earth, and were she offered a kingdom she would have no desire for it. For the love of Christ is so sweet and so rejoices and gladdens the soul that even to live like a king would hold no attraction.

Speaker 1: 7:00

I would speak for a moment insofar 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. The man who continues in love such as this will not be tempted by the love of a maiden like other men, or from sweetness of the love of God.

Speaker 1: 8:20

The soul is oblivious of all earthly things. The grace of the Holy Spirit draws the soul to love the Lord with all her being and in fullness of love for the Lord. The soul preserves no contact with this world, even though she dwells on earth. We are proud-minded and therefore unable to continue in this grace which withdraws from the soul. Then the soul yearns after the grace she has lost and seeks it anew with tears and weeps bitterly and calls upon the Lord saying O merciful Lord, thou seest my souls, lamenting my yearning after Thee. There is no man on earth so gentle and lowly in spirit as our Lord Jesus Christ. In Him is our joy, in Him our gladness. Let us give Him our love and he will lead us into His kingdom where we shall behold His glory.

Speaker 1: 9:42

These forty years, ever since the Lord, through the Holy Spirit, gave me to know the love of God, have I grieved over God's people. O brethren, there is not better than the love of God. When the Lord fires the soul with love for God and our fellow man, great is the Lord's mercy. My soul came to know God, her heavenly Father, and she weeps and mourns for having grieved Him so often. And the Lord accords her forgiveness of sins and the joy and gladness of loving her Creator and of loving and weeping for her fellows, that the Lord in His mercy may take every soul to Himself, to the place he prepared for us by His sufferings on the cross. The man who knows the delight of the love of God when the soul warmed by grace, knows love for God. And her brother knows in part that the kingdom of God is within us. O gracious Lord, how great is Thy love for me, a sinner. Thou didst give me to know Thee. Thou didst give me to taste of Thy grace. O, taste and see that the Lord is good. Thou hast led me to taste of Thy goodness and mercy.

Speaker 1: 11:26

And insatiable, my soul reaches toward the day and night and cannot forget her beloved Creator, for the Spirit of God gives her strength to love the beloved. My soul's longing knows no appeasement but strains to her heavenly Father. Blessed is the soul that loves humility and tears and abhors all evil thoughts. Blessed is the soul that loves her brother, for our brother is our life. Blessed is the soul that loves her brother. The spirit of the Lord lives manifest within her, affording peace and gladness, and she weeps for the whole world.

Speaker 1: 12:25

My soul remembered the Lord's love and my heart grew warm. My soul was given over to bitter lamentation that I had so deeply grieved the Lord, my beloved Creator. But he remembered not my sins. And then my soul surrendered to profound and sorrowful weeping. That the Lord might have mercy on every soul and take each one into His heavenly kingdom. And my soul weeps for the whole world.

Speaker 1: 13:06

I cannot remain silent concerning the people whom I love to the point of tears. I cannot remain silent because my soul ever grieves for the people of God and, weeping, I pray for them. I cannot refrain from making known to you, brethren, the mercy of God and the wiles of the enemy. Forty years have gone by since the grace of the Holy Spirit taught me to love mankind and every living thing and revealed to me the wiles of the enemy who works his evil in the world by means of deceit. Believe me, brethren, I write before the face of God, whom my soul, by his mercy, knew through the Holy Spirit. But had my soul not tasted of the Holy Spirit, she could not know the Lord nor His love. The Lord is gracious and good, but we could tell naught of His love beyond what is in the Scriptures, were we not taught by the Holy Spirit. But you, brother, be not troubled if you do not sense the love of God within yourself. Think on the Lord how he is gracious, and keep yourself from sin, and the grace of God will instruct you.

Speaker 1: 14:52

Love does not depend on time and the power of love continues always. There are some who believe that the Lord suffered death for love of man, but because they do not attain to this love in their own souls, it seems to them that it is all an old story of bygone days. But when the soul knows the love of God through the Holy Spirit, she feels without shadow of doubt that the Lord is our Father, the closest and dearest of fathers. And there is no greater happiness than to love God with all our mind, with all our heart and with all our soul, according to the Lord's commandment and our neighbor as our self. And when this love is in the soul, everything rejoices her. But when it is lost sight of, man cannot find peace and is troubled and blames others as if they had done him an injury and does not realize that he himself is at fault. He has lost his love for God and has accused or conceived a hatred for his brother.

Speaker 1: 16:30

Grace proceeds from brotherly love, and by brotherly love is grace preserved. But if we do not love our brother, then the grace of God will not come into our souls. If people kept Christ's commandments, there would be paradise on earth, and with little labor man would suffice his needs and the Divine Spirit would live in the souls of man, for he himself seeks us and would dwell in us. And if he does not take up his abode in us, it is all because of the arrogance of our minds. Nowadays, men's hearts have grown proud, and only through affliction and repentance can we arrive at salvation, while as for love, it is rarely attained. The great Saint Anthony said I no longer fear God, but love him. He said this because his love was flooded with the grace of the Holy Spirit, who testifies to this love, and then it is impossible for the soul to speak otherwise. But to those who have not this immense grace, the Holy Fathers teach repentance, and repentance is not far removed from love, whose coming depends on simplicity of heart and humility.

Speaker 1: 18:19

If a man thinks kindly of his brother, deeming that the Lord loves him, and especially if he believes that the Holy Spirit dwells in his soul, that man is close to the love of God. One of you may protest he does nothing but discourse on the love of God. But what else should we deliberate on? But God? Did he not create us that we might live eternally with him and behold his glory? When a man loves, his desire is to talk of the object of his love. And then habit enters in. If you make a habit of thinking of God, you will always carry God with you in your soul. If you are forever thinking of earthly matters, they will absorb your mind. Make a habit of meditating on the Lord's sufferings or on eternal fire, and they will become ingrained in your soul.

Speaker 1: 19:35

God helps us in what is good, while the enemy incites us to evil. But this depends also on our own wills. We must constrain ourselves to do good, but with moderation and knowing the measure of our strength. We must study our souls to know what is salutary for us. It may be more profitable for one man to pray, for another to read or write. It is a good thing to read, but it is better to pray without distraction and better still to weep To each as it is given to him by the Lord. To be sure, when we rise from sleep, we must render thanks to God, then repent and pray our fill. Next, we should read to rest the mind and after that pray again and then work. Grace proceeds from everything that is good, but above all from brotherly love.

Speaker 1: 20:53

One Easter time, after Vespers, I was on my way back from the monastery to where I lived at the mill and by the roadside stood a laborer. When I drew level with him he asked me to give him an egg. Not having any, I returned to the monastery, got a couple from my spiritual father and gave one to the laborer. He said there are two of us at the home. I gave him the other egg also, and afterwards I wept with pity for the poverty-stricken people and felt compassion for the whole universe and every living creature. Another time, also at Easter, I was walking alone from the main gates of the monastery to the new Transfiguration Block where I saw a little four-year-old boy running towards me with a happy face. The grace of God gladdens the hearts of children. I had an egg on me which I gave to the child. He was delighted and ran off to show his present to his father.

Speaker 1: 22:21

And for a little thing like that I received great joy from God and took a love for every one of God's creatures, and my soul sensed the divine spirit reaching home, seized with pity for the world, I prayed long to God, weeping many tears, o Holy Spirit, dwell in us always. It is good to be with thee, but it is not always this well with my soul. This is lost through pride, and then I fall to lamenting, as Adam lamented his lost paradise, and I cry when art thou, o my light? Where art thou, my joy? Why hast thou forsaken me? My heart is heavy, why hast thou hidden thyself from me, and my soul is sorrowful. When thou camest into my soul, thou didst consume my sins with fire. Come now again into my soul and again consume my sins with fire, for they conceal thee from me as clouds conceal the sun. Do thou come and rejoice me with thy coming by tarius thou, o Lord, thou seest how my soul languishes, and I seek thee in tears. Where hideest thou thyself? Indeed, thou art in every place, but my soul sees thee not and aching and in sorrow seeks thee.

Speaker 1: 24:22

In like manner, the most holy virgin and Joseph sought thee, sick at heart when thou wast a young lad. What thoughts passed through her sorrowing mind when she found not her beloved son? Likewise did the hearts of the holy apostles grow heavy at the death of their Lord, mourning that their hope was lost. But the Lord appeared to them after his resurrection and they knew him and rejoiced. So now does the Lord manifest himself to our souls, and the soul knows him by the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 1: 25:11

Simeon of the wonderful mountain was a child when the Lord appeared to him and he had not known him before. But when the Lord appeared to him he knew him by the Holy Spirit. The Lord gave the Holy Spirit on earth, and by the Holy Spirit the Lord and all things heavenly are made known, whereas without the Holy Spirit man is but sinful clay. The soul is filled with such insatiable love for God that the mind in all its strength dwells continually in God, captive only to him. God has shown me much mercy, though by my deeds I merit punishment both here on earth and after death. But the Lord so loves mankind that we are unable even to conceive of such love. Happy is the sinner who has turned to God and loves him. The man who has come to loathe sin has mounted the first rung of the heavenly ladder. When he is not tempted in his heart to sin, he is already on the second rung, while the man who threw the Holy Spirit has come to know perfect love of God has reached the third step of the ladder, but this rarely happens with anyone.

Speaker 1: 26:57

If we wish to love God, we must observe all that the Lord commanded of us in the Gospels. Our hearts must brim with compassion and not only feel love for our fellow men but sympathy for everything created of God, that green leaf on the tree which you needlessly plucked. It was not wrong, only rather a pity for the little leaf. The heart that has learned to love feels sorry for every created thing. But man is a supreme creation and therefore if you see that he has gone astray and is bringing destruction on himself, pray for him and weep for him, if you are able, or at least sigh for him in the sight of God. The soul that acts after this fashion is beloved of the Lord, for she is like unto him.

Speaker 1: 28:09

And this wise Paeceus the Great prayed for his disciple, who had denied Christ and taken a Hebrew woman to wife, and preaching the Lord to forgive him. And his prayer so rejoiced the Lord that he himself was minded to comfort his servant. But he appeared to him and said Paeceus, why pray us, thou for him who hath denied me? But Paeceus answered O Lord, thou art merciful, do thou forgive him? Then said the Lord O Paeceus, thou art like unto me with thy love. So pleasing to the Lord is prayer for our enemies. Though I am a great sinner, I write of the mercy of God, which my soul came to know on earth through the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 1: 29:20

One of the themes in St Maximus the Confessor was how we are to rise above and beyond self-love, filafthia, to be raised to the level of agape, by which St Maximus means divine love, in other words to the level of divine existence. And he speaks of how we must purify or redirect the energies of the passions, because the energies of the passions, the passions, are to be healed. Some fathers speak of the killing of the passions, others speak of the redirecting or the healing of the passions, so that the passions are understood as distortions of what God intended, what God created. So there's a purification of the passions that needs to take place, a cultivation, at the same time, of the virtues, because there's no such thing as a vacuum in the spiritual life. So how do we purify ourselves of the passions? By cultivating the virtues, by following the commandments of Christ, by striving to live in every aspect of our life, in every detail of our life, according to the commandments of Christ, in order to arrive at the purification of the heart and of the noose, whereupon illumination is given, the enlightenment of the eye, of the heart, the noose, the progression towards becoming Christ-like, as Christ is, which is nothing other than deification, becoming divine by grace.

Speaker 1: 31:39

And, as you see several times, saint Silvan mentions 40 years ago so he's writing at that point 40 years after his first vision of Christ in glory. And it was during those brief moments that he experienced the humility of Christ, the love of Christ, the life of Christ which was transmitted to him, so that this illiterate man emerges with such a world view, such a vision of the interconnectedness of humanity, that he emerges with prayer for the whole world as for himself, with tears, remembering that tears signify rebirth. And it's appropriate that we pause, just after the story about Ababacius, from the sayings of the Desert Fathers, where the love of Christ excludes no one. That's why love of enemies is an absolute prerequisite of Christianity. As absurd as it is in human terms because we know that humanly speaking it's not possible to love your enemies as absurd as it is, that is what God asks of us, because that is how he is. Therefore, that is how we must be, we must become if we are to live with him eternally. Unless we are like him, we cannot be with him. Unless we share his love for the whole of creation, we cannot be with him, we will not be able to bear his presence. His love will be as fire, casting us out of his presence, which is a contradiction in terms, because there's nowhere we can go to escape the presence of God, and that's why it will be hell if we are not like him, because we will encounter him, we will not be able to escape him. And just like the enemy who is tormented by the presence of God, though he would like to return to non-being, he cannot, because it's God's will that we continue to exist, even if we reject him. So it's appropriate that Baesius, who prayed for the person who married a Hebrew, interesting, and when it says praying for him, for Christ, to say to him you have become like me. He was praying for his former disciple with love, with compassion, and so Saint Siloane refers to this story as an illustration of the all-encompassing love of Christ. You know, with Staritsofroni, with Saint Porphyrios, with Saint Baesius, what they had in common is that when you came into contact with them, you felt that they were able to introduce you to their spiritual world. You know the story with Nikolai Motovilov and Saint Seraphim. You see, that's what happened to Nikolai Motovilov.

Speaker 1: 35:52

When you are in their presence, and let's say that you are of a good disposition In the spiritual life, our disposition is everything. It could be described as humility, love, a state of repentance and so on and so forth. We have to learn to approach God and the people of God in the right way, in the orthodox way. That's why our worship is so important. It teaches us how to approach God. That's what our orthodox worship does. It teaches us that ethos, the spirit, when you approach the same process. If you receive a prophet as a prophet, you will receive a prophet's reward. What that means is, if you go in the right spiritual disposition, you will come away having gained something for your salvation. Not just for them to show you something they can do, but something valuable for your life, something that will help you on the way to being saved.

Speaker 1: 37:16

They do draw you into their spiritual world and when you are of a good, as I say, spiritual disposition, you come away desiring God's mercy, your heart opens up and you begin to pray. You want to repent, you want to change, in other words, in order to become like them. Because, as we said, just as we cannot be with God if we are not like God or if we are not on the path to becoming like God, we will find it difficult to be with God existentially, so it is with the saints. You won't be able to stand the saints, you won't be able to bear their presence, if you are not of a humble disposition, if you are not willing to change. We have to change. We can't be like those people who say I am what I am and I am not going to change, and that's it. That's me. There's no such thing in the Christian life. We begin changing in this life and we continue changing even in the next. Eternally Becoming like Christ means changing, growing eternally into the likeness of Christ, into the perfection of Christ, which knows no end.

Speaker 1: 38:54

So what Saint Porphyrios or Baísios said, the miracles that they revealed? They are of a secondary significance. What is significant is that when you encounter them, you go away a different person. You go away renewed. You leave their presence, having tasted a little bit of the love of God, knowing that God is with us, knowing that the things that we read in the Bible are not fairy tales. They're real. The Holy Spirit is real. He reveals Christ to us. What does the Saint reveal to us? The Saint reveals Christ to us. A holy man or a holy woman is a living icon of Christ. So the clearest vision, the clearest icon of Christ that I have received in my life, I can say, is Sofroni. Maybe that sounds weird to some people, I don't know, but to me it's perfectly normal.

Speaker 1: 40:18

I saw Christ in Father Sofroni, and when Father Sofroni celebrated the Divine Liturgy, well, it was such a great blessing. There are no words that can describe that. Maybe you could say that was a taste of the heavenly kingdom, but there are words, the reality we know. We experience at the same time something which is beyond words, but, yes, it's that prayer that lifts everyone, is so powerful that it transports you to a plane that you never knew existed, where every word, even as a young boy, where my knowledge of Greek was virtually non-existent Father Sofroni, it didn't matter what language. He was celebrating it, it was a revelation. It was a revelation, of course.

Speaker 1: 41:40

Who can have the level of intensity of a Sofroni, you have to be at that level. I understand that. But the level of the parish depends on the sanctity of the priest, the efficacy of the sacraments. This is something which is given. We're not Donatists. But the sanctity of the priest does affect the level of the people it does. So I mean you asked me to say what it's like to be with Bacius, what it's like to be with Porfirios. Yeah, it's a great blessing and at the same time it's a great cross.

Speaker 1: 42:33

That people don't see the significance of theology is excruciatingly painful. It's excruciatingly painful. The theology is not a thing, it's not an idea or a series of ideas, the teachings of the ecumenical councils, one, two, three. Theology is a hypothesis. Theology is Christ, the Theos Logos, who is the measure of all things divine and human. And I do believe that I have known a theologian as imperfectly as I do.

Speaker 1: 43:30

Father Sophrony is a theologian. True theology is the hypothesis of Jesus Christ and true theology is prayer. And prayer is, as Father Sophrony says. Father Sophrony says creation par excellence, the supreme creative act, prayer. But now we're speaking of prayer on the level of Siloar prayer in the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 1: 44:03

But each one of us has been created to become a temple of the Holy Spirit. That's the spirit that was given to us from the beginning, which we lost, which we are to regain. We were sealed with the spirit of baptism and we lost most of us. It is the tragedy of man that we lose it early and in as much as we do so, we repeat the sin of Adam. But we have all been created to be the dwelling place, the temple of the Holy Spirit. And this is what the saints prove to us that if it's possible for Sophrony Sophrony is not Superman, sophrony is a human being like you and like me, and by the grace of God, we too can become temples of the Holy Spirit. That's why we were created. That's the purpose of our life to be filled with Christ and to have Christ in us and for Him to become all in all.

Speaker 1: 45:23

So what do we see when we meet an elder, a holy man or indeed a holy woman? We see Christ, we encounter Christ. These people live and breathe Christ, they're filled with Christ. What does St Porphyrios keep saying? Oh, christ, you need to ban. He keeps saying Christ is everything. Look, we have to begin somewhere and we have to grow and we have to be realistic, and no one can jump up the 30 rungs of the ladder in one go.

Speaker 1: 46:04

I say that because the spiritual life must be balanced. That's why we need guides, experienced guides, who will help us to remain with our feet on the ground and not go to extremes, and so on and so forth. But the saints, yeah, they prove to us that we are all to enjoy the fruits of the Spirit, the grace of God. If some of us arrive at the 11th hour, what does the parable say? They're given the same grace, they are given the same reward, and the friends of God are well pleased to see that. It rejoices the saints to see the mercy and the love of God.

Speaker 1: 46:56

This is a great mystery, but I say this because I think sometimes we need encouragement. There are many things around us which distract us, of course, and I was going to say that to live with the intensity of the saints is very difficult, the intensity of their prayer, it's very difficult. You have to be as willing to deny yourself as they are. But the Lord works with each one of us from where he finds us and we grow Gradually by His mercy. We are initiated because nobody very rare that people are able to go, as I say up to ladder in one go. So forgive me, maybe I said a bit too much, but you're very clever in asking me probing questions and I must be more careful in future.