The Journey towards Love

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Those who, out of pure love, sacrifice even their own lives to protect their fellow men, imitate Christ. These people are, of course, the greatest heroes, because even death trembles before them, since they defy death out of love. Thus, they triumph with immortality, and, taking the key to eternity out from beneath the gravestone, they proceed freely to eternal blessedness.

- Elder Paisios

[Kevin007]

From the writings of St. Symeon the New Theologian:


We should look upon all the faithful as one person and consider that Christ is in each one of them. We should have such love for them that we are ready to sacrifice our very lives for them. For it is incumbent upon us neither to say, nor think of any person as evil, but we must look upon everyone as good. If you see a brother afflicted with a passion, do not hate him. Hate the passion that makes war upon him. And if you see him being terrorized by the habits and desires of previous sins, have compassion on him. Maybe you too will be afflicted by temptation, since you are also made from matter that easily turns from good to evil. Love towards your brother prepares you to love God even more. The secret, therefore, of love towards God is love towards your brother. For if you don’t love your brother whom you see, how is it possible to love God whom you do not see?

"For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God Whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).

Not good enough.. Why do that only for other Christian? True love is doing it for those that hate you.

[jmdrake]

Not good enough.. Why do that only for other Christian? True love is doing it for those that hate you.

The inclusion of the one does not imply the exclusion of the other.

John 13:35
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

[moostraks]

If a person does not have superfluous care for himself, out of his love for God and for virtuous deeds, and knows that God will take care of him, then this hope is true and wise. But if a person places all his hope in his works, and turns to God in prayer only when unforeseen misfortunes befall him, then he, seeing that he lacks the means of averting them in his own abilities, begins to hope for help from God -- but such a hope is trivial and false. True hope seeks the one Kingdom of God and is sure that everything necessary for this mortal life will surely be given. The heart cannot have peace until it acquires this hope. This hope pacifies it fully and brings joy to it. The most holy lips of the Saviour spoke about this very hope: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Mt. 11:28).

- St. Seraphim of Sarov

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We should regard all people as saints. We all carry within us the same '' old self ''. Our neighbor, whoever he is, is '' flesh of our flesh, '' he is our brother and, according to St. Paul, we owe no one anything, except to love one another. We can never pass judgment on others, for no one ever hated his own flesh.

- St. Porphyrios

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Love is higher than everything. If you find that you have no love within you but wish to obtain it, then perform acts of love, even though at the beginning without love. God will see your desire and suffering and will implant love into your heart. "Those who have an unsightly heart should not despair, because with God’s help they can reform it. All you need to do is watch yourself attentively, do not allow an opportunity to be beneficial to your close one slip by, disclose your thoughts to your starets and be benevolent to the utmost. Of course this cannot be done suddenly, but God is very patient. He only terminates the life of a person when He sees that he is ready to cross over into eternity, or, when He sees that there is no hope for improvement in him.

- Elder Ambrose of Optina

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One must behave affectionately toward one’s neighbors, not showing even a hint of offense. When we turn away from a person or offend him, it is as if a rock settles on our heart. One must try to cheer the spirit of an embarrassed or dejected person with words of love.

- St. Seraphim of Sarov

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Those who, out of pure love, sacrifice even their own lives to protect their fellow men, imitate Christ. These people are, of course, the greatest heroes, because even death trembles before them, since they defy death out of love. Thus, they triumph with immortality, and, taking the key to eternity out from beneath the gravestone, they proceed freely to eternal blessedness.

- St. Paisios

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Love for Christ knows no bounds, neither does love for your neighbour. It should extend everywhere, to the ends of the earth. Everywhere, to everyone.

Let me give you an example. There was a monk who had two disciples. He tried very hard to bring them up to scratch and make them better. But he was worried about whether they were really making any progress in the spiritual life, if they were making headway, and if they were ready for the kingdom of God. He waited for a sign from God about this, but didn’t get an answer. One day, there was going to be a vigil in another skete that was a good few hours away from theirs. They’d have to make their way through the desert. He sent his disciples off early, so that they’d get there early and get the church ready, while the Elder himself was to leave later in the afternoon. The disciples were well on their way when suddenly they heard groaning. There was a man there, badly hurt and asking for help;

– Take me with you, please. Ι’m stuck out here in the desert. Nobody ever comes by. I’ll never get any help. There’s two of you. Pick me up and carry me to the nearest village.

– We can’t. We’re in a hurry to get to the vigil. We’ve been told to get it ready.

– Please! Take me with you. If you don’t, I’ll die and get eaten by wild animals.

– We can’t. Sorry, but we have to do what we’ve been told.

And they left. In the afternoon, the Elder left for the vigil. He went along the same path. He got to the place where the injured man was lying. He saw him, went up to him and said:

– What’s the matter, man of God? What is it? How long have you been here? Didn’t anybody see you?

– This morning a couple of monks came by and I asked them to help me, but they were in a hurry to get to a vigil.

– I’ll take you. Don’t worry.

– You can’t. You’re an old man. You can’t lift me. No way!

– No, I’ll take you. I can’t leave you.

– But you can’t lift me’

– I’ll bend over and lift you on top of me. It’ll take time, but I’ll get to the nearest village. A little bit today, a little bit tomorrow, but I’ll get you there.

So he lifted him, difficult though it was, and started to trudge through the sand. He was sweating freely and thought: ‘Even if it takes three days, I’ll get there’. As he was tramping along, he began to feel that the burden was becoming lighter, and then, at one point, he seemed not to be carrying anything at all. He turned his head to see what was going on and, to his amazement, saw he was carrying an angel. The angel said to him:

– God sent me to tell you that your two disciples don’t deserve to enter the kingdom of God, because they don’t have any love.

Source: ΑγίαΖώνη, Periodical of the Church of the Holy Girdle, Patisia, vol. 19, 2010

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Now, my children, I want to ask you the following, and tell me the truth: Who do you love? God or the devil? Undoubtedly, you will say that you love God..

Let us see if this love for God is correct and perfect, or if it is deficient and in need of anything else? How can we determine this? Let us suppose that you have a child.

I love you, respect you, and say good things about you to others; however, I beat up your child, I brush him aside, I speak badly about him to others, I take his food and eat it, I take his clothes and wear them.

It seems to me that this is not real love. If we love the father, we must also love his child.


Similarly, whoever loves God must also love his brother, his fellow Christian. Because we all have one father: God. We have one faith and one baptism. We commune from the same Holy Mysteries. We have one head: our Christ. We have one faith, one law, one worship, and we are all brothers.

Furthermore, my children, you should realize that love has two attributes. One strengthens man to do good; the other restrains him from doing evil. Assume, my children, that I have a loaf of bread to
eat and water to drink, but you have nothing.

Love tells me, "Do not eat your bread alone, but give some of it to your brothers and then eat the rest of it." I have clothes to wear. Love tells me, "Give one of your garments to your brother and keep the other one to wear." I am about to open my mouth to criticize you, to lie to you, to trick you. As soon as I think of love, it paralyzes my lips and does not allow me to mislead you.

I am about to stretch out my hands to steal your possessions, your money, everything you own. Love, however, does not allow me to take anything. Do you see, my brothers, what kind of gifts love contains?

- St. Kosmas Aitolos

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Those who wish others to provide for them but offer nothing in return, are constantly asking things from God without giving anything to Him, not even their sins (by repentance). Such people are completely estranged from God and deliver themselves of their own accord into the hands of the manslayer (the devil). Because they have only cultivated love for their own selves, it follows that great anguish will then develop in them and that they will suffer hell, in part, already in this life.

-St. Paisios

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To some people your love will be expressed with joy and to others it will be expressed with your pain. You will consider everyone your brother or your sister, for we are all children of Eve (of the large family of Adam, of God).

Then, in your prayer you will say: ‘My God, help those first who are in greater need, whether they are alive or reposed brothers in the Lord.’ At that point, you will share your heart with the whole world and you will have nothing but immense love, which is Christ."

-St. Paisios

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God calls all men without exception. But not all respond to the call of His love. Those who do, with their whole being, meet with manifold trials, often extraordinarily severe. Those who love God suffer torments not to be endured by the man of little faith who inevitably becomes mentally disturbed. But faith and love of Christ beget great courage, which saves people from falling ill when they encounter evil spirits. They know the suffering yet, in spite of their experience, they not only remain normally sane- that is, they do not lose their self-possession, their mental and moral control- but their faculties attain an incomparably greater depth and refinement than is to be found in the average man.

God is invisible, and the spiritual paths to Him are unseen. Who can describe in words this mysterious life? The protests of reason will detach the follower of Christ from love of God- reason being incapable of containing the word of Christ which appears to be utter folly. Sometimes desire for the delights of this life will separate the ascetic from the love of God, sometimes fear of pain and death. Now he will be tempted by the sublimity and light of other experiences and achievements; or by the magnitude of other possessions or possibilities. At times he will be led astray by visions of angels and other heavenly bodies, at times by the violence of dark and terrifying forces.

- Blessed Sophrony of Essex

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We did not inherit the guilt of the original ancestral sin, but its consequences. With this, due to our remoteness from God, the entire human race is fallen and is in corruption with the tendency towards evil. This can be given a parallel example: if our natural environment due to our current irrational use of it is irreversibly damaged, the next generations of people will have no responsibility for the evil they were born in, but they will inherit the corruption of nature.

We can observe how largely the character of parents is inherited by their children and grandchildren. Aggression can be inherited, for example, and is manifested even before the infant is exposed to the environment.

The Mystery of Baptism restores us to God, and erases the consequences of the fall, our remoteness from God. However, the tendency towards evil remains, which is why the Church offers us the next Mystery, Chrismation, which is the grace of the Holy Spirit to fight against evil, our passions. These passions developed because we departed from God. After the fall, Adam acquired the fear of responsibility and hatred. He did not take upon himself and account for his part in the fall, but he attributed it to Eve and to God who gave him Eve.

The evil that exists in each of us, exists as a tendency and not an action, it exists with “potential” and not in “activity”. Its action depends on us. When we seek the grace of God through prayer and the Mysteries of the Church, we can more easily conquer the evil within us.

Evil is like a seed. If you water it, it will bloom, if not, it will not grow. We all have the seed of evil, even the saints. The saints did not water the seed, they did not create opportunities for sin in their thoughts, desires and actions.

The death of the First-formed, due to their distancing from God, was followed by their descendents. Spiritual death (the inclination of the soul towards evil) and physical death (the corruption of the body) are symptoms for all of humanity. After the common resurrection and judgement, sin and death will eventually be eliminated. The Apostle Paul writes: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26).

- Archimandrite Maximos Panagiotou, Holy Monastery of Panagia Paramythia in Rhodes

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God is not envious. God has no self-esteem, no ambition. Infinitely great, He is likewise infinitely humble. Divine humility differs from our human humility in that it never involves comparison: it is an inalienable attribute of the boundlessly generous love of God. God patiently seeks out each one of us along our way, and therefore we can all in varying degrees come to know God. But perfect knowledge of God is not possible apart from or without Christ- no man knoweth the Father “save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.”

- Blessed Sophrony of Essex

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No matter how just your words may be, you ruin everything when you speak with anger.

- St. John Chrysostom

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The road leading to our union with God is one and unique. It is not composed of segments. It is the integral life in Christ. Our divinization is realized with the grace of the Holy Spirit and with our own free choice. Within the Church, a constant struggle and an unending journey to be with God, is realized objectively through participation in the Holy Mysteries, with the exercise of the virtues, through prayer and in love. This journey of ours is a journey of hope, which learns under the direction of love. But we must confess, too, that love is a mystery. Can we honestly say that it has been fully revealed to us in this world? Of course not. That divine love, which is God Himself, revealed itself to us and filled us with light, but with only a few of its rays. It will be revealed fully to us in the age to come, in the age of light. But from this very moment, whoever truthfully and genuinely loves God with holy passion and divine eros, and his brother as well, enters into the divine light. “He who loves his brother remains in the light” (1 John 2:10). With godly love “the darkness is overcome and the true light already shines” (1 John 2:8). The love of God and the love of human beings are not two loves, but rather, two aspects of the one and only true love, which leads to the light.

See it clearly. Love is transformed to light. And light is the Godhead itself: “Light is the Father, light the Logos, light, as well, is the Holy Spirit” the Pentecost hymn proclaims. United with love, which is light, which is the Lord God Himself, the individual person becomes light as well. The human being becomes filled with the Eternal and Uncreated Light, enabled now to enter that eternal light, the divine Kingdom, where the light of the Holy Trinity will shine in the heart of every person who has obtained it. All those who walked the road of Theosis, who obtained this divine light, will shine like new Suns in the divine Kingdom. They will be transfigured by the Holy Spirit which bestows this light, and they will become likenesses of the Son. They will become themselves, other Christs.

- Archimandrite Christoforos Stavropoulos

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Love is the root and fountain and mother of all good things. For as root it puts forth thousands of branches of the virtues, and as a fountain it pours forth quantities of living water, and as a mother it encloses within its embrace all who have recourse to it.

- St John Chrysostom

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from “Partakers of the Divine Nature” by Archimandrite Christoforos Stavropoulos.

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Of course it is hard [to pray for others]… to pray for people is to shed blood. But we must pray none the less. Everything that grace has ever taught must be performed to the end of one’s life… The Lord at times forsakes the soul in order to prove her, that she may testify her understanding and free will; but if a man does not constrain himself to pray he will lose grace, whereas if he evinces good will, grace will love him and abandon him no more.

- St. Silouan the Athonite

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"In the spiritual world we see a practice contrary...to the normal order of things: there, those who are above wait upon those below, sacrificing themselves for their sakes, to bring them to the same degree of wealth, to the same fullness of which they themselves are possessed. The motive power is love, which cannot bear to see the loved one suffeirng privation. Thus the incontestable and eternal Master and Lord said that He 'came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many'. The accepted doctrine concerning angels is that they are a higher form of being than we are, yet St. Paul says they are 'ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.' The Lord enjoins His disciples to do as He did when He washed their feet...."

- St. Silouan

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If you will pray for your enemies, peace will come to you; but when you can love your enemies - know that a great measure of the grace of God dwells in you, though I do not say perfect grace as yet, but sufficient for salvation. Whereas if you revile your enemies, it means there is an evil spirit living in you and bringing evil thoughts into your heart, for, in the words of the Lord, out of the heart proceed evil thoughts - or good thoughts.

- St. Silouan

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The good man thinks to himself in this wise: Every one who has strayed from the truth brings destruction on himself and is therefore to be pitied. But of course the man who has not learned the love of the Holy Spirit will not pray for his enemies. The man who has learned love from the Holy Spirit sorrows all his life over those who are not saved, and sheds abundant tears for the people, and the grace of God gives him strength to love his enemies.

- St. Silouan

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“Do not let pass any opportunity to pray for anyone, either at his request or at the request of his relatives, friends, of those who esteem him, or of his acquaintances.

The Lord looks favorably upon the prayer of our love, and upon our boldness before him. Besides this, prayer for others is very beneficial to the one himself who prays for others; it purifies the heart, strengthens faith and hope in God, and enkindles our love for God and our neighbor.

When praying, say thus: ‘Lord, it is possible for Thee to do this or that to this servant of Thine; do this for him, for Thy name is the Merciful Love of Men and the Almighty.’”

- St. John of Kronstadt

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Understand the words of Holy Scripture by putting them into practice, and do not fill yourself with conceit by expiating on theoretical ideas.

- Saint Mark the Ascetic

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No matter how much the waves of temptation rise up against your soul, always hasten to Christ. The Saviour will always come to your aid and will calm the waves. Believe that the Lord has providentially arranged such experiences for your soul’s healing and do not reject them, seeking bodily peace and imaginary tranquility, for it is better to be shaken and yet to endure. If you will gain an insight from this, it will greatly lighten your struggle and you will gain more peace than if you do not.

- St. Leo of Optina