Made To Reflect

  "Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless, I will argue my ways before Him. (Job) " I read a story recently that begins with: "I once saw a woman, a Russian, standing before the icon of Saint Job of Pochaev. She was not whispering timidly, nor was she hiding her emotion behind a mask of piety. She was arguing with the saint, begging him, reproaching him, pouring out her pain with fire. You could not tell if it was love or anger, but you could tell for sure it was life. Everything boiling within her was poured out there, before the icon." This summer I had a big argument with God. It was personal, so I won't share the details, but a few weeks later, the topic of how we speak to God in prayer came up among my Christian friends. All of them are very devoted brothers in Christ, but a few had the opinion that our prayers should be respectful and reverent. The idea was that God is powerful, more powerful than anything we can compare with, so we have to...

 I came across these quotes from St. Ignatius again yesterday. These are very encouraging words that remind me to live is Christ, to die is gain . Our faith is a paradox. I have to die if I want to live. While St. Ignatius was going to his physical death, I am called to pick up my cross daily.... with my wife, my family, my church, my co-workers and the world. We don't consider ourselves dead for the sake of death, but for the paradox that we find True Life in our daily dying to self-will. ... request on my behalf both inward and outward strength, ... that I may not merely be called a Christian, but really found to be one. For if I be truly found a Christian, I may also be called one, and be then deemed faithful, when I shall no longer appear to the world. Nothing visible is eternal. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. The Christian is not the result of persuasion, but of power. When he is hated by the world, he is beloved...

Reading St. Silouan, one comes away sensing a kind soul who clearly wrote of God from real, personal experience. These passages below challenge me to think about what it means to truly be a Christian. They challenge me to test myself, but nowhere in St. Silouan's writings does testing oneself equate to condemning oneself. How could it—our God is the lover of our souls! He who will not love his enemies cannot come to know the Lord and the sweetness of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit teaches us to love our enemies, so that the soul pities them as if they were her own children. There are people who desire the destruction, the torment in hell-fire of their enemies, or the enemies of the Church. They think like this because they have not learned divine love from the Holy Spirit, for he who has learned the love of God will shed tears for the whole world. You say that So-and-so is an evil-doer and may he burn in hell-fire. But I ask you — supposing God were to give you a fair place in pa...

Whatever has taken place in the history of salvation—whatever was done by Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit—must also take place within me. That's what it means for me to participate in the life of God. ... That is what is meant by "Let it be done to me according to your word", which means: "whatever you say, just as you said it. Even though I cannot understand it, let it happen just as you say." Do you have a sense of the self-emptying, the self-surrender that occurs? In response, God says: "Be filled with My grace, My energy; be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit." And this now happens to me. The Divinity bends down over me. I now have a personal experience of the self-emptying of the Divinity, of the divine energy. As a result, the whole of my being receives the radiance, the effulgence of divine energy. This is my divinization, my union with God, in consequence of God’s bending down to me. —The Way of the Spirit, Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simo...