Whoever has known the love of God…
Whoever has known the love of God loves the whole world and never murmurs against his fate, for the burden of sorrow for the sake of God gains eternal joy.
- St. Silouan the Athonite
Remember the Lord…
In what I ask you, the most important is: remember the Lord and tremble before Him. All my will is contained in these words. In your life, everything else is of lesser importance.
-Fr. Pavel Florensky
Such is the power of love
Such is the power of love: it embraces, and unites, and fastens together not only those who are present and near, and visible, but also those who are distant. And neither time, not separation in space, nor anything else of that kind, can break up and divide in pieces the affection of the soul.
-St. John Chrysostom
Wherever and however You wish
When I was seriously ill and on the point of leaving this life, I didn’t want to think about my sins. I wanted to think about the love of my Lord, my Christ, and about eternal life. I didn’t want to feel fear. I wanted to go to the Lord and to think about His goodness, His love. And now that my life is nearing its end, I don’t feel anxiety or apprehension, but I think that when I appear at the Second Coming and Christ says to me: Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? I will bow my head and I will say to Him: ‘Whatever you want, my Lord, whatever your love desires. I know I am not worthy. Send me wherever your love wishes. I am fit for hell. And place me in hell, as long as I am with You. There is one thing I want, one thing I desire, one thing I ask for, and that is to be with You, wherever and however You wish.
- Elder Porphyrios
Acquire love
He who has acquired love endures calmly and patiently the injuries and sufferings that his enemies inflict on him.
Acknowledge yourself as the greatest of sinners
Evil is corrected by good; faults by love, kindness, meekness, humility and patience. Acknowledge yourself as the greatest of sinners. Of those who appear to you to be sinners, or are sinners in fact, consider yourself worse and lower than all. Be rid of all pride and malice against your neighbor, all impatience and bad-temper, and only then - with love and long-suffering towards them - try to cure others. Until then, cover the sins of others with your indulgent love.
- St. John of Kronstadt
Love Toward Enemies
Do not desire to hear about the misfortunes of those who oppose you. For those who listen to such speech later reap the fruits of their evil intention.
- St. Mark the Ascetic
Love and hatred
Love and hatred are not merely subjective feelings, affecting the inward universe of those who experience them, but they are also objective forces, altering the world outside ourselves…if this is true of my love, it is true to an incomparably greater extent of Christ’s love. The victory of his suffering love upon the Cross does not merely set me an example, showing me what I myself may achieve if by my own efforts I imitate him. Much more than this, his suffering love has a creative effect upon me, transforming my own heart and will, releasing me from bondage, making me whole, rendering it possible for me to love in a way that would lie altogether beyond my powers, had I not first been loved by him.
- Kallistos Ware, “The Orthodox Way”
Do not rail against anyone
Do not rail against anyone, but rather say ‘God knows each one.’ Do not agree with him who slanders, do not rejoice at his slander and do not hate him who slanders his neighbour. This is what it means not to judge. Do not have hostile feelings towards anyone and do not let dislike dominate your heart; do not hate him who hates his neighbour. This is what peace is: Encourage yourself with this thought, ‘Affliction lasts but a short time, while peace is forever by the grace of God the Word’.
- St. Moses the Ethiopian
The man who whispers against his neighbor…
The serpent whispered to Eve and cast her out of paradise. The man who whispers against his neighbor is like the serpent. He condemns the soul of whoever listens to him, and he does not save his own.
- Abba Hyperichius
How can we fail to love Him?
Oh, what unfathomable goodness! And oh, what an incomparable gift! How then can we fail to love Him? How fail to cherish Him? How fail to cling to Him unceasingly? So that if we were not so disposed, heaven would instantly cry out against us, earth would groan, the very stones would condemn our utter insensibility.
- St. Theodore the Studite
The joy of Christ
The humble person believes that all things depend on Christ and that Christ gives His grace and in that way he makes progress. The person who possesses holy humility lives even now in the earthly uncreated Church. He always has the joy of Christ, even in the most displeasing circumstances…
- Elder Porphyrios, “Wounded by Love”
In one of my previous posts, I gave the impression that there is not a Saint called Valentine in the Orthodox synaxarium. Howver, in Orthodox Christianity there are two Saints with the name Valentine. Valentine the Roman (the presbyter) and Hieromartyr Valentine, Bishop of Interamna. No one of them though is related to love, and they are not commemorated on February 14.
You can read the following information from an article called “St. Valentine’s Day: Legend and Reality”:
“As far as veneration of the saint is concerned, here is what has happened in recent times. During the reform of the Roman Catholic calendar of saints made in 1969, the celebration of the memory of St. Valentine as a Church-wide saint was abolished on the grounds that there is no information about this martyr apart from his name and information on his beheading by sword. Today on February 14 the celebration of the memory of St. Valentine is purely optional.
In the Orthodox Church, on the other hand, St. Valentine is venerated as before. More precisely, each of the two martyrs mentioned above – the bishop and the presbyter – has his own day of commemoration. Valentine the Roman (the presbyter) is commemorated on July 6/19, while the Hieromartyr Valentine, Bishop of Interamna, is celebrated on July 30/August 12.
If one reads the lives of these saints attentively it becomes obvious that the legends that are now widespread mingled fragments relating to entirely different people, and that medieval writers even added many romantic but entirely unrealistic episodes.
It therefore turns out that we owe the emergence of the image of St. Valentine as the patron saint of lovers, as well as the numerous legends associated with him, to the Middle Ages and its romantic literature, and not at all to the circumstances of the lives of the real martyrs who perished during the dawn of Christianity. And if one were to ask “whose” holiday this is, one is forced to admit that for over forty years there is no St. Valentine’s Day in the Catholic liturgical calendar; in his place on February 14 the memory of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the Equal to the Apostles, is celebrated. Therefore today both St. Valentines are “ours,” since among all the churches only the Orthodox Church venerates their memory.”
Here are some extra articles about Saint Valentine and Orthodoxy:
My heart only has entrances…
My heart only has entrances. It doesn’t have exits. Whoever enters remains there. Whatever he may do, I love him the same as I loved him when he first entered into my heart. I pray for him and seek his salvation.
- Elder Epiphanios
When you love God…
When you love God and all men with your heart, then you are in God’s law. We shall be judged because we don’t love.
- Father Dimitris Gagastathis
