Friday, March 23, 2018

'Someone truly in love...'


Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT - The Thirty-third Day

"I have watched impure souls mad for physical love (eros) but turning what they know of such love into a reason for penance and transferring that same capacity for love (eros) to the Lord."

"A chaste person is someone who has driven out bodily love (eros) by means of divine love (eros), who has used heavenly fire to quench the fires of the flesh."

"Physical love can be a paradigm of the longing for God ... "

"Lucky the man who loves and longs for God as a smitten lover does for his beloved."

"Someone truly in love keeps before his mind's eye the face of the beloved and embraces it there tenderly. Even during sleep the longing continues unappeased, and he murmurs to his beloved. That is how it is for the body. And that is how it is for the spirit."

- St. John Klimakos