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| Source: uncutmountainsupply.com |
“We know that the greater the love, the greater the sufferings of the soul,” said Staretz Silouan. The man to whom it has been given to feel Christ-like love is aware that such love moves the heart to wish everyone well, without exception. Such love is a life-giving fire. It is uncreated Light, and streams of energy beneficial for all mankind pour forth from him who possesses it. When it penetrates us it makes us Christ-like, and as it were naturally includes us in the sufferings of His love, which cannot bear to see man deprived of the highest good.
—St. Sophrony, On Prayer: Reflections of a Modern Saint
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These words of St. Sophrony are very valuable and timely today. We are currently being subjected - at least in "public discourse" - to a very aggressive and intolerant form of "Christianity," that does not "wish everyone well, without exception." Rather, it detects "enemies" everywhere. When that happens there is a real shortage of compassion for the "other," and not the slighest care for those "deprived of the highest good."
St. Sophrony is outlining the "Orthodox Way," and that is a "way" that can cause "the sufferings to the soul." It is a "way" that can only be cultivated through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, practiced with humility and our sense of being sinners redeemed by Christ on the Cross.