Love with a crucified love

The monk who strives to give the Lord a strong love, as He has shown us, and who tries to invent ever new ways of finding a closer connection with Christ, so that his heart can confess this deep love for Him, will certainly grow spiritually. Monasticism is indeed about love. I once told Father Sophrony that without the love of Christ, it is better for a man not to live even a day on earth. He took this thought further and increased my spiritual tension, answering me: “Without the love of Christ, it is better for him not to have been born on earth.”

In the hymns of the Church, it is said: “You have shown us Your great love unshakable, O Lord, for You gave Your Only-Begotten Son to death for us. For this, with thanksgiving we cry out to You: Glory to Your power, O Lord!” In other words, Christ has begun a bond of love with us, a love that He has already manifested, but which He also expects from us. He who enters into this bond of love and does everything to keep this love strong will grow rapidly. When he was heading for martyrdom, St. Ignatius the God-bearer said: “My love is crucified.” That is, he had so much love and pain in his heart, so much longing for God, that he was impatient to give himself to martyrdom. Only in this way could he quench his thirst and longing, only in this way could his soul be satisfied.

Forgive me, I will use some words that may be misunderstood, but monks must be “in love,” not with a human love, but, as St. Ignatius says, “with a crucified love.” If the monk maintains this state, which is a very dynamic and edifying one, it will be possible for him to enter the communion of saints. There is no other way. In this love is contained perfection, as Saint Paul says in his Epistle to the Ephesians: “Only together with all the saints can we comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ”[1]. We are enriched by the gifts of others if we bring our small gift to join ourselves to the other members of the Body.

In this communion, everything is common, and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are contained in it. Only in this gathering, in this heavenly communion of all the saints, is the fullness of salvation, the fullness of divine love, for God saves all of His, His entire people, He does not save individuals. That is why He gave the two commandments, to love Him with all our heart and our neighbors as ourselves. We need both commandments: to love the Head, the King of this communion of saints, and to love all those who become members of this Body. May God help us not to fail. Referring to divine love, Saint Paul uses two telling images: the circumcision of the heart[2] and the signs of Christ[3], which are the seal of those wounded by love. Christians must be people who have a circumcised heart, who bear the signs of Christ, people wounded by love. Only the one who finds the way of divine love becomes incorruptible, for divine love itself is what makes man eternal. Such a person will not look around at others and will not criticize anyone. He will consider others as his fellows, also fallen prey to death, and he will be full of mercy towards all.

Many worldly worries can stifle this love if man has not learned to live according to an unwritten law: to give to God what is God's[4], part of his time, part of his life, and to give Him steadfastly his whole heart. "God loves a cheerful giver"[5], who gives from the heart. If man gets used to and keeps a routine, then even worries will not harm him, especially if those worries are for the Body of Christ, for the brotherhood. It is of great help to get used to a routine of life and to keep it. Even if it happens that those who are weaker stumble and fall behind for a while, they will return to their routine because they have gotten used to keeping this habit, which will help them to heal from their stumble and recover the distance lost.

The Fathers say that if a man has learned to repent, then even if he falls into some temptation, he will soon find healing. It is a covenant of love. If you get used to giving a part of your twenty-four hours to God, and to give it with desire, that is, with tears – how else? – then the whole day will be sanctified. And if you have two or three such respites a day, it is all the better, although Saint Ephrem of Katunakia told me that “we shed hot tears only once a day.” Perhaps he was referring to the shedding of tears carried out “to the end” or to the “great tears” that Saint Silouan speaks of. He said that for this reason, in monasteries, novice brothers are required to run all day to obediences so that their thirst and desire for the moment when they can withdraw into the solitude of their cell, when they can stand before the Lord and pour out their hearts with tears, is intensified. The goal is that they acquire spiritual weeping.

In this way, both Saint Ephrem and Saint Sophronius found grace. Our founding father had an inconsolable repentance; he considered himself a traitor because, in his youth, he allowed himself to be attracted by Eastern philosophies. He never denied Christ, but his mind stopped at that philosophy and occupied itself with it for a while. After that, he could no longer forgive himself, and his repentance allowed him no rest. Of course, spending some time in such repentance, his soul became pure as a tear, free from any stain.

Imagine what grace God gave him just through the words “I AM THAT I AM.” He received so much enlightenment from these words. I would have passed by them without taking them into account; my mind would not have stopped at them, for me, other verses were more eloquent. But those words were exactly what Father Sophrony needed at that moment, the discovery that the true Being is a Person. After this encounter with the Godhead, the rest of Father Sophrony’s life was a martyrdom inspired by his crucified love for the God-Person.

In the introduction to the writings of Saint Silouan he states: “Rare [are] such witnesses [of Christ’s love], for there is no more difficult, more painful struggle than the struggle for love; for there is no more fearful testimony than the testimony for love; for there is no more shocking preaching than the preaching of love.”[6] He lived in his own life the truth that on earth divine love carries man to the Cross. Therefore, in the hymns of the service dedicated to him, Saint Sophrony is called “the crucified lover of the crucified Christ.”

[1] Cf. Eph. 3:18.
[2] Rom. 2:29.
[3] Gal. 6:17.
[4] Matt. 22:21.
[5] 2 Cor. 9:7.
[6] Archimandrite Sophronius

Saint Silouan the Athonite