The Staretz on Love of God and Humility

St. Silouan surely came to a point of holy love of God; and it is God through the Holy Spirit Who gives this holy love.

He comments on people he's observed who were beautiful on the exterior, but through sin, became ugly. And then of those whose faces, posture and bodies showed ugliness from sin, who repented and became beautiful--even transfigured with radiance!

What he writes of humility and love helps the nothing comprehend that perpetual humility is in knowing the truth: we are dust; we are nothing. But it is God's love Who makes us anything at all, which is love by His Love.

Man was formed of the dust of the ground--what good thing can there be in him?

Behold, God in His goodness adorned man with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and he became after the likeness of Jesus Christ, Son of God.

Great is this mystery, and great is the mercy of God towards man.

If all the people of the earth knew how deeply the Lord loves man, their hearts would be filled with love of Christ and Christ's humility, and they would seek to be like Him in all tings. But man cannot do this by himself, for it is only in the Holy Spirit that he can become like unto Christ. Man that is fallen purifies himself through repentance, and is made new by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and in all things becomes like unto the Lord.

So great is God's mercy towards us.

We thank Thee, O Lord, that Thou hast given us the Holy Spirit on earth, to teach the soul that which she never thought to know.

The Holy Spirit instructs us in the humility of Christ, that the soul may ever carry within her the grace of God which gladdens her and at the same time fills her with sadness for mankind; and she weeps and prays that all people may know the Lord and find delight in His Love.

The man who has come to know the love of God through the Holy Spirit knows rest neither by day or by night, and though his body succumb and he would fain lie on his pallet, even there the soul, unwearying, reaches up in longing towards God, her Father. The Lord has made us kin with Him. 'Thou Father, art in me, and I in thee: may they also be one in us.' Thus the Lord by the Holy Spirit makes us one family with God the Father.