“For love is of God and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God. He that does not love, does not know God, for God is love. (John 4: 7-8)
A summary of my commentary:
The first essential building block in our efforts to be cooperative with God in the process of our transformation by grace is LOVE. We are born in the Spirit when we are received into the Church. We are born into Love. We know from the saints that our conversion in the Spirit begins and ends with love. In order for our conversion in the Spirit, our second baptism, to be an active force in our life, one needs to turn his or her will with love towards God. Unless our will comes into motion and is redirected towards God, there is no conversion. Our will is fickle and not to be trusted unless it is directed towards God with love.
At some point in our life as an adult, we have the opportunity to re-choose and embrace our first baptism. This is where our will comes into play – what gives God permission to help us to heal and transform by His grace is our choice to walk with Him in love in the Church. Our task is to find the way to enter into the light of Christ. Whoever loves Christ and other people truly lives life.
… to those who are being repainted by God’s grace in the divine likeness; when the luminosity of love is added, then it is evident that the image has been fully transformed into the beauty of the likeness. Love alone among the virtues can confer dispassion on the soul, for ‘love is the fulfilling of the law’ (Rom. 13:10) in this way our inner man is renewed day by day through the experience of love and in the perfection of love defines its own fulfillment.
May God be merciful and guide us through our loving cooperation with His will.
In Christ,
Veronica
St. Sinceltike, The Great Synaxaristes, Celebrated Jan 5th
(The sayings of this holy mother, a nun and later abbess of a convent she founded, were written by St. Anthanasius the Great. It is thought that she aided the saint when in exile while he lived in a well for six years.)
“First we must preserve what was revealed by the grace of God: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they soul, and they neighbor as thyself’ (Lk. 10:17).
These two commandments are the summit of the law, and upon them rests all the fullness of grace. These words are few, but great and continuous is their power because all that is good and beneficial to the soul hangs on these two commandments.
According to the testimony of the divine Paul, ‘ the end of the commandment is love’ (1 Tim 1:5). Whatever useful words have been spoken, according to the grace of the Holy Spirit, they commence with love and they conclude with love. Therefore, salvation is this twofold love. I must, however, add what each of us knows. We must always desire to possess love, which is the greatest virtue of all.”
Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh
“We cannot partake deeply in the life of God unless we change profoundly. It is therefore essential that we should go to God in order that He should transform and change us, and that is why, to begin with, we must all become converts. Conversion in Latin and Hebrew means a turn, a change in the direction of things. The Greek word … means a change of mind.
Conversion means that instead of spending our lives looking in all directions, we should follow one direction only. It is a turning away from a great many things that we know are ultimately not good for us. The first impact of conversion is to modify our sense of values: God being at the center of all, everything acquires a new position and a new depth. All that is God’s; all that belongs to Him is positive and real. Everything that is outside of him ultimately has no value or meaning.
But it is not change of mind alone that we can call conversion. We can change our minds and go no further: what must follow is an act of will and unless our will comes into motion and is redirected towards God, there is no conversion; at most there is only an incipient, still dormant and inactive change in us.”
Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic, The Prologue, Jan 29th
Oh my brethren, our will is as elusive as a will-o’-the-wisp; let us not follow it and perish. But let us follow the will of the Lord who loves mankind, who alone knows what is best for us.
Elder Prophyrios, Wounded by Love
“He who loves little, gives little. He who loves more, gives more. And he who loves beyond measure, what has he to give? He gives himself!
Our task is to find the way to enter into the light of Christ… The essence of the matter is for us to be with Christ; for our soul to wake up and to love Christ and become holy; to abandon herself to divine eros. Thus He too will love us. Then the joy will be inalienable. That is what Christ wants most of all, to fill us with joy, because he is the wellspring of joy…. Whoever loves Christ and other people truly lives life.”
St. Diadochos of Photiki, The Philokalia, #89
Part II
“…In portraiture, when the full range of colors is added to the outline, the painter captures the likeness of the subject, even down to the smile. Something similar happens to those who are being repainted by God’s grace in the divine likeness; when the luminosity of love is added, then it is evident that the image has been fully transformed into the beauty of the likeness.
Love alone among the virtues can confer dispassion on the soul, for ‘love is the fulfilling of the law’ (Rom. 13:10) in this way our inner man is renewed day by day through the experience of love and in the perfection of love defines its own fulfillment. “
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