The Nature of God: Selected Quotes from Saint Silouan of Mount Athos

It is not true that God is unjust; to say so would imply that there is an element of evil bad or unfairness in Him; nor can we call Him just, in the sense that we humans understand justice. Saint Isaac the Syrian writes, “Never call God just; we have sinned, and He gave his one and only Son. What kind of justice is it?” To these words of the Holy Venerable Isaac, may we add this: we have sinned, but God put His holy angels to the service of our salvation.

God is the light that we cannot approach. His existence is above all creation, material or intellectual. Therefore, while our human mind is preoccupied with processing ideas, words, thoughts or images, the perfection of prayer is beyond our reach.

God is invisible, and so are the spiritual pathways towards Him; for how can we describe in words the imperceptible life of Christ and His ultimate battle for the everlasting life of man, His beloved creation?

God safeguards our freedom as our most precious possession. He draws the human soul to His love with His humility. Yet, in following His calling, man encounters the tyrant devil.

The Lord allows it to happen. He nurtures the human soul not by preventing the encounter with the evil one, but by giving it the strength to overcome all evil.

Wondrous are the deeds of the Almighty. He created man from ashes, and let Himself be known to man by the grace of His spirit. “Lord God Almighty,” he exclaims, from the plenitude of his faith and love.

What more could a soul wish for on this earth.

What an infinite miracle it is for a soul to know her creator and His love.

When a soul sees God in His ultimate gentleness and humility, she will humble herself to the end. She will desire nothing else but the humility of Christ; for all of her life on earth, she will seek this imperceptible humility that it will never be able to forget. Lord, how infinite Your love for Man is!

The merciful Lord have us sinners the Holy Spirit and did not ask for any compensation; instead, He is saying to each of us, as He did to Apostle Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” The Lord expects nothing else from us but love and celebrates our conversion. Such is the extent of the Lord’s mercy for man: we end our ways of sin and humble ourselves before Him, and He gracefully forgives us, gives us the blessing of the Holy Spirit, and empowers us to overcome our sinfulness.

Is not it strange how a man shuns his brother – just as human as him – when he is poor and in rags, while the Lord forgives us everything, live a loving mother would his child. He will evade no sinner and will endow him with the grace of His spirit.

Translated by The Catalogue of Good Deeds

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