“The Lord loves us so dearly that it passes all description. Through the Holy Spirit alone can the soul know His love, of which she is inexpressibly aware. The Lord is all goodness and mercy. He is meek and gentle, and we have no words to tell of His goodness; but the soul without words feels this love and would remain wrapped in its quiet tranquility forever.”
– St Silouan the Athonite (1866-1938)
Since God is full of love, and since everything He made, above and below, came to be out of His great love, He does not seek anything else from man but love.
When He gave the written law to Moses, the first and greatest of all commandments He cried out was: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, all thy mind, and all thy strength.” In other words, all the yearning of the soul should absorb God. Knowledge, perception, the mind, theoria, radiance, and every motion of the nous, everything in all things should think of God. And man, that clay, should return “Thine own of Thine own.”
– Monastic Wisdom, The Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast
Vespers on June 22, 2013 (Psalm 130)
Out of the depths I have cried to you, Lord:
Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears listen out
for the voice of my pleading.
If you took notice of our transgressions, Lord –
Lord, who would be left?
But with you is forgiveness,
and for this we revere you.
I rely on you, Lord,
my spirit relies on your promise;
my soul hopes in the Lord,
more than the watchman for daybreak.
More than the watchman for daybreak,
let Israel hope in the Lord:
for with the Lord there is kindness
and abundant redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel
from all its transgressions.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
lilyboat 