I love these quotes: When you hear that Christ descended into hell in order to deliver the souls dwelling there, do not think that what happens now is very different. The heart is a tomb and there our thoughts and our intellect are buried, imprisoned in heavy darkness. And so Christ comes to the souls in hell that call upon Him, descending, that is to say, into the depths of the heart; and there He commands death to release the imprisoned souls that call upon Him, for He has power to deliver us. Then, lifting up the heavy stone that oppresses the soul, and opening the tomb, He resurrects us - for we were truly dead, and releases our imprisoned soul from its light-less prison. - St. Makarios the Great (Macarius) of Egypt, The Freedom of the Intellect (Macarius of Egypt (ca. 300 – 391) was a Coptic Egyptian Christian monk and hermit. He is also known as Macarius the Elder, Macarius the Great and The Lamp of the Desert.) But I say to you the Lord says, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you. Why did He command these things? So that He might free you from hate, sadness, anger, and grudges and might grant you the greatest possession of all, perfect love, which is impossible to possess except by the one who loves all men equally in imitation of God, who loves all men equally and wills that they be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. - St. Maximus the Confessor, Four Hundred Chapters on Love The following shall serve for you as a luminous sign of your souls serenity: when, on examining yourself, you find yourself filled with compassion for all humanity, and your heart is smitten with pity, and burns as if with fire, on behalf of everyone without distinction.- St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 71 If He came down to earth, it was out of compassion for the human race. Yes, He suffered our sufferings even before suffering the cross, even before taking our flesh. Indeed, if He had not suffered He would not have come to share our life with us. First He suffered, then He came down. But what is this passion that He felt for us? It was the passion of love. And does not the Father himself, the God of the universe slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love also in some way suffer with us? Are you not aware that whilst governing human affairs He has compassion on our sufferings? Look how the Lord your God bore you, as a man bears his son. In the same way as the Son of God bore our griefs, God bears with our behavior. The Father is not without passion either. He has pity, He knows something of the passion of love. He has merciful impulses which it might seem His sovereign majesty would have forbidden Him. - Origen of Alexandria, Homily on Ezekiel
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 07:47:32 +0000