Mother Siluana: On freedom of choice and knowing God's will
This is what it means to do everything according to God’s will: to accept all that has been given to you as a gift.
How do we escape the burden of our freedom of choice?
We need courage and boldness to use this gift, but as a gift from God. We should not use our freedom toward evil, toward licentiousness, but we should realize who we are: we are God’s creatures, only God is good, only God’s existence is the absolute good.
The second good is the created existence, which is a relative good. All that exists is good, and when we do things that maintain our existence, and when our existence is good (that is, in accordance with the harmony that God created), then all is good.
We can’t compare activities, actions, or choices; we can’t compare them as good or bad, except if we place them in relation to God - and only then we can dare to do anything. We are guided by what brings us closer to God, what fills us with life. God is my life, He sustains my life, and so whenever I choose life and life’s values, I do good. I choose evil whenever I hurt life - even a leaf or an ant. Anything that doesn’t sustain life and doesn’t increase life is a wrong choice.
If we look at all things this way, then everything becomes simple, in the sense that I will try to discover God’s will, I will try to know God’s will.
How do we know God’s will?
At first, by listening to what God is telling us. We wouldn’t know anything about God or ourselves if God Himself didn’t tell us. So this revelation - what God tells us, what God shows us - is what we learn and how we learn to live in Him.
And God teaches us through His “terrible” commandments. God’s commandments are actually instructions for how to live a good life, instructions full of power. God is hidden in His commandments - God as a creative, loving, providential power, caring for us and directing us when we err, a power that is placed in the commandments. Just like the power of an electromagnetic coil in an appliance.
This uncreated power is placed in His words that are uttered, in human words that reach me. For example, if I tell you to go into the living room and turn on the light, you can say that this command restricts your freedom. But if you turn on the light, you will discover that the object you were looking for or wanted is there. And without this gesture of turning on the light, you would not have been able to use what you needed.
But we stop at this resistance we have against commandments because, through the fall from Paradise, we ceased to receive commandments from God, and instead received them from people; and these commandments have always been sinful and egotistical, centered on people’s interests and their notion of good. The moment we turn to God, we find the commandment that “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” And then you try to find out where this life is available. If you hear that something special is available at a supermarket, you look for it. And when you hear that life is available in Church, you go to Church and find Divine life and joy. “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete (John 15:11).”
Then comes the harder part: “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt 6:33). So when you start saying: “Lord, I have no job, or I have no children, I haven’t found love, I have no money,” and so on - all these will be added if you first seek the Kingdom.
Then you attend higher-level courses. What is the Kingdom? How does one seek the Kingdom? What direction should I take to enter the Kingdom? You find out that the road is narrow, yet it is safer and easier to enter the Kingdom through the narrow road than through the wide road that leads you wherever it wants.
God commands us to be happy. God commands us to be alive. God commands us to eat. Think about it: the first commandment God gave Adam was to eat, and He taught him what to eat so that it would be good. And so, let’s start here. We need life, we need food, we need air, we need love. And then, of course, it will be very simple for me not to kill if I have all these. It will be very simple to fulfill the other commandments because life, love, and joy are in me, and I know where to find them.
And then the problem of choice is not to do this or that, but to be for life or against life. To be with God or without God. God doesn’t have a program that says: “Let me watch Siluana now to see what she chooses, monasticism or life in the world!” and then bash me with misfortune if I choose incorrectly. No. And if I choose to be in the world, I choose to be with God. Do you think God has left our streets and our neighborhoods? No. It is we who don’t see Him.
And so, whatever I choose, the choice is: with God or without God.
What can we do so we don’t fall?
It is impossible for us not to fall. Life teaches you; it teaches you to be human; it teaches you to walk, talk, be a happy human being, and be a human being in God. You learn how to live. “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matt 11:29). We learn to be nourished by God.
And here, it depends on who teaches us. A little child who goes to our church said to his mother one day: “Mom, when I get older, I will have a wife.” And his mother asked him: “And what will you do with her?” And he said: “Well, I will take her to church and have her take Holy Communion.” And so, it depends on what we learn, what kind of heritage we receive from our parents.
But let us not despair, even if we have a difficult heritage - and we do have very difficult heritages, which is why we can’t choose, we are not free in our choices. Life pushes us to marry people who will ensure our lives are similar to our parents. We choose unfortunate situations. Our choices are bad because they are not free. They are dictated by our fears, our patterns, our heritages. Sometimes we might be driven to choose situations by the patterns of our grandparents or great-grandparents.
And so, to choose correctly, I need to choose to be in Church, to heal myself through prayer and the Holy Sacraments. I need to bring peace to my ancestors, my grandparents, and my parents, through forgiveness, memorials, through untying myself from them, through a love that is free. I entrust them to the merciful God, and I pray for their forgiveness, but I don’t have the duty to carry on the curse, if there was a curse, or to carry on their unfortunate patterns, as many people do. These people think they choose their destiny, but they repeat what has always been happening in their families - for example, in some families, the men die when they reach their 40s.
Interviewer: They see that something is not right, but maybe they don’t know how to stop this evil.
Mother Siluana:
They don’t know how, it’s true, because these schemas are within us, and they dictate our behavior. And so, asking if we choose right or wrong is not the correct question as long as we don’t cleanse our minds and souls from these patterns and heritages. And God makes us free; by nourishing ourselves with Him, listening to His words, talking to Him, bringing Him into our lives, we free ourselves from these inherited guidelines, and we can choose Him freely.
And you never have a pattern in how to choose God. Sometimes you can choose Him by smiling at someone, another time by frowning at someone. You choose God because you do all this in the name of love. But it should be from love.
How do we know if we did something right or wrong?
If the right thing is imposed from external instructions, I will live in fear that I did something wrong. But if I choose God, I don’t judge myself; He gives me strength and I learn from my mistakes. Whatever happens is right for my experience of meeting God. Just like when you truly love, you don’t tell the other, “It’s not good to watch these doves all the time; let’s look at some flowers too!” You don’t ask questions like these. Things unfold naturally because we love each other. The same happens with us. We entrust ourselves to God, and then things come from a “self” nourished by God.
Should we let everything be according to God’s will? Should we not plan anything?
When you dance, as a woman (I think women will understand this), you let yourself be led by your partner. And under no circumstance do you push him - let’s step this way, let’s step that way, but you simply let yourself be led. But that doesn’t mean you disappeared. Because if you didn’t move, he would drag a corpse and not dance with somebody - right?
And so, we offer ourselves with all our creativity, and we wholly - but wholly! - let ourselves be led by God. And, in the end, what should we plan? Think about it: we are born according to a program. I can’t be born in a village and think that my program was to be born in Paris. That wouldn’t be possible. But I tell myself I will move to Paris, and my whole life I will torment myself about what to do to move to Paris - I will not see the flowers around me, or the animals, or the sky, because I am obsessed with my move to Paris. And this will take place when I will be in my seventies, and Paris will seem like a photo album - this happened to me when I saw Paris; it seemed like I was looking at postcards.
And so, I need to be present in the program I was born in. I was born here. Now you work here at a radio station. You don’t need a program when you go to a specific place for your job - but on your way there, are you with God or not? Maybe you don’t choose who you marry. But you choose how you love your husband, how to enjoy his presence, how to make him love you and enjoy your presence.
Our choices are part of a program. God doesn’t change the created reality but fills it with uncreated energy. And a Church Father said that to feel joy is to be filled by God in whatever condition we might be in. The difference between a thimble full of joy and a barrel with a bit of joy at the bottom is in favor of the thimble.
And so, if I am in a poor relationship with someone and I give myself wholly in God’s hands, I do what God commands, I forgive, I chastise - as grace teaches me and as God enlightens me at every moment - I heal myself for the part that I needed to work on in this difficult relationship, and something changes. Either the other changes, or life moves me to another workplace, and everything flows naturally. But if you say: “I am going to leave this place because I don’t get along with this person,” you will take yourself to that other place, and you will start another battle there, according to the old rules.
Therefore, this is what it means to do everything according to God’s will: to accept all that has been given to you as a gift. In this condition, if I am in prison, or the hospital, if I have cancer, if I am a movie star - “Lord, be with me! Lord, grant me to be grateful to you, to pray to you, to be with you in whatever condition I am in!” And then, your conditions will change.
“I want to change, Lord, but I can’t!” And I offer my powerlessness to the Lord. If we understand this mystery, our life will change fundamentally. But we say: “I can! I can!” - like a child who tears himself from the hands of his mother because “he can,” and then he falls and cries. We are like that until we understand that “I can’t!” But I want to be happy, I want to be fulfilled, I want to love, I want to be loved, but I can’t! And so, “Come, Lord!” And God comes to us through means that are clear to everyone, and in a personal way, to each of us according to our situation.
By ourselves, we are like a lamp that is plugged into an outlet. Before Baptism, we are like a lamp that is not plugged in, and so it is useless; it can only be looked at and admired. But after Baptism, after Holy Communion, we are plugged into the outlet. So God allowed us to be plugged into the outlet. But the on/off switch is in our hands. And if we don’t turn the switch on, we don’t have any light.
But you see how wonderful this lamp metaphor is? What is light good for? To see the others around you and for them to see you. Of course, for me to see them, but especially for them to see each other and to see me. And so the light which God enlightens me with becomes a light in which I see the others, and the others see me. So I want to turn the switch on. If not, I will sit in the dark and yell, "I can’t see anything, someone do something, someone open the window…"
When we have to make a difficult decision, should we ask for help from our spiritual father?
We should absolutely go to our spiritual father. Of course, if he knows us well, he can tell us with more discernment what direction we should take. The spiritual father is directly connected to the grace that comes through the Holy Mystery of repentance. But also, for example, if a couple goes to the same spiritual father, he will love both of them and advise them in a way that will ensure true love between them, and not to the advantage of one and the detriment of the other.
If the woman goes to her mother, the mother can say: “Leave him, he is not good for you!” If she goes to her husband’s mother, his mother can say: “Don’t be upset, he is a good man!” Whereas the spiritual father will give them advice and orient them in a way that will benefit both of them.
The spiritual father doesn’t see me as an individual but sees me in the Holy Spirit; he sees my whole life from the perspective of my salvation.
Translated from: