Mother Siluana: Pain leads us directly to our heart
Acceptance and blessing are difficult, but they are the only way that leads to Joy.
Note: As part of her ministry in the Center for Formation and Counseling “Saints Archangels Michael and Gabriel” in Iasi, Romania, Mother Siluana Vlad would answer questions posted online, mostly from young people, covering a multitude of topics. These questions and answers have been collected in a series of books published in Romania. We hope that one of these books, already translated in English from Romanian, will be published soon in the USA. Here is an excerpt:
Question:
Mother Siluana, I have realized that “evil” is in my mind. Everything starts there. My mind is like a prison; it corrals me in. And my soul, where the divine seed dwells, ready to grow - my soul is suffocated. I have felt it many times. I know it is there. It has shown me how much happiness I can live when I let it express itself freely. There is so much beauty there…Now I understand the meaning of your words: “the mind needs to descend into the heart.”
I don’t even remember when and how my soul withered compared to my mind. Or maybe it has always been like that, and only sometimes - when it was receiving something beautiful, such as love, gratitude, appreciation, or hope - did it find the strength to express itself freely. God has always been present in my life. Ever since I was a child, I have been going to church, confession, and communion; my grandmother passed on her faith to me, a faith that ceased to be strong in my family. But I have remained faithful, to feel His presence, to call on Him in my hour of need. But it wasn’t the right relationship: I asked for what I thought I needed. He only wanted me to feel His presence, love Him, and trust myself in His care…
I don’t know what to do at this time. I feel the need to go somewhere with Him, with the Bible, and with a notebook…to see beautiful places, to meet wonderful people, to fill myself with the life that I hardly find in myself…to beseech Him to forgive me and to show me how to live from now on…I need Him to enlighten my thoughts, words, and deeds so that I stop acting as wrong as I have done so far with those around me, with my child…Lord, I am a sinner; I am unworthy; where can I find my place?
And so, having thought about all these things today, I remembered your advice, and I wrote these lines:
“Lord, be blessed in all I am experiencing now, in the pain that I feel, which I also transmit involuntarily to those around me. Lord, I know that You give to each of us according to our strength, but I feel that I am at the end of my rope. Enter into my mind, Lord, and do what You think is best for my peace, joy, and happiness. I don’t want to be a burden to those around me; I want to share with them joy, happiness, and enthusiasm. I don’t want my child to see tears of sadness, of pain, which he doesn’t understand - but tears of joy. I want my soul to quiver, to love, to express itself freely, to rejoice in all the wonders You gave us, to rejoice in Your will.” Amen!
With deep reverence and profound gratitude,
M.
Mother Siluana’s answer:
My dear M.,
This is the narrow gate!
Do you see, my dear child, how when we are in pain, we want to leave somewhere far away where we can have peace, quiet, and well-being? We want to choose the wide path, as wide as the horizon!
This rebellious impulse, when faced with the hardships of life, means not listening and not submitting to the mercy of God hidden in our pain! He put this pain in us so that, by listening to it, we can follow its thread which leads directly to our heart. There, we will discover the source of evil, and there, we will call on the Lord (it is there that the exile in Babylon is for us), the Source of Good, and the Victor over evil. If we run away from pain, either by taking painkillers or other analgesics or by running on foreign paths which take us outside ourselves - we will increase the evil dwelling in us, and we will live in constant dissatisfaction, unrest, and even anxiety! And wherever we will go and whatever we will do, we will find the same evil that we ran away from!
Why? Is there no place on earth where we can find all we wish for? There is! It is, as I was saying, our heart. The depths of our heart!
How do we get there? On the narrow path of accepting what we see in ourselves, in our neighbors, in the ones around us, while yearning for what we don’t see yet. By blessing all that we see and calling on the Lord, we pierce through the curtain of darkness surrounding us and reach the Light! In fact, the Light leads us!
Why is the path of acceptance and blessing so narrow? Because we can’t start walking on it unless we crucify in ourselves the desire that the world and the ones around us be like we want them to be, the desire to impose the good the way we see it, the desire to get what we want, regardless of what the others want…unless we crucify our egotism - this illness which we consider to be our very being.
Acceptance and blessing are difficult, but they are the only way that leads to Joy.
Why? Because everything our heart desires needs to be absolute and perfect! And we can only find this in God, and we can only obtain this with Him! He Himself teaches us this when He asks us: “Seek first the Kingdom” (Matthew 6:33). We can only be happy in a reality that has the Absolute as the King Who loves humankind! And we seek this Kingdom outside ourselves in vain because it is in us, in the hidden chamber of our heart. Let us descend there with the Lord, calling on Him, blessing Him, and accepting with Him that “sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34). Only then will everything change; everything will become new! Only then will the promise be fulfilled: “all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33) - all the things we desire.
Courage, my dear! All these things are for you too! What you seek, you will find only here!
Do all that is asked of you daily with blessings, and everything will change. By itself! Do you fall? Stand back up! I will repeat it, the Lord does not count how many times we fall, but how many times we stand up.
You don’t know how much I appreciate that you are so diligent that you remember my words and put them into practice!
God bless you and comfort you on your Way!
With much love,
M. Siluana
I, too, hope this book can be published in the US. What a wonderful word!