Mother Siluana Vlad: Lord, teach me to love!
Cry out: “Teach me, Lord, to love! This state of hate is hurting me. Teach me to love!” And then God will teach you every morning, and you should say: “What would I do if I loved people?”
Question:
Every time something bad happens to me, some failure, I fall into depression, and I feel I hate everyone. What can I do to stop having this feeling?
Mother Siluana:
Someone says, “I hate myself,” and someone else says, “I hate everyone.” Hate is an innocent feeling in and of itself, but it is the symptom of a grave illness of the soul. I am not happy, I cannot be happy, when I hate. Then I cry out to God: “Lord, teach me to love!” We cannot love “instinctually” - we need to learn it. Love needs to be learned.
Elder (now Saint) Sophrony of Essex told this story: “A man went to Mt. Athos to ask what he needs to do for his salvation. And they told him there: “You need to love God with all your soul, all your mind, and all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.” And the poor man said to himself: “I can’t do this! I don’t love God; I fear Him, but I don’t love Him…And I can’t stand my neighbor more often than not. There have to be other methods of salvation - fasting, prostrations, something I can do…” And he went from one Elder to another, crisscrossing Mt. Athos, but he couldn’t find any other method. Then he sat down on a stone and said, with all the despair of someone looking for a solution: “What will I do? I need to save myself. I don’t want to suffer like this for eternity!” And an idea came to him: “I will do what I can. I can do that which I would do if I loved!” And he constantly asked himself: “What would I do now if I loved God?” And he would do it. “What would I do now if I loved my neighbor?” And he would do it.
You do the same. Cry out: “Teach me, Lord, to love! This state of hate is hurting me. Teach me to love!” And then God will teach you every morning, and you should say: “What would I do if I loved people?” And see what thoughts will come to your mind: you would pray for them. What would I do if I loved my mother? I would forgive her for telling me to take out the trash exactly when I sit down to watch my favorite movie. And so on. And you will witness great miracles!
Wow, thank you! That's quite an answer. And it also shows the spiritual and intellectual depth of Mother Siluana that she translated this in the way she did. I know she quotes Palamas, but the image of the feelings of the soul becoming the body of our prayer, perhaps that's her own? And if so, what an image! I think it does really help one get out of a stoic approach to prayer, which I think I've been stuck in for years, and I think I've been praying the Jesus prayer like a stoic; at least partially, until I read Mother Siluana.
I recently started reading Mother Siluana's book "God, Where is the Wound?" and I am finding it to be extraordinarily enlightening. I see that you, Grig Gheorghiu, are also the translator of this book. I have a couple of questions that you might be able to answer. First, what are the contents of the Romanian Philokalia Volumes 7 and 8 which she is told to read? The English version is organized differently as there are only 5 volumes. Second, she refers to the idea that the "feelings of the soul are the flesh of prayer", and references St. Gregory Palamas (and St. Basil of Poiana Marului). Do you know where St. Gregory discusses this? I don't ask this to question her, but because I'd like to find out more about it.