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| Icon of Saint Joseph the Hesychast (by Iconographer Camille Rahal. 2020) |
Since we have written about many and diverse things, my child, moved by your ardent faith and piety, I considered it good also to write a few things about love that I have learned from the Holy Fathers who lived before me and from reading the Scriptures.
However, fearing the height of this supernatural grace, I am overcome by awe, lest I am unable to bring the discourse to an end. All the same, warmed by the hope of your holy prayers, I shall begin the discourse. For how can I, my child, with my own strength write about such a great charisma which exceeds my strength? And with what tongue can I tell of this heavenly delight and sustenance of the holy angels, prophets, apostles, righteous, martyrs, monks, and every category of those listed in the heavens?
Truly, my child, even if I had all the tongues of men since Adam to help me, it still seems impossible to me that I would be able to extol Love worthily. What am I saying, "worthily"? A mortal tongue is entirely incapable of even remotely expressing something concerning love, unless God, Who is truth and Love itself, gives us the power of speech, wisdom, and knowledge. And through the human tongue, this God Himself, our sweet Jesus Christ is both called and praised as God. For Love is nothing but the Father and the Saviour Himself, our sweet Jesus, together with the Divine Spirit.
Of course, all the other divine gifts of the loving God, such as humility, meekness, abstinence, and so on, have divine sensation when they act upon us through divine grace. For without the action of divine grace all these in general are simply virtues that we keep to heal our passions because of the commandment of the Lord.
Before we receive grace, we undergo changes all the time: towards humility and towards pride; towards love and towards hatred; towards abstinence and towards gluttony; towards meekness and towards anger; towards forbearance and towards indignation, etc. However, once we are acted upon by divine grace, these continuous changes and alterations of the soul cease. Although the body continues to have its elemental and natural changes (namely: cold, heat, weight, fatigue, hunger, thirst, illness, and so on), the soul, fed by the action of divine grace, remains unchangeable in the natural, divine gifts it has been given.
What I mean by unchangeable is this: due to the grace abiding in us, the soul does not change in the divine gifts it has been given by God. Not that it does not change when grace withdraws, but it changes with difficulty due to the soul's firm resolution-it is not completely unchangeable, though.
For we have written also elsewhere in this epistle that as long as we carry about
Today, many virtuous people who live good lives, who please God with their deeds and words, and who benefit their neighbour, think they have (and are thought of having) attained Love through their insignificant work of mercy and compassion they show towards their neighbour. But this is not the truth. They are only fulfilling the commandment of love for the Lord, Who said, "Love one another." He who keeps this commandment is worthy of praise as a keeper of the divine commandments-but this is not an action of divine Love. It is a road towards the fountain, but not the fountain. It is stairs towards the palace, but not the gate of the palace. It is a royal garment, but not the King. It is a commandment of God, but not God.
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Therefore, he who wishes to speak about Love, must have revelation of the
mystery of Love. Only then, if the fountain of Love, our sweet Jesus, permits, should he impart to others some of the fruit he received; then he shall surely benefit his neighbour. For there is a great danger for us to speak erroneously, to think turbidly, and to believe we know things that we do not.
So then, my beloved child, know this for certain: fulfilling the commandment of love through works done for mutual brotherly love is one thing, and the action of divine Love is another. All men are able to fulfil the commandment of brotherly love if they want to and if they force themselves. Divine love, though, neither results from our works, nor does it depend on our will-if we want, when we want, and how we want. But it depends on the fountain of Love, our sweetest Jesus, Who gives us if He wants, how He wants, and whenever He wants.
When we walk in simplicity, keep the commandments, and patiently and persistently seek divine love with tears and pain, guarding Jethro's sheep like Moses that is, guarding the good and spiritual movements and meditations of the nous during the heat of the day and the frost of the night of continuous battles and temptations, which we crush with our struggle and humility-then we are counted worthy of seeing God and the Bush in our hearts, burning with the divine fire of Love, burning but not consumed. And having approached it through noetic prayer, we hear the divine voice in a mystery of spiritual knowledge saying, "Put off thy sandals from thy feet'" That is, put off from yourself every self-will and worry for this age as well as all childish thoughts, and be subject to the Holy Spirit and His divine will, "for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground".
And once such a person puts off everything, he is entrusted with the responsibility to protect the people and inflicts wounds on Pharaoh-that is, he discerns and governs through divine gifts, and conquers the demons. Then he receives the divine laws-not on stone tablets, as Moses did, which wear out and break, but rather in divine engravings of the Holy Spirit which act in our hearts. And not only ten commandments, but as many as his nous, knowledge, and nature can contain. Afterwards, he enters into "that which is within the veil."
When the divine cloud descends in a pillar of fire of Love, he becomes all fire as well. He is unable to endure any longer, and the divine action of Love within him cries out to the fountain of Love through human lips, "What shall separate me from Thy sweet Love, Jesus?" And when the breeze blows even more-whether in the body or out of the body, God knows; whether within the hut or out in the open air, God knows-he who has experienced this knows only this: that he has totally become fire with the fire, and shedding tears of love, he cries out in amazement and astonishment, "Stop, sweet Love, the waters of Thy grace, for the joints of my body have come apart!" As he says this, and while the wind of the Spirit is blowing upon him with His marvellous and ineffable fragrance, his senses cease, not permitting any bodily action at all. And entirely captivated and enclosed in silence, he can only marvel at the riches of the glory of God until the divine cloud passes.
He remains as one crazy as from wine all ecstatic.
For neither his tongue nor his mind nor his heart Permits him to speak any words
except these:
I beg Thee, my Jesus, my Love that is sweetest!
My Father and Savior, sweetest pure eros!
My God and Creator and the All-holy Spirit, o Trinity Holy in
a heavenly Oneness!
Life of my soul and my heart's delectation,
My intellect's brightness, 0 Love that is perfect!
O fountain of Love and my hope and my faith, Teach me how I must seek Thee
in order to find Thee.
Yes, my Love that is sweetest, my Jesus and Savior; Just tell me the way, for I
want nothing else.
I desire to find Thee and to fall at Thy feet and to kiss with much sweetness Thy
wounds and the nails;
To weep without ceasing out of pain that is heartfelt, And wash Thy divine feet
as Mary once did.
And let not any powers or dominions detach me, Nor Belial the rival with his
unholy angels,
Nor temporal pleasures of this age which is passing, nor all of the world with its
fleeting enjoyments.
But just as I am now, come take my poor soul there However Thou knowest, and
Thy feet shall I wash then.
I yearn to behold Thee and worship forever
My God and Creator, my Love and my Saviour,
Together with all of the Righteous and Prophets, Apostles and Martyrs, with the
Monks and Saved Women,
And all hosts of the heavens: Archangels and Angels, With the Cherubim,
Seraphim, Thrones, and the Powers,
And our sweetest true Mother Panagia the Virgin, The Lady of all, our most pure
Theotokos.
Amen.
So my child, blessed is the hour in which-if we are worthy-we present our soul clean to the Lord and rejoice together with all of those we mentioned, where for all, in all, and over all reigns Jesus Christ, the sweet Saviour; God the Father; the Beloved, Holy, Good, Peaceful, Life-Giving, Life-creating Spirit-the Holy, Indivisible Trinity, now and ever, and unto the infinite ages of endless ages. Amen.
Reference:
Monastic Wisdom. The Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast.(19)
Monastic Wisdom. The Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast.(19)