The Teaching of St. Silouan
Although it is natural and usual to love
those who love us and to do good to those who do good to us (Mt
5:46-47; Lk 6:32-33), to love our enemies is distasteful to our nature.
One can say that it isn’t in our power but is an attitude that can only
be the fruit of grace, given by the Holy Spirit. This is why St. Silouan
the Athonite writes, “The soul that has not known the Holy Spirit does
not understand how one can love one’s enemies, and does not accept it.”
The Staretz repeatedly says that love of
enemies is impossible without grace: “Lord, You have given the
commandment to love enemies, but this is difficult for us sinners if
Your grace is not with us”; “Without God’s grace we cannot love
enemies”; “He who does not love his enemies, does not have God’s grace”;
“He who has not learned to love from the Holy Spirit, will certainly
not pray for his enemies.” On the contrary, St. Silouan always teaches
that this attitude is a gift of the Holy Spirit: “The Lord has commanded
us to love our enemies, and the Holy Spirit reveals this love to us”;
“One can only love one’s enemies through the grace of the Holy Spirit”;
“When you will love your enemies, know that a great divine grace will be
living in you.”
This grace does not suddenly erupt in
the soul, but rather shows itself in a divine pedagogy, where taking
into account the weakness and the difficulties of man, the Holy Spirit
progressively teaches him to love and teaches him all the attitudes and
ways which will allow him to do so. “The Holy Spirit teaches us to love
even our enemies”; “The Holy Spirit teaches the soul a profound love for
man and compassion for the lost. The Lord had pity for those who were
lost… The Holy Spirit teaches this same compassion for those who go to
hell”; “I could not speak about it if the Holy Spirit had not taught me
this love”; “The Lord taught me love of enemies… The Holy Spirit taught
[me] to love.”
The grace of the Holy Spirit shows to
him who possesses it the way to love his enemies. But it also reveals to
him the foundation of this love: the love of God for all people and His
will to save them: “No man can know by himself what divine love is if
the Holy Spirit does not instruct him; but in our Church divine love is
known through the Holy Spirit, and that is why we speak about it.” Grace
also “gives man the capacity and the strength to love his enemies, and
the Spirit of God gives us the strength to love them.”
Staretz Silouan insists that because
love of enemies is a fruit of grace, it is essentially through prayer
that it can be obtained. Several times he urges us to “ask the Lord with
our whole being to give us the strength to love all men.” He also
advises to pray to the Mother of God and the Saints: “If we are
incapable [of loving our enemies] and if we are without love, let us
turn with ardent prayers to the Lord, to His Most Pure Mother, and to
all the Saints, and the Lord will help us with everything, He whose love
for us knows no bounds.” The Staretz confesses that he himself
constantly prays God for this: “I continuously beg the Lord to give me
the love of enemies. . . . Day and night I ask the Lord for this love.
The Lord gives me tears and I weep for the whole world.” Wishing in his
universal love for all men to receive such a gift, he links them to
himself in his prayer: “Lord, teach us through Your Holy Spirit to love
our enemies and to pray for them with tears . . . Lord, as you prayed
for your enemies, so teach us also, through the Holy Spirit, to love our
enemies.”
Yet obtaining the grace to love one’s enemies presupposes other conditions.
The
love of enemies is completely bound to the love of God: we have seen
that the principal foundation for the love of enemies is the love that
God shows to all His creatures equally and His will that all people
should be saved, and Christ gave us a perfect example of such love
throughout his earthly life. The love of God leads man to accomplish His
will and to imitate Him as much as possible, and so also to love his
enemies. The Staretz also notes that he who does not love his enemies
shows that he has not learned from the Holy Spirit to love God.
To love one’s enemies is also tightly
bound to humility. The Staretz often associate these two virtues. Almost
all the difficulties we encounter in loving our enemies are linked with
pride: it is from pride that flows the affliction that follows upon
insults, hated, bad temper, spite, the desire for revenge, contempt for
one’s neighbor, refusing to forgive him and to be reconciled with him.
Pride excludes the love of enemies and
love of enemies excludes pride: “If we love our enemies, pride will have
no place in our soul.” The fact that humility goes hand in hand with
love of enemies proves the presence of grace and the authenticity of
love: “If you have compassion for all creatures and love your enemies,
and if, at the same time, you judge yourself the worst of all people,
this shows that the great grace of the Lord is in you.”
Indeed humility is the indispensable
condition to receive and keep the grace that teaches us to love our
enemies and gives us the strength to do so. The Staretz advises:
“Humiliate yourself, then grace will teach you.” On the other hand,
“pride makes us lose grace. . . . The soul is then tormented by bad
thoughts and does not understand that one must humiliate oneself and
love one’s enemies, for without that one cannot please God.”
The Staretz sometimes also stresses the
role played by penitence in connection with humility. “Regard yourself
the worst of men,” he advises. This is an attitude of great humility
that of its nature implies penitence. He who counts himself the worst of
men necessarily thinks others better than himself; he will judge and
blame himself, and not judge and criticize his enemies, for he tends to
estimate them better than himself.
The Staretz also gives us the example of
another penitential attitude — asking God’s forgiveness each time one
has not loved one’s enemy: “If I judge someone or look at him angrily,
my tears dry up and I fall into despondency; and again I start asking
the Lord to forgive me, and the merciful Lord forgives me, a sinner.
“Through such an attitude, by which the soul humbly recognizes before
God its faults and shortcomings and obtains from Him forgiveness, an
opening can be made that becomes bigger and bigger for grace and
unceasing progress in love. As to a total absence of compassion for
enemies, it shows the presence and the action of an evil spirit; sincere
repentance is the only way to be freed from it.”
The insistence on prayer, humility and
penitence shows that, although St. Silouan recognizes a determining role
to the action of grace in acquiring love of enemies, he does not
neglect the role played by the efforts that man makes. The Staretz is
very conscious of the importance of the initial action; this is why he
says, “I beg you, try,” and states, “In the beginning, force
your heart to love your enemies.” The efforts one makes must manifest
themselves in a general way in a straight intention and constant good
will, stretched toward the realization of God’s command. God will not
fail to respond.
For the person who feels discouraged by
such a demanding task, St. Silouan reassures him: “Seeing your good
intention, the Lord will help you in everything.” The Staretz who felt
in himself so acutely human powerlessness and weakness seems to think
constantly of these words of the Apostle: “I can do all things through
Christ who gives me strength” (Phil 4:13) and witnesses in his own
experience the mighty help that everyone can receive from God.
Jean-Claude LARCHET
Extract from the book of Jean-Claude Larchet, Saint Silouane de l’Athos, Éditions du Cerf, Paris 2001.
English translation published in In Commmunion, 8, Pascha 1997.
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