The Journey towards Love

[TER]

If we want to fare well in this life and go to Paradise, and to call our God love and father, we must have two loves: the love for God and the love for our neighbor. It is natural for us to have these two loves, and contrary to nature not to have them. Just as a swallow needs two wings in order to fly in the air, so we need these two loves, because without them we cannot be saved.

- St. Cosmas Aitolos

 

[TER]

The Lord is always waiting for us to unite ourselves with Him in love; but instead, we drift further and further away from Him. We know that there can be no life without love. This means that there is no life without God, for God is Love. But His love is not according to the understanding of the world. The love that the world gives us consists of suffering and enslavement, because the spirits of evil interfere with it. There is a little bit of love, but mostly it is just enslavement.

- Elder Thaddeus

 

[TER]

Draw nigh to the righteous, and through them you will draw nigh to God. Communicate with those who possess humility, and you will learn morals from them. A man who follows one who loves God becomes rich in the mysteries of God; but he who follows an unrighteous and proud man gets far away from God, and will be hated by his friends.

-St. Isaac the Syrian

 

[TER]

Our life is with our neighbor… If we gain our brother, we have gained GOD, but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ.

-St. Anthony the Great

 

[TER]

The perfect person does not only try to avoid evil. Nor does he do good for fear of punishment, still less in order to qualify for the hope of a promised reward.

The perfect person does good through love.

His actions are not motivated by desire for personal benefit, so he does not have personal advantage as his aim. But as soon as he has realized the beauty of doing good, he does it with all his energies and in all that he does.

He is not interested in fame, or a good reputation, or a human or divine reward.

—St. Clement of Alexandria

 

[TER]

Hate stirs up strife but love covereth all offenses.

—Proverbs 10:12

 

[TER]

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.

The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

—Romans 13:8-10

 

[Sola_Fide]

My apologies for the thread derailment TER. Here is the link to the article:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?393451-The-Law-And-The-Gospel

 

[TER]

God loves us more than a father, mother, friend, or any else could love, and even more than we are able to love ourselves.

- St. John Chrysostom

 

[TER]

The great test is the love of enemies. Love is not just a nice feeling when I am with certain people whom I find it easy to be with. It is very hard to love those who are unjust to us, or are unjust to those whom we care about, or are unjust to the Church. Yet, as Saint Silouan said, ”the criterion of the true Christian is love of enemies.” This is at the heart of the Gospel.

- Sister Magdalene from Essex

 

[TER]

“There is no greater love than that a man lays down his life for his neighbor. When you hear someone complaining and you struggle with yourself and do not answer him back with complaints; when you are hurt and bear it patiently, not looking for revenge; then you are laying down your life for your neighbor.”

—Abba Poemen

 

[TER]

“But I say to you,” the Lord says, “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you.” Why did he command these things? So that he might free you from hatred, sadness, anger and grudges, and might grant you the greatest possession of all, perfect love, which is impossible to possess except by the one who loves all equally in imitation of God.

– St. Maximus the Confessor

 

[TER]

...without love the works of virtue are not praiseworthy or profitable to the man who practices them, and the same is true of love without works. St. Paul makes this fully clear with reference to works when he writes to the Corinthians, 'If I do this and that, but have no love, it profits me nothing' (cf. I Cor. 13:1-3); and with reference to love the disciple especially beloved by Christ writes, 'Let us not love in word or tongue but in action and truth' (I John 3:18).

- St. Gregory Palamas

 

[TER]

Faith and love which are gifts of the Holy Spirit are such great and powerful means that a person who has them can easily, and with joy and consolation, go the way Jesus Christ went. Besides this, the Holy Spirit gives man the power to resist the delusions of the world so that although he makes use of earthly good, yet he uses them as a temporary visitor, without attaching his heart to them. But a man who has not got the Holy Spirit, despite all his learning and prudence, is always more or less a slave and worshipper of the world.

- St. Innocent of Alaska

 

[TER]

God is long-suffering and merciful to you: this you experience many times every day. Be long-suffering and merciful to your brethren, also fulfilling the words of the Apostle, who thus speaks of love before everything: "Love suffereth long, and is kind." You desire that the Lord should rejoice you by His love, rejoice on your part the hearts of others by your tender love and kindness.

- St. John of Kronstadt

 

[TER]

He who has love in Christ must observe the commandments of Christ. The binding power of the love of God - who is able to set it forth? The radiance of His beauty - who can voice it to satisfaction? The sublimity to which love leads up is unutterable. Love unites us with God, love covers a multitude of sins; love endures everything, is long-suffering to the last; there is nothing vulgar, nothing conceited, in love; love creates no schism; love does not quarrel; love preserves perfect harmony. In love all the elect of God reached perfection, apart from love nothing is pleasing to God. In love the Master took us to Himself. Because of the love which He felt for us, Jesus Christ Our Lord gave His Blood for us by the will of God, His Body for our bodies, and His soul for our souls.

- St. Clement of Rome

 

[TER]

He who loves the Lord has first loved his brother, because the second is a proof of the first.

- St. John Climacus

 

[TER]

He who truly loves God, is devoted to His holy will; and no matter what might befall him, he accepts everything, as from the hand of God, with the firm faith that all this serves to his spiritual benefit. For the soul that is devoted to God, the misfortunes that befall it in this life serve as steps leading it up to perfection.

- St. John Climacus

 

[TER]

Seven brothers were ill in one hospital. One recovered from his illness and got up and rushed to serve his other brothers with brotherly love, to speed their recovery. Be like this brother. Consider all men to be your brothers, and sick brothers at that. And if you come to feel that God has given you better health than others, know that it is given through mercy, so in health you may serve your frailer brothers.

- St. Nikolai Velimirovic

 

[TER]

Seven brothers were ill in one hospital. One recovered from his illness and got up and rushed to serve his other brothers with brotherly love, to speed their recovery. Be like this brother. Consider all men to be your brothers, and sick brothers at that. And if you come to feel that God has given you better health than others, know that it is given through mercy, so in health you may serve your frailer brothers.

- St. Nikolai Velimirovic