Saturday, December 6, 2008

Elder Paisios Explains Agape-Love

I recently received a catalog from St. Herman Press, and there is an excerpt from a new book called, "The Gurus, the Young Man, and Elder Paisios", by Dionysios Farasiotis. When I read this excerpt, things got really clear to me. Through Elder Paisios (+1994), God made the "conditions/terms" of love (or rather, lack of "conditions/terms" of giving love) very clear to me:

I went to see Father Paisios and opened up my heart to him. I impatiently awaited his response. He became serious and said, “Man is worthy of being loved solely because he is in the image of God. It's completely unimportant whether he is good or bad, virtuous or sinful. Man is worthy of being loved for what he is. Christ loved and sacrificed Himself for sinful and perverse people, ‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance’. (Luke 5:32) So we should love everyone without making any distinctions. Just as the sun rises on everyone, the intelligent and unintelligent, the good and the evil, the beautiful and the ugly, so our love should be like the love of God that resembles the sun and is directed towards all of His creation without distinction.” As Saint Paul writes in his Epistle to the Romans, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who is given unto us.” (Romans 5:5) At last, I felt consoled. There was someone who agreed with me and understood me, and it was Father Paisios.

Okay, I've read the Bible and have read some things the Holy Fathers have had to say about love. I also know how our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ loved us while here in the flesh, and how He still loves us. I wondered, "What about people who annoy us? Or who are hurtful and mean to us? Or people who are difficult? Or people who are ungrateful? etc." Yes, Christ loves everyone equally, but I guess I figured that we human beings would have to be nearly blind or deaf to be able to carry out this lofty command to love each other so we wouldn't be wounded by annoyances, hurt, etc. from others. It's clear to me now that through Elder Paisios, God is telling us that yes, we have people in our lives that are difficult, maybe people who on a worldly level, we may deem and judge as "unworthy" of being loved. But as Christians, we are called to love all, as God loves, with that perfect, unconditional love (agape-love). Finally, someone has spelled this out to me, that although someone may be hard to love, God knows the difficulty for us in this and He knows our struggle, but still, we are to love them without conditions, and without distinction.

Mother Teresa said something to the effect that the greatest disease of modern times is a lack of love, and I believe it's true. I believe there are people in this world literally dying from a lack of love, and this is heartbreaking to me. This is why God's Ten Commandments are nothing besides love—love for God, and love for our neighbors (Matthew 22:36-40): "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (the "two commandments" being to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" and to "love your neighbor as yourself"). God is our Creator, our Father...He is perfect, and He is love; it's easy to see why we should love Him. But I believe at least one reason God commanded us to love each other is because with love, all things are possible. With love, a person's whole demeanor can be changed...depression and sadness can be banished, hope will be renewed, life has purpose and meaning beyond the temporal "happiness" material things give. Love makes the most difficult circumstances somewhat more tolerable. I believe that for many, a lack of love is responsible for substance abuse, depression, and other difficulties. When we feel we don't matter to anyone, we feel alone and isolated. God didn't design us to be isolated and lonely...it's unnatural. Reaching out to each other is an extension of God's love. When we reach out to those around us, we are giving them a physical manifestation of God's love, which is so much more powerful than anything we can give, but sometimes, people need a hug, or verbal words of encouragement, or kind words, or a sympathetic ear. God loves us and is always listening and weeping with us in our difficult times, but it is through others that He does his work, uses them as His arms, hands, legs, feet, mouth, that His work can be done, and that His love can be manifested. It's so important therefore that we try to love others as much as we can; as perfectly as we can, because sometimes, it's the difference between hope and despair...life and death.