The Enormous Sacred Heart

At early Mass, the Catholic hermit realized that it is true what the Right Reverend had written in St. Silouan book's Foreward. The Sacred Heart has the door open for the evil and the good.

Guess I knew it was true when I read it and then wrote it out on a previous blog, but this morning, before the Tabernacle, the reality of just how enormous is Jesus' Heart--well, it all made sense. Later I told the confessor that it is getting crowded in here with all us schmucks.
He laughed, but it is true. The Sacred Heart is the place to nest, and Jesus has it stretched limitlessly for any and all souls who desire to enter. And we can bring souls in with us, especially our enemies' souls. Yes, the Bishop challenged us to put our enemies in our hearts, but if our hearts are subsumed in the Sacred Heart, then that is where we place our enemies' hearts. One is not breaking the law by bringing in our enemies, for the supernatural realm is not the world's.

A hermit who I admire--for this one seems to have ability to perceive, extricate from that which is not hermit-like, do an about face, and continue quietly in our vocational life of prayer and penance--has sent some links regarding St. Silouan the Staretz. If anyone is reading, these might be far more efficient to read than dragging through my blogs. One is an article which emphasizes the Staretz's teaching on love of enemies. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/enarticles/040218200410

Another site shared contains biographical information, some on his teachings, and photos. I never realized his head is perserved in a relic box, but my reading is wanting.

St. Silouan came to a degree of prayer, through years of God's teaching and grace, which helped him say often: "Our brother is our life."

The ascetic learns the great mysteries of the Spirit through pure mental prayer. He descends into his inmost heart, into his natural heart first, and thence into those depths that are no longer of the flesh. He thus finds his 'deep' heart--reaches the profound spiritual, metaphysical core of his being; and looking into it he sees that the existence of mankind is not something alien and extraneous to him, but is inextricably bound up with his own existence.

Through Christ's love, all men are made an inseparable part of our own individual, eternal existence. The Staretz began to understand the commandment, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' as something more than an ethical imperative. In the word 'as' he saw an indication, not of a required degree of love but of an ontological community of being--the commandment of Christ incorporates man in the whole Divine act of the creation of the world.

So, this means that we are linked with one another, in love; and when we comprehend that Jesus has taken into Himself all of mankind, and suffered for all of mankind, that we too ought to "think and feel like Christ--having the same mind which was in Christ."

St. Silouan began to interiorly weep in the intensity of his prayer for mankind. He had been given the gift of understanding and living Christ-like love, of taking to himself all of mankind. The tears are not to be confused with emotional tears; they were interior, of repentance, but hidden with a quiet weeping, peaceful yet profound and profuse.

We are to look upon every man as our eternal brother. In this world there are various distinctions but in eternity we are all one. We must take care of for one's individual self but also for the single whole. St. Silouan was shown the tortures of hell, and after that he prayed for souls separated from God--living and dead. God had told him: Keep thy mind in hell. So he prayed for those separated in various ways, and also for those past and in the future who would live separated from God.

Now, here are some aspects of the Staretz' prayer life when he'd spend long nights in solitary prayer.

...the words of prayer should be spoken very slowly, one by one, each engrossing the whole being. the entire person focusses into a single point. The breathing becomes... 'secret'...[concentration of the Spirit]. The mind, the heart, the body to its very bones, are all drawn into this one point. Unseeing, the mind contemplates the world; unseeing,

the heart lives the sufferings of the world, and in the heart itself suffeirng reaches its utmost limit. The heart--or rather, the whole being--is submerged in tears.

The Staretz' prayers were not verbose, though they went on for a very long time....'When the mind is entirely in God, the world is quite forgotten.'

When, for reasons we do not know, this dwelling in God draws to a close, there is no prayer, but peace, love and profound tranquillity in the soul, and a certain intangible sadness because the Lord has left, for the soul would wish to dwell in God eternally. The soul then lives out what is left of her contemplation.

It is noted that the Staretz prayed best--and are considered the best conditions for mental prayer--in darkness and with the least or no external stimuli. At times, he would be found sitting on a stool, praying with knit cap pulled down over his whole head.