Venerable Theodore the Sanctified, Disciple of the Venerable Pachomius the Great
Beloved brothers and sisters,
CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN! ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! ΑΛΗΘΩΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ!
"He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." (1 John 4:8)
[Note: "God is love" (v.8) is not a definition of Who God is, but rather a description of His relationship to us as Our Father.]
THE LOVE THAT HAS NO LIMITS
By Fr. Lev Gellet
[source: In Thy Presence]
My child, you have seen the Bush which burns without being consumed. You have recognized in it the Love which is a devouring fire and which wants your whole self. The "great vision" of the Burning Bush can help you to give me a name which in some ways is a new one; it does not do away with the name or names which, until now, you have mainly used, but, like lightning in the night, it may, by its living light, give a new view of the whole landscape.
Often you have called Me by a name which was not Mine. Or, rather, that eternal name was certainly Mine, but it did not give clear expression to what the divine life manifests most intensely, nor did it translate what I would have wished to reveal to you of Myself in the moment of your prayer--that special aspect of My being under which you should then have addressed yourself to Me.
You call Me God. This traditional name has been adored and blessed by numberless souls. To these souls it has brought, and does not cease to bring, emotion and strength. He who tried to depreciate it would indeed be foolish, and impious he who tried to eliminate it. Adore Me as your God. Revere this name by which I am known.
You will not diminish your reverence by noticing that, in terms of language, this name itself has no clearly defined content. It lacks precision. Those meanings which have been added to it later were not necessarily linked to the word. It is such a vast word, one which is capable of such extension, that it may sometimes--due to human weakness--seem somehow empty...
And then a mechanical, routine use has often been made of My name. Many have kept the formula. They no longer know how to give it meaning.
You say: God, my God. You Who are God. Lord God. And, from the ancient source, from the sacred Name, you can assuredly draw new strengths. But you could find a true stimulus in attempting to specify in My Name the meaning which would be appropriate to the moment or the immediate need.
You could then turn to that particular aspect of Mine which the given circumstances revealed to you. Accordingly, you would then say to Me: You Who are Beauty, or: You Who are Truth, or: You Who are my Purity, or: You Who are my Light, or: You Who are my Strength. You could also say: You Who are Love.
This last expression would approximate your language most nearly to My Heart. You could then say to Me: Lord Love. Or still more simply: Love.
And here I would suggest, putting forward the idea for you to reflect on, putting it to your sense of reverence, a term which could, if you wished it to, become the sun--the sun without evening--of your lives, My beloved ones, I am Limitless Love.
Limitless Love…I am beyond and above all names. Yet precisely the adjective 'limitless' expresses that My Person and My Love elude all the categories to which human thought is accustomed. For I am Supreme Love, Universal Love, Absolute Love, Infinite Love.
If, now, I rather stress the word 'limitless', it is to awaken in your minds the perception of something 'unlimited', of a love which, like a violent wind, like a hurricane, comes to break down all obstacles. I am that love which nothing can stop, which cannot be contained or restrained by anything.
The enemy to be overcome is not death. It is the negation with which man can oppose My love. For nothing can destroy or diminish the loving purpose and action of the Almighty God.
My beloved ones, I am not teaching you anything new here. I do not bring you a definition or a doctrine. I am only saying again what has been said since the beginning. I am indicating one channel of access. But all channels are good if they lead as far as Me.
THE SOURCE
Love (Agape) has received a personal name. He has taken a human face. He has trodden our roads. He has become one of us, without ceasing to be Divinely Himself. 'Jesus-Love'...
It is to the Source itself that we wish to make our way. No doubt it would be inspiring to discern and to follow oriented and distinct outpourings of this Source; to tarry near the three symbolic figures, equally young and equally beautiful, seated at Abraham's table under the tree at Mamre; to listen to the cantata of three voices wherein each voice, with its own modulations, sings the same Love. But of such things, of the personal relations within the divine essence, there will be no mention here. It would go beyond our present purpose, beyond what is feasible. We shall therefore speak of our Lord Love without differentiating.
We will speak of Love in the simplest way. We will speak of those of His aspects which are the simplest. In this first, direct approach, which is free (though not separate) from what is perceptible by the senses and from modes of manifestation, we shall find ourselves on the same ground as so many souls, themselves very simple too, who, ignoring theories, now only how to love, and who sigh for the meeting of the loved one with the Lover, of the soul with Love.
Is it true, my child, that you desire nothing other than Love?--It is true, Lord--It is true, Lord--Then, my child, because you have this thirst, come to the waters. Come to the primal water. Come and drink at the Source.
THE ESSENTIAL BOND
My child, widen your vision to the dimensions of universal Love, to the dimensions of My Heart.
Limitless Love does not end in man. The entire universe is upheld by My Love. It is the essential bond between all beings, between all things, and the One Who gives them life.
Be swept away by the immense tide of Limitless Love, by that energy, by that hope with which the whole of nature waits, groaning to be delivered from the consequence of the fall.
Man reaches upward toward Me. But do not lose sight of My reaching down to man, to all things.
Take a flower in your hand. Take a stone. Think about them, not from a scientific point of view, but from the point of view of Love. They form a summary of the evolution of the world. They symbolize Love aspiring to its heights and also Love coming to us down the centuries, disclosing itself to us, giving itself to us, coming ever closer to us.
See the beauty of love in a blade of grass, in a leaf, in a branch. Make an offering of a scent or a color, include your life in the life of the universe, submitting it to the same Divine plan. Think of mountains and of the sea, of the winds and storms, of wild beasts and of very small animals. All of them have their place in My Heart. Make room for them in your prayer. That through them it may be guided into wider avenues than that of a piety in which the universe has no part.
Learn to recognize Love's purpose in every creature. I have loved each grain of sand, each tree, each animal. Each one of them represents a reaching upward and stooping down. Enter into all this and yield yourself to it. Give thanks in the name of nature which cannot speak. Let your response to Limitless Love be reverence as vast as the world.
Do you love the sun? Do you love the stars? Do you love the galaxies? Do you give thanks to Me for their creation and their presence? Do you enter into divine Love for all that exists?
Perhaps this is difficult for you. To love snakes...Even if you were bitten by a snake, you should try to love it at the very moment of its biting you. Animals are not culpable. They only act in accordance with the needs of their nature. They, too, are the victims of man's ancestral (original) fall. But I do not cease from loving them all.
The stone which is thrown into water causes ever-widening circles to be set in motion. This invisible movement affects all the molecules of the universe. This is it with My Limitless Love. My Love is an emotion which spreads to infinity, and unites in essence all that exists.
With sincere agape in Our Risen Lord Jesus Christ,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George