How do you know whether you are living according to the will of God? ( Saint Silouan the Athonite )

How do you know whether you are living according to the will of God?

Here is a sign: if you long for some thing, then you have not submitted to the will of God, even though you may think that you live according to His will. Whoever lives according to the will of God does not concern himself with anything. And if he needs some thing, then he submits himself and that thing to God; and if he does not receive it, then he remains content as though he had received it. 

The soul which has submitted to the will of God, fears nothing: neither storm nor bandits; nothing. And whatever should happen, it says, "It is God’s will." If the body is ill, the soul thinks, "Then I am in need of this illness, otherwise God would not have given it to me." And so the body and the soul remain at peace.

Saint Silouan the Athonite

Many pray aloud and like to pray from books, and this is good, and the Lord accepts their prayers and has mercy on them. ( Saint Silouan the Athonite )

Many pray aloud and like to pray from books, and this is good, and the Lord accepts their prayers and has mercy on them. But if someone should pray to the Lord and be thinking of something else, this prayer will not be heard. Whoever prays through habit has no change in prayer, but whoever prays with feeling has many changes: there is a struggle with the enemy, a struggle with oneself, with passions, a struggle with others, and one must remain hearty. Many like to read good books, and this is commendable, but prayer is best.

Saint Silouan the Athonite

The soul is the best church of God, ( Saint Silouan the Athonite )

For prayer we have been given churches, in which services are conducted according to books, but you cannot take a church with you, and even books are not always available, whereas internal prayer is with you always and in all places. Holy rites are performed in churches in the presence of the Holy Spirit, but the soul is the best church of God, and whoever prays in the soul knows the world as his church. But this is not for everyone.

Saint Silouan the Athonite

It is one thing to belief that God exists and another to know Him. ( Saint Silouan the Athonite )

No matter how much we may study, it is not possible to come to know God unless we live according to His commandments, for God is not know by science, but by the Holy Spirit. Many philosophers and learned men came to the belief that God exists, but they did not know God. It is one thing to belief that God exists and another to know Him. If someone has come to know God by the Holy Spirit, his soul will burn with love for God day and night, and his soul cannot be bound to any earthly thing. 

Saint Silouan the Athonite

A sinful soul, full of passions, cannot have peace and rejoice in the Lord ( Saint Silouan the Athonite )

A sinful soul, full of passions, cannot have peace and rejoice in the Lord, even if it had charge over all earthly riches, even if it ruled over the whole world. If it was suddenly said to such a king, happily feasting and sitting on his throne, "King, now you will die," his soul would be troubled and he would tremble with fear, and he would see his powerlessness. But how many beggars there are, whose only wealth is love for God, and who, if you said to them, "You will die now," would answer peacefully, "Let God's will be done. Glory to the Lord, that He has remembered me and wants to take me to Himself." 

Saint Silouan the Athonite

The path to the Kingdom of Heaven ( Saint Silouan the Athonite )

If a man does not tell everything to his spiritual father, then his path is crooked and does not lead to the Kingdom of Heaven. But the path of one who tells everything leads directly to the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Saint Silouan the Athonite

There is not greater happiness that to love God with all the mind and heart ( St. Silouan the Athonite )

When the soul knows the love of God by the Holy Spirit, then he clearly feels that the Lord is our own Father, the closest, dearest Father, the best. And there is not greater happiness that to love God with all the mind and heart, and our neighbor as ourself. And when this love is in the soul, then all things bring joy to the soul. 

St. Silouan the Athonite

We are all suffering on this earth and searching for freedom, but few know what freedom is and where it can be found. ( Saint Silouan the Athonite )

We are all suffering on this earth and searching for freedom, but few know what freedom is and where it can be found. The Lord gives the repentant His peace and the freedom to love Him. Oh, my brothers, all the earth, repent while you still have time. God awaits our repentance with mercy. And all the heavens, all the saints await our repentance. As God is love, so the Holy Spirit in the saints is love. Ask, and the Lord shall forgive. And when you receive absolution from your sins, then your soul will be joyful and happy, and the grace of the Holy Spirit will enter your soul, and you will say, "Here is true freedom: it is in God and of God."

Saint Silouan the Athonite

Saints and Their Intercessions ( St. Silouan the Athonite )

To many people the Saints seem far removed from us. But the Saints are far only from people who have distanced themselves – they are very close to them that keep Christ’s commandments and possess the grace of the Holy Spirit. In heaven all things live and move in the Holy Spirit. But this same Holy Spirit is on earth too. The Holy Spirit dwells in our Church; in the sacraments; in the Holy Scriptures; in the souls of the faithful. The Holy Spirit unites all men, and so the Saints are close to us; and when we pray to them they hear our prayers in the Holy Spirit, and our souls feel that they are praying for us.
The Saints live in another world, and there through the Holy Spirit they behold the glory of God and the beauty of the Lord’s countenance. But in the same Holy Spirit they see our lives, too, and our deeds. They know our sorrows and hear our ardent prayers. In their lives they learned of the love of God from the Holy Spirit; and he who knows love on earth takes it with him into eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven, where love grows and becomes perfect. And if love makes one unable to forget a brother here, how much more do the Saints remember and pray for us!
The holy Saints have attained the Kingdom of Heaven, and there they look upon the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ; but by the Holy Spirit they see, too, the sufferings of men on earth. The Lord gave them such great grace that they embrace the whole world with their love. They see and know how we languish in affliction, how are hearts have withered within us, how despondency has fettered our souls; and they never cease to intercede for us with God.
The Saints rejoice when we repent, and grieve when men forsake God and become like brute beasts. They grieve to see people living on earth and not realizing that if they were to love one another, the world would know freedom from sin; and where sin is absent there is joy and gladness from the Holy Spirit, in such wise that on all sides everything looks pleasing, and the soul marvels that all is so well with her, and praises God.
Call with faith upon the Mother of God and the Saints, and pray to them. They hear our prayers and know even our inmost thoughts. And marvel not at this. Heaven and all the saints live by the Holy Spirit and in all the world there is naught hidden by the Holy Spirit. Once upon a time I did not understand how it was that the holy inhabitants of heaven could see our lives. But when the Mother of God brought my sins home to me I realized that they see us in the Holy Spirit, and know our entire lives.
The Saints hear our prayers and are possessed from God of the strength to help us. The whole Christian race knows this. Father Roman told me that when he was a boy he had to cross the river Don in the winter, and his horse fell through the ice and was just about to go under, dragging the sledge with it. He was a little boy at the time, and he cried at the top of his voice: ‘St.Nicholas, help me pull the horse out!’ And he tugged at the bridle and pulled the horse and sledge out from under the ice. And when Father Matthew, who came from my village, was a little boy he used to graze his father’s sheep, like the prophet David. He was no bigger than a sheep himself. His elder brother was working on the other side of a large field, and suddenly he saw a pack of wolves rushing at Misha – Father Matthew’s name in the world – and little Misha cried out, ‘St. Nicholas, help!’ and no sooner had the words left his lips than the wolves turned back and did no harm either to him or his flock. And for a long time after that the people of the village would smile and say, ‘Our Misha was terribly frightened by a pack of wolves but St. Nicholas rescued him!’
And we know of many an instance where the Saints come to our help the moment we call upon them. Thus it is evident that all heaven hears our prayers.

(St. Silouan the Athonite by Archimandrite Sophrony Chap. XII On the Saints pp. 395-397)

The Lord's Grace ( Saint Silouan the Athonite )

         
The Lord called on a sinful soul to repent, and it turned to Him. Then He mercifully accepted it and revealed Himself to it because He is merciful, humble and meek. In His infinite mercy He did not mention the soul’s sins, and the soul loved Him without end, and was drawn to Him like a caged bird to a green wood.

Suddenly the soul loses the Lord’s grace and wonders how it insulted the Lord. "I will ask for forgiveness, and perhaps He will once again give me His grace, for my soul wishes for nothing else in this world except the Lord," thinks a person, for the love of the Lord is so warming, that if a soul should taste it — it would desire nothing else; and if it should lose it, or if grace should dissipate, then what prayers would a soul not utter in order to return the Lord’s grace to it?

When a soul lives in the Holy Spirit, then it is joyful and does not pine for the heavens, because it feels the Kingdom of God within itself: the Lord has come and abides within it. But when it loses grace, then it begins to pine for heaven and tearfully seeks out the Lord.

Whoever has not felt grace cannot know what it is to desire it. Most people have become attached to the worldly, and they cannot understand that nothing worldly could ever take the place of the Holy Spirit. The Lord takes His grace from the soul and in this manner mercifully and wisely teaches it to be humble, for it was for the soul that He spread His arms on the Cross with such great suffering. He gives the soul the ability to struggle against our enemies, but the soul by itself is powerless to achieve victory; for this reason it is said, "Ask, and ye shall receive." And if we do not ask, then we but torment and rob ourselves of the grace of the Holy Spirit, without which the soul remains confused, because it cannot see the will of God.

Here is the shortest and easiest path to salvation: Be obedient and temperate, do not judge and keep your mind and heart free of evil thoughts; believe instead that all people are kind and that God loves them. For these humble thoughts the grace of the Holy Spirit will live within you, and you will say, "God is merciful."

It brings the Lord joy to see a humbly penitent soul, and He brings the grace of the Holy Spirit to it. I know how one novice received the Holy Spirit after only a half-year in a monastery; others received the Holy Spirit after ten years; and yet others live for forty and more years before they experience grace. But none of them could retain grace, because we are not humble.

Saint Serafim was 27 years old, when he saw the Lord, and his soul loved God so, that the sweetness of the Holy Spirit changed him entirely. But when he later went to a deserted area and saw that he no longer carried that grace, he stood for three years on a rock and cried, "Lord have mercy on me, a sinner."

Blessed is he who does not lose the grace of God, but rises from strength to strength. I have lost grace, but the Lord has felt great pity for me and allowed me to taste an even greater one in His mercy. Brothers, with all your strength, humble your souls, so that the Lord will love them and bestow His mercy upon them. But we cannot hope for mercy if we do not love our enemies.


Saint Silouan the Athonite

Saints and Their Intercessions ( Saint Silouan the Athonite )

     
To many people the Saints seem far removed from us. But the Saints are far only from people who have distanced themselves – they are very close to them that keep Christ’s commandments and possess the grace of the Holy Spirit. In heaven all things live and move in the Holy Spirit. But this same Holy Spirit is on earth too.

The Holy Spirit dwells in our Church; in the sacraments; in the Holy Scriptures; in the souls of the faithful. The Holy Spirit unites all men, and so the Saints are close to us; and when we pray to them they hear our prayers in the Holy Spirit, and our souls feel that they are praying for us.

The Saints live in another world, and there through the Holy Spirit they behold the glory of God and the beauty of the Lord’s countenance. But in the same Holy Spirit they see our lives, too, and our deeds. They know our sorrows and hear our ardent prayers. In their lives they learned of the love of God from the Holy Spirit; and he who knows love on earth takes it with him into eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven, where love grows and becomes perfect. And if love makes one unable to forget a brother here, how much more do the Saints remember and pray for us!
 
Saint Silouan the Athonite (an excerpt from his writings)

http://agapienxristou.blogspot.ca/2012/11/saints-and-their-intercessions.html