The Relationship Between Love and the Acquisition of Holiness
As Christians, we know the struggle against the passions must be a daily battle, if we are to live according to biblical standards. This quest to defeat the passions is impossible without love, for a loveless heart desires nothing beyond supporting its own ego.
The Lord told His disciples of the impossibility of loving God, Whom we have not seen, if we do not first love our neighbor. Making this even more of a challenge is the fact that we are even charged by the Lord with loving our enemies.
Under the influence of Satan, because of his malice against us, we focus on self-love, and the battle against the passions remains dormant. Unless we seek out God’s redemptive grace, we have no hope of letting love consume our hearts, and we remain locked in the darkness of sickness and death.
It is only through the power of the Holy Spirit, and the accompanying acquisition of a humble and contrite heart, that love gains the upper hand, and our struggle against self-will finds victory. Without a loving heart, we can not enter the Kingdom of God. Love is the key to holiness, and comes only to those who struggle.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
About the author
Fr. Tryphon is the Abbot of the Monastery of the All-Merciful Saviour, which was established in 1986 by Archimandrite Dimitry (Egoroff) of blessed memory. The Monastery is under the omophore of His Eminence Kyrill, Archbishop of San Francisco and Western America, of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
