eBook: The Enlargement of the Heart

One night, after the vision of a strange light that had filled his cell, and even his chest, devils began to appear to him. Naïve and inexperienced as he was, he would converse with them as with ordinary people. These demonic assaults increased. Sometimes the demons would say to him that he was holy and other times that he would not be saved. Once, the novice Simeon [Saint Silouan] asked one of these demons: ‘Why do you contradict yourselves, sometimes saying to me that I am holy, and at other times that I shall not be saved?’ The devil mockingly answered him: ‘We never tell the truth.’

— Excerpt from: The Enlargement of the Heart • Saint Silouan the Athonite and His Disciple the Elder Sophrony (p. 22)

Christ is the sign of God to men of every age and generation, and His way is the only one leading to the eternal Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. When the Jews wrongly asked Jesus for a ‘sign from heaven’, on more than one occasion He spoke of ‘the sign of Jonas the Prophet’ given to the generation of the Ninevites, as being the one and only sign of God for the world. The sign of Jonas prophetically foreshadowed Christ’s descent into the lower parts of the earth, followed by His ascent above the Heavens. In Christ’s Person, in His life and in His example, was given the answer to all man’s questions. He became the eternal sign of God for every age and generation. The event of His descent and ascent became the source of all the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The one who receives this sign with faith, taking it as a model and pattern for his life is made a ‘friend’ of God, according to the word of the Lord Who says, ‘I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.’ However, just as Jonas was a sign to the Ninevites, so also are the friends of Christ in every age a sign to their generation, according to His unfeigned promise that ‘I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’ They are the sign of God for their generation, because God speaks through them, and by their words they provide an answer to all the problems of their own age. However, they become the sign of God only when, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, the way of Christ is repeated in their life: descent, even unto hell, and ascent, according to the example and to the way which Christ showed. One cannot be holy, a friend and a disciple of the Teacher Christ, if one has not walked this road to the end and ‘known the mysteries of the Kingdom of God’. It is only on this condition that one may become a ‘light in the world’, proclaiming ‘the word of life’ for one’s generation.

— Excerpt from: The Enlargement of the Heart • ‘Keep Thy Mind in Hell and Despair Not’ (p. 89-90)

A little while after Father Sophrony’s ordination, a hermit monk, Father Vladimir, visited him at the monastery, and they discussed several spiritual issues. Father Vladimir, moved by the conversation and the overall spiritual atmosphere, suddenly asked: ‘Father Sophrony, give me a word for the salvation of my soul!’ The elder, who was preparing tea for Father Vladimir, without hesitation replied, ‘Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it any more, draw back a little and have a cup of tea’, whereupon he handed him a cup of tea. This word, and especially the energy of grace that it conveyed, struck the hermit who, filled with contrition, departed and went to St Silouan, seeking counsel and confirmation as to the authenticity and safety of this saying.

— Excerpt from: The Enlargement of the Heart • Saint Silouan and the Elder Sophrony (p. 29)