Silouan of Athos

[Ana Maria]

Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

For many young people from Romania ,and not only, Saint Siluan is very closed to our hearts due to his writtings capture in a book which in Romania has been published with the title:"Between the hell of despair and the hell of humility." Maybe you read it....anyway, it is so beautiful because every word is a pray,a professin of love towards God. Reading just a few lines, I don't have time for more now ,cause I am in my session of exams, helps me feel that God is still holding me in his arms,although I am so far from Him. So ,if you don't mind ,I dare to write some of his words,hopping that God will give you the right understanding , because my English is not very good.

"My soul craves for God and I seek for Him with tears.How can I not seek for You? You found me first and You gave me the delight of Your Holy Ghost, and my soul loved you."

"God please offer me to love only You.

You create me, You illumined me through the Holy Christening, You forgave my sins,and You gave me Your Blest Body and Blood in the Communion; please give me also the power of remaining always into You. God,give us the penance of Adam and Your holy humility."

Please pray for me cause my heart is so petrified!
With love in Christ,
Ana Maria

[Chris Carlson]

Dear Sister in Christ Ana Maria,

Glory and praise to God for His Spirit moving you to share that with us!

You shall be in my prayers henceforth.

God bless you!

In Christ,

Chris

[Ana Maria]

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ

Today,our orthodox church is celebrating our beloved Father Saint Siluan of Athon.In order to honor him,cause he is the protector of the church I go to,last night there it has been a night service...it was so beautiful....

Anyway,I am so happy, my heart is full of happiness and I wanted to share it with you my dear brothers and sisters.

Further more, I would like to share for those who know nothing about this Saint something about his life.

God discovered me Saint Siluan even since I was just a child through a friend who gave me as a birthday present the book "Between the Hell of Despair and the Hell of Humility". By that time I didn't understood very well the meaning of this words,maybe because I was living in a childhood world,where despair was a word which I hadn't tasted.I loved Saint Siluan cause his writtings were so beautiful,so pregnant with the spirit of God's love.Every time I read of his book it seemd to me that my heart was carry on by a powerfull feeling of longing for God. My child mind didn't understand the profoundness of this words but my heart was feeling that the Saint's prayers are sobs towards God.

But growing up,physicaly-cause spiritualy I can't find in me only a decrease, I managed to estrange God from me.I started to love what sometimes I used to hate-the sin.And now, at the end of my adolescence, I started to ask myself why I am feeling so lonely.I pray,but can this be call a prayer? My prayer is not love,it is not thanks towards God, but disgust,sob, blight, revolt, it seems that I ask myself where is the Merciful God,why can't I feel Him, why my heart is awe-stricken with so much pain,loneliness, darkness.And in the end I jump to the conclusion that I can't reach God-the last step of despair.

Than it comes into a corner of my heart a thought...I take Sain't Siluan's book from my shelf and I skim it.My eyes are dropping on the first word:"My soul craves for God and I seek for Him with tears." I turn a new leaf and my soul is shocked by the love I found in Saint Siluan's words for us:"For my sins I am worst than a mangy dog, but I prayed to God to forgive me, and not only the forgiveness He gave me ,but as well He gave me His Holy Spirit ,and in this Holy Spirit I met God"

Than I return to the pages about Saint Siluan's life. How much I found myself in it: that perioud in childhood ,when God seemd to me so close,it seemed as He was carrying me in His arms .Than the period of falling of the Saint by his 19s and which was materialize in unfinished parties,drunknness,beatings, adultery. It is really my friends gang's spirit, it is stink of the world I live in,who it seems that it does not satisfyies me anymore.If Saint Siluan turned back to God through the words of our Theotokos in a dream saying that She was disgust by his behaviour,me petrified heart,oly Her inexhaustible tears can make me come back to Light.Saint Siluan changed his life completly,and 46 years of unknown monarchic life in Athon Mountain end up by turning from a simple russian country-man into, maybe the most remarcable figure of the XXst century of the orthodox spirituality.

What surprised me was that our Father Silua's life in monarchism was a long road of love and Light. But till that moment our Father had tasted a lot from the hell of despair.Why? Because , fighting all the time with devils,sometime they told him :"You are a saint." or :"You wont be saved." In this state our Lord gives him an answer so simple in appereance but so inmost in essence.Keep your heart in hell and don't despair." This is God's word for the contemporary man.So in every moment of our life we should assume that for my sins I deserve the hell,that the hell is in my heart where all the passions are burning me,but our Lord Jesus in his huge love oppend His arms so large on the Cross,for me the last man, and that He has already defeat everything that is bad in me. So our Father Siluan has lived all his life conscient of the great love God has for us,His children.

I may say,honostly,that at no poet,bookman or philosopher I coudn't find so much profoundness as in Saint Siluan writings.They are the living testimony that space can expand as well as time,cause God's love and alomonry remain the same.

May it be that for our Father Siluan's prayers God sets in our hearts the fire of his love towards Him,so we maight pray with him:I pray to Your kindness God look over me from the height of Your Glory and give me the strenght to glorify You night and day,cause my soul has fallen in love with You,through the Holy Spirit and I am longing after You and I seek You with tears."

Please forgive me for my mistakes...I hope God will put in your hearts the reall meaning of my words.

Love you in Christ,Ana Maria

[Leandros Papadopoulos]

Dear sister in Christ, Suciu Ana Maria,

Thank you for your message, from the depths of my heart.

May God protect your youth, and every young boy and girl, through the prayers of Saint Siluan and the intermediation of His Most Holy Mother. Amen.

[Clinton R. LeFort]

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I found this writing of Silouan a great challenge. For several years I thought i understood humility of heart, but realize that it is even much deeper in reflecting the hell that Christ passion meant to himself for us. Yes, it was pure divinity at work, but what love, what love, he showed.


Peace in Christ,

Clinton LeFort


Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

For many young people from Romania ,and not only, Saint Siluan is very closed to our hearts due to his writtings capture in a book which in Romania has been published with the title:"Between the hell of despair and the hell of humility." Maybe you read it....anyway, it is so beautiful because every word is a pray,a professin of love towards God. Reading just a few lines, I don't have time for more now ,cause I am in my session of exams, helps me feel that God is still holding me in his arms,although I am so far from Him. So ,if you don't mind ,I dare to write some of his words,hopping that God will give you the right understanding , because my English is not very good.

"My soul craves for God and I seek for Him with tears.How can I not seek for You? You found me first and You gave me the delight of Your Holy Ghost, and my soul loved you."

"God please offer me to love only You.

You create me, You illumined me through the Holy Christening, You forgave my sins,and You gave me Your Blest Body and Blood in the Communion; please give me also the power of remaining always into You. God,give us the penance of Adam and Your holy humility."

Please pray for me cause my heart is so petrified!
With love in Christ,
Ana Maria