Proposing to the lovers of spiritual reading the well-known Benevolence, we consider it necessary to say a few words about what it is about.
We translate the Greek noun "Philokalia" with the word "benevolence", which means: love for the beautiful, the sublime, the good. Most directly, it contains an explanation of the hidden life in the Lord Jesus Christ. The secret true Christian life in our Lord Jesus Christ is spiced up, developed and perfected by the favor of God the Father, by the action of the grace of the Holy Spirit which, according to each individual, is present in Christians, under the guidance of Christ the Lord himself, who has promised to be with us. in all days, and inseparably.
The grace of God calls everyone to such a life. It is not only available to everyone, but it is also obligatory, since the essence of Christianity is in it. Not all who are invited participate in it, just as not all who participate in it are its communicants to the same extent. The elect enter deep into it, climbing high up its steps.
Its forms, as well as the richness of the areas in which it unfolds, are no less abundant and varied than the manifestations of ordinary life. And when it would be possible to clearly understand and express everything that happens in it and everything that is inseparable from the truth of life according to God: enemy attacks and temptations, struggle and opposition, falls and uprisings, emergence and strengthening of various phenomena of spiritual life, degrees of general progress and the state of mind and heart that suits each of them, the mutual action of grace and freedom, the feeling of nearness and distance of God, the feeling of all-encompassing contemplation and complete and irreversible surrender to the right hand of the Lord, with renunciation of all one's own ways of action it would be as appealing as it is an instructive picture, similar to the notions of world travel.
Travelers usually write notes during the trip about everything that is worth paying attention to. The elect of God also left their notes, who in their arduous journey in all directions walked all the paths of spiritual life. Certainly, the significance of both types of travelogues is not equal.
Those who do not have the opportunity to travel can acquire approximately accurate ideas about distant lands without starting from the place, ie. by reading the travel notes of other travelers, since the life forms of the entire creation are more or less similar to each other, no matter in which country they appeared. However, such a thing does not apply to the experience of the spiritual life. It can only be understood by those who travel on their own. For those who did not step on it, it remains a completely unknown science. And even those who have stepped on his story cannot comprehend it immediately. Their concepts and ideas become clearer in accordance with the progress in the journey and the deepening in the field of spirit. In accordance with the multiplication of personal experiences of the spiritual life, the apparitions of the holy fathers become clearer and more comprehensible with them.
After all, the presentation of various phenomena of the spiritual life, which are contained in the Holy Father's writings, is not without significance for all Christians in general. From it, everyone can understand that there are even higher forms of life than the one on which man can find himself and with which his Christian conscience can otherwise be reconciled, namely that there are even higher degrees of perfection to strive for and to which man can ascend. By providing such an understanding, it will certainly arouse zeal for progress, attracting to better than what one possesses. (Saint Theophanes the Prisoner)
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GLORY TO GOD ON EVERYTHING! AMIN.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, for the prayers of Your Most Pure Mother, our venerable and God-bearing Fathers, and all the Saints, have mercy and save us sinners. Amen.
