PERFECT LOVE

[Arsenios]

If you hate some people
and some you neither love not hate,
while others you love only moderately
and still others you love very much,
know from this inequality
that you are far from perfect love,
which lays down
that you must love everyone equally.
St. Maximos the Confessor

Or as Paul writes:

1Co 4:12
Being reviled, we bless...

Or as Christ said:

"Love your enemies"

Mat 5:44

But I say unto you,
Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you;

Do you love your enemies?

Is love an action or a feeling?


Arsenios

 

[MoreCoffee]

If you hate some people
and some you neither love not hate,
while others you love only moderately
and still others you love very much,
know from this inequality
that you are far from perfect love,
which lays down
that you must love everyone equally.
St. Maximos the Confessor

Or as Paul writes:

1Co 4:12
Being reviled, we bless...

Or as Christ said:

"Love your enemies"

Mat 5:44

But I say unto you,
Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you;

Do you love your enemies?

Is love an action or a feeling?


Arsenios

Love is an action, it helps if the feelings are the same as the actions but the one essential of love is that it does good.

 

[Arsenios]

Love is an action, it helps if the feelings are the same as the actions but the one essential of love is that it does good.

I like to think of it as the doing of what is beneficial for another person...

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself..." is not just a nice sounding phrase meaning "leave people alone..."

And yet some of the most profoundly social people are the almost antisocial hermits...

Christians are a peculiar people...


Arsenios

 

[MennoSota]

If you hate some people
and some you neither love not hate,
while others you love only moderately
and still others you love very much,
know from this inequality
that you are far from perfect love,
which lays down
that you must love everyone equally.
St. Maximos the Confessor

Or as Paul writes:

1Co 4:12
Being reviled, we bless...

Or as Christ said:

"Love your enemies"

Mat 5:44

But I say unto you,
Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you;

Do you love your enemies?

Is love an action or a feeling?


Arsenios

Get out your lighters and wave them in the air as you listen to this "not so classic" Christian song of years gone by...
https://youtu.be/ak7xi3OnjpY

 

[ValleyGal]

I had that record! Wow, flashback!

I believe love is a decision that translates into action. But there is a lot of current underneath all that. There has to be a certain "feeling" behind the decision - motive - that comes from a place of goodness. After all, you can decide to do what is in someone else's best interest, and then become resentful about it. ... and this leads us to a sense of boundaries and responsibility, because you as the one loving, are responsible for your own feelings that come as a result of your own decision. There are a whole lot of under-currents, but essentially, love is a decision to do what is in someone else's best interest, even at great cost to self.

 

[Arsenios]

The author who cited this text from St. Maximos the Confessor:

know from this inequality (of love for friend and dislike of enemy)
that you are far from perfect love,
which lays down
that you must love everyone equally.

Went on to comment on the meaning of "lays down"...

"The sense of 'lays down' here means that beneath a certain objective category, under a particular idea, I establish a foundation, a presupposition, a purpose or a program, so that it does not stand apart from its larger context or aim. In this case, "perfect love" has as its goal that you must love everyone equally. This also means to move and inspire people, to guide and direct them, because this is what it means to give someone, or to have, a goal or a purpose. Thus perfect love inspires you, it encourages and exhorts you, it guides you to the place where you can love everyone equally, because perfect love is the love of God.

"This applies to you in your relationships with others. But what about what they do to you? What kind of evil can other people, or demons, inflict upon you? The answer is given the following chapter." (A chapter means a short text by St. Maximos, - like the one starting this thread.)

So that having as one's standard the establishment of perfect love as the love of God in one's soul, the person who does so has a valuable basis, and not merely an intellectual basis that floats in the air and is quickly blown away by the rulership of the air, but instead has an ontological foundation in othe very core of one's being, a basis of action and feeling which establishes oversight of one's conduct and the management of one's soul in relationship to God and man...

No small matter...

For when you find yourself treasuring your best friend and intensely disliking the mugger (who beat him up and took his wallet), you will immediately have the basis for knowing that you have a long way to go and are FAR from the Love of God... Indeed, having a hierarchical love of people, is itself ruled out by this standard, which is God's standard... And one will know immediately what one needs to do go to work establishing the Love of God in one's soul by repenting from disliking the mugger, and by doing him good, which normally will mean praying for him, but sometimes more than that... Establishing the love for the "unlovable" then becomes a clear pathway to the Kingdom of Heaven so far now out of reach...

So we soften, hang our heads in wonder, and love the mugger as our self...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Get out your lighters and wave them in the air as you listen to this "not so classic" Christian song of years gone by...
https://youtu.be/ak7xi3OnjpY

"Love's not a Feeling" carries a truth, but not by denial of the feeling...
Nor by endorsement of the feeling...
So the truth is wrapped in the lie here...

Look - If you do not feel love for the fallen, no matter how wretchedly sinful he or she might be, no matter how besotted with evil, then it is YOU who stand condemned... And yes, the way back to the love of God is to DO good to the one despised in spite of despising him or her, and to stand condemned when, after doing good, to then resent having done good to him or her at all...

Perfect love is the love of God... And God IS Love... To love God's creation as God loved His creation is to have the love of God...

In this manner did God Love the Cosmos... That He Gave His Only Begotten Son...

So that it is not ours to judge and dislike and resent and turn from the love of God...

To do so is adultery in the Marriage of the Lamb...


Arsenios

 

[Tigger]

I would say that 'perfect' love is a condition of the heart and it would be an action, feeling and much more. But I have found even when my heart is not ready to perfectly love, action is a great place to start. I seems tol forcing own fallen nature to God's will is part of the process. I've also found if you don't force your nature to submit you will not progress to a level of perfect love and in fact you will probably regress into bitterness and anger.

 

[Arsenios]

I would say that 'perfect' love is a condition of the heart and it would be an action, feeling and much more. But I have found even when my heart is not ready to perfectly love, action is a great place to start. I seems tol forcing own fallen nature to God's will is part of the process. I've also found if you don't force your nature to submit you will not progress to a level of perfect love and in fact you will probably regress into bitterness and anger.

This is why confession of sin and repentance from it is the key to the acquisition of the love of God... But how can one confess a sin that one does not even know one has? Self-justification is such an insidious sin... How can one possibly love both Cain and Abel equally? Does not even God say in the Bible: "...But Esau have I hated..."?? How can I love the murderer more than the murdered?

Yet the OT is but the fore-shading of the New... And the Love of Christ ascended the Cross for the sake of sinners, and only sinners crucified Him...

So that by NOT feeling compassion for the sinner, we stand condemned...

We stand in need of repentance...

And yes, forcing ourselves to forgive is a start...

And if we cannot forgive, forcing ourselves to pray is a start...

To ask God to give us forgiveness that we do not have is a start...

To stand condemned before God, as the Publican, for hardness of heart, is a start...

To make one's self WRONG in one's standing before God is a START...


Arsenios

 

[Tigger]

This is why confession of sin and repentance from it is the key to the acquisition of the love of God... But how can one confess a sin that one does not even know one has? Self-justification is such an insidious sin... How can one possibly love both Cain and Abel equally? Does not even God say in the Bible: "...But Esau have I hated..."?? How can I love the murderer more than the murdered?

Yet the OT is but the fore-shading of the New... And the Love of Christ ascended the Cross for the sake of sinners, and only sinners crucified Him...

So that by NOT feeling compassion for the sinner, we stand condemned...

We stand in need of repentance...

And yes, forcing ourselves to forgive is a start...

And if we cannot forgive, forcing ourselves to pray is a start...

To ask God to give us forgiveness that we do not have is a start...

To stand condemned before God, as the Publican, for hardness of heart, is a start...

To make one's self WRONG in one's standing before God is a START...


Arsenios

Agreed Romans 7:7

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid! Nay, I would not have known sin, but through the law; for I would not have known lust, except that the law had said, “Thou shalt not covet.”

 

[Arsenios]

Agreed Romans 7:7

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid! Nay, I would not have known sin, but through the law; for I would not have known lust, except that the law had said, “Thou shalt not covet.”

One of the Lesser Mysteries around here is the perception that Orthodoxy is not Biblical...

Indeed, 80% of our Services are directly from the Bible...

Protestant Services are 80% Sermon from the human Pastor...


Arsenios

 

[MennoSota]

"Love's not a Feeling" carries a truth, but not by denial of the feeling...
Nor by endorsement of the feeling...
So the truth is wrapped in the lie here...

Look - If you do not feel love for the fallen, no matter how wretchedly sinful he or she might be, no matter how besotted with evil, then it is YOU who stand condemned... And yes, the way back to the love of God is to DO good to the one despised in spite of despising him or her, and to stand condemned when, after doing good, to then resent having done good to him or her at all...

Perfect love is the love of God... And God IS Love... To love God's creation as God loved His creation is to have the love of God...

In this manner did God Love the Cosmos... That He Gave His Only Begotten Son...

So that it is not ours to judge and dislike and resent and turn from the love of God...

To do so is adultery in the Marriage of the Lamb...


Arsenios

Perfect love accepts sinners for who we are, but does not approve of our sin. Jesus displayed this perfect love while he walked this earth.

 

[Arsenios]

Perfect love accepts sinners for who we are, but does not approve of our sin.

Not true...

Perfect love loves sinners...
Perfect love calls sinners to repentance from sin...
Not accepting them sinning...

Which is who we are...

Jesus displayed this perfect love while he walked this earth.

He called sinners to repentance:

Mat 4:17
From that time Jesus began to preach,
and to say,
Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

If we do as He commands, He will Baptize us into His Kingdom...


Arsenios

 

[Tigger]

One of the Lesser Mysteries around here is the perception that Orthodoxy is not Biblical...

Indeed, 80% of our Services are directly from the Bible...

Protestant Services are 80% Sermon from the human Pastor...


Arsenios

Yeah but what's that got to do with me and my post? I've attended and studied Orthodoxy for a few years and am rather pro-Orthodoxy. And within liturgical Protestantism the sermon is only one piece of the pie much like an Orthodox DL.

 

[MoreCoffee]

One of the Lesser Mysteries around here is the perception that Orthodoxy is not Biblical...

Indeed, 80% of our Services are directly from the Bible...

Protestant Services are 80% Sermon from the human Pastor...


Arsenios

Catholics are similar, out of an hour Mass about 10 minutes is homily and the rest is readings from holy scripture prayers either from holy scripture or derived from holy scripture so that is 1/6th "sermon" and 5/6th bible and bible derived content.

 

[Arsenios]

Catholics are similar, out of an hour Mass about 10 minutes is homily and the rest is readings from holy scripture prayers either from holy scripture or derived from holy scripture so that is 1/6th "sermon" and 5/6th bible and bible derived content.

That is a difference...

Our Hymnal is the Psalter, and most of the Services are prayed directly from it by Chanting them in the 8 Tones...

A 10 minute homily is plenty!

But our Service of the Divine Liturgy goes an hour and a half or more as a general rule...

The litanies, oft repeated, are but prayers for God's intercessions for the world...

eg

"Again and again in Peace let us Pray to the Lord..."

"Lord have Mercy..."

"For Peaceful Times and an abundance of the fruits of the earth let us pray to the Lord..."

"Lord have Mercy..."

The Deacon prays forth, and the Congregation affirms - Antiphonal chanting...

Hauntingly beautiful in the House of our God...


Arsenios

 

[MennoSota]

Not true...

Perfect love loves sinners...
Perfect love calls sinners to repentance from sin...
Not accepting them sinning...

Which is who we are...




He called sinners to repentance:

Mat 4:17
From that time Jesus began to preach,
and to say,
Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

If we do as He commands, He will Baptize us into His Kingdom...


Arsenios

We accept people as they are. We do not approve of all they do when they are doing things not approved of by God.
This is love and this is tolerance.
We tell sinners of their need for reconciliation with God. If they cannot accept their need for reconciliation, they will not repent.
Arsenios, we have been over this time and time again. You preach a repentance that is not unto salvation because you insist upon human actions while those humans are still dead in their trespasses and sins.
You place the cart before the horse. We will not agree.

 

[MoreCoffee]

That is a difference...

Our Hymnal is the Psalter, and most of the Services are prayed directly from it by Chanting them in the 8 Tones...

A 10 minute homily is plenty!

But our Service of the Divine Liturgy goes an hour and a half or more as a general rule...

The litanies, oft repeated, are but prayers for God's intercessions for the world...

eg

"Again and again in Peace let us Pray to the Lord..."

"Lord have Mercy..."

"For Peaceful Times and an abundance of the fruits of the earth let us pray to the Lord..."

"Lord have Mercy..."

The Deacon prays forth, and the Congregation affirms - Antiphonal chanting...

Hauntingly beautiful in the House of our God...


Arsenios

We call that the prayers of the faithful where a cantor says or chants the prayer and the people affirm with Lord hear our prayer and nearly all the singing in the liturgy is from liturgical texts and the psalms, there is sometimes a hymn at the time of the procession and also at the recession and sometimes one during communion as the people walk to the places where the host and precious blood are received, they sing as they walk - or at least that is the intention.

 

[Arsenios]

We accept people as they are.

That is right - Sorry...

We affirm that their sins are their struggle, and that this life is struggle and suffering and ends in death...

That we cannot judge them because we do not know the great struggle they are engaging...

And we do not know the condition in that struggle of their heart...

Love, and forgiveness when we are transgressed, is key to living in Peace...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

We call that the prayers of the faithful where a cantor says or chants the prayer and the people affirm with Lord hear our prayer

We call that the Great Ektenia [=holding forth] of the Church praying for the world... There is also the Small Litany [ektenia]...

I am glad it is still being prayed in the Latin Church...

and nearly all the singing in the liturgy is from liturgical texts and the psalms, there is sometimes a hymn at the time of the procession and also at the recession

Are these chants sung in the 8 tones?

Or have they been dropped?

and sometimes one during communion as the people walk to the places where the host and precious blood are received, they sing as they walk - or at least that is the intention.

Our Chanter, the Proto-Psalter, normally sings the Communion Hymns, not the faithful unless they privately hymn along with him...


Arsenios