Here is a small homily on Salvation:
“This is the soul’s espousal to Christ.
All else is adultery and promiscuity.
Only such a close union between the soul and Christ,
that is most clearly mirrored for us in earthly marriage,
can make the soul rich and fruitful.
From all other close relationships that the soul may have
are born thistles and weeds.”
He goes on:
“Whatever it is with which the human soul links itself most closely,
that is in a kind of wedlock,
whether with a living being or a dead thing,
with the body, or its clothing,
with silver or gold or any earthly possession,
any sort of earthly glory or passion
for anything in the created world,
jewelry, food, drink, dancing, nature...
Every such marriage by the human soul
is outside the law
and draws endless misfortune on the soul
both in this world and in the world to come
in a way similar though incomparably greater than,
unlawful relations between a man and a woman.
“The soul’s ardent love for God is its only legal marriage.”....
”Whatever a man or woman believes in, hopes in, or loves more than God,
takes God’s place.
That about which the person most often thinks,
most zealously desires
will gradually become the essence of his being. ....
A man is saved or lost by his love in this life.
There is only one saving love
and that is love for God.
There is only one saving marriage
and that is marriage to God.
Every other love
that does not come forth from this marriage
as rays from the sun,
is cursing and damnation”
St. Nikolai Velimirovich
Arsenios
