~St Maximos the Confessor
1. Love is a holy state of the soul, disposing it to value knowledge of God above all created things. We cannot attain lasting possession of such love while we are still attached to anything worldly.
2. Dispassion engenders love, hope in God engenders dispassion, and patience and forbearance engender hope in God; these in turn are the product of complete self-control, which itself springs from fear of God. Fear of God is the result of faith in God.
If you have faith in the Lord you will fear punishment, and this fear will lead you to control the passions. Once you control the passions you will accept affliction patiently, and through such acceptance you will acquire hope in God. Hope in God separates the intellect from every worldly attachment, and when the intellect is detached in this way it will acquire love for God.
4. The person who loves God values knowledge of God more than anything created by God, and pursues such knowledge ardently and ceaselessly.
5. If everything that exists was made by God and for God, and God is superior to the things made by Him, he who abandons what is superior and devotes himself to what is inferior shows that he values things made by God more than God Himself.
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Open Dag in Utrecht op Zaterdag 4 mei 2024
Kees Voorhoeve is studiecoördinator van de Opleiding Spiritualiteit en Zingeving van de Academie voor Geesteswetenschappen
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