We don`t have love from the heart, we don`t have maternal, divine, true love. I hear many people telling me that it was better long time ago because then there were love, respect, family. Let us go back and remember the years from the past, the times of our grandparents and our grand grandparents. We will find the same lack of love, the same callousness. Even if we read about the life of the great writers and composers and painters who remained in history we will find in their works the pain, sadness, loneliness of their souls. And this is because their parents did not care to fill their souls. They left them empty, without true love, without the affection of the family, without God! Deprived especially of maternal love!
Neither in those years the mothers knew what love meant although they sought it because they missed it. They suffered because their mothers did not love them, it hurt them because they treated them toughly. However they followed the same path. I remember the old women who came to the monastery and with whom I talked. I told them:
`I am glad for the love you have in your souls, for the wise words you told me and for the kindness you spread.`
`Ah, my child, if you knew my pains and how severe my mother was who raised me and my brothers and how much it hurt us her toughness. For this reason I prayed every night to God not to become like her. `My God, I said, help me to become a good mother so that my children won`t feel what I feel for my mother.` And glory to God!, He helped me to become, from what my children say about me, a good mother and grandmother.
You see that in those years what they called love was toughness. In those times the people were tougher, especially the mothers. But there were some intelligent people who although they did not receive love from their parents raised their eyes to the height of heaven seeking God to free them of pain and of the loneliness of their souls. And God listened to their cry for spiritual help. And as a Good and Loving Father that He is not only He filled their empty soul, but also sanctified it.
But today as well as in the past our love remains tough, selfish and superficial. At the first blow of the wind it goes away and the emptiness of our soul is revealed. From our so-called love we see springing out our malice, hate, envy, betrayal, injustice, the passions smoldering inside it. And unfortunately we call this love!
But love without God can`t be called love.God taught us selfless love, the love He has for us, the love on which is not written the word death.
Excerpt from the book Listen to me !by nun Porphyria, published by Evanghelismos.
