`Abba, how can someone gather the whole world in his heart ?`
`How can he embrace the whole world when his hands are small? For gathering the whole world in your heart you need to enlarge your heart.`
`And how is achieved this?`
`With love.` But this is not enough.` It’s needed a motherly love.` A mother loves her children more than she loves herself.` Who achieves this kind of love has love not only for those who love him but also for those who harm him, because like the mother who justifies everything, he always finds mitigating circumstances for the others and takes assumes all the burden himself. Even when he is robbed of something he feels qualms of conscience fearing that the thief might be caught and imprisoned. He says to himself: `He was put into jail because of me.` If I had found a way to give him the money he needed he wouldn’t have stolen and he wouldn’t have been in jail now.`Motherly love covers everything, deletes everything. If a child does a damage or behaves badly his mother forgives him immediately, because he is her child. In the same way if you have a motherly love for your neighbor, you justify his weaknesses and you don’t see his mistakes. And even if you see them, you forgive them. Then your heart fills with love, because you become a follower of Christ, Who bears us all.`
`Abba, I treat everything with a certain narrowness of heart. Don’t I have a heart?`
`You don’t have a heart?` Do you know what kind of heart you have?` But you let the narrowness of your mind to stifle it and then you suffer.` Who has a wide heart endures everything, while who has a narrow heart is deeply affected by a rebuke or an unpleasant incident and cannot bear it.`
`Why, abba?`
`Because that’s all his battery can bear.`
`What should I do to make my battery bear more?`
`Seek to justify the disorders and shortcomings of the others.` Defy everything wisely, with faith and trust in God. Think that you are in the hands of God and if something is not done as you want, accept this fact happily.`
`How will my heart jgrow wider?`
`To make your heart be wider you have to take something out from it – throw out your self-love. If the ivy of self-love and narrow-mindedness that’s stifling you will wither then your spiritual tree will grow freely. I’ll pray for your heart to be freed quickly and completely so that it can evolve and grow wider. Amen. Do you know what I’m feeling now?`I’m feeling such a motherly love, such a tenderness and fondness I’ve never had before. The whole world is embosomed by my heart. I want to embrace and help all the people. Because love cannot stay closed in the heart. In the same way the milk of a mother whose child is dead flows out, love wants to give.
Pious Paisios the Athonite
