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Vigils Reading
May 22
THE AIM OF OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE
A conversation between St Seraphim of Sarov and his spiritual son4
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“The Lord has revealed to me,” began the great elder, “that in your
childhood you longed to know the aim of our Christian life… But no one has
given you a precise answer… Prayer, fasting, watching, and all other Christian
acts, however good they may be, do not alone constitute the aim of our Christian
life, although they serve as the indispensable means of reaching this aim. The
true aim of our Christian life, is to acquire the Holy Spirit of God…”
“How do you mean acquire?” I asked Father Seraphim…
“To acquire is the same as to gain,” he answered. “You understand what
acquiring money means. Acquiring God’s Spirit, it’s all the same… Acquire, my
son, the grace of the Holy Spirit by all the other virtues in Christ; trade in those
that are most profitable to you… Thus, if prayer and watching give you more of
God’s grace, pray and watch; if fasting gives much of God’s Spirit, fast; if
almsgiving gives more, give alms. In such manner decide about every virtue in
Christ…
When our Lord Jesus Christ had accomplished the whole work of
salvation, after His resurrection, He breathed on the Apostles to restore the
breath of life which had been lost by Adam, and gave them that same grace of
the Holy Spirit of God which had been Adam’s. On the day of Pentecost He
triumphantly sent down on them the Holy Spirit in the rushing of a mighty wind
like tongues of fire, which sat upon each one of them and entered in and filled
them with the strength of Divine flame-like grace; whose breath is laden with
4 The Spiritual Instructions of Saint Seraphim of Sarov. Ed. Franklin Jones. Los Angeles: The Dawn
Horse Press, 1973. 41-44, 46-48, 50.9
dew, and it creates joy in the souls partaking of its power and influence. And,
when this same fire-inspired grace of the Holy Spirit is given to all the faithful
in Christ in the sacrament of Holy Baptism, they seal it in the chief places
appointed by the Holy Church on our flesh, as the eternal vessel of this grace…
If we were never to sin after our baptism, we should remain forever holy,
spotless, exempt from all foulness of flesh and spirit, like the saints of God. But
the trouble is that, though we increase in stature, we do not increase in the grace
and mind of God, as our Lord Jesus Christ increased; but on the contrary,
growing dissipated bit by bit, we are deprived of the grace of God’s Holy Spirit
and become sinners of many degrees and many sins.
But, when a man, stirred by the Divine Wisdom which seeks our salvation,
is resolved for her sake to rise early before God and keep watch for the
attainment of his eternal salvation, then must he in obedience to her voice
hasten to repent truly of all his sins and to perfect the virtues that are their
contrary, and thus by virtuous acts done for Christ’s sake to acquire the Holy
Spirit, which works in us and sets up in us the kingdom of God.
Notwithstanding man’s repeated falls, notwithstanding the darkness around
the soul, the grace of the Holy Spirit… shines still in the heart with the Divine
immemorial light of the precious merits of Christ. When the sinner turns to the
way of repentance, this Christ-Light smooths out all trace of past sin and clothes
the former sinner once more in a robe of incorruption woven from the grace of
the Holy Spirit…