Vigils Reading

CONCERNING THE AIM OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE

A conversation of St Seraphim of Sarov with Nicholas Motovilov3 ◊◊◊

“The Lord has revealed to me,” began the great elder, “that in your childhood you longed to know the aim of our Christian life and continually asked questions about it of many and great ecclesiastical dignitaries.”… “But no one,” continued Father Seraphim, “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 give much of God’s Spirit, fast; if almsgiving gives more, give alms. In such manner decide about every virtue in Christ…

We have become very inattentive to the work of our salvation, whence it comes about that many other words also in the Holy Scriptures we do not take in the proper sense; and all because we do not seek the grace of God, because in the pride of our minds we do not allow it to enter our souls, and therefore we have no true enlightenment from the Lord, which is sent into the hearts of men, to all who hunger and thirst in heart for God’s truth.

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 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..