"I love them who love Me, and I will glorify them who glorify Me," says the Lord (cf. Pr. 8:17 &1Kg. 2:30).God is glorified by His Saints, and, in turn, the Saints are glorified by God.
The glory that God gives to the Saints is so great, that if people were to see a saint as he truly is, they would fall to the ground on account of reverence
and fear, because physical man cannot endure the glory of such a heavenly appearance. Do not marvel at this. The Lord loved man,whom He created,to such an extent that He poured the Holy Spirit abundantly upon man, and through this Holy Spirit man became like unto God.
The Lord gave His grace to the Saints, and they loved Him and completely devoted themselves to Him, because the sweetness of God's love surpasses the love for the world and its beauty. And if things are so here on the earth, then in
Heaven the saints are even more closely united with the Lord through love.
God is love, and the Holy Spirit is love for the saints. With the Holy Spirit the Lord becomes known. With the Holy Spirit, the Lord is magnified in the heavens. With the Holy Spirit the Saints glorify God, and with the Holy Spirit the
Lord glorifies the Saints—and this glory has no end.
To many people it seems as though the Saints are far away from us. In reality, they are far from those people who have distanced themselves from the Saints; whereas, they are very close to the people who keep Christ's commandments and who have the grace of the Holy Spirit.
In Heaven, everything lives and moves in the Holy Spirit. But even on the earth, we have the same Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit lives in our Church. The Holy Spirit unites everyone, and for this reason the Saints are close to us. And when we pray to them, they hear our prayers through the Holy Spirit, and our souls sense and feel their intercessions for us.
The Saints live in another world where they behold, through the Holy Spirit, the divine glory and beauty of the Lord's face. Through this same Holy Spirit they also see our lives and our deeds. They are familiar with our sorrows, and they hear our fervent prayers. While on the earth, they were taught the love of God by the Holy Spirit. And whoever has acquired love on the earth proceeds with it to the eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven, where this love increases until it becomes perfect. And if on the earth love cannot forget about its fellow man, then even more so the
Saints in Heaven do not forget about us, and they pray for us.
St. Silouan the Athonite
