A Christian Must Become A Poet (Saint Porphyrios)

All things around us are droplets of the love of God…. They are little loves through which we attain to the great Love that is Christ. Flowers, for example, have their own grace: they teach us with their fragrance and with their magnificence. They speak to us of the love of God. They scatter their fragrance and their beauty on sinners and on the righteous.

For a person to become a Christian he must have a poetic soul. He must become a poet. Christ does not wish insensitive souls in His company. A Christian, albeit only when he loves, is a poet and lives amid poetry. Poetic hearts embrace love and sense it deeply.

Give glory for all beautiful things so that you experience Him who alone is comely in beauty. All things are holy – the sea, swimming and eating. Take delight in them all. All things enrich us, all lead us to the great Love, all lead us to Christ.

The spiritual man, the man who has the Spirit of God, is attentive wherever he passes by; he is all eyes, all sense of smell…. He lives amid everything – the butterflies, the bees and so on. Grace makes him attentive. He wishes to be together with all things.

Ah, what can I say? I experienced this when divine grace visited me on the Holy Mountain. I remember the nightingale bursting its throat in song among the trees with its wings stretched back to give its voice more power. So wonderful! If only I had a glass of water to give it to drink every so often, to quench its thirst… Why does the nightingale sing madly, why? But it too takes delight in its song. It sense what it is doing, and that’s why it sings so passionately.
Wounded by Love, The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios, pages 218-19.

(This post is also published in No Trivial Words Here in the top menu.)