On October 21, 2020, the good shepherd, Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov, reposed in the Lord. With his gift of the word, he was able to awaken people to repentance, give them hope, and inspire them to a more attentive inner life. A special place in his sermons was devoted to teaching his flock the most important commandments of the Lord: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Matthew 22:37–39). Here we would like to remember Fr. Dmitry and reflect on his teachings about love for God and neighbor.
Radiate love
A person who desires to live with God must necessarily learn to radiate love outwardly. To do this, one must overcome his fallen nature, which requires struggle—it demands a complete transformation of oneself. All our troubles, all our misunderstandings, and all our sins arise only because we are incapable of love—and the goal of spiritual life is precisely to learn this.
Constant effort and self-denial
To attain love in your heart, constant effort and self-denial are required—only in this way can love be acquired. One must struggle against all iniquity and sin within oneself. If, despite all our desires, aspirations, and opinions, we still strive to follow God’s law in our lives—that is, to live righteously even while being sinners—then the Lord, seeing our efforts, will gradually cleanse us from sin. We will slowly scrape away sin after sin from our souls. However, it is not we who can cleanse ourselves—the Lord Himself will cleanse us. And when we have attained all Christian virtues in our hearts, especially humility, then love, the culmination of all perfections, will dwell in us.
We have to make space in our hearts for love
Some people feel that there is no love in their hearts, and they repent, saying, “Lord, I have no love.” But how can love appear in their hearts when there is love for money, for comfort, for tasty foods, for self-indulgence, for a carefree, serene life, and for entertainment? If we do the opposite, constantly breaking ourselves, gathering ourselves, and working diligently—and this can be done anywhere, in any situation—then the Lord, seeing our continuous effort, will gradually cleanse us. And without even realizing it, we will be transformed from people incapable of very much into something else. We will gradually acquire the qualities of noble, wise, honest, and pure people. Our conscience will be purified, our minds will become clearer, kindness will emerge, along with silence, meekness, and humility. These virtues will grow, little by little; and as they increase, love will also arise.
If we love someone we will do anything for him
Regardless of a person’s own nature, if I love him, I am ready to do anything for him, whatever my heart dictates. I love him, and so I am willing to wash for him, to clean after him, to spend thirty years by his bedside, to sacrifice myself for him, to give everything, and to go anywhere. This is love, but such love is rarely seen today. Everyone strives to please themselves, which is why there are constant quarrels, fights, hatred, ill-will, misunderstandings, and mutual suspicion—because no one truly knows what love is. Love has grown cold, and people don’t even realize what is necessary to attain it. The more self-denial and self-sacrifice a person brings to the pursuit of love, the more they acquire divine qualities and the more they partake of this love. This is what spiritual life is about.
Learning to love
And if we wish to learn love, we must also live for the sake of our neighbor. We are not gods, so we cannot live for all of humanity—but that is not required. Look around! Here are your neighbors, and each one needs to be shown love, regardless of whether you feel it or not. You must compel yourself to love, to act as noble and holy people do, those who have love in them. To do this, you must constantly crucify your own egoism. If we do this, we will gradually taste and experience this joy. And it turns out that giving is much more blessed than receiving. It is not necessarily about giving something material—love can be expressed in any form. But it always requires sacrificing something of yourself for another. How wonderful, how noble, how divine this is!
What have we left behind us?
It turns out that in Communion, we are united not only with God but also with one another. We are supposed to be one body, yet each of us lives our own life, with our own concerns and ambitions, caring only for ourselves. It is a blessing if even a resemblance of something like love happens between two or three people, but try to speak honestly, or rub someone the wrong way, and you will see what kind of love is shown you. Why do we have such poverty and lack of understanding of what is most important? What are we living for? To satisfy our own ambitions? To insist on something? To make a point or prove ourselves? Well, go ahead! But what awaits you afterward? A coffin made of rough, unfinished boards... What will we leave behind? Whom have we inspired with our love? Whom have we led to faith? Where are our children? Where are our grandchildren? What is radiating from us? What have they become? Where is the love? Where is the continuity between generations? We will die, and what will happen to them? Have we shown them love? Have we taught them what life means, what nobility, holiness, the Gospel, beauty, and the Kingdom of God mean? Where is all of this? None of this is in our families. Not only in our families—it's nowhere. Complete impoverishment, horror, darkness, a nightmare. This nightmare must be driven out of our souls before it’s too late. And there is still time.
Don’t waste grace
Scripture says that love does no harm to its neighbor. Yet we constantly pester others, seek our own way, blame and criticize each other, and point out faults. This is why we are not children of God, for no matter how often we are told not to act in this way, we stubbornly continue. Thus, we squander the treasure the Lord has given us. In baptism, we received grace, and instead of gathering it and receiving grace upon grace, so that it grows in our hearts and nourishes others, we waste it, trampling it into the dirt; we do everything contrary to God’s commandments.
The greatest commandment
We, who are seeking the Kingdom of Heaven, turn to God together in church prayer, participate in one Divine Supper, and commune from one Chalice. We do this to learn love, to learn how to unite with one another and with God, so that we do not each live for ourselves, but follow the greatest commandment—love for God and love for our neighbor.
We must learn to love those who do us harm
God is love, and if a person has attained love, they have attained God. But what is love? We often do not feel, understand, or know what it is. The Lord gave His disciples a spiritual testament at the Last Supper. In particular, it concerned how people should relate to each other. Love manifests itself in humility before the one you love. But the Lord desires that we reach a love that extends to every neighbor, where our love does not depend on whether the person is close or distant, good or bad, whether they love us or are our enemy and wish us harm. The Lord gives an example of this kind of love, and we must learn from it. Whether someone irritates us or not, whether they understand us or not, whether we feel love toward them or not, we must still show love to that person. We must reach a state of heart where even if a person does harm to us—and we know he does, and we know what kind of person he is, always bringing us trouble—we must still learn to love them. This is very difficult and takes a lifetime of effort.
Love seeketh not her own
God’s name is Love. We gather in church not just to pray for the living or the departed, but to learn love—at least in some small way, while we are still here, even just a little bit.
Love is when one person sacrifices something for another. How does a dry and selfish person become kind and compassionate? By striving to show love to their neighbor, to anyone and everyone, all the time. In this way, we constantly exercise and soften our hearts.
A disciple of Christ must dedicate his entire life to serving God and neighbor—from beginning to end. To be a disciple of Christ is to acquire love. And love, as the Apostle Paul says, seeketh not her own—no personal benefit, no gain, no dreams for oneself, but only to serve Christ.
Strive for the Chalice
If our conscience is alive, then by constantly reviving it within ourselves, by continually kindling love for God, and striving for the Kingdom of Heaven, we should also strive towards the Chalice, repenting of our sins—not just listing them mechanically day after day, but with each confession taking a step, however small, towards purity and light.
God seeks the highest for us
A disciple of Christ must strive to serve everyone and, under no circumstances, consider anyone worse than themselves. They should strive to receive each person with love, even if that person is their enemy.
Love for God is expressed in loving others as well. To love means to feel compassion for one another. As the Apostle Paul says, Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep (Romans 12:15). In other words, we should share in another's joy as if it were our own—not envying, but rejoicing with them. If someone rejoices, we should say, “Thank God, how wonderful!” We must strive to be respectful to others, with love and mercy, for the sake of Christ's love, for the sake of righteousness, and to finally fulfill what the Lord desires from us.
The Lord requires the highest from us. He does not expect the mere fulfillment of external norms; He wants us to genuinely love each other from the heart, not just in words but truly. Love is a gift from God, and it is given only by grace. The Holy Spirit, through His divine energies, comes into a person's heart and makes them loving.
Love is when, if someone strikes you on the right cheek, you turn the left. This is how it manifests—when nothing in the world can extract evil from your heart, because there is no evil in your heart at all. No matter how someone treats you, no matter what they do, there is no response of evil from you. And this is granted by the grace of God.
Love constantly seeks new ways to serve, new ways to please God, new ways to bring joy to God. But out of the five billion people who inhabit the earth, how many live in a way that brings joy to God? Very few.
God is love. That is why He gave the commandment: These things I command you, that ye love one another (John 15:17). Whether we like it or not, if we have accepted God’s word, we must love others. For he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God (1 John 4:16). There are no justifications or excuses; any enmity or evil is a violation of the commandment. Even if an enemy stands before you, someone who wants to kill you, you must pray to God for them, you must love them. How can this be accomplished? Only through practice. That is why other commandments are given.
The only way to achieve love is forgiveness
What is the point of receiving Communion weekly if it leaves no trace in our lives? If we still argue, harbor anger, hold grudges, and are unwilling to cover the weakness of another with love? But what if the other person is wrong? Of course, they are wrong. What if they did something bad? Yes, it may be terrible; their actions may be horrifying and wrong. So what? Forgive them, because there is no other way. This is the only way to live together, the only way to achieve love—forgiveness. The Lord said that you must forgive a person 490 times a day if they sin against you. This is love.
Only perfect love for God casts out fear. When a person attains this love, they fear nothing; they simply entrust themselves to God, knowing that not even a hair from their head will fall without His will.
Love often consists in being lenient and understanding toward others, and there is no humiliation in this, neither for the person nor for yourself, for Christ Himself acted in the same way.
Nothing can separate one from the love of Christ
Whoever burns with love for God and desires to attain what the Lord Himself called the Kingdom of Heaven, the Lord will grant it to him. The Kingdom of Heaven is when the Lord dwells in a person's heart, and he experiences the most indescribable bliss in communion with God. You could tear such a person to pieces, do whatever you want with him—nothing can separate him from the love of Christ, nothing can shake them, no external circumstances, because the joy of knowing the Lord is with you is inexhaustible, unchanging, and cannot be diminished in any way. This is true Christian spiritual life.
