Dumitru Stăniloae > Quotes

“The man in whom God rests and who rests in God must reflect the infinity of the conscious light of God; the infinity of God must become proper to man, by grace. That is what is meant by the divinization of man in God and the humanization of God in man. It is the union of God and man in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of light: the illuminating Spirit of God becomes the Spirit who illuminates man by grace.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Prayer and Holiness

“The Fathers speak of prayer as consisting of a single thought (monologistos euche). Strictly speaking it is not even a thought, but rather an awareness of being totally absorbed in the reality of God. One can, nevertheless, call this conscious experience ‘thought’, because it is not simply a state of confused feeling or the sensation of being lost in the ocean of inarticulate reality, but it is awareness of encounter with the personal infinity of God who loves us. It is the mind’s confirmation of the reality. I do not lose myself in this infinity, because it is the infinity of a personal God and of his love to which I respond with my love. For the heart is truly the place where one experiences the love of the other, and where one responds to the other. I do not lose myself, because it is the infinity of a personal God whose love is my delight; I depend on his love as I depend on his mercy, for face to face with him I still feel infinitely small, and a sinner.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Prayer and Holiness: The Icon of Man Renewed in God

“There is indeed a distinction and nobility full of feeling in this higher form of tenderness that is very different from the conventional distinction and nobility which are distant and formal. This tenderness does not avoid contact with the most humble of men, and is unperturbed by situations in which others would be afraid of failing. The model of this tenderness is the kenosis, the condescension, of Christ. He did not wish to hold himself aloof from sinners, nor from the kind of women who are avoided by men concerned for their own reputation. The kenosis, the self-emptying of Christ is, in itself, the supreme form of tenderness. In it is shown the desire not to be a burden to the humble, nor to embarrass them. By his kenosis he desired to open up a way into their hearts. By kindness he intended to make them give up their cruel ways, instead of persisting in a hardness in which the ‘inferior’ returns the contempt of the ‘superior’.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Prayer and Holiness: The Icon of Man Renewed in God

“Fumul care iese din lemne este greu ochilor, dar le arată lumină și desfătează pe cei ce i-a întristat mai-nainte.”
Filotei Sinaitul, ”Capete despre trezvie”
Filocalia vol IV, Humanitas, 2017
p.101”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Filocalia sfintelor nevoinţe ale desăvârşirii - 4

“Indulgence in pleasure only pushes a man into a further attempt to escape from pain in further pleasure. While man by his will can renounce pleasure, he can never wholly avoid pain and sorrow. He can only overcome his sorrow, that is to say, remain in it, carrying his cross, without taking refuge in a new pleasure which would bring with it a new pain, and so on till at the end of his life, death will come as the final sorrow. Christ overcame pleasure, that is to say, the human tendency towards pleasure, by remaining in grief, victoriously bearing the cross, as the ultimate pain”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“For he did not overcome pleasure and pain by a sort of stoic insensibility, an inability to feel; he mastered them through the strengthening of his spirit, thus at the same time preserving yet transfiguring our full human sensibility to suffering and our tendency to want to escape from it.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“By its search for God the mind itself enters into the reality of the depth of the heart and knows it as depth set apart for God, the true Infinity. ‘Deep calls to deep’ (Psalm 42: 9). The infinity of God cannot be experienced apart from his love for us. This love of God for us calls to our love, and it is with the heart, the organ of love within us, that we experience his love. But we are speaking here of a heart that knows, thanks to the mind which has entered it, that this infinity is the infinity of a God who is personal, and that God enters into intimate relationship with us through Christ. That is why it is the mind which comes to rest in the heart. In the heart it finds the infinity of God. It is not the heart that comes to rest in the mind, for that would mean that the feeling of the infinity of God had become a theory, chilled by thought. It is not feeling that must be chilled by thought, but thought which must warm itself in the feeling of the heart in real contact with the infinity of God, and thus give this feeling a definite content.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Prayer and Holiness: The Icon of Man Renewed in God

“Fericirea își întipărește semnele sale în cei ce s-au învrednicit de ea prin împărtășire și-i face înfățișători ai ei.”
Sfîntul Maxim Mărturisitorul
ed. Humanitas, 2017, p.367
”Răspunsuri către Talasie”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Filocalia sfintelor nevoinţe ale desăvârşirii - 3

“For he who recognises himself as guilty recognises his own personal responsibility and his insufficiency in working it out, while he who does not recognise himself as guilty cannot recognise himself as responsible. Such a man in his actions does not respond to God, and he refuses to admit that he has not replied as he should in the past to God and to others.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“Patru sînt felurile generale ale părăsirii: una din iconomie, cum este la Domnul, ca prin păruta părăsire cei părăsiți să se mîntuiască. Alta spre dovedire, cum este la Iov și Iosif, ca să se arate unul stâlp al bărbăției, altul al neprihănirii. A treia spre povățuite duhovnicească, cum este la Apostolul, ca, smerindu-se în cugetare, să păstreze covârșirea harului. În sfârșit, a patraeste lepădarea, ca la iudei, ca, pedepsiți fiind, să fie încovoiați spre pocăință. Dar toate felurile sînt mântuitoare și pline de bunătatea și de iubirea de oameni a lui Dumnezeu”.
Sfîntul Maxim Mărturisitorul
Capete despre dragoste, ed Humanitas, 2017,
p.102”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Filocalia - Volumul 2

“The revelation of the spirit is not produced by suffering alone, but by the understanding which it can awaken in the spirit. If man refuses to open the eyes of his spirit, refuses to see what is beyond the material world, and continues to think of himself as exclusively identified with the material world, then the cross of suffering can be of no profit to him. Finally, such a man being without hope and in the course of time losing the very possibility of escaping into selfish and material pleasures—which at least give him some feeling of being alive—must sink into darkness and despair over the total non-sense of life. Such a one is lost by the cross for eternity.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“If man refuses to open the eyes of his spirit, refuses to see what is beyond the material world, and continues to think of himself as exclusively identified with the material world, then the cross of suffering can be of no profit to him. Finally, such a man being without hope and in the course of time losing the very possibility of escaping into selfish and material pleasures—which at least give him some feeling of being alive—must sink into darkness and despair over the total non-sense of life. Such a one is lost by the cross for eternity.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“It is not in the mind that the heart finds its rest; but it is in the heart (or rather where the depths of the heart meet the depths of God) that the mind finds the rest for which it is searching.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Prayer and Holiness: The Icon of Man Renewed in God

“Every cross which has saving power is a cross which I carry not only on account of my own sins, but also on account of the sins of others. I should bend and bow in carrying my neighbour with his cross, and in bowing and bending I spiritually form the horizontal line, the humbling line of the cross, in order that the one whom I carry may form the vertical line as I carry him on my shoulders. Our moral weakness and powerlessness, our insufficient responsibility towards God and our neighbours, these form our cross.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“St Maximus the Confessor says that the saints have attained to a pure simplicity, because they have overcome in themselves all duality and pretence. They have passed beyond the struggle between soul and body, between good intentions and works performed, between deceitful appearances and hidden thoughts, between what they pretend to be and what they actually are. They have become simple because they have given themselves entirely to God.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Prayer and Holiness: The Icon of Man Renewed in God

“Pure prayer is concerned with the reuniting of the mind (nous) and the heart. Neither mind nor heart can be allowed to remain alone. Prayer that comes only from the mind is cold; prayer that comes only from the heart is sentimental and is ignorant of all that God has given us, is giving us now and will give us in Christ. It is prayer without horizon or perspective, prayer in which we do not know what to thank God for, what to praise him for, what to ask him for. The man who prays in this way has the feeling of being lost in an impersonal infinity. Such a feeling knows nothing of encounter with a personal God. And thus it is not prayer.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Prayer and Holiness: The Icon of Man Renewed in God

“The feelings or imaginings which tend to prevent the mind from entering into the heart and so attaining to pure prayer, or prayer of the heart, are either those which are the result of sin, or an attraction towards sin, or those which make us think we are being drawn towards good actions or a real meeting with God himself, but which in fact do not lead to God. That is why the Fathers warn monks even against images that seem to be good. They exhort them not to rely on any kind of imagination or impression. Moreover the Fathers consider thought, even theological thought, to be a no less dangerous obstacle to the mind's entry into the heart. They must be watchful not to rest in theological thinking, or to slip into it, when they are moved to prayer or while they are praying. Thinking about God interrupts direct encounter with him. By theological thinking a man becomes shut in on himself.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Prayer and Holiness: The Icon of Man Renewed in God

“19. Dă-ți seama că trebuie să te arăți oamenilor neîncetat. Dar prin purtarea cea bună și prin fapte. Căci și bolnavii află și cunosc pe doctorii binefăcători și izbăvitori nu din vorbe, ci din fapte.
Antonie cel Mare, Filocalia sfintelor nevoințe ale desăvîrșirii I, Humanitas, 2017, p.12”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Filocalia I

“In refusing this relationship with God, man falls altogether out of the human condition, for the true human condition consists in our ability to hear the word of God, to enter into personal relationship with God. And, consequently, he also loses the ability of hearing his neighbour’s word to him, and of entering into true relationship with him. He falls from reality into a shadowy, pseudo-reality, into outer darkness. And here we find another suffering, another cross, but this is an unwilling cross, a cross without hope. The selfish, egotistic person suffers much more than the one who wishes to help others. In refusing relationship with others we jump out of reality, for the reality of the world and of our own person can only be truly and fully lived when we are aware of our responsibility and of our fault, and are willing to carry our cross for others.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“Precum cel ce privește la soare e cu neputință să nu-și umple privirile de lumină îmbelșugată, la fel cel ce se apleacă să privească văzduhul inimii nu poate să nu se lumineze”
Isihie Sinaitul ”Cuvânt despre trezvie”
Filocalia vol IV, Humanitas, 2017
p.62”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Filocalia sfintelor nevoinţe ale desăvârşirii - 4

“Căci în cunoștința și credința cea către Dumnezeu stau mîntuirea și desăvîrșirea sufletului
Antonie cel Mare, Filocalia sfintelor nevoințe ale desăvârșirii I, Humanitas, 2017, p.9”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Filocalia I

“For he did not overcome pleasure and pain by a sort of stoic insensibility, an inability to feel; he mastered them through the strengthening of his spirit, thus at the same time preserving yet transfiguring our full human sensibility to suffering and our tendency to want to escape from it. His cross means that the spirit is victorious over matter without making matter of no effect, but by transfiguring the material world through the response of a will wholly given to God.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“For sin means egotism; and love, the pure love of Christ, surpasses and destroys all egotism—all selfishness.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“St. Irenaeus: ‘To create is,Proper to the kindness of God, but to be created is proper to man.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Orthodox Spirituality: A Practical Guide for the Faithful and a Definitive Manual for the Scholar

“The cross points us to the resurrection, and to the way which leads to the resurrection. The Fathers say that he who is nourished by the cross is nourished by the tree of life. By the cross the world and our own life become transparent.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“The way of the cross is the only way which leads us upwards, the only way which carries creation towards the true heights for which it was made. This is the signification which we understand of the cross of Christ.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“This is the ‘rest’, the stability, the Sabbath into which the saints have entered (Heb. 3: 18–4: 11), those who have left the Egypt of the passions. It is not the Sabbath of an insensible Nirvana; for by resting in the eternity of unshakeable love, the love of God for men, the saint has power to draw others towards eternity and help them to overcome their suffering with courage, and not to give way to despair. Thus he is the forerunner and sustainer of humankind on the road which leads to the perfect fulfilment of the Last Day.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, Prayer and Holiness: The Icon of Man Renewed in God