God’s Love is stronger than any evil in the world, once and for all. That doesn’t mean free will cannot be taken. That doesn’t mean bad things are not going to still happen to good people. That doesn’t mean that the laws of life are not going to run their natural course. That doesn’t mean that there will be no natural disasters, accidents, failures, pain, or suffering. It doesn’t mean that. But it does mean that the door, which gives us access to victory amidst every crisis, has been opened. It means that God’s Love entered into the world to provide the remedy to heal every heart.

Father Sophrony explains the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, and then proceeds to the mission of the Spirit. He writes, “The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, came down to earth to glorify this Love.” What Love? Jesus who came, who was crucified, and who conquered. Jesus Incarnate is our incarnation. In the cross and resurrection, Jesus came, was crucified, and yet He conquered. As Fulton Sheen said, “He was born to die”  – to give His life for us on the Cross.

No other religion speaks like this. A lot of religions have things in common, like values and virtues on a natural level like be charitable and loving. Christianity has a lot in common with world religions in the human level.

But when it comes to the vertical, supernatural level, Christianity is unprecedented. And utterly unique.

Father Sophrony explains, ‘The Holy Spirit came down upon earth to glorify this Love of Christ and to guide the faithful into all truth,’ as Jesus says in John 16. The Holy Spirit came to bear eternal witness — He came to bear eternal witness to the endless enlargement brought about by this Love.  Finally, Father Sophrony says, “The Holy Spirit came to bear witness to Christ as the Savior of the whole world.”

Father Sophrony quotes from Corinthians II 6:13 and Chapter 3 when he speaks about Christ’s endless enlargement, this “unlimited horizon.” Saint Paul says, “The Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” And then Paul continues, “We behold Jesus’s face unveiled, unlike Moses in the temple.”

In the New Covenant, we have full access, so we unveil our faces to behold His Face, and in doing so, we are transfigured, transformed, and metamorphosed, from one degree of glory to another – through the Spirit who is living within us. That’s the endless enlargement brought about by this Love.

SOURCE: New Mexico Retreat, 2017, “First Love Exodus”