Quotes from Olivier Clement

Deep within Shinto temples in Japan you find only a mirror. It is a symbol and a riddle. The risk there is of turning in upon the Self. But the Christian knows that the Self is the image of Christ. And Christ is the faithful mirror who reflects the truth not only of creatures and objects, but also of the Self that is no longer an undifferentiated abyss but the interior expression of a face.

what is a compassionate heart? He tells us: 'It is a heart that burns for all creation, for the birds, for the beasts, for the devils, for every creature. When he thinks about them, when he looks at them, his eyes fill with tears.

The 'contemplation of nature' can give spiritual flavour to our lives even if we lay no claim to be in any way 'mystics' in the rather particular sense that this word has acquired in the West. A little loving attention in the light of the Risen Christ is enough. The humblest objects then breathe out their secret. The person becomes the priest of the world at the altar of his heart, celebrating that 'cosmic liturgy' of which Maximus the Confessor speaks.

In the battle of ascesis and the offering of creatures to God in the cosmic liturgy, our will must cooperate with divine grace. But the ultimate knowledge, the love-knowledge of the Trinity, takes hold of us by grace alone. We prepare for it by a stripping away of our being until we become nothing but expectation.

To progress in thinking about creatures is painful and wearisome. The contemplation of the Holy Trinity is ineffable peace and silence. Evagrius of Pontus Centuries,

Love is poverty, kenosis. Knowing one's neighbour is inseparable from an attitude of non-possession.

Beyond an ethic of law (certainly not within it as far as the Christian is concerned) we are called, as we gradually deepen our faith, to invent a paradoxical morality, that of creative love. This morality gives precedence to the person, the mystery of the person's nature and destiny, over social ideas of right and justice.

The virtues acquired are the flesh of Christ and whoever eats it will find inner freedom. The contemplation of creatures is the blood of Christ and whoever drinks it will be enlightened by him. The knowledge of God is the breast of Christ and whoever rests on it will be a theologian. Evagrius of Pontus Mirror for Monks,

How can we judge another person without imprisoning that person in his past acts? Without shackling him to one moment of his development?

In particular, if Christians must reject the death penalty, it is not from an idolatrous sacralization of biological life, but in order to leave a person the opportunity of repentance. Remember this, and you will no longer judge: Judas was an apostle, and the thief crucified at Christ's right hand was a murderer. What a transformation in an instant! John Climacus The Ladder of Divine Ascent,

True prayer is not only of the mouth, it is of the heart, that is, of the whole being. It is a cry de profundis, out of the deep. There is a correspondence between the depths of the heart and the heights of heaven, understood not in a physical sense but in the sense of a 'beyond' in relation to the centre.