X (33)
When we are incapable of scaling the peaks of virtue, all we have
to do is descend into the ravine of humility. Our humility is our
great intecessor before the face of the Lord.
If
the soul loves and pities the people its prayer is not
interrupted.
Salvation lies in Christ like humility.
id.
In Conjectures, p. 164, Merton mistakenly
ascribes the following extended quotation from Staretz Silouan to a
Staretz Sylvan: He said:
I became steward as an act of obedience blessed by the Abbot,
so I pray better at my task than I prayed at the Old Rossikon [where
he had a solitary hut] where I asked to go for the sake of interior
silence. If the soul loves and pities the people, prayer is not
interrupted. from The Undistorted Image,
biography of Staretz Sylvan (sic), by Archimandrite
Sophrony.
The correct reference for this quotation of Staretz Silouan, both in
Conjectures and "The Red Diary
is: Sofrony, Archimandrite. The Undistorted Image. Translated
by Rosemary Edmonds from the
Russian. London: The Faith
Press, 1958.