I would continue to share thoughts about the 30th Step on John’s Ladder of Divine Ascent. The 30th Step is Faith, Hope and Love.

The highest degree of love for God, which is the love of the dispassionate, is described in ways most of us would associate with passionate romance. This is not coincidental, for this is precisely how divine love is described by the great mystics of the Eastern Church. The saints are sometimes described in Greek as erastes of God. Erastes is derived from the Greek word eros, so it quite literally means those who are “in love” with God.

Have you ever been so deeply and passionately in love with someone that you are distracted by an obsession with that person? You may lose your appetite and forget to eat. You can think of nothing else. The object of your love is the last thing you think of when you go to bed, the first thing you think of when you wake up. The love can be so intense it even hurts.

St. John describes this relationship with God as being wounded by love. Love and beauty can bring a sensitive heart to tears, and yet they are tears not of regret or sorrow, but of joy – an almost painful joy. This being wounded by love, this deep compassion and sensitivity to the beauty of God and His creation, has been expressed repeatedly by the saints.

While love can be “wounding,” at the same time it makes everything seem bright and joyful. Thus divine love is the expulsion, or rather, the transfiguration of all the passions. The deeper and more intense our love, the more cheerful and care-free we become. If the sight of the one we love clearly makes us change completely, so that we turn cheerful, glad and carefree, what will the face of the Lord Himself not do as He comes to dwell, invisibly, in a pure soul?

Think about this!