God's Revelation to the Human Heart

This wonderful little book can be read easily in one sitting. In fact, you'll probably find yourself unable to stop reading once you've picked the book up and started to read it. The material comes a lecture given by Father Seraphim Rose at Sant Cruz, California in 1981. Oddly, this lecture preceded his death by only about eighteen months. But there is more essential wisdom contained in this brief, wonderful book than in the many thousand page tomes we have trudged through. Father Seraphim Rose emphasizes, in particular, that the Christian must be prepared to suffer for his faith. This is an unpopular idea in our indulgent American culture. But it really represents the wisdom of the ages. There are those who argue that Father Seraphim Rose, following the Eastern Monastic tradition in his approach to the Church Fathers, became himself a latter day Church Father. And given the wisdom he here imparts, I am inclinded to agree. Read this wonderful little book. And be richly blessed and edified in the process. God bless.

Published transcripts of talks are risky. Sometimes a lecture that is powerfully persuasive because of the personal charisma of the speaker comes across as dull and uninspiring when read. This is usually (but not always) an indication that there's little substance in the talk, and that its original appeal was founded more on smoke-and-mirrors than insight or wisdom. I'm happy to say that the transcript of Father Seraphim's 1981 Santa Cruz talk, "God's Revelation to the Human Heart," comes across as well on the written page as it must've when he gave it to college students a quarter-century ago. Delivered a year before his premature death, it can be viewed as a concise statement of his spirituality. The purpose of religion (re+legio=to reconnect), says Seraphim, is to "open up contact" with a "reality deeper than the eveyday reality that so quickly changes, rots away, leaves nothing behind, and offers no lasting happiness." In our deep hunger for this reality, we frequently settle on the one hand for effusive experiences that feel good but which don't necessarily lead us to the Truth we seek, or cold, calculative philosophies, which promise to reveal Truth for us but typically wind up dissecting it instead. What we need do is recognize, as Pascal said in the seventeenth century, that the heart has reasons that the mind knows not. The heart, Seraphim reminds us, is that organ designed to reveal God to us, because the heart is the seat of love, and only love takes us to Truth/reality. That which reconnects us is love. But to love necessarily means to suffer, for in loving we empathically experience the pain of those whom we love. In willingly taking on the cross of suffering, we invite God to crack open our hearts and reveal both Himself (Truth/Reality) and our true identities. The path of love/suffering defended by Father Seraphim in this lecture, then, takes us to Truth by avoiding gushy sentimentality on the one hand, and detached, rationalistic analysis on the other. His approach is the same as that defended by the Fathers in the first centuries of the Church. Ironically--sadly--the questions asked of Seraphim by students after his talk (the transcript is included in this volume) suggest that most of his listeners just didn't get the point of what he was saying. The questions tend to be off-subject ("What do Orthodox think about non-Orthodox?" "What's the Apocalypse?" "What does Orthodoxy teach about fasting?"). But one can hope that seeds were planted. Certainly the published version of Seraphim's talk is rich and fertile for those of us fortunate enough to read it. Many thanks to St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood for making it available.

What has set Fr. Seraphim Rose of blessed memory apart from his contemporaries is that he was so far ahead of his time in his writings. In this little classic, we get to see how Fr. Seraphim Rose presented material to a group of college students. The degree of clarity and foresight in his thoughts and conclusions are on a level by themselves. What I enjoy most about Fr. Seraphim is not only his conversion to Orthodoxy, but the degree in which he crucified his intellect and subjected to Christ and the early Christian Fathers. This is a quick read, that if you are like me. You will have to read it several times to plumb the depths of the writings.

_God's Revelation to the Human Heart_ is the transcript of a lecture that Fr. Seraphim Rose delivered to the students of comparative religion at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1981. It can easily be read in one sitting, and although it is not the most in depth or detailed introduction to Orthodoxy, it is an insightful nonetheless. Fr. Seraphim begins his address with the question, "Why study religion?" The answer to this is to find out the meaning of Reality itself. The nature of this reality is in contrast with mundane reality, all of which eventually passes on in this world. True reality is something that cannot be perceived in a strictly empirical manner, but comes from within and glimpses at eternity. Fr. Seraphim also speaks of the search for religious experience and religious truth. An individual should not look for religious experiences per se because they can be the paths towards spiritual delusion, but rather towards Truth itself. The importance of suffering in Orthodox Christianity is also discussed, giving the well-known example of Alexander Solzhenitsyn (author of the _Gulag Archipelago_) who was persecuted by the Soviets for political dissent. Unlike in many Western countries, Christianity in Russia under communism was directly and brutally persecuted. Fr. Seraphim's conclusion discusses the spiritual rebirth that is happening in Russia today. Finally, the last few pages are the Question and Answer session after Fr. Seraphim's lecture.

When I ordered this book, it was because my priest at church was talking about Fr. Seraphim Rose and the value of reading his writings. So I ordered this book out of curiosity and found that it is easy to read, yet so packed with wisdom. I ordered a second book to give as a gift to my brother for Christmas. I think he will enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed it.