Mental Love: Interceding in Secret
Love is the key to the life of the monastic in the desert, and just as much to the layperson in the world. St. Isaac the Syrian teaches that when silence and seclusion leave no room for active charity, it is enough before God to offer mental love, which is prayerful intercession.
In other words, the Christian ideal has two sides: active mercy and contemplative stillness. Spiritual fathers and mothers may live either or both.
St. John Maximovitch rescued refugees from Shanghai and St. Maria Skobtsova sheltered them in occupied Paris. But neither could have borne the gifts of eldership without the silence we usually associate with hesychasts.
St. Porphyrios made the same point from the other direction. He counseled us not to press upon the people we love, but to pray for them in secret and let grace do the work. After all, intercession is not created within us. "The Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" (Rom 8:26). Thus, the uncreated silence of Pentecost is heard in the stillness of our hearts and poured out of us as love upon others.
Simply put, silent, sacrificial, private, prayerful intercession is a true gift of mental love given in secret, whether it starts in a Mediterranean village or an American kitchen.
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