Very Bones
The bishop Diadochos of Photiki, a small town in north-west Greece, was born about 400. He is believed to have been among a group of Epiran notables captured during a Vandal raid when he was well over 60, to be shipped off to North Africa where he eventually died. Diadochos did not spend life cozily cooped up in an ivory tower or a quiet cell. It is all the more impressive to read this testimony from his treatise On Spiritual Perfection: ‘Anyone who loves God in the depths of his heart has already been loved by God. In fact, the measure of a man’s love for God depends upon how deeply aware he is of God’s love for him. When this awareness is keen it makes whoever possesses it long to be enlightened by the divine light, and this longing is so intense that it seems to penetrate his very bones. He loses all consciousness of himself and is entirely transformed by the love of God.’
A longing so intense it seems to penetrate one’s very bones.
