Many people think the saints are far away from us. But they are far away only from those who have distanced themselves, and very near to those who keep Christ’s commandments and who possess the grace of the Holy Spirit. In heaven everything lives and breathes by the Holy Spirit. But on earth there is the same Holy Spirit. He lives in our Church; He lives in the sacraments; He is to be found in the Holy Scriptures; He is in the souls of the faithful. The Holy Spirit brings everyone together, and therefore the saints are close to us, and when we pray to them – they hear our prayers through the Holy Spirit, and our souls feel that they are praying for us.
God can be known only through the Holy Spirit, and the one who, in his pride, wishes to know the Creator through his mind – is blind and foolish. With the mind we cannot even understand how the sun was made, and when we ask God to tell us how He made the sun, the reply is clear: “Humble yourself, and you will know not only the sun, but also its Creator.”
Venerable Siluan the Athonite