Monthly Archives: August 2020

Trusting wisdom’s recognition

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Elders do not trust themselves but in wisdom’s recognition of God present and aware in his Name.  The Holiest of Holy Unions at centre in the midst cannot be grasped conceptually or analysed logically without degenerating into reifications which seduce the unconfused into confusion and the indivisible into division.  Seers live from the mysteries of this union but do not presume to… Read more »

Self-emptying glorification

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Self-emptying glorification is grounded in the Name that reveals God in the midst, emptying confusion with the created from vision of God at centre, purifying the heart with turning (metanoia), illumining the heart with seeing (theoria), emptying all that usurps God in the heart in self-emptying deification (theosis).  Elders point out where God is to be found when they introduce the mystery of the… Read more »

Self-emptying Kenosis

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The Apostle Paul writes to the Philippians that the mind of Christ does not grasp at divinity, as if equality with God was something to be possessed, but empties itself.  That is, Christ empties himself to take the form of a servant, created in the likeness of men.  Being found in the form of a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient… Read more »

Body of Light, body of Glory

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Elders in the desert hand on the tradition (paradosis) of the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and glorification of Christ, in whom the saints are crucified, resurrected, ascended and glorified with Christ in the Spirit, who illumines the heart, praying ‘Abba, Father,’ imparting grace that crucifies, resurrects, ascends and glorifies the saints in Christ.   The sacrament of Baptism empowers grace that… Read more »

Wisdom of the Cross

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Wisdom in desert Hesychasm listens to the Logos of the Cross in the light of the Logos of prophecy in prophets such as Isaiah and of the Logos of wisdom in sages such as Heraclitus and in Scripture such as the Logos in the Johannine Prologue.  When wisdom is listening to the Logos of the Cross, it is a principle of deconstruction, deconstructing… Read more »

Timeless wisdom: transcending yet including time

The Holy Name unveils the uncreated luminous clarity of uncreated deifying awareness in God the Holy Trinity.  Wisdom sees with enlightened awareness the uncreated glory of deifying presence.  For wisdom, it is God’s timeless God-centred glorification of God that is decisive, not our temporal ways and means toward God from without.  It is not that temporal ways and means are… Read more »

Trouble and Wonder

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Saint Clement of Alexandria quotes a saying of Jesus from the Gospel of the Hebrews that reflects the threefold unfolding of the ascetic life, purification, illumination and deification, which his contemporary, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, also taught.  ‘He that seeks will not rest until he finds, and he that has found shall marvel, and he that has marvelled shall reign,… Read more »

Purification of the Heart

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Awakening of the eye of the heart purifies the heart with limpid clarity, clarifying awareness with luminous lucidity.  A pure heart is an illumined heart, awakened by the Spirit to the luminous eye of wisdom, wisdom that abides in the luminous presence of uncreated glory in the midst.  The Syrian Oriental Orthodox tradition speaks here of luminosity (shaphyuta), which Saint Ephraim… Read more »

Stillness and Wonder

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Saint Isaac the Syrian was witness in the Spirit to the Spirit’s prayer of stillness and wonder which lies at the heart of Orthodox Christian Hesychasm to this day.  He gives the name ‘spiritual prayer’ to the prayer of the Holy Spirit in the heart, a stillness of heart which plunges the heart into awestruck wonder, an experience of the… Read more »

Uncreated Light: uncreated Difference

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Saint Symeon the New Theologian profoundly influenced desert Hesychasm, bearing witness in the Spirit to uncreated light of glory in the midst, wisdom revealing Holy Trinity in uncreated light.  Uncreated wisdom and uncreated glory unite in uncreated light.  Uncreated awareness of uncreated presence is uncreated light.  In the glory of grace, pure awareness unites with pure presence, transfiguring everything in ineffable,… Read more »