Prophecy is generated in the Word that names the Name, whilst prayer proceeds in the Spirit to abide in the Word, revealing a place of grace in the midst which unveils the Face. This place of grace has no shadow, being the place where grace unveils uncreated light, revealing the unveiled Face of glory. In this place of grace, Great Peace reigns, inspiring love of wisdom which graces every perception with uncreated beauty. Entry into this hidden place of grace is entry into the rest of completeness, entry into the Bridal Chamber of the heart of hearts, the Holiest place that graces tears with joy, indescribable long-suffering transmuting into ineffable joy. To rest in the peace of the hallowed Name is to abide in peace in the love that frees fear from fear, transfiguring fear into love, unconditioned love that has no end. Prophets of prayer abide here in the place of Great Peace, awe-struck with wonder at the mysteries of glory which plunge the calculating mind into amazement. Prophecy hears the Word revealing the Name and passes it on as prophecy, whilst prayer inhales the Spirit’s unceasing prayer in the heart, crying ‘Abba, Father,’ inspiring prayer with spiritual prayer. For this is the place of hidden mysteries, the place of secrets that only wisdom knows, the place of grace whose glory wisdom discerns and shares with those who turn and see.
Prophecy and prayer see with the single eye of uncreated light here in the midst, filling the body with light transfiguring body, soul and spirit into light, light that turns the conditioned inside out and the unconditioned outside in (Mt 6:22; Th 61). Wisdom is the single eye that reveals the gross body to be light, transfiguring created energies with uncreated glory through the Name. Being uncreated awareness of uncreated presence, the Name reveals God, unveiling the Father through the Son, in the Spirit. Self-emptying into uncreated light, body, mind and spirit dissolve into rainbow radiance, which is not confused with the body of light, yet is not separate from it either, being the light of glory releasing clouded obstructions to union with God. Uncreated light of glory dissolves body and soul into rainbow radiance, generating prophecy in the Word and prayer in the Spirit. The Holiest place is the place of grace that reveals the Face, beholding glory at centre, where glory is beheld as theophany everywhere. The Name embraces all from within glory, one uncreated awareness, one uncreated presence, gathering countless holy ones into union with the Holy One at centre where all centres coincide. Rainbow radiance refracts uncreated light, transmuting the material body into the resurrected body of light.
Apocalyptic seers awaken to rainbow radiance in the course of their experience of hallowing glorification, leaving gentle hints of rainbow radiance, which is the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Name (Ezekiel 1:28). The Apocalyptic seer picks up the hint and beholds a rainbow nimbus surrounding the throne of glory in the Holy of Holies (Rev 4:3). Rainbow radiance is what happens to the cloud that veils glory when when theophanies of light unveil the veil (Rev 10:1). Rainbow radiance is the veil of cloud dissolving as the Name reveals the named, an appearance that manifests the dissolution of the veil. The Prophet Ezekiel’s ‘appearance of the likeness’ has to do with the mysteries of glorification, mysteries that clothe glory like a veil but which dissolve as they unveil. Prophets of prayer point to the Name that unveils the appearance into the likeness that restores the image of God, kindling boundless love. The living flame of love intoxicates prophecy, transfiguring prayer, renewing sacred tradition from within. The image transfigures into likeness as glory unveils the veil, indwelling a cloud of unknowing dissolving into rainbow radiance. The place of grace is the heart of ineffable light, a place of blessing that unveils the Face.
Prophecy springs forth from the place of grace that the Word reveals when the Name is unveiled, uniting with prayer in the Spirit that opens to Truth through the Name. Indeed, it is the awareness of presence and the presence of awareness in the Name itself that sanctifies the hidden place where the uncreated Bridegroom conjoins with the created Bride in the Bridal Chamber where God’s Song of Songs is sung, the Holiest of Holies where the Word weds the Spirit in the bosom of the Father. It is glorification that unveils the Face dispelling clouds of veiled opacity into rainbow radiance, grounding prophecy and prayer in the Name, concealing both in glory. The practice of wisdom dissolves the veil from a cloud of unknowing into rainbow radiance as confusion diffuses and division dissolves into uncreated light. The place of grace reveals the Face to wisdom, but conceals mysteries from curious scrutiny. Of course, the Face is uncreated and so free of all created human characreristics, emptying the unconditioned from all extraneous conditioning. Prophecy points out what the Name reveals whilst prayer assimilates union without reification. Wisdom opens awareness to unreified, uncreated presence and presence to unreified, uncreated awareness when the Name is hallowed and realms of glory revealed. The place of grace is where wisdom dwells, at home at centre, revealing God.
When the Apostle Paul was caught up into the third heaven and beheld paradise, he heard ineffable words (arreta remata), which cannot be expressed, ineffable words of prophecy that were sealed even as they were revealed (2 Cor 12:4). Prayer in the Spirit, too, is ineffable, piercing the heart like a humbling thorn (2 Cor 12:7). When prophecy discerns mysteries of glory and prayer removes mountains of separation, love empties both of self-love, preferring kindly patience that is not jealous and does not boast (1 Cor 13:1-4). Such love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things, because such love has no limit and no end. Faith sees in a mirror, telling riddles, but wisdom sees face to face (1 Cor 13: 7-12). Faith, hope and love hold steady until wisdom knows as she is known, turning prophecy into pure prayer and prayer into wonder, which is no longer our prayer but the Spirit’s prayer in us, as Saint Isaac the Syrian observes. The humility of Christ transcends every self-obsessed, self-imposed version of humility, revealing in the Spirit a knowing that is not puffed up. Wisdom does not grasp and possess what she knows, being God’s own self-emptying love, beholding all that it knows even as it is known.
The Spirit resurrects prophecy as prayer and prayer as prophecy, when grace is revealed in the place of the Face, curing fear, unveiling love’s glory face to face, suffering glory to be revealed through excruciating suffering which is God’s God-centred glorification of God, curing fear with love. Long-suffering love cures fear by purifying prophecy and then prayer, illumining the heart with ineffable words of prophecy and incomprehensible groans of prayer, interceding for the saints by hallowing the Name. Christ, too, intercedes in the Spirit, cutting through separations imposed by fear, exposing confusions that pride presumes. The place of grace is the place of the Face that love reveals, unveiling the veils that contract prophecy and constrict prayer, curing the confusions and divisions of pride. There are no reified prophets and there is no reified prayer when prophecy and prayer are crucified with Christ and resurrect with Christ in his ascension and glorification. Stillness reveres in silence the ineffable glory that prophecy invokes, distilling prayer into ineffable wonder. When prophecy is misconstrued as Montanism or prayer confused with Messalianism or wisdom mistaken for Gnosticism, degenerate reifications of prophecy, prayer or wisdom are spawned that perpetuate confusion after confusion and division after division. Prophecy and prayer stand steadfast in unreified wisdom, as they bear witness to wholesome glorification, renewing the hearts of elders, as they awaken the hearts of saints.
The Logos of prophecy and the Spirit’s prayer sustain treasures of wisdom that remain hidden until the time of the unveiling of their glory is revealed. When grace of glorification begins to renew prophecy by regenerating prayer, both prophecy and prayer are restored to glory by uncreated light, dissolving clouded veils into rainbow radiance. As veils dissolve, light is refracted and the single eye transfigures the body into light (Mt 6:22). We offer ourselves, body, soul and spirit, into transfigurement, as enlightenment in uncreated light dissolves our offering into God whilst God offers his glory, deifying the saints. Apocalyptic seers know from their experience of glorification that apparently gross matter is not really gross but shimmering light, that chariot thrones are glory doing what hallowing crowns are doing, communicating glorification in ineffable mysteries glimpsed in icons, but neglected and no longer understood when wisdom is disdained. Prophecy remembers God with the help of sacred images just as prayer remembers God beyond all images, both modes of wisdom working together to renew glorification in the hallowed Name. Rainbow radiance manifests when veils dissolve and uncreated light reveals glory through hallowing the Name. Prophecy beholds theophanies of glory everywhere when the Name hallows saints through the Spirit’s prayer in the heart. Prophecy transmits the Name so that prayer can hallow it, conjoining both together in the Holiest of Holies. Name-hallowing saints are born again in the Bridal Chamber hidden in the Holiest midst of the Holy of Holies, renewing prophecy and inspiring prayer of the Spirit in the heart in each generation of hallowed seers.