Wondrous Grace

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Wondrous grace inspires awestruck gratitude, dissolving fear into wholesome thanksgiving.   Awestruck wonder edges the soul towards turning, metanoia, which generously generates seeing, theoria, contemplation of light in light.  Together, turning and seeing purify and illumine the heart, giving wing to glory.  Together, purification and illumination cleanse the heart so that God’s Name is hallowed and reign of glory welcomed.  Glorification surrenders to the awestruck wonder of grace, opening its glory to expanding glory.  Grace is unconditional gift, liberating obsessive struggle that refuses gift in favour of strain and stress, addictions to self-centred pride.  It therefore may take time to awaken to timeless gratitude that permits grace to be grace, letting the glory of grace be seen by wisdom.  Time for the timeless is generous grace.  As fallen beings, we fall short of glory, but remain in the arms of grace that never abandons us.  But we do not recognise this, so feel grace has abandoned us, as if hell had closed in around us.  This despair has two sides:  despair of our capacity to save ourselves, opening us to God’s grace that saves us, and despair of God’s grace, plunging us into the hell of desperate, isolated ingratitude.   This is the critical point that plunges wonder into catastrophic disintegration unless faith steps in with wisdom’s insight into the glory of grace.  The proximity of hell to the gate of heaven sharpens awareness into wisdom and presence into glory.  The presence of these extremes does the sharpening, but the glory of grace is the release of extremism.  There is paradox and there is completeness, here, where the extremes hold steady without disintegration into extremism. 

The wonder of grace is the energy of glory at work in the soul that is struck dumb with awe by the glory of grace.  Such wonder lies at the foundation of glorification, fulfilling the heart of awareness with uncreated light, completing the heart of light with uncreated glory.  Radically ineffable, the mysteries of glory transcend gossiping mind-sets that like to speculate instead of surrender to the wonder of grace.  But wisdom is generous and loves to share her insight into the glory of grace with those who turn and see.  Elders do not think of themselves as wise because they do not confuse themselves with God.  But wisdom inspires the culture of the desert with insight into the glory of grace, permeating it with a spirit of gratitude, thanksgiving and joy.  The glory of grace inspires the communion of saints, but without wisdom, both grace and glory remain hidden.  Union and communion with God by grace are discerned by wisdom, which explains why wisdom is truly loved in the desert.  Love of wisdom is real philosophy, not to be confused with what is now in academic circles called philosophy.  The communion of saints remains invisible without wisdom, which explains why mystical theology begins with philosophy, love of wisdom discerning the glory of grace.

The degeneration of language is a glaring consequence of widespread loss of wisdom, just as its regeneration follows an awakening to wisdom.  The glory of grace is discerned by wisdom that turns the light of awareness round into uncreated light and the awareness of presence into glory.  Wisdom and glory are keys to the opening of God’s reign of grace, keys to the Kingdom of ineffable glory.  Without them, the sacred tradition remains nominal, not spiritual, with the result that literal repetition usurps spiritual realisation.  This becomes widespread when only the blind are available to lead the blind, when the ditch is disguised as a cathedral and is not seen for what it is.  Quenching the Spirit, wisdom is extinguished, but the Holy Spirit is never really extinguished, but renews the tradition as the life of light.  Wisdom waits for the mind to turn and the heart to see with the eye of the heart as God sees.   In God, there are never falls from grace nor falls from glory, but only delusions that fail to see as God sees.   The wonder of grace is that it gives light by which grace is seen and known, wisdom that discerns the glory of grace together with the mysteries of glorification.  The heart of awareness is revealed, together with the glory of presence in the heart of the Name.  Wondrous grace is discerned by wisdom to be the glory of grace, revealing God through God, grounded in the Spirit’s revelation of God in Holy Trinity.  

O reign of grace, O reign of glory, all glory be to Thee!  Hallowed be thy Name!