The communion of saints is ultimately not a credal belief that invites verbal repetition but a living experience of hallowing communion in the Name, welcoming home saints on earth, as angels are at home in heaven. The Name communicates love and forgiveness, union and blessing that unravel confusion whilst dissolving division, so that through communion, the many awaken to know themselves as one. The oneness is the uncreated oneness of God, whilst the many are the manifold multiplicity of creation, which embraces limitless difference without division. The Name is the uncreated oneness of God revealed by the Father through the Son, unveiled in the Holy Spirit as hallowing union. Communion of saints is present in the heart of awareness, but it is wisdom that beholds the glory that unveils this communion. Wisdom discerns the beauty of holiness inspiring the glorious sanctity of saints. Holiness is enthroned in the midst of awareness, but when nobody turns awareness round to behold what the Holy Name reveals, the mystery of holiness remains hidden and its glory concealed. It is clear that belief in the communion of saints is not necessarily experience of the communion of saints, so elders point out this important difference in order to turn belief around to awaken direct experience. Falls from grace are undone by grace but the mindset of addictive fallenness fixates on divisive separation and sets reified separation in concrete as a hardened heart. The deadly venom of the satanic serpent deadens the heart and hardens its resistance, unless grace turns the light of awareness round and melts the heart’s frozen exterior from within. Awareness is one, although what awareness perceives is many, so when awareness turns, wisdom conjoins with glory in the midst, bearing witness to God’s oneness as the oneness of his awareness, always aware of the oneness of his presence The flame of the Name melts the frozen exteriors of the heart so awareness may shine forth as one.
Elders, being aware of this holy union, point it out to saints as hallowing communion, not as something they are obliged to cultivate artificially but as grace from the Father that the Spirit discerns in Christ, grace that is unconditional in its radical unconditionality. Being formless and free, grace undoes confusion and dissolves division, liberating hearts from the bondage of satanic separation. The single eye of the awakened heart does not define itself as separate because awareness is one with the oneness of awareness, one with the presence of oneness at the heart of awareness. The flame of the Name consumes confusion and purifies the heart of reified separation, unveiling boundless joy. Stillness rejoices in the oneness and freedom of ineffable completeness as it generously empties itself to complete us. Awareness rises from the dissipated temporality it is aware of, into the timeless completeness hidden within awareness itself. Pure in itself, awareness purifies itself of the dissipation it is aware of, no longer confusing itself with its content. Grace is timeless completeness, so does not require purification through temporal ways and means, but invites trust in its saving power to purify and liberate. Grace flows forth everywhere, so everything flows back into the infinite ocean of grace, excluding none, although excluded by those who resist or refuse it. The communion of saints is how things really are, but hardened hearts refuse to see or recognise what is seen.
The communion of saints is ever-present, mirroring the communion of God in Holy Trinity. Flawless and serene, its timeless presence is ever-present, except when excluded by exclusion. Communion knows exclusion is delusion, a negation that grace negates as it saves, cures as it heals and transmutes as it transcends. Grace is light, nothing but light, nothing but glory discerned by light, imparting communion to numberless holy angels who have always been mystically one with the communion of saints. The proportion is ninety-nine to one, according to the Gospel parable of the lost sheep, which speaks of humanity as one lost sheep, rejoining the flock of ninety-nine angels as the hundredth sheep (Mt 18:12-14; Luke 15:3-7). Such numbers are figural symbols not mathematical proportions, indicating the countless throngs of angelic hosts with whom humanity abides, through God’s Name, in hallowing communion. Angelic intelligence is one, as awareness as such is one, one in God through whose Name all are one. On the inside, the communion of saints is one with the oneness of the glory of grace, whilst on the outside, oneness transfigures everything with the glory of graced oneness. Angels shimmer in this light whilst saints shine from within, turning light around to behold the oneness of glory in angels and saints. The communion of saints glorifies God’s wondrous Name, at home with angel hosts in the heaven of heavens, at home in saints on earth as angels are at home in heaven.