Sudden presence is Christ’s timeless mystery, piercing through conditioned, temporal progression, uniting the uncreated and the created, time and the timeless, NOW, suddenly, timelessly, immediately. Christ is this timeless immediacy in the temple of the heart and in the eucharistic mystery of communion, as ecstatic suddenness, exaiphnes, which Saint Denys speaks of in his third epistle, describing it as unknowable and ineffable. Ecstatic suddenness turns the heart right round into God, as seeing, seer and seen, not imagined, remembered or perceived. This seeing, theoria, suddenly unveils what the Name reveals, suddenly makes invisible glory manifest, suddenly reveals the timeless glory of grace. The mystery of Christ’s sudden coming occurs when our Amen, by grace, suddenly coincides with it in the timeless revelation of God (Rev 22:20). Timeless glory to come, comes suddenly when uncreated light suddenly unveils the uncreated glory of the eschatological presence of Christ. Saint Denys says love’s glory is revealed when human love conjoins with divine love, suddenly, ecstatically, kinetically. This mystery of love’s glory proceeds from God and returns to God in timeless abiding, the deifying energy of sudden abiding, emptying the divine into the human and the human into the divine. This is Christ’s sudden gift of himself in uncreated light, revealing himself in uncreated glory. Since, for Saint Denys, this suddenness is unknowable and ineffable even when unveiled, Christ’s coming again is, strictly speaking, neither a past nor future event but the timeless breaking into time, which is timeless, sudden, ineffable presence, .
Sudden presence is the grace of uncreated light, in whose absence, divine presence remains invisible, and with it the grace of uncreated glory. From the standpoint of temporal incompleteness, Christ’s coming is either in the past or in the future, whose reign of glory is either in the beginning or at the end. From all such temporal perspectives, Christ’s sudden presence is inconceivable and imperceptible, remaining such even when wisdom awakens to timeless glory. Decisive suddenness is unveiled when wisdom suddenly awakens to the glory of God’s timeless presence, discerned by wisdom, his timeless awareness. This is the decisive immediacy of Christ’s sudden presence, revealed by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit that discerns his glory. It is the gift of the Spirit unveiled in uncreated light, without which the mysteries of uncreated glory remain hidden. This explains the profound necessity of Biblical, eschatological wisdom, which remains somewhat problematic from conventional, temporal perspectives. Unmanifest suddenness is indistinguishable from absence, rendering the wisdom mysteries of the awakened heart profoundly perplexing. Suddenly, the grace of eschatological suddenness clears away perplexity as wisdom dawns and Christ in glory is revealed.
Sudden revelation of enlightening presence is hidden with Christ in God until Christ unveils his presence in uncreated light, in the image and likeness of his ineffable glory. Wisdom is the Spirit’s grace, discerning the glory of grace in a mysterious, circular movement of turning and seeing. Without this reflexive circulation of uncreated light, recognition and remembrance of God remains hidden. Of course, it can be theoretically thought or imagined but neither the mind or the imagination can actually, in practice, behold this. The awakened seer is wisdom herself, awakening the eye of the heart, uniting both mind and heart in remembrance of God. Sudden presence is intrinsic to this wisdom, essential to participation in the mysteries of glorification. Timeless wisdom unseats temporal incompleteness at centre, in favour of the single eye of timeless completeness. Temporal incompleteness inevitably reigns until timeless completeness unveils the reign of uncreated glory. Then, sudden presence dawns, enlightening the heart, uniting it with the mind of Christ in the Spirit. Timely, timeless suddenness is decisive when the Spirit unveils Christ in the midst, completing temporal incompleteness in the glory of timeless completeness.