The Spirit’s unceasing prayer in the heart glorifies the Father with the Son, ascribing glory to God in the midst of all falls from glory. It does not wallow in the falling gravity of endless falls, but undoes the power of falling by reversing it in accordance with the ascending gravity of heaven. The Spirit proceeds from the Father to abide… Read more »
Saint Sophrony the Hesychast often spoke of the ‘critical tension’ inherent in self-condemnation to hell without despair, which Saint Silouan the Athonite was given to cure pride. This ‘word’ can appear joyless and heavy, but Saint Sophrony was neither, because his experience of the glory of grace was full of joy. He did not despair, because he trusted in God to save him,… Read more »
Orthodox saints know themselves to be the worst of sinners, falling far short of glory, but they do not despair, because they trust in God’s grace to save them. This antinomic paradox means they trust God without presumption, recognising their incapacity to save themselves without despair. Faith in God’s grace to save them opens them to the light and glory of… Read more »
The consummation of Biblical prophecy in the Book of Revelation embraces the death, resurrection and ascension of the slaughtered Lamb at the heart of his glorifying union with the Father, putting to death, in the heart of Christ, the universal fall from grace. Raising souls from death to eternal life in the resurrecting heart of Christ, saints are deified in the… Read more »
Holy Orthodoxy bears witness to right-glorification, but ‘philodoxy,’ love of glory, is rarely mentioned, because although vainglory, kenodoxy, loves glory, it does so in self-centred ways, whereas it is wisdom who loves glory in sound and wholesome ways. Since love of glory is wisdom’s ultimate concern, ‘philodoxy’ does not only mean love of one’s own opinions but wisdom’s love of glory… Read more »
‘Love is enough,’ for the void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter those lips and those eyes of the loved and the lover (William Morris: ‘Love is Enough,’ A poetic Romance in the form of a Lyric Masque, 1873). For Morris, as for the Song of Songs, ‘love is enough’ because its music of spheres is the song of angels… Read more »
The Holy Gospel of grace is hidden with Christ in God in worlds of pride and vainglory, worlds that reject wisdom, but wisdom is revealed in realms of glory that humbly trust the Holy Name to save. Indeed, there is no Gospel of Grace when religion is reduced to individual effort and struggle, when salvation lies in an inaccessible and hidden future…. Read more »
It is self-evident to pride that we must save ourselves by believing right things and doing things right, because being saved by grace is literally inconceivable. Proud self-righteousness is a very anxious business because it is haunted by fear that it is in the wrong, anxious that pride puts it in the wrong by falling short of glory. Pride lives very close to… Read more »
The Spirit proceeds from the Father to abide in the Son, drawing us into his ineffable abiding in the primordial union of the Son with the Father, restoring glory to the Father through the Son. Abiding in God’s ineffable openness, the uncreated oneness of God is spontaneously present as a womb of indescribable glory. Wisdom discerns the wondrous self-emptying of the… Read more »
Wisdom remains hidden whilst purification is curing pride, but is revealed when illumination begins to heal the confusions of pride and divisions of vainglory. Self-condemnation to hell without despair condemns pride to hell and so is actually the initial unveiling of the energy of uncreated light, curing pride and opening wisdom to glory purified of vanity. Grace takes this form… Read more »