Christ came to reveal union with God, confirmed by the Holy Spirit as communion with God among saints and angels, revealing union as deifying communion in all through all. Christ was himself the union he came to bring, but he gave his life and shared himself with all, emptying himself out into all to save all. Not all are willing to receive him, because not all are willing to be emptied out into him. But on the Cross, with arms stretched out, he embraced all with boundless love, gathering all into his loving embrace. Union with God is communion but not confusion, revealing the Name with glory without division, hallowing those who do receive him without exception or exclusion. Love of Christ is love of the union he is, love of the communion he came to bring, love of the glory God’s Name reveals.
Born into this love, prophets of prayer are born again, again and again into the glory of this love, purifying prayer, enlightening prophecy, renewing prayer in a life-time of self-emptying. God empties himself into those who are emptied into him, initiating a life of reciprocal, self-emptying kenosis, a life of mutual self-emptying union and communion. Prophecy inspires prayer as pure self-emptying, not as an achievement or success. Kenosis defines union in the same way self-emptying is definitive of communion, kenotic ways that are always decisive. Nothing is exempt from self-emptying, certainly not God, whose kenosis as Holy Trinity is comprehensive. Even the completeness of glory is emptied of totality, purifying it of totalitarian tendencies before they arise.
When self-emptying is neglected, aberrations happen, as with Russia’s current parody of ‘Holy Russia.’ Wisdom reminds the heart that union with God is always self-emptying, that the Cross of the Name is always decisive. The remedy is kenosis, through Christ, in the Spirit, renewing prophecy and prayer, restoring glory to the Father through the Son, whose union in the Holy Spirit is always kenotic. Christ came to reveal the divine-human union that he is, the communion of the Name, the wisdom of the Cross of self-emptying love. It is not difficult to see when satan intervenes, when satanic inversion arises, when ‘Holy Russia’ is no longer holy, when Orthodoxy is no longer Orthodox. Scales fall from the eyes of false prophecy when parodies of prayer are extinguished, purifying prophecy and prayer, restoring union with God with radical self-emptying.