Awakening hearts hear as well as see the hidden glory that wisdom sings, turning awareness round to hear God in the midst, turning to listen to God’s presence in the silence of the night. Glory is invisible to visual perception and inaudible to aural perception, but wisdom discerns God at centre in the midst. Awakened hearts, enlightened by wisdom, contemplate the glory of God’s Kingdom, descending in the grace of the hallowed Name, accomplishing the divine will without trace of egocentric self-interest. For wisdom, grace spontaneously manifests, freeing the human spirit to listen with the Holy Spirit, discerning the reign of wisdom and glory. Glory turns awareness round, welcoming wisdom, embracing grace with the kiss of peace. Awakening hearts love to generate prophecy and prayer, regenerating awakened stillness through prophetic vision and unceasing prayer. The uncreated, creative imagination is restored by glorification through inspired prophecy and spiritual prayer.
Hearts awaken when wisdom dawns, communicating God’s reign of glory in uncreated light. Fear distances awakening because fear incessantly struggles to keep control, stubbornly refusing to surrender to the holy will of God. Love awakens to glory through spiritual love, showing love how inspired love trusts uncreated light, freeing fear from self-centred fear, revealing unselfish love to love, through love. God the Holy Trinity knows how God’s wise way of knowing God frees fear to begin to love, knowing that spiritual knowing is conjugal in the Holy of Holies, where the ‘Song of Songs’ reigns in glory with the ‘Wisdom of Solomon.’ Scripture has always known God’s wise way of knowing, transcending fear, embracing love. Awakening hearts know God, through God, as they are known by God, confirming Patristic wisdom in the Holy Trinity with Saint Clement’s insight into wisdom’s way of knowing.
Gnostic dualism intervenes if subtle pride sets in, poisoning wisdom so it dies the death of deadly vainglory and pride. Saint Clement showed the holy fathers how inspired wisdom extinguishes pride, curing vainglory by consuming vanity, releasing glory into ever-increasing glory. Blessed Origen concurred with Saint Clement’s wisdom in Alexandria, giving Patristic tradition its hallowing hermeneutic, which became normative as the Orthodox interpretation of Scripture. When the Fifth Ecumenical Council condemned the extremism of certain followers of Evagrius, it was not, in fact. condemning Evagrius or Origen, although many confusing misinterpretations followed in its wake. Holy Orthodoxy suffers from narrow fundamentalism sometimes today, if the Patristic wisdom of Saint Clement is perversely misunderstood, and consequently neglected or fatally ignored. In the desert wilderness, awakening hearts trust healing wisdom because they know as they are known, knowing wisdom as wisdom has always known, being known in Holy Trinity.