From childhood, at my mother’s knee, the prayer of stillness lay at the heart of daily prayer: ‘Be still and know that I AM God.’ ‘Seek ye my Face; Thy Face, Lord will I seek.’ Still, still, very still, hands are folded, very still. Keep our minds and bodies still, for a moment, deep and still. Now I am ready for hearing God,… Read more »
When the heart abides in Christ, the mind rests in Spirit, united with the heart, partaking in the Great Peace of the Father. Rest in Spirit is not soporific passivity but active remembrance of God, partaking in the Spirit’s insight into the union of the Father with the Son. With Christ’s ascension, the Spirit raises saints on high and deifies them… Read more »
The spiritual legacy of Saint Sophrony the Hesychast has great potential and generous capacity because it is founded on the grace of the Holy Name, together with its Gospel of revelatory Glory. The ‘I AM’ theophanies of the Name in the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse were decisive for Saint Sophrony, inspiring his vision of Holy Orthodoxy in ways… Read more »
The Spirit of Truth comes to guide us into all truth, that is, truth in its wholeness and completeness. Fear haunts the institutions of incompleteness, returning in dreary dreams of incompleteness to frighten us back into the clutches of reigning powers, clinging to familiar darkness. Authorities may appear benign until the Spirit unveils what they really are, blind guides that… Read more »
The Name seals the heart with a flame of love stronger than death, a flame of Yah consuming confusion and diffusing division at the heart of the Burning Bush. The seal’s transfiguring flame purifies desire of all that usurps God, illumining the heart by unveiling divine desire, embracing a glorified earth with heaven’s ineffable wisdom. Earthly loves are completed when passionate heavenly… Read more »
Because we have received the grace of God’s forgiveness, we can forgive one another as ourselves. Because we have forgiven one another as our very life, we can truly receive the grace of God’s forgiveness as the timeless life of love’s ineffable glory. Gratuitous love manifests doxological circularity that takes the form of a co-inherence of grace and forgiveness, generating the… Read more »
Stillness abides at the heart of awareness where wisdom beholds the presence of glory in the Name, a womb of infinite ineffability that grounds purification of the heart. Stillness does not waver from the heart of awareness that is awake to the presence of glory. Beyond rational description, pictorial imagination and literal expression, stillness abides where awareness of presence embraces the presence of… Read more »
Orthodox Christian Hesychasm is not a divisive, sectarian phenomenon but the living wisdom of the hallowing Spirit, awake in Christ to the generous grace of the Father of light and glory. Metanoia turns the light of awareness round to awaken to theoria, seeing that sees who sees at centre, illumined vision of uncreated light that unveils the glory of grace. Saint David’s metanoia… Read more »
Encountering Saint Sophrony the Hesychast, in 1965. at the age of twenty, was catalytic for a theological student who knew very little about the Orthodox Patristic Tradition. Recommended to see him by Father Gilbert Shaw, who loved him dearly, the directness of his wisdom of God-centred personhood was both overwhelming and reassuring, and gave clear direction to a lifetime of spiritual… Read more »
The way of the Name is the way of the unveiled Face, ever-moving, ever still. The Spirit is everywhere present without departing from Christ’s union with the Father for a moment. Wisdom serenely abides in the glory of the Name without separating from Christ or wavering from his union with the Father. The Spirit of wise awareness does not flit around like… Read more »