The invocation, Hallelu Yah, springs from the union of wisdom and glory in the Spirit’s unceasing prayer in the inmost heart, crying Abba, Father, ascribing all illumination and insight to the Father through the Son, whose wisdom and glory are trustworthy and true. Christ’s kiss of grace inspires heart and mind with ineffable love, anointing the soul with hallowing fragrance. The Name… Read more »
In his Spiritual Testament, delivered to us in community on the Feast of Saint Antony January 17th 1991, Saint Sophrony the Hesychast shared his vision of monastic life as the unity for which Christ prayed, that we may be one as the Father and the Son are one, that we may be one in the image and likeness of God the… Read more »
Deifying recognition unveils the mysteries of the remembrance of God in the oneness of deifying glorification. The Father is the ground of this oneness of wisdom’s uncreated awareness in recognition and the uncreated presence of glory in remembrance, communicated through the Son and assimilated in the Holy Spirit. Division of good from evil is not willed by God but nevertheless… Read more »
The Lord’s Prayer bequeaths to desert ascetics the prayer of Name-hallowing, God’s God-centred glorification of God in Holy Trinity, lived as the self-emptying of God through God in God and as the self-emptying of the created into the uncreated in deification. This Name-hallowing is the desert’s ascetical, reciprocating response to God’s self-emptying of the uncreated into the created in his… Read more »
Desert elders listen to the Logos that names the Name, wisely agreeing that in the Name, glory unifies difference as hallowing union unveiling ineffable oneness. Elders know that in difference there is no division and that in communion there is no confusion. They know this in Christ, in whom there is difference but no division, communion but no confusion. In the Logos,… Read more »
The revelation of the Name in the Burning Bush on Mount Sinai is God’s self-revelation of glory, ‘I AM WHO I AM,’ to Moses, communicating in the Name ‘I AM,’ ineffable release (Ex 3:14). The revelation of the Name to Elijah on Mount Carmel reveals ‘I AM: He is God,’ ‘I AM: He is God,’ exposing the delusions of Baal with all-consuming… Read more »
Prophecy is generated in the Word that names the Name, whilst prayer proceeds in the Spirit to abide in the Word, revealing a place of grace in the midst which unveils the Face. This place of grace has no shadow, being the place where grace unveils uncreated light, revealing the unveiled Face of glory. In this place of grace, Great… Read more »
Elders do not trust themselves but in wisdom’s recognition of God present and aware in his Name. The Holiest of Holy Unions at centre in the midst cannot be grasped conceptually or analysed logically without degenerating into reifications which seduce the unconfused into confusion and the indivisible into division. Seers live from the mysteries of this union but do not presume to… Read more »
Elders in the desert hand on the tradition (paradosis) of the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and glorification of Christ, in whom the saints are crucified, resurrected, ascended and glorified with Christ in the Spirit, who illumines the heart, praying ‘Abba, Father,’ imparting grace that crucifies, resurrects, ascends and glorifies the saints in Christ. The sacrament of Baptism empowers grace that… Read more »
The Holy Name unveils the uncreated luminous clarity of uncreated deifying awareness in God the Holy Trinity. Wisdom sees with enlightened awareness the uncreated glory of deifying presence. For wisdom, it is God’s timeless God-centred glorification of God that is decisive, not our temporal ways and means toward God from without. It is not that temporal ways and means are… Read more »