Prophecy imparts holy images, inspiring imageless prayer of the Holy Spirit in the heart, the Spirit’s unceasing intercession for all in the hidden heart of Christ. Prophecy has nothing to do with self-centred fantasy or self-obsessed day dreams, but with the purified imagination regenerated in the heart by the glory of grace, prophecy working together with imageless prayer to deify… Read more »
Philokalia is love of the beauty of goodness and the goodness of beauty, but in our times nihilism divorces drab goodness from beauty and seductive beauty from goodness, having lost all sense of the beauty of truth or holiness. Separation of goodness from beauty spawns ugliness, whilst division of beauty from goodness spews vacuous glitter. But beauty tempts only when beauty is… Read more »
The Great Blessing of the Waters on Theophany Eve renews our baptism in the waters of the Holy Spirit through Christ’s Baptism of the wisdom of uncreated fire, the wisdom of uncreated light and the wisdom of uncreated glory. The fire of wisdom purifies the heart, the flame of uncreated light illumines the mind in the heart and the tongues… Read more »
AD MAJOREM GLORIAM DEI: SOLI DEO GLORIA The heavens declare the glory of God by revealing an eternal dance of love round the grace of love that draws everything into transcendence of time and space. This dance of love bears witness to the Spirit’s… Read more »
Saint Sophrony the Hesychast is sometimes called Saint Sophrony the Athonite because he was a monk on Most Athos between 1926 and !947 and sometimes Saint Sophrony of Essex since he was the revered elder of his monastery in Essex between 1959 and his death in 1993. Both titles reflect important periods of his life on Mount Athos and in… Read more »
The wisdom hermitage is redundant in monasteries that have forgotten what they are for, although in the desert, Orthodox monasticism began with hermit cells and on the Holy Mountain, the hermitage still survives between the monasteries. The wisdom round cell becomes a place to store whatever has nowhere else to go, when once it had been the place of stillness at the… Read more »
Co-companions of glory hallow the Holy Name of God in the midst, acknowledging the love that unites them at centre, in-breathed with the Spirit’s kiss, whose joy is to reveal the Son’s union with the Father, restoring fallen glory to God in Holy Trinity. Bearing each other’s burdens, both die daily into each other’s lives, transforming confusion into union, division into… Read more »
In Christ, death opens into the uncreated light of glory, because Christ’s death on the Cross overcomes death by death, unveiling the light of glory. Given death opens into uncreated light that overcomes death, revealing uncreated glory, it is an open entrance into realms of light and glory, not what fear dreads. Faith, hope and love know that although fear arises, death… Read more »
The Bride of Christ is glorious in her uncreated energy, deifying all who gaze with her gaze, or return her kiss with her embrace. She is Christ’s wisdom in her compassionate love, glorious in her hallowing beauty. Wisdom is Christ in her, embracing her in the beauty of her glory, embracing us with her grace that glorifies his saints. Her… Read more »
Wisdom knows as she is known, no longer as in a mirror, indirectly, but directly, as the unveiled face of wisdom to the unveiled face of glory (1Cor 13:12). Between knowing and unknowing, wisdom comes to meet us, knowing as she is known, gently weening us from thinking we know what we know, initiating unknowing that knows we only know as we… Read more »