For those who experience the dark night of glory as a teenager, darkness of unknowing dazzles early, leaving a life-time of paradox, where affirmation is negation and negation is affirmation. Of course, there are the usual temporal unfoldings in one’s twenties and timeless awakenings in one’s thirties, but these contrasts and changes gradually turn into an increasingly steady abiding in… 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 »
Desert stillness testifies to the Kingdom of glory present in the hallowed Name, whose radiant wisdom hallows the Name in heart and forehead, crowning with glory all who turn with profound metanoia, all who see as they are seen, all whose hearts are sanctuaries of the indwelling Name, temples of the Spirit’s unceasing prayer, ‘Abba, Father,’ witness to the union… Read more »
Jesus said: The light of the body is the eye. If your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light (Mt 6: 22). Desert elders interpreted this saying in the light of Jesus’ teaching on turning, metanoia, and the practice of seeing, the praxis of theoria. The single eye is the eye of wisdom, of wholeness and sound… 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 »
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 »
Self-emptying glorification is grounded in the Name that reveals God in the midst, emptying confusion with the created from vision of God at centre, purifying the heart with turning (metanoia), illumining the heart with seeing (theoria), emptying all that usurps God in the heart in self-emptying deification (theosis). Elders point out where God is to be found when they introduce the mystery of the… Read more »
Awakening of the eye of the heart purifies the heart with limpid clarity, clarifying awareness with luminous lucidity. A pure heart is an illumined heart, awakened by the Spirit to the luminous eye of wisdom, wisdom that abides in the luminous presence of uncreated glory in the midst. The Syrian Oriental Orthodox tradition speaks here of luminosity (shaphyuta), which Saint Ephraim… Read more »
Restoration of glory is called glorification by desert Hesychasm and glorification begins and ends in glory, proceeding from the originating image of glory to eschatological likeness as glory. Glorification is initiated in purification, empowered by Baptism and it is sustained by illumination, empowered by Chrismation, but its ultimate fulfilment is revealed in glorification itself, empowered by the Holy Liturgy of the Eucharist…. Read more »