The blessing of the Holy Spirit imparts grace to the purified heart, whether in solitude or in community, fulfilling all the prescribed sacraments of the Church through purification and illumination, completing their uncreated empowerments with love’s uncreated glorification. Solitaries are not excluded from the grace of glorification, nor are members of thriving monastic communities always partakers in the grace of illumination, because… Read more »
The sword of the Spirit guards the Word of God that unveils the Name, communicating saving wisdom, worthy of trust: ”I AM’ is our God, ‘I AM’ is one” (Deut 6:4). The Holy SHEMA hears and bears witness to the SHEM or Name of glory the Word reveals. The Name is one and saints are one in the Name’s unveiling of the reign… 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 »
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 »
In the primordial principle or LOGOS, there is ever-present awareness, primordial awareness of presence and primordial presence of awareness, which together turn out to be wisdom’s primordial unveiling of the timeless presence of glory. All phenomena arise from the uncreated presence of awareness, manifesting liminal presence unveiling glory at the heart of wisdom. Revelation of the origin uncovers the glory of the Father,… Read more »
How was it that the wisdom of Saint David was able to include the ancient Shamanic mysteries of the honeycomb, the fish and the stag without collapsing into paganism? How was it that symbols from the ancient wisdom of Druid Britain were embraced by elders like Saint David and the saints, his spiritual offspring, without betraying Christ and the Spirit? Their… Read more »
In his Life of Saint David, written in the late eleventh century, Rhygyfarch drew on older traditions that spoke of three ancient Shamanic symbols in connection with Saint David of Wales, (who is remembered today, March 1st,) namely, the honeycomb, the fish and the stag (Life of Saint David Chapter 1). For Saint David and his monks, the honeycomb was the ancient… Read more »
Wisdom’s glory lies in wisdom’s vision of the glory of grace which beholds God’s energy of glory in everything, and sees the translucence of everything in glory. The language of the New Testament and holy fathers of the Church can be a problem in a very secular age, so elders begin with awareness, with the awareness of awareness, with… Read more »
Wondrous grace inspires awestruck gratitude, dissolving fear into wholesome thanksgiving. Awestruck wonder edges the soul towards turning, metanoia, which generously generates seeing, theoria, contemplation of light in light. Together, turning and seeing purify and illumine the heart, giving wing to glory. Together, purification and illumination cleanse the heart so that God’s Name is hallowed and reign of glory welcomed…. Read more »
Hesychasm was a big surprise. Here was wisdom, turning the light of awareness around to behold the presence of glory at the heart of awareness. Here was turning, metanoia, uniting heaven and earth, whilst seeing, theoria, united uncreated light with uncreated glory. The practice of turning the light of awareness around was here still sustaining the practice of seeing to purify… Read more »