Desert Hesychasm is called out from regulated convention into deification, which lives the mysteries of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ as direct revelation. Christ restores seers to union with the Father in the Holy Spirit, incorporating saints into his incarnation, death and resurrection by grace, grace which is a charism of both speech and silence. Prophecy is poetic… Read more »
Wisdom invites us to behold the heavenly twin that God’s uncreated imagination creatively envisions, when we are created in God’s image. The heavenly twin beholds this divine image with a view to our rising into its likeness, for it is our guardian angel who guides us from way ahead of us, God’s reign of glory, into the mysteries of purification,… Read more »
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 »
Those who put their trust in the Name, stand steadfast in wisdom, whose consummate completeness is perfect consonance, both dazzling bright and dazzling dark, replete with ineffable perfection. Wisdom turns the captivity of confusion into the freedom of communion, so that what tears sow in sorrow, wisdom reaps in joy. Hesychast stillness is founded on the blessing of the unveiled… Read more »
God’s self-revelation of timeless presence through his Name communicates spontaneous blessing, joy and peace as it awakens the eye of the heart to deifying wisdom and glory. Cooling showers of graced stillness nourish parched souls with timeless presence, nurturing growth in the Spirit, generating completeness from incompleteness. Hallowing the Name aright, delusions vanish into timeless presence right away. 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 »
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 »
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 »
Hesychast wisdom does not set one thing against another as heresies do, opposing each other with one-sided opinions, spawning confusion and division. The desert does not set up a dualism between gnosis and ignorance, sowing sectarian Gnosticism. Elders do not drive a dualistic division between prayer of the heart and liturgical prayer, spawning Messalianism. Nor do saints impose a divisive separation between prophecy… Read more »
Wisdom turns and sees love embrace forgiveness and simplicity embrace stillness at the heart of awareness, welcoming the blessing of presence with the joy of generous awareness. Blessed is the ineffable joy of boundless awareness uniting with the inexplicable glory of liberating presence. Wisdom is one in her encircling stillness and free in her ineffable completeness, awareness of presence embracing presence of awareness in the… Read more »