The witness of the desert is heard in timeless stillness, HESYCHIA, giving Hesychast wisdom a timeless quality. The stages of the growth of spiritual maturation and restoration: purification, illumination and glorification, do appear to manifest in different tenses, purification anticipating illumination, glorification referring back to illumination and illumination to purification, but the sequential drama is more like a temporal play in… Read more »
Heaven and earth are filled with glory, glory which wisdom ascribes to God when the eye of the heart awakens, seeing not just empty space but glory, perceiving not only observable astronomical phenomena but presence of glory, discerning not terrestrial phenomena exclusively but creation transfigured by glory. Prophecy in the desert imparts wisdom’s vision of glory by discerning God’s revelation of… Read more »
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 »
Christ unveils the heart of regenerative prophecy to the desert by giving glory to God in the midst of death, opening the seal of prophetic witness to glorification, which is radical, doxological prayer in the heart. Radix means root, hence, the prayer of the Spirit in the heart is radical because it uproots what is not of God, to root us… 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 »
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 »
The Holy Name of the Father reveals a realm of oneness which is shared with the Son by generation and with the Spirit by procession from the Father, oneness which is the Father’s uncreated presence always and everywhere. The Father is the source of oneness, being the origin of generation and of procession, but the Son and the Spirit share in this… Read more »
The prayer of the Spirit in the heart is unceasing but unnoticed until wisdom discerns glory in enlightened vision (theoria). The Jesus prayer contains two divine Names, Lord (YHWH) and Jesus (YAH shuah), but the third revelatory Name, ‘I AM,’ (EHYEH), is implicit, because when it is God who speaks, the two third person Names, YHWH and YAH, are both revelations… Read more »
The prophecy of prayer springs from God’s prophetic God-centred glorification of God, but it is the Spirit that prays with God’s God-centred glorification of God, so it is in the Spirit that the hidden mystery of the Holy Trinity abides eternally in the Holy of Holies. Prophecy of prayer awakens wisdom to the glory of Holy Trinity, grounded in the… Read more »
The Prayer of the Name of Jesus is the life and joy of Holy Orthodoxy, because it plants Christ’s Name of Truth in the heart, awakens wisdom to renew all things in the Spirit of Truth and unveils uncreated light, restoring glory through glory to the Father. Holy Orthodoxy has always centred in right-glorification of the saving Name of hallowing Truth,… Read more »
