When the heart abides in Christ, the mind rests in Spirit, united with the heart, partaking in the Great Peace of the Father. Rest in Spirit is not soporific passivity but active remembrance of God, partaking in the Spirit’s insight into the union of the Father with the Son. With Christ’s ascension, the Spirit raises saints on high and deifies them… Read more »
Saint James tells us that God will draw near to those who draw near to God, purifying the heart of double-minded ‘dipsychoi,’ divided psyches suffering divisive confusion (James 4:8). Divided minds are riddled with doubt, split by habitual uncertainty and addicted to compulsive wavering, quite unable to abide steadily in God, whose certainty of God is unwavering wisdom. The purified heart is not… Read more »
Stillness sleeps until the heart awakens, until awareness turns and sees the uncreated presence that glorifies the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. The Father self-empties into the Son and the Son self-empties into the Father, from whom the Spirit proceeds to abide in the Son, restoring glory to the Father. Wisdom is forever still, even when glory… Read more »
Awakening to wisdom opens the heart to glorification of God in his Name, unveiling the ineffable abundance of love concealed in the glory of the Name, the uncreated grace of deification which shares God with all. This revelation of love’s glory far outshines all that can be grasped or conceived, filling saints to overflowing, expanding them from glory to glory. Love’s intimate glory… Read more »
The Name unites awareness with the presence of the Spirit’s unceasing prayer in the heart, deifying the children of God by grace, glorifying the Father through the Son. The Name crowns awareness with the presence of uncreated light, enthroning the heart in the presence of uncreated glory, empowering glorification. Indwelling Christ, saints first become seers in the Spirit, unveiling the face of… Read more »
Turning and seeing awaken the heart to union with God, whose timeless omnipresence is a liberating unveiling, not a rigid fixation on temporal ways and means. Turning and seeing are indivisible: turning, metanoia, transforms separation into deifying union whilst seeing, theoria, partakes in God’s vision of God through God, the Holy Trinity. Turning and seeing are mysteriously one in their inseparable indivisibility, one… Read more »
The heart is purified by turning the light of awareness round to remember God, stepping back to recognise God in the midst. The remembrance of God opens the eye of the heart to God’s own vision of God through God, restoring the heart to the uncreated light of hallowing wisdom. Wisdom unites the mind with the heart in primordial, pristine awareness, liberating… Read more »
Hallelu Yah is the ancient prayer of glorification that inspires all who are in the Spirit, glorifying God in his hallowing Name. It reverberates through every wave of the sea of shining translucence that surrounds rainbow radiance, the glory of the heavenly throne. It crowns all who joyously surround the throne, whose glorification of God finds expression in the praise… Read more »
Holy Orthodoxy bears witness to three great turns, which Saint Denis calls purification, illumination and deification, but which other elders describe in many different ways. The first turn is sometimes referred to as purifying recollection, the second as enlightened recognition and the third as deifying remembrance, pointing to the nature of the action of grace characteristic of each great turn. Saints… Read more »
I am the glory of grace upholding you like a chariot throne, the light of glory illumining you like dazzling wings. I am your recreation, empowering your spiritual purification and illumination, sustaining the glory of your deification. I carry you over hell’s abyss into the safe havens of heaven, winged like a chariot throne, sustained like a victorious, angelic host, sure in your… Read more »