The communion of saints is ultimately not a credal belief that invites verbal repetition but a living experience of hallowing communion in the Name, welcoming home saints on earth, as angels are at home in heaven. The Name communicates love and forgiveness, union and blessing that unravel confusion whilst dissolving division, so that through communion, the many awaken to know… Read more »
Orthodox Christian Hesychasm is not a divisive, sectarian phenomenon but the living wisdom of the hallowing Spirit, awake in Christ to the generous grace of the Father of light and glory. Metanoia turns the light of awareness round to awaken to theoria, seeing that sees who sees at centre, illumined vision of uncreated light that unveils the glory of grace. Saint David’s metanoia… Read more »
Rhygyfarch’s Life of Saint David says that it was angelic prophecy, communicated to his father, Sanctus, and to Saint Patrick thirty years before his birth, that spoke of the honeycomb of Saint David’s wisdom, the fish of his abiding in the seas of uncreated light and the stag of his royal dominion over the ancient serpent. In 1836, Rice Rees, in… 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 »
The union of the mind and the heart in God empties the mind into God in the heart, a grace of union that unveils the ineffability of God’s self-emptying into us and our self-emptying into God. Wisdom and glory are ineffable both divinely and humanly, but ineffability is not nihilism, neither is self-emptying facile fusion, because ineffability is not confusion… Read more »
Sound grace is normative and pours out its wholeness freely to all without exception, but demonic deception seeks to undermine this from within by demonising what is sound, playing on fears of demonic deception in order to confuse what is clear and to misconstrue what is wholesome. But wholesome grace is sound and it is normal for grace to turn… Read more »
The Gospel of the glory of grace turns the light of awareness round to unite the mind and the heart in the uncreated light of glory. This utterly simple mystery transcends all that thought can grasp, yet Hesychast elders think this through to the end, which is the end of confusion and the beginning of indivisible communion. Ineffability is not… Read more »
The Name of names is the mystery of mysteries, transcending names that name the Name and ways that communicate the mystery. With the Name of names, all opposites co-incide, transcending the mutual conditioning that hold them together and set them apart. ‘Humility is endless,’ was an insight into the mystery of mysteries that Saint Sophrony the Hesychast shared with us, pointing… Read more »