Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 11/13/2007 5:48:30 AM (GMT-6)

************************************

An Invocation to the Holy Spirit

Come, true light.
Come, life eternal.
Come, hidden mystery.
Come, treasure without name.

Come, reality beyond all words.
Come, person beyond all understanding.
Come, rejoicing without end.
Come, light that knows no evening.

Come, unfailing expectation of the saved.
Come, raising of the fallen.
Come, resurrection of the dead.
Come, all-powerful, for unceasingly you create, refashion and change all things by your will alone.

Come, for your name fills our hearts with longing, and is ever on our lips.
Come, for you are yourself the desire that is within me.
Come, my breath and my life.
Come, the consolation of my humble soul.

Come, my joy, my glory, my endless delight.

St. Symeon the New Theologian

--------------------------------------------------------

Saint Seraphim of Sarov

“On the walls of the catacombs in Rome there is sometimes painted the figure of a woman praying, the Orans. She is gazing towards heaven, her open hands raised with the palms upwards. This is one of the most ancient of Christian ikons. Whom does she represent—the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Church, or the soul at prayer? Or perhaps all three at once? However, it is interpreted, this ikon depicts a basic Christian attitude: that of invocation or epiclesis, of calling down or waiting upon the Holy Spirit.

There are three main positions that we can assume with our hands, and each has its own symbolic meaning. Our hands may be closed, our fists clenched, as a gesture of defiance or in an effort to grasp and to hold fast, thus expressing aggression or fear. At the other extreme our hands may hang listlessly by our sides, neither defiant nor receptive. Or else, as a third possibility, our hands may be lifted up like those of the Orans, no longer clenched by open, no longer listless but ready to receive the gifts of the Spirit. An all-important lesson upon the spiritual Way is understanding how to unclench our fists and to open our hands.

Each hour and minute we are to make our own the action of the Orans: invisibly we are to lift our opened hands to heaven, saying to the Spirit, Come.

The whole aim of the Christian life is to be a Spirit-bearer, to live in the Spirit of God, to breathe the Spirit of God.”

Kallistos Ware.  From "The Orthodox Way"

Since the divinized always act according to God's will, their actions are not merely their own, for God works in them "both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil 2:13). Thus their actions have a certain "divine" quality. Even as "the actions of Christ are both divine and human, theandric actions, so those of the just man are Godlike, performed at once by God and by man"

(This does not mean that God overrides or replaces the creature's will, as the Quietists thought. It means that the will of a divinized person submits to and perfectly conforms to the Divine Will. It still exists and acts; the Divine Will neither annihilates nor renders it passive. Nor does the limited participation in God's Knowledge make the creature omniscient, for it is only a partial participation. A divinized soul only comprehends that which pertains to herself and to her place in the Divine Plan; the infinite Mystery of God's Nature remains incomprehensible to her finite mind.)

The deified soul is filled with God, permeated with Divine Light, Life, Power, Glory and Love. Yet no confusion or change occcurs between her created substance and the Uncreated Substance of God.Though in intimate contact they remain distinct, so that the creature may enjoy the Beauty of God without the violation of her nature or selfhood.

Through epicletic living, the human identity becomes a COMMUNION/UNION (true personhood) rather than just self-referential ego operation in the human mind/brain relational union. (individuality, biological hypostasis).

The human "I" becomes the human "I, not I, but Christ" by the power of the Holy Spirit, a true son of God in the MONOGENEIS Son of God.

Hey, with God, all things are possible...right?

Post Edited (One Love) : 4/23/2009 8:28:50 AM (GMT-5)

Your brother,

The Scissortail.

The theosis/Jesus Prayer/hesychasm thing, I mean...