The heart of the soul – 6
“The illumination of the nous [the heart of the soul] is man’s healing . . . it is the beginning of a healing process that will continue” (Met. Hierotheos. [2010], The illness and cure of the soul, p....
View ArticleImportance of prayer of the heart
It is through genuine prayer of the heart (noetic prayer) that our present imbalance between overinflated reason (rationality) and the darkened heart of the soul (the nous) is corrected, resulting in...
View ArticlePurification, illumination, and deification – 6 – Receiving the Eucharist
“Holy Communion is not a simple act, but presupposes a whole ascetic method. Holy Communion helps a person in accordance with his spiritual state. At the stage of purification, it helps him to be...
View ArticleKnowing ourselves
“It is impossible for us even to know ourselves . . . through reasoning and analyses, unless we free our nous from pride and evil . . . It is only when God’s grace, together with our own effort,...
View ArticleDeification, illumination and healing of the soul
“For healing to take place there is need of both faith in the patient and power in the healer, when one of the two is missing the other is impossible” (Gregory the Theologian). Hence the need for...
View ArticleThe meaning of illumination
The illumination of one’s soul, better known as the illumination of conscience, is in both essence and fact the healing of the soul that is ill, for it entails reopening the heart of the soul, the...
View ArticleSpiritual health and illness – 2 – Relevance of noetic prayer
The relevance of noetic prayer in spiritual health and illness Noetic prayer is prayer of the heart. Noetic prayer is indicative of spiritual health or illness, because its presence indicates an...
View ArticleImagination and the heart of the soul
“He who removes pleasure and pain from his flesh has achieved practical virtue. He who rids his soul of forgetfulness and ignorance has successfully attained natural theoria (unceasing noetic prayer;...
View ArticleDiscerning the sources of dreams
According to St Nikitas Stithatos, the various sources of dreams can be discerned as follows: If a soul loves materialism and pleasure, “it dreams of acquiring possessions and having lots of money, of...
View ArticleSouls in good spiritual health
How can we know with certainty when souls are in good spiritual health or not? That is, beyond assuming that we are not in mortal sin? According to Gregory Palamas – the theologian and saint of the...
View ArticleSpiritual health and illness – 6 – Spiritual illness
When a person is spiritually unhealthy, spiritually ill, the heart of his soul - the nous – ends up being directed and dominated by reason, deifying the latter, instead of imbuing reason with grace,...
View ArticleTo the stones of the world
Love exists no longer now because the world has become extremely cold. And yet it would not need to be so, had you to return into God the Father’s arms. “Return, return” Our Father says; indeed He will...
View ArticleGod, man and deification
“Man was created by the will of God alone, but he cannot be deified by it alone. A single will for creation, but two for deification. A single will to raise up the image, but two to make the image into...
View ArticleWhy Satan and his minions hate us
Satan “being the vessel of all evil, he has also received the sickness of envy, and he envied our honor. For he could not stand our carefree life in paradise. Therefore, by deceiving man with tricks...
View ArticleSpiritual medicine
What is spiritual medicine? Spiritual medicine is “to provide the soul with wings, to rescue it from the world and give it to God, and to watch over that which is in His image, if it remains; to take...
View ArticleThe three stages of our love for God
According to St Nikitas Stithatos, the three stages of our love for God is as follows: In the first stage we experience “contempt for visible and human things,” as part of our beginning love for God;...
View ArticleThe true meaning of deification
Deification or “the divinization of the Christian is not an identification with God; it is only an assimilation, a very eminent restoration of the original divine likeness . . . The Christian...
View ArticleA fusion of Hearts
From the Core of the Divine Heart of God the Father radiates forth all Life, Light and Love, because He is the Creator. It is from this very Core, that can be considered as the heart of the Divine...
View ArticleThe disposition of our hearts
To what extent do we genuinely possess Love – the very Presence of God the Father – in the heart of our souls? To what degree do we sincerely have true love in our hearts: the love which is both...
View ArticleThe heart of the soul
Within the deepest recesses of a soul is a place that has been created by God the Father; this place can only be accessed by Himself as First Person of the Holy Trinity. At the moment of our...
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