In Prayer, the Foretate of the Heavenly Kingdom

After attaining silence in prayer and the intense desire for the Holy Spirit we realize that He is very close. We want even more to draw Him inside us so we can be renewed and cleansed of every stain our soul may have. We witness a mystical expectation. This is when we Elder Aimilianos says we will we receive the delight of the silent foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Elder Aimilianos says,

Why?... Because God is in the heavens, I’m here, and so this delight which I will have, this prelude, must, let’s say, be a kind of prior introduction for me into the bosom of the Kingdom of Heaven. It must be my first, distant intelligence of the sounds and angelic voices which are heard up there. And it follows that I become aware, more or less, of what Paradise is, what the Kingdom of Heaven is. ...I have to find out where He is and know what it is that He is in.

At this stage we begin to have some ideas about the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. We begin to gain glimpses into the answers to our questions about the heavenly realm. What is heaven? What is it like there? Are their dwellings? What are the saints and where are they? What is Christ like there? What is the Holy Trinity? Receiving these insights we still know we are far away, but now we can begin to see beyond the most distant star this distant Kingdom that awaits us.

The Elder says,

I begin to understand and my soul starts to be warmed by these mysteries which, to some extent, are beginning to be revealed to me. And then, my beloved brethren, there begins - let me put it like this - a new period in my spiritual life: luxuriating in silence or silence in luxuriating. In other words, something different.

He describes this as a different silence, silence of our spirit, of the eyes of our soul. Previously it was a silence of our faculties. Now we find ourselves in the silence of our spiritual world. We lose ourself in this world and find ourselves before the gates of Heaven.

The Elder describes like this,

Since I find myself before the gates of Heaven, I luxuriate, I enjoy a warmth, a coziness and I keep silent, in order to be able to hear His voice. Now, however, as we said, my spirit is silent, the spirit which will cry, “Abba, Father!”. Now it’s silent, I’m happy. I have a warmth inside me, even bodily. I’m at rest. I’m relaxed. I’m in the mood to pray. I don’t want to pray though, I want to wait for God.

Next the Holy Spirit comes and it’s me with God.