Why do we say Christ is the only Way?

The unique aspect of Christianity is that it is Christ centered. Jesus Christ is the Way and the goal. Through the Church we become united with Christ retaining our individuality. Christianity teaches that any  other union with God is an illusion if it is not achieved through Christ. Christ was given to mankind as the ladder to heaven, to Him. It is through Him that we have access to the Father and Spirit. It is Christ who sends the Spirit. Jesus Christ is like a bridge between human nature and the divine. It is in Christ that both are united. There is no other Way.

To those who see other good people of other faiths often question this. But the Incarnation of the Son of God is a reality that cannot be denied. God sent His son as the Way to His kingdom for our benefit. Fr Staniloae says, Jesus Christ He came for us as "a voice" of love, ringing out with all the affection of a human being, so familiar to us. But this means that man himself was made capable of becoming the medium by which the Son of God is communicated to us..."

When we ascend to God we are "with Him and in Him." Our ascent is  not based on our individual efforts. It is only through Him that we are able to ascend. In the beginning our soul is "sensitized by the Holy Spirit." From this we are able to realize that there is a relationship with Jesus who is the one guiding and helping us along the Way. He is like a good friend, who is more advanced in wisdom and whom we trust, guiding us with love and understanding.

In the beginning Jesus is not visible to us but is hidden in His commandments. We see from the Gospel that He is a model of perfection. As Saint Maximus the Confessor writes, "To beginners he appears in the form of a servant."

As we advance along the Way our vision of Him changes. Initially His true glory is hidden but then it is revealed more and more like the disciples experienced at the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor. His glory is initially hidden in His commandments and as we strive to carry them out and begin to develop the virtues, the presence of Christ becomes clearer. By our cooperation with Him, our faith and commitment to carry out His commandments, we are given greater and greater power of the Spirit to carry them out. In the process the image of Jesus become clearer and clearer. As we make this ascent to higher levels of perfection we are aided by our ascetic efforts and we gain in our mystical contemplation of Christ.We find that Christ is a most intimate participant in every aspect of our life. He imprints "Himself spiritually in us."

He is there to help us in all our struggles of life in this world. He is there when we are tempted and when we sin. He is always at our side helping us along the Way leading us to our true nature. Because He became Man in His divinity we know that He knows our condition.  And because of His love for us that He has shown in His Crucifixion  and Resurrection we have great faith in His help.

The Mysteries of the Church are essential in our ascent. They are how Christ penetrates our inner being. This includes the purification of Baptism, anointing of Holy Chrism, and our partaking of Him in Holy Communion. Nicholas Cabasilas tells us that it is by the medium of the holy mysteries that "Christ comes to us and dwells in us; He is united to us and grows into one with us. He stifles sin in us and infuses into us His own life and merit..."

Our ascent to virtue that comes from faith and results in love is based on our acceptance of a hierarchy in the Church. Those who became saints have been helped by the angels. The church from the lay person, to the priests, bishops and then angles form a ecclesiastical hierarchy whose purpose is to help us grow in virtue and our closeness to God. This hierarchy is realized in degrees as we progress. Fr Staniloae says, "The work of the hierarchy for the salvation of the faithful is essentially exercised through the holy mysteries, especially through Baptism, Chrismation and the Eucharist." Even those at the hight levels of holiness gain from the holy mysteries and will have a greater vision of their content and profit even more by them.

While we are here on earth the Church is essential for us to make progress. We must accept the hierarchical and sacramental structure of the Church. if we do we will progress toward the heavenly hierarchy of the angels and saint in heaven. The Church is the body of Christ and is the ladder by which we climb.  It is the only ladder God has provided for us.

What is Orthodox Spirituality?

The term spirituality is used very loosely in our culture. But Orthodox spirituality has a very specific meaning. It is most clearly stated by Fr. Dumitru Staniloae a renown Romanian Theologian (1903 - 1993). He describes it as a life long process. It is a road that leads one to "perfection in Christ." This road involves the "cleansing of passions and the winning of virtues." It is a process that that takes place in a certain order. It is a process that involves the cleaning of one passion and then another. At the same time one acquires different virtues. Once a certain level of perfection is reached it "culminates in love." Finally one has closed themselves of all passions and has attained all virtues. This is perfection. He says,

"As man climbs toward this peak, he simultaneously moves toward union with Christ and the knowledge of Him by experience, which is also called deification."

Orthodox Spiritually involves a step by step transformation. as one processes he is filled with more and more presence of God.

The aim is perfection in Christ, a full union with Him. Our will become one with His and we are able to do His will instead of your self-centered will as we pray for in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done." Since God's goodness is infinite there is no end to this process. We never reach the point of total perfection.
He says,

"Our perfection, our union with God, is therefore not only a goal, but also an unending progress.... The culminating state of the spiritual life isis when the believer is raised higher than the level of his own powers,not of his own accord, but by the work of the Holy Spirit.

He describes this as a mystical life. He says,

"It is only by prolonged effort, by discipline, can testate of perfection and mystical union with God be reached."

This is called Asceticism which we will discuss in the next posting.

Reference: Orthodox Spirituality by Fr. Dumitru Staniloae 

True Nature of the Church and the Holy Spirit

The true nature of the Church is revealed at Pentecost. The Church is totally Christ centered and it is through our relationship with Christ that we are united with Him forever. How is it then that the decent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost reveals the true nature of the Church?

Fr. Staniloae writes,

Our salvation is achieved only through Christ, who comes to dwell within us with the body He bore––a body that has risen, ascended, and been made fully spiritual, that is, has been filled with the Holy Spirit and thus has become totally transparent.

Christ had been made fully spiritual, which means He is filled with the Holy Spirit. His body is no longer physical, but spiritual and transparent. He now works through us by the Holy Spirit. He dwells within us mystically.

His indwelling in each of us is what produces the Church. The Greek word is "ekklecia," or gathering.  The Church is the gathering of those who have within them Christ Himself. It is through the Church that we received this indwelling at our Baptism. The Church is where the Holy Spirit works for our salvation given to us through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. We can think of this as a process initiated by God involving the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and then the formation of the Church. His Body and the seed of our resurrection is planted in believers during our baptism and we are then are nurtured spiritually by our ongoing cooperation with Christ in His Holy Church.

This is quite a different view than found in most Protestant churches. There the emphasis is on the Word of God and not on the indwelling of Christ. The role of the Holy Spirit is minimized and the church is simply an assembly hall where prayers are given and people hear a lecture on the Holy Scripture. For Orthodox Christians the physical place where the faithful gather is seen as a holy place, a place where the Holy Spirit is very much present and where it actively works through the sacraments offered to the faithful during each service.

The descent of the Holy Spirit gives the Church it’s purpose and existence and initiates the indwelling of the resurrected Body of Christ in us. Through the Holy Spirit we attain this indwelling and therefore the Church. It is through the descent of the Holy Spirit that came at Pentecost that Christ is able to work through us, that we are able to be in an intimate relationship with Him, enabling us to do His will and to act with love towards others.

It was at Pentecost that the Holy Spirit first shone forth from human beings. On this day Christ sent the Holy Spirit as he promised the Apostles. It descended on them, filling them with Christ’s glory, making them the first members of the Church. After the descent they were filled with Christ and His powers were extended to them. They were able to now go to all nations without fear and spread the Good News, baptizing thousands and growing the Church. 

The Holy Spirit is one with the Father and the Son. It must always be considered as the Spirit of Christ. It is not something that should ever be thought of as separate from Christ. God is three persons in One. Where one is you will find the others. Being different persons they act with perfect knowledge of each other and exist in perfect love.

Fr. Staniloae says,

The image of Christ in heaven and of the Holly Spirit in the Church is false, because such a vision does not take the Trinitarian Persons’ unity seriously. This in turn leads to either rationalism or to sentimentalism, or even to both.

It is through the Holy Spirit that Christ penetrates our hearts. The Holy Spirit works to form us progressively into the image of the Son. As we acquire the Holy Spirit in our sacramental life in the Church, Christ imprints Himself more clearly in us, nurtures our love for Him, leading us to follow His will. It is by the Spirit that Christ becomes more evident to us and we receive more and more of His powers. With Him present with us the Holy Spirit penetrates us with His full presence.

It is the miracle of Pentecost that Christ descends for the first time into human hearts. The Church is created and is now maintained by Christ through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is continually available for our benefit in the Church. Through Spirit we are united with Him. The Church is therefore necessary for our salvation.

Fr. Staniloae writes,

The work of salvation, whose foundation was laid in Christ’s human nature, is being fulfilled in the form of the Church, which is our union with God and among ourselves. Only within the harmony between human beings in God is it shown that they have abandoned egoism as a general image of sin, or of their confinement in themselves as narrow monads. That is why the state of salvation is equivalent to belonging to the Church, or to the gathering of those who are saved into the Church with their common participation in the Body that Christ raised up––beyond any self-preoccupation––to the sacrificial state that was made permanent in Him.

On this day of Pentecost we can renew our spiritual understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit. Let us remember to seek Christ within us, not just as a figure described in the Scripture. We need to purify our hearts so that the Holy Spirit and God’s grace can work through us and we can become more and more like Christ. We need to remember the importance of the sacraments of the Church, especially Holy Communion where through the Holy Spirit we are able partake of the Body and Blood of Christ regularly to give us renewed spiritual strength so we can live as He taught us. Let's remember to give thanks for all Christ does for us through the Holy Spirit. Pray for the Holy Spirit to act within you.

Saint Seraphim of Sarov writes,

Acquiring the Spirit of God is the true aim of our Christian life, while prayer, fasting, almsgiving and other good works done for Christ's sake are merely means for acquiring the Spirit of God.

Reference:The Experience of God by Dimitru Staniloae. Vol 4, pp 1--11 

True Love

Love is central to the Orthodox Way of Life. But to love, we must first have what the Fathers call dispassion. This is where we have been freed from control by the passions. With dispassion our response to the sensual inputs we receive from our senses no longer determines our response to them.  We are able to receive them without having any particular desire, but instead we can act with self-control based on the virtues brought to us by God. As long as our actions are controlled by our bodily instincts we cannot surrender to God and convey His love. Why? Because we are still egocentric in our way of being and a slave to our bodily and worldly passions.

Diadochos writes,

He who loves himself, cannot love God. But he who doesn't love himself because of overwhelming richness of the love of God, loves God, for such a person never seeks his own glory, but that of God. Because he who loves himself seeks his own glory, but he who loves God, loves glory of Him who made him.  Since it is proper to the sensitive soul to always seek first the glory of God in all the commandments which he is carrying out, and secondly to enjoy himself in his humility.

What is love?  For Orthodox Christians, love is an uncreated energy of God that is communicated to us by the Holy Spirit. It is a divine and deifying energy that is a genuine participation in the life of the Holy Trinity.  Saint John says, "Love comes from God." (1John 4:7)

This divine love of necessity comes only after one has gained a victory over the passions and one has the power of concentration to focus his soul on God in prayer. When we feel this love of God in our hearts, it is then that we become capable of loving our neighbor with a spiritual feeling.  This capability to love others is a fruit of the love of God.

Saint Isaac the Syrian says,

He who loves God, cant help but love every person as himself, even though he is displeased by the passions of those who are yet uncleansed."

On the other side, he who has any trace of hatred in his heart will not be able to have this love for others.

Saint Maximus the Confessor writes,

"If a person sees a trace of hate in his heart, for any fault whatsoever in anyone at all, he is completely alienated from the love of God."

See how important it is to reconcile yourself with everyone?  Even one trace of hatred will block you from God's love.  To love truly requires a pure heart.  We need to examine ourselves and all our relationships to see where we are holding any grudges that defies our love.  Even though it may not be easy to reconcile, we must do so if we want to be joined with God in His love.

Saint Isaac the Syrian describes the nature of God's true love.

And love, having God as its cause, is like a spring bubbling up whose stream never stops and He alone is the cause of love and its material is inexhaustible... for this material which brings him to the remembrance of God is always available to him, so that even in sleep he speaks with God.

Seek after this unending source of love. Prepare yourself with dispassion. Reconcile all your relationships. Let none be swept under the carpet. Practice the Orthodox way of life. It will lead you to this pure love.

Ten Points for an Orthodox Way of Life

Resource: Orthodox Spirituality by Dumitru Staniloae, pp 303-309

Orthodox Spirituality by Fr. Dimitru Staniloae - A Commentary

This is an index for my commentary on the presentation of Orthodox Spirituality by Fr. Dimitru Staniloae. For me this has been an incredible learning experience. I can only pray that you also gained insights about your own spiritual journey. I have also included a link to a pdf which contains all of the posts in this series.


Orthodox Spirituality - A Commentary on the work of Fr. Dimitru Staniloae (pdf)

An index to the individual blog entries:

Introduction

i.    What is Meant by Orthodox Spirituality?

ii.   The Aim

iii.  Deification - The Uncreated Light

iv.  The Essential Nature of Asceticism

v.   Basis for Union with God: Love not Intellect

vi.  Working in Community Develops our Soul

vii.  Ascent is Based on Love and is Within the Church

viii. Major Steps of the Spiritual Life

ix.  Are Passions Natural?

x.   Causes of Passions

xi.  Why Do We Speak of Liberating the Soul?

xii.  How the Passions are Aroused

xiii. Free From Fear and Anxiety - Care

xiv. Purification by the Virtues

Part One: Purification
1.   Faith: The Starting Point to Perfection

2.   Fear of God is Next Step

3.   Repentance - Main Means for Our Perfection

4.   Repentance - The Ship that brings us to the Divine Harbor

5.   Repentance - Way to Overcome Egoism

6.   Repentance as a Sacrament

7.   Self-Control lifts us to see the infinite in things of this world.

8.   Self-Control as Fasting

9.   Self-Control to Overcome our Passions

10. Guarding the Mind - Watchfulness - Getting at the Root

11. Guarding the mind- Knocking on the Door of the Heart

12. Longsuffering - Why Troubles and Suffering?

13. Role of Temptations -

14. Hope - Power of Advanced Faith

15. Patience with Hope Leads to Meekness and Humility

16. With Dispassion Love Blossoms

Part Two: Illumination

17. Entering the Next Phase of Spiritual Development

18. Gifts of the Holy Spirit

19. Contemplation of God in Creation

20. How to Discern the Truth (logo) in Things

21. Why is Prolonged Preparation Necessary

22. Steps Needed to Discern Truth

23. Spiritual Understanding of Scripture

24. Going Beyond Knowledge - Apophatic Knowledge

25. Facing the Abyss

26. Positive Theology is a Companion to Apophatic Theology

27. Pure Prayer
28. Developing Pure Prayer

29. Entering Within

30. Mind Beyond Reason

31. Knock and the Door Will Be Opened

32. Mental Rest or Stillness of the Mind

Part Three: Perfection

33. The Steps of Love - The Path to Union

34. Joined in Love 
35. Prayer Develops Love and Union with God 
36. Divine Love Brings Union of All 
37. The Mind and the Divine Light 
38. The Divine Light is Spiritual 
39. Divine Light - Knowledge Beyond Knowledge 
40. The Divine Light 
41. Deification

A Simple Guide to an Orthodox Way of Life

Perfection: Deification

Can we really be deified?  What does this mean?  This is a central doctrine in the Orthodox faith and is called Theosis.

Fr. Dimitru Staniloae defines deification as "God's perfect and full penetration of man."  It is something that never stops but continues to the infinite.  It is an experience that only mankind is capable.  It is the result of a growth of our receptive powers to receive and use the divine energies.  It is through deification that we reach towards our potential to become like God, made in His image as we learn from the book of Genesis.


Fr. Dimitru says,

Man becomes more and more like God without identifying with Him.  Man will continue to become like God forever, in an ever fuller union with Him, but never will he reach full identification with Him; he will be able to reflect God more and more, but he will not become what God is.

The Holy Fathers emphasize that deification is by grace and not by man's own effort or nature.  When deified man's nature remains the same.  He does not become a source of divine energy, like God.  He receives God's energies though grace.  Man only reflects God's energies.  He never assumes the role of the source.


We never receive the totality of God's energies.  Through our efforts in preparation we make an ascent and as we grow spiritually God's energies descend on us granting us increased powers.


Fr. Dimitru concludes his book with the following thoughts:

The divine energies are nothing but the rays of the divine essence, shining from the three divine Persons.  And from the time that the Word of Good too flesh, these rays have been shining through His human face.

It can also be said that the things of the world are images of the logoi of the divine Logos, which are at the same time energies.  By creation God put a part of His infinite possibility of thought and of energy into existence, in the form specifically at the level of the understanding of human creatures.  He did this to permit a dialog with God and towards union with Him.

The incarnation of the Word confirmed the value of man and of these images of reason and of energy measured by him.  But it also gave man the possibility to see in the face of the man of the Logos, concentrated anew, all the logoi and divine energies.  Thus final deification will consist of a contemplation and a living of all the divine values and energies conceived in and radiated from the face of Christ according to the supreme measure of man.  But by this, in the face of each man, by the logoi and the energies gathered in him, the logoi and the energies of the Logos will be reflected luminously.  Eternal bliss will be the contemplation of the face of Christ.

So all will be in God and we will see all things in Him, or God will be in all things and we will see Him in all things; and the unitary presence of God in all things will be real to the extent that all creatures gathered in Him remain real and unmingled in God

This is the eternal perspective of deification.

Reference: Orthodox Spirituality, pp 362 - 374 

Perfection: Divine Light - Knowledge Beyond Knowledge

The Divine Light is of a spiritual nature, fills the mind, and reveals the mystical realities of God.

The Light which is seen in pure prayer is beyond all that can be known through our senses and reason.  In effect it surpasses knowledge.  It is a higher knowledge (supra-knowledge) based on a relationship with God.


Saint Gregory Palamas says,

Because union surpasses the power of the mind it is higher than all mental functions and it isn't knowledge, and because it is a relationship of the mind and God, it is something incomparably higher than the power which ties the mind with things created, that is than knowledge.  Such union with God is thus beyond all knowledge.... This union is a unique reality.  For whatever name one gives to it––union, vision, a sense perception, knowledge, intellection, illumination––would not properly speaking apply to it, or else would properly apply to it alone.

The divine light is often referred to as a vision (not based on the imagination which include apparitions and so forth) reached by a leap through the descent of Spirit.


Fr Dimitru Staniloae says,

The vision of the divine light is a vision and a knowledge [caused by] a divine energy, and received by man by means of a divine energy.  It is a vision and a knowledge according to the divine way. Man sees and knows qualitatively as God, or "spiritually and divinely"...

Saint Gregory Palamas gives us an analogy.

The light of knowledge may be compared to a lamp that shines in an obscure place, whereas the light of mystical contemplation is compared to the morning star which shines in full daylight.

Reference: Orthodox Spirituality, pp 341-343 

Perfection: The Divine Light is Spiritual

The light that is seen at the peak of pure prayer is not a physical light but a spiritual one.  It radiates from the presence of Jesus Christ and enlightens our souls with His truth.

This light is like the experience of Moses on Mount Sinai or the Apostles at the Transfiguration of Christ.


Saint Gregory Palamas writes describing the experience of Moses,

Because he was able to see, after he had surpassed himself and arrived in the darkness, he didn't see either by the senses or by the mind; so that light is self-visible and fills minds become blind in the sense of surpassing.... But when the mind is raised above all mental activity and is found without eyes in the sense of being surpassed, it is filled with a brilliance higher than all beauty; it is found in God by grace and has that self-visible light mystically and sees by the union above mind.

Saint Gregory Palamas says,

Those who see it are able to penetrate by the power of Spirit in them beyond the  pane of physical realities. They find themselves raised to an order of the Spirit.  Their eyes are open and they seek a target somewhere outside.  But this means only that the light from the order of spiritual realities has overwhelmed the surrounding realities; their senses have become full of the power of the Spirit. We might use a colorless comparison: For those who love each other, all nature is filled with the light which seems to radiate from the other.

Reference: Orthodox Spirituality, pp 337 - 340 

Perfection: The Mind and the Divine Light

What is the Divine Light?

Fr. Dimitru Staniloae says,

It is, from one point of view, simply the happy radiation of divine love, experienced in a more intensive form in moments of ecstatic focus on God.

The experience which characterizes this state could be expressed by three terms: love, a knowledge by experience, higher than conceptual; and the light which is the expression of joy.

To attain this state is a journey.  The mind finds itself through prayer.  When the passions have been overcome and the mind is still, there is a descent of divine love which is often experienced as uncreated light.  There is an ascent through purification and illumination and then the divine descent for our purification.


Saint Gregory Palamas describes it as follows:

The one who desires union with God... frees his soul as much as possible from every impure tie, and dedicates his mind to unceasing prayer to God, and by this becomes wholly himself; he finds a new and secret ascent to the heavens, an unapproachable ascent to the silence of the initiate, as someone might say. With an unspeakable pleasure, he submerges his mind in this deep night full of pure, full, and sweet quietness, of a true tranquility and silence and he is lifted up above all creatures.  In this way, he completely goes out of himself and becomes wholly of God; he sees a divine light inaccessible to the senses as such, but precious and holy to pure souls and minds; without this vision the mind couldn't see by being united with things above it, only by its mental sense, just as the body's eye can't see without perceptible light.

In the divine light the mind is enabled to see God directly and to find itself in union with Him.  This is not a light which is beyond itself or higher,


Gregory Palamas again,

But seeing itself, it sees more than itself: it does not simply contemplate some other object, or simply its own image, but rather the glory impressed on its own image by the grace of God.  This radiance reinforces the mind's power to transcend itself, and to accomplish that union with those better things which is beyond  understanding.  By this union, the mind sees God in the Spirit in a manner transcending human powers.

Reference: Orthodox Spirituality, pp 327 - 336 

Perfection: Divine Love Brings Union of All

How by our union with God or others is the union of the entire human nature and its union with God realized?


Fr Dimitru Staniloae wrties,

St. Maximus the Confessor says that first of all love unifies the individual man.  It replaces anger, falsenss, gluttony, and all the tings in which man has taken part by bodily love himself.  When these things no longer exist, no trace of wickedness can persist; in their place various kinds of virtues are introduced, which integrate the power of love.  However, by this unification of the individual man, the unification of individuals between themselvs is also realized.

 While we are here on earth we only can experience love in short ecstatic moments, in relationship with another person or with God.  Even when we are in an ecstatic relationship with God we forget all people.  So how do we experience a union with all people?


Fr. Dimitru says,

It follows that only in peaceful everyday love, manifested in fact and in thought, in Christian love in a broad sense, can we experience more or less love for all men. My interests, my passions, contradictory opinions, as voluntary manifestations, no longer break the unity of nature between me and my neighbor.  Every moment I judge things from the point of view of my neighbor with who I am connected; I replace my ego with his and give up mine.  By doing this right along with various neighbors with whom I come in contact, the sentiment of my union, actual or virtual with anyone, is strengthened.  On my part there is no longer a rift between me and them; I no longer see any such thing.  If they do, I don't.

This steady behavior strengthens the sentiment of my unity with them and with God... The energy of my love for another, also nurtured by the effort of my will, but especially by these moments of ecstatic contemplation, is easily directed later toward other people.  And everywhere I gain a steady disposition of love for anyone, a joy for all, a conviction that in each one I can discover the mystery of enchanting depths.  I feel united virtually with everyone and with every concrete opportunity...

Love for others grows from the habit of love for God and especially fro living it as ecstasy on the culminating step of prayer...

...

We have the feeling that in the love of God as ecstasy, God has opened His heart to us and received us in it, just as we have opened our heart so that He can enter it.  On the other hand, the coming back to God, to His heart, means to enter His home.  God's "home", however, wants to include all people, because in His heart there is room for everybody, and when I enter it I must feel that by being there I am united with eveyone there.  Coming back to God, we truly come back home where we belong to the supreme parental home, together with all the heavenly Father's children...

Reference: Orthodox Spirituality, pp 323 - 326

Perfection: Prayer Develops Love and Union with God

It is by prayer that we grow in love.


Fr. Dimitru Staniloae writes,

When we go forward by the Jesus Prayer, to mental prayer in the heart, we are sustained by love for Him.  It grows continually, and fashions us, in a spiritual imaging of His spiritual image, according to His image.  The we feel Him evermore united with our ego, in as "we" from which I can no longer leave without the danger of being lost.  And not only do I receive in me the ego, the "I" of Christ, which makes me according to His image, but also His "I" receives mine in Himself––He accepts even my body in Himself, so that He includes me in His pure senses, in His pure actions.  Thus all of us who believe become one "body" with Him and with each other, a fact which will become perfected in the future life.

This union is reached by pure prayer addressed to Jesus.  But until we are able to engage in this level of prayer we must strive to love our neighbors.  We work on this, recognizing that true love of neighbor, love that never fails, cannot be reached without prayer and asceticism. 


Love is an encounter with the infinite.  If we experience this ecstatic joy between two people it is usually only for a moment.  When we join in our love of God with prayer this state of joy can be prolonged.


Fr Dimitru writes,

We can spend a longer time in the intoxication of the love of God, as the height of pure prayer.... Prayer leads up to the "cessation" of the mind from every activity directed toward the limited.  But the intoxication of the love of God descends all at once from above. ...as overflowing joy, which expresses the total absorption of your person in the other and of the other's in you, there is also a peaceful love, directed by rational consideration, which grows little by little.  This is a preparatory condition for the other.

So our efforts to love one another is also an important preparation for our union with God.  As we learn humility, and learn to give ourselves selflessly for the good of others, we come closer and closer to God.  As we eliminate our passions and perfect our prayer to the state where is descends into the depths of the heart in pure prayer, we experience the unlimited love of God, our total surrender out of our love for Him and His love for us. It is through prayer that love is perfected in us.

Reference: Orthodox Spirituality, pp 318 - 322

Perfection: Joined in Love

Love involves a union.  Between lovers there is a mutual  penetration of energies. This penetration is not imposed by force.  It is mutual and received with joy. The one loved is absorbed by the one who loves yet remains independent.  Love is experienced as a unity of free individuals.


Fr Dimitru Staniloae writes,

In love I don't only live myself or by myself, but also my neighbor or by my neighbor, without his ceasing to be a subject independent from me.  This means, nevertheless that I don't have him as an object of mine, as a part of my individuality, but in a free relationship.... he becomes more intimate to me than anything which I possess; I see him penetrating more deeply in me that anything, and I penetrate him more than anything which he has.

There is a substitution of egos that takes place between two lovers.  One ego takes the place of the other.  There is no absorption of the other but a going out of oneself.  The other becomes ones center of life.


This is the nature of our union with God.  It is what is meant when Saint Paul says, "I live, and yet not I but Christ lives in me."  When we love God we no longer possess our own life but now possess His life.


Christian love is the opposite of pride.  We no longer think only of ourselves and are only satisfied when the other is also satisfied.  Love is based on humility.


Fr. Dimitru wrties,

So love is realized when two subjects meet each other in a full, mutual experience, in their qualities as subjects, that is without the reciprocal reduction of each other to the state of objects, but revealing themselves to each other to the maximum, as subjects; nevertheless with all this they give themselves to each other with complete freedom.  Love penetrates two subjects reciprocally in their intimacy... By love you penetrate into the intimacy of your neighbor... without annihilating or belittling him...  The more I love him the more he reveals himself to me.

This is the nature of our desired relationship with God, our union with Him.  A mutual penetration of our love while not being assumed into him but free to act.  We live in Him and He lives in us.  Though this coupling in love we are able to voluntarily link our will with His.  Our energies co-penetrate.  His energy flows through us.


Next: Love demands asceticism and prayer.


Reference: Orthodox Spirituality, pp 310 - 316

Perfection - The Steps of Love - The Path to Union

Fr Dimitru Stanloae begins his discussion about the final stage of Orthodox Spirituality, Perfection by Union with God or by Deification, with a discussion on Love and Dispassion. To understand union with God it is first necessary to understand love.  It is with love that we attain union with God.

What is love? What are its characteristics? Love involves an eradication of ego, the development of selflessness. Our self-centered actions come from the passions. These we first have to overcome. Love is about giving totally of oneself to another. We can't be preoccupied with our own needs and love others. Love only fully develops after we have freed ourselves of the control of passions and reached dispassion. 


Love is central to our finding union with God.

Fr. Dimitru Staniloae says,

We can't turn exclusively to God, as long as we are preoccupied in an egoistic way with ourselves.

Saint Diadochos writes,

He who loves himself, cannot love God.  But he who doesn't love himself because of he overwhelming richness of the love of God, loves God, for such a person never seeks his own glory, but that of God.  Because he who loves himself seeks his own glory, but he who loves God, loves the glory of Him who made him. since it is proper to the sensitive soul to always seek first the glory of God in all the commandments which he is carrying out, and secondly, to enjoy himself in his humility.

Saint John the Evangelist says,

"He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" (1 John 4:20)

Fr. Dimitru outlines three steps in love:

a) The tendency of natural sympathy from the state of nature fallen from grace. [This we all have as a seed within ourselves from our birth.]

b) Christian love, which uses this tendency and grows by divine grace and by self-efforts; this grows and becomes firm. It brings nature to a kind of fulfillment. [This we develop as we follow the Orthodox Way of Life.]

c) Finally, there is love as ecstasy or as a gift exclusively from above.  This comes after a long preparation through the second and last for moments, that from the second it might gain new force and continue its growth. [This comes with pure prayer.]

Full love means a man's complete victory over himself.  

Divine love is a total victory of egotism.  It is gained through prayer after preparation through the activities of purification to rid ourselves of the passions. It is what we begin to experience as we are able to transcend reason and all concepts.  We discover God's love within our hearts and this helps us develop our capacity for love of God and for our neighbor. 

Saint Diadochos says,

When someone begins to richly feel the love of God, then he begins to love his neighbor too, with spiritual feeling.

Saint Diadochos adds an important adjective to our love of other, "with spiritual feeling." When we love another with "spiritual feeling" there is no separation between us.  All our thoughts are about the other person. And the one loved has all their thoughts directed toward us. We are joined in selfless union.  There is no separation. This is how we attain theosis.  It is based on our love of God and His love for us.  As we give up ourselves for Him, we find ourselves embraced in His divine love. We find the union we seek.

Fr Dimitru says of divine love,

Divine love is a drink, because it floods with its enthusiasm the worldly judgment of the mind and the feeling of the body.  It moves the one who participates in it to another plane of reality.  He sees another world, whose logic darkens the logic of everyday life; he receives the sense of other states, which overwhelm the feeling of bodily pains and pleasures.  

It is through this divine love that the Apostles received on that day of Pentecost. With the descent of the Hoy spirit filling them with divine love based on their total love of Jesus Christ, they were able to spread the Word throughout the world while suffering rejection, imprisonment and torture. All the troubles they endured never weakened their effort because of the union they had with God.  It was through divine love that they were able to bear all. This is the focus of the final stage of Orthodox Spirituality: Perfection.

More on love...

Reference: Orthodox Spirituality, pp 303 - 309


See Ten Points for an Orthodox Way of Life