ΤΗΕ ROLE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
Illumination
of our nous
Question
from the audience:
Is
illumination a permanent state or is the Holy Spirit coming back and
forth?
Answer
by Fr. Savvas:
When
we progress to illumination, this state is permanent. It’s there
and you live it 24 hours a day. This means we live this state also
during our sleep… The Holy spirit prays within us and we feel it
also during our sleep! This is a state described in the Song of Songs
(or Song of Solomon) 5:2,
“I
sleep, but my heart waketh”.
How does my heart hold this wake? By praying ceaselessly. Our
heart, at this state, never stops praying all day through. This is
the state of illumination. It is when a man becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit!
Catanyxis
- Illumination - Tears
Question
from the audience:
Does
illumination have anything to do with catanyxis (a combination of the
following for a limited period of time: sense of reverence,
contrition and inner rejoicing)? For example, when a faithful prays
heartfelt inside the church and is in catanyxis, can we assume he/she
is also illumined?
Answer
by Fr. Savvas:
It
depends. Maybe yes, maybe no. Tears (and catanyxis) is an issue that
needs an illumined spiritual father to discern what is going on.
There are many kinds of tears.
There
are emotional tears, who are shed, because we remember something and
got emotional.
There
are egoistical tears: Somebody told us something, we could not stand
it, we felt wronged (insulted) and we started crying… because of
our selfishness, it was our selfishness which was actually affected.
Many
times, a husband says something to his wife, she can’t take it and
feels wronged (and starts crying). This is obviously not catanyxis.
Just the opposite; by shedding these tears, instead of attracting
God’s Grace, we get demonized and darken our nous and soul!
There
are also tears of repentance, the ones St. Peter shed… bitter
tears; “And
Peter went out, and wept bitterly”, says
Luke 22:62
in the New Testament.
There
are also sweet tears, another kind of tears, shed when the Light of
God, the Holy Spirit, comes to us. So, then we cry and at the same
time we are happy, we rejoice, and our soul is fed by the love of
God. It is, though, necessary to be under the guidance of a spiritual
father (Pnevmatikos), to be guided on which kind of tears to
cultivate and whether we should or should not cultivate the tears
that come to us.
But,
let me tell you a secret:
We
can make a big spiritual turn, instead! Let us suppose we feel tears
coming to our eyes for a reason, any reason… Let’s turn them into
tears of repentance. If we want, we can really convert our tears into
tears of metany. We can say to our Lord: “My
God, forgive me.”
We can start confessing our sins before our Lord by saying: “I
have done this and that… I am a BIG sinner. Please, forgive me.”
So, this way, even if the initial tears were selfish tears, we can
sort of break the backbone of the devil and turn them into tears of
repentance.
f. Savvas Agioreitis
To be continued...
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