18 March 2008
“How can we know God?”
The five Sundays of Great Lent:
1. Sunday of Orthodoxy: Who is Jesus? The TheoAnthropous, God-Man. God enters creation.
2. St. Gregory Palamas: Why did Jesus come? To heal mankind’s separation from God.
3. Veneration of the Holy Cross: What did he do? He descended to sacrifice Himself and die on the cross for all our sins.
4. St. John Climacus: What does this mean? Mankind can now ascend to heaven.
5. Mother Mary of
Two themes on Sundays during Great Lent:
The first, or earlier theme develops between the 4th and 6th centuries and centers on the return of Adam and Eve to the Garden of Eden. The second, or later theme which developed in the 12th and 13th centuries centers on the return of icons to the Church.
The return of icons into the worship life of the Church occurred after the end of the iconoclastic controversy in 843 A.D. Further, we, humans, are living icons as we are created in the image and likeness of God (this also includes free will; the choice to accept or to reject God). The return of the icons mirrors our own return to the Garden of Eden.
Second Sunday of Great Lent: St. Gregory Palamas
St. Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), an Archbishop of Thessaloniki, is the second pillar of the Church, the first being the Three Hierarchs (St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregory Nazianus, the Theologian) whose theology St. Gregory Palamas interpreted. He took Christian thought (Gospel) and tied it to Greek Philosophy; uniting the divine (uncreated) with the created. This was an enormous contribution of Orthodox theology. St. Gregory Palamas is the most studied Orthodox theologian by the Catholics.
In the 14th century, the main theological question was “How can we know God?” “By mind or by experience"? St. Thomas Aquinas’s theology favored a scholastic approach centering on knowing God based on intellect. Barlaam of Calabria’s theology was that one can only know God mystically. St. Gregory found a middle ground. Being schooled in the Jesus prayer, a meditative prayer (hesychasia) and finding the answers in the writings of the Three Hierarchs led St. Gregory to say that one can know God by experience.
St. Gregory tied Mysticism with Scholasticism and developed the notion of “nous" or “spiritual mind”. When related to Patristic theology, this refers to the part of our intellect that we use to understand and refine God’s revealed message to us. A prayer in the Divine Liturgy exemplifies this. Part of it reads: “Open the eyes of our minds that we might comprehend the message of Your Gospel”.
In this, St. Gregory looked at God’s energy and God’s essence. This became the Doctrine of the Created and Uncreated Energies of God. We participate in God’s energies but not in His essence, thus linking creation with its Creator. St. Gregory uses the example of the sun. One cannot know the essence of the sun. If one were to get that close one would be blinded and burn up. However, one can experience the energy of the sun. One can see its brightness and feel its heat and benefit from its life-sustaining properties.
God’s uncreated energies are actually conveyed by the Holy Spirit. St. Gregory bases this on the Transfiguration of Jesus (Matthew 17:1-9, Mark 9:2-8 and Luke 9:28-36). In the Transfiguration, Sts. Peter, James and John experience God’s energy directly. Jesus is transfigured; He reveals His divine self by shedding His human “skin”.
At the Transfiguration, the presence of Moses and Elijah respectively represent the mystical and active. These same two individuals also experienced God’s energy directly: Moses on
St. Peter wanted to remain and build three booths to commemorate the Transfiguration. Jesus reminds him that experiencing the Divine is good, but that they must bring this back to the people (the active part). Action is love, kindness, forgiveness, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick….. manifesting the experience of God by “loving your neighbor”.
In St. Gregory’s view, the transfigured life comprises both contemplation and action. One cannot find God simply by thinking about Him, nor can one find God simply through worship. Both are necessary and one cannot and should not favor one over the other.
In Orthodoxy, connecting to God is experiential – of both the spiritual and the rational or (physical brain). We are psychosomatic beings – both of spirit and flesh. We must bring into harmony, into sync and balance these two aspects of ourselves. That is, to quiet our overactive flesh/mind to hear God speaking to us in our spirit.
God’s uncreated energies are manifested in the Sacraments when the Holy Spirit is called upon to change the bread and wine into Holy Communion, the oil into Holy Unction, the water into the cleansing waters of Baptism. The energies of the Holy Spirit also transform us as the Church as well.
On Divine Darkness
In theological terms, St. Gregory states the Divine Darkness is very powerful. As one gets closer to God, since we cannot take in His essence; it becomes so bright that we are blinded, hence the term “Divine Darkness”. We come to realize our own sinfulness as we come closer to God. In this darkness, we also come to recognize that we need and trust God and He leads us to illumination. When Moses went up to the mountain, God asked Moses to turn around as He passed because no one could see Him and live. When Moses came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments, he was physically glowing having been illumined with the experience of God.
On the Jesus Prayer - “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”
Breathing in to say “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God” allows the Holy Spirit to come in and cleanse us; breathing out as we say “have mercy on me, a sinner” pushes out our uncleanliness or ego. In this way, we empty ourselves of our ego that leads to sin and fill ourselves with God.
On Communion:
Communion is energy experienced. In Orthodox theology, the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus. This is transelemental. Roman Catholicism believes in transubstantiation in that the communion elements become the body and blood of Jesus, but still retain their physical properties of bread and wine. Lutheranism holds to consubstantiation where Jesus is present “in, with and under” the bread and wine. The bread and wine are not changed in any way.