✝️ The Aim of the Incarnation 👑 He assumed the body originate and human, that having renewed it as its Framer, He might deify it in Himself, and thus might introduce us all into the kingdom of heaven after His likeness. For man had not been deified if joined to a creature, or unless the Son were very God; nor had man been brought into the Father’s presence, unless He had been His natural and true Word who had put on the body. And as we had not been delivered from sin and the curse, unless it had been by nature human flesh, which the Word put on (for we should have had nothing common with what was foreign), so also man had not been deified, unless the Word who became flesh had been by nature from the Father and true and proper to Him. For therefore the union was of this kind, that He might unite what is man by nature to Him who is in the nature of the Godhead, and his salvation and deification might be sure. #Theosis #Incarnation #Deification #GodBecameMan #KingdomOfHeaven

🌟 All That Is In Christ Has Been Given to Us 🔥 David sings somewhere saying: “Your throne O God is for ever and ever”. He then says: “Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions” (Ps 45: 7). Before this anointment, the Word reigned with the Father; how then is He to be anointed King and sanctified, being the King and the Holiest from eternity? Though being such eternally, it is said of Him that He will possess sovereignty at the end of times. In the same way although He is the Highest it was said that He was exalted (Phil 2: 9) due to the economy of the incarnation. He is exalted (Phil 2: 9), and anointed (Ps 45: 7) and sanctified (John 17: 19) for our sakes, so that through Him the grace may also overflow in all, actually having been given to our nature [in Him], and consequently saved for the whole race. In that sense our Savior in the Gospel of John said: “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth” (John 17: 19). All that is in Christ has been given to us. He did not receive this sanctification for Himself, being Himself the Sanctifier, but received it to deliver it to our nature through Himself, becoming thus the way and the beginning of the blessings happening to us. In that sense He said “I am the way” (John 14: 6) i.e. through whom Divine grace descends on us to exalt, sanctify, glorify and deify our nature in Christ first! #AllThatIsInChrist #GivenToUs #EconomyOfIncarnation #Theosis #Deification #ChristTheWay #GraceOverflows #SanctifiedInTruth

💖 The Essence of Prayer 🤲 Prayer, according to the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself—who taught prayer and practiced it—is a constant transformation of human nature and a constant assimilation to the Heavenly Father, revealed by His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matt 5:48). The goal of prayer is to be united with the Heavenly Father, to be one with Him, as our Lord Jesus Christ says: "that they may be one in Us." The goal of prayer is accomplished by the Holy Spirit; for we cannot become like God by our own abilities, but by the power and gift of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, to transform us into the image of God. To receive the gift of the new life that our Lord Jesus Christ portrayed in His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, our Lord recreated humanity anew through His incarnation from the holy Mary, when He transferred humanity from the nothingness from which it was created to the gift of life by the Holy Spirit, the Lord of life and the giver of all gifts. Whoever prays is transferred from the old, fallen Adamic nature, which was created from nothing, to the new human nature that our Lord Jesus Christ constituted through His incarnation. #Prayer #EssenceOfPrayer #Transformation #UnionWithGod #Theosis #HolySpirit #Incarnation

🤝 Let Us Become Like Christ, Since Christ Became Like Us 👑 Yesterday I was crucified with Him; today I am glorified with Him; yesterday I died with Him; today I am quickened with Him; yesterday I was buried with Him; today I rise with Him. But let us offer to Him Who died and rose again for us—you will think perhaps that I am going to say gold, or silver, or woven work or transparent and costly stones, the mere passing material of earth.... Let us offer ourselves, the possession most precious to God, and most akin.... Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become gods for His sake, since He for ours became Man. He assumed the worse that He might give us the better; He became poor that we through His poverty might be rich (2Cor 8:9); He took upon Him the form of a servant that we might receive back our liberty; He came down that we might be exalted; He was tempted that we might conquer; He was dishonoured that He might glorify us; He died that He might save us; He ascended that He might draw to Himself us, who were lying low in the Fall of sin. Let us give all, offer all, to Him Who gave Himself a Ransom and a Reconciliation for us. But one can give nothing like oneself, understanding the Mystery, and becoming for His sake all that He became for ours. St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration I, on Easter; NPNF, 2nd Ser.; Vol. VII, p. 203. #Theosis #Deification #UnionWithChrist #EasterSermon #ChristianLife

☀️ Our Transfiguration With Christ ✨ As the body of the Lord was glorified when he climbed the mount and was transfigured into the divine glory and into infinite light, so also the bodies of the saints are glorified and shine like lightning. Just as the interior glory of Christ so covered His body and shone completely, in the same way also in the saints, the interior power of Christ in them in that day will be poured out exteriorly upon their bodies. For even now at this time they are in their minds participators of His substance and nature. For it is written: “He that sanctifies and the one who is sanctified are of one” (Heb 2:11). And: “The glory that you have given Me, I have given them” (John 17:22). Similarly, as many lamps are lighted from the one, same fire, so also it is necessary that the bodies of the saints which are members of Christ become the same which Christ Himself is. _ St. Macarius the Great. Homily 15, 38. #Transfiguration #Theosis #Deification #Glory #Saints #StMacarius #Eschatology #ChristianHope

📈 Unceasing Progress Unto All the Fulness of God 📈 It was for this that intelligent beings came into existence; namely, that the riches of the Divine blessings should not lie idle. The All-creating Wisdom fashioned these souls, these receptacles with free wills, as vessels as it were, for this very purpose, that there should be some capacities able to receive His blessings and become continually larger with the inpouring of the stream. Such are the wonders that the participation in the Divine blessings works: it makes him into whom they come larger and more capacious; from his capacity to receive it gets for the receiver an actual increase in bulk as well, and he never stops enlarging. The fountain of blessings wells up unceasingly, and the partaker's nature (...) makes the whole influx an enlargement of its own proportions, and becomes at once more wishful to imbibe the nobler nourishment and more capable of containing it; each grows along with each, both the capacity which is nursed in such abundance of blessings and so grows greater, and the nurturing supply which comes on in a flood answering to the growth of those increasing powers. _St. Gregory of Nyssa. On the Soul and the Resurrection; NPNF, 2nd Ser., Vol. V, p. 452. #SpiritualGrowth #DivineGrace #Theosis #Patristics #EverMovingForward

☀️ He Has Become Man That He Might Deify Us in Himself We do not worship a creature. Far be the thought. ... But we worship the Lord of Creation, Incarnate, the Word of God. For if the flesh also is in itself a part of the created world, yet it has become God's body. For the Flesh did not diminish the glory of the Word; far be the thought: on the contrary, it was gloried by Him. Nor, because the Son that was in the form of God took upon Him the form of a servant was He deprived of His Godhead. On the contrary, He is thus become the Deliverer of all flesh and of all creation. And if God sent His Son brought forth from a woman, the fact causes us no shame but contrariwise glory and great grace. For He has become Man, that He might deify us in Himself, and He has been born of a woman, and begotten of a Virgin, in order to transfer to Himself our erring generation, and that we may become henceforth a holy race, and “partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Pe 1:4), as blessed Peter wrote. -St Athanasius, Letter 60, 3-4, To Adelphius; NPNF, 2nd Ser.,Vol.IV, p. 575-576 #Deification #Incarnation #ChurchFathers #PartakersOfDivineNature #Theosis

Living with hope is at the heart of the Christian life as the Church understands it. In our tradition, hope is a theological virtue given by God and received in freedom, binding the soul to the promises already inaugurated in Christ and yet to be fully revealed in the age to come. It is inseparable from faith and love, and it matures within the life of the Church as we are led towards theosis—the healing and elevation of the human person by grace. St. Paul teaches, “We are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he hope for?” (Romans 8:24). This saving hope fixes the heart on Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, on His promised appearing in glory, and on the inheritance of incorruption. The Orthodox mind therefore treats hope not as an inward mood but as a steady participation in the divine life, a stance of filial trust fostered by the Holy Spirit, an “anchor of the soul” that holds fast amidst the tides of time (cf. Hebrews 6:19). https://frcharles.com/poustinia/homily/living-with-hope/