In The Divine Family: Experiential Narratives by Marcelle Bartolo-Abela, the lived experiences of the author with the Members of the Divine Family and others are presented openly in print for the first time. These experiences occurred from 2010 through 2012. Written predominantly in a dialogical narrative style suitable for believers and non-believers alike, the author chronicles first-hand some of her personal experiences with the archangels Michael and Raphael; demons and Satan, the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and God the Father. Continue reading
Category Archives: The Divine Light
What is His greatest delight?
Resting and living with His fullness in us, so we can rest and live fully in Him: Omnipotent Love.
Meeting the Divine Light – 21
Deification is God’s perfect and full penetration of man (Dumitru Staniloae)
Meeting the Divine Light results in our obtaining “a knowledge beyond everything which we experience within the limits of our natural power of knowing . . . [Resulting in] knowledge beyond knowledge . . . The vision of the Divine Light is a vision and a knowledge [cause by a] divine energy, and received by man by means of a divine energy. It is a vision Continue reading
Meeting the Divine Light – 20
The hymn below both encapsulates and describes precisely what it is like to meet the indescribable Divine Light:
“What is this awesome mystery that is taking place within me?
I can find no words to express it:
My poor hand is unable to capture it, Continue reading
Who is a theologian? – 3
“If you have not discerned that the eye of your mind has been opened,
And that it has seen the light;
If you have not perceived the sweetness of the Godhead;
If you have not been personally enlightened by the Holy Spirit . . . Continue reading
Meeting the Divine Light – 20
When we meet the Divine Light of God in the heart of our souls, we do not need to attempt to “seek out either His nature or the energies of His Holy Spirit; their ‘how’ or ‘why’ [because the Light Himself] is sufficient. [He is both] that which is seen and the instrumentality by which the created soul is given to see” (Symeon the New Theologian).
Meeting the Divine Light – 19
The Divine Light gives the individual “boldness before God, the boon of speaking to Him as friend to Friend and of interceding on behalf of others . . . It is the robe and crown of glory which Adam lost in Eden . . . the presence now of the world to come, the foretaste and pledge of the eschaton, here in our midst as it shall be on the last day . . . Continue reading
Distinguishing between sanctification and deification
When dealing with the Church Fathers, especially those of the primitive Church, we need to keep in mind that differences exist in their language and use of such language, in terms of addressing the mere sanctification of man and his deification through theosis. Specifically, “where we find references to human participation in divine life, there we assuredly Continue reading
Meeting the Divine Light – 18
“Rapture of the mind does not apply to the perfect but to beginners . . . [For when the soul continues to live in the Divine Light, it is then] initiated into and taught wonders upon wonders, and mysteries upon mysteries . . . [Such a soul] himself becomes a divinely inspired book for others . . . [as] the same One Who inspired the scriptural Continue reading
Meeting the Divine Light – 17
Meeting God the Father in His Divine Light entails the vision, the contemplation “not of the divine nature . . . but of the glory of His nature” (Gregory Palamas, The triads). This is what is meant by the respective invisibility/visibility dimension of the essence/energies distinction of the Christian East, a distinction largely absent in the Christian West, with such Continue reading
Meeting the Divine Light – 16
When we gives ourselves to Him as an act of our free-will, God the Father “becomes intimately present in those who are experiencing His light, and He is no longer seen as the distant cause and unapproachable essence” (Untea, C. 2010. The concept of being in Aquinas and Palamas).
The love of the creature for her God
The creature, the soul, to whom God the Father deigns to cast His Eyes upon and manifest Himself to as Infinite Love, in His most tender Mercy, desires to do nothing other than take Him completely unto herself. She desires, with a depth of desire previously unknown, to love Him with the entirety of herself: that is with all of her mind, heart, body, soul, Continue reading
Meeting the Divine Light – 15
The Divine Light “is not the essence of God, for that is inaccessible and incommunicable . . . Sometimes it makes a man go out from the body or else, without separating him from the body, it elevates him to an ineffable height. At other times, it transforms the body and communicates its own splendor to it when, miraculously, the light which deifies the Continue reading
Meeting the Divine Light – 14
Meeting the Divine Light of God the Almighty Father can be considered as meeting the hypostatic Light, with the term hypostasis here meaning in “the sense of a concrete, objective reality, not something imagined by the subjective mind” (Palamas, G. 1983. The triads). Hypostatic, in this case, is specifically “an illumination immaterial and Continue reading
Acquiring true love for the Father – Aim of purification and illumination
We cannot acquire true love for God the Father unless, first, the heart of our soul, the nous, has been purified and illuminated, because it is precisely the heart of the soul that “is the image of God, knows God, and alone of everything on earth can, if it wishes, become god” (Gregory Palamas) by grace. Sense perceptions cannot Continue reading
Souls in good spiritual health
How can we know with certainty when souls are in good spiritual health or not? That is, beyond assuming that we are not in mortal sin? According to Gregory Palamas – the theologian and saint of the Divine Light – “the only proof of a soul in good health” is when it attains theoria – the vision of God, through the Continue reading
Fighting Satan: Prayer from the heart
One of the greatest weapons we have in fighting off the attacks of Satan and his demon-minions is, specifically, prayer from the heart, especially the heart of the soul – noetic prayer. Such prayer “drives the demons away because they do not want us to win crowns from God in our battle against them” (Met. Hierotheos. Continue reading
The grace of the Holy Spirit: Fear of demons
According to Sts. Diadochos of Photiki and Nikitas Stithatos, Satan and his demon-minions are “extremely frightened of the grace of the divine Spirit, especially when It is abundantly present in us or when we have been cleansed through spiritual reading and pure prayer” and, especially, the Sacrament of Continue reading
The tenderness and mercy of God the Father in the Life Review
The immense tenderness that exudes from our Father’s Divine Heart has to be experienced to be truly known. God the Father is the most tender and intensely loving Parent: never pushing any of us beyond what we can endure in the moment, although He continually sets progressively higher targets for us to achieve, to facilitate our spiritual growth in our journey toward holiness. Even when our Father causes us to see, from within His very own Divine Light (the light of Truth), all the sins we have committed in our lifetime and never Continue reading
Discerning God from Satan
Discerning the vision of the uncreated Divine Light of God (theoria), from Satan appearing as an angel of light, is not complicated. According to St John Climacus and patristics, in the first instance “the soul rejoices . . . [and the] Light of God is without form, white and brings peace to the soul.” In the second instance, Continue reading
Presenting the soul to God the Father
When we present our soul to God the Father, after having freely and deliberately consented to give ourselves to Him, we find ourselves kneeling before His infinite Majesty, facing Him with the soul on the palms of our uplifted hands. The Alpha and Omega sits regally on His throne, facing us in immense splendor and Omnipotence, while Jesus Christ stands closely to His Continue reading
Meeting the Divine Light – 14
“The vision of God in light is higher not only than rational knowledge but also than the knowledge that comes through faith” (Gregory Palamas, The triads).
The vision of the Divine Light – 2 – Illumination
“He who enjoys illumination is greater and receives more than he who only tastes, for he has within himself the assurance of his visions” (Macarius the Egyptian, Hom. 7, 5-6. P.G. 34, col. 527).
Meeting the Divine Light – 13
“God is called Light not according to His essence, but according to His energy” (Gregory Palamas). The Divine Light, therefore, is “a datum of mystical experience . . . the visible character of the divinity, of the energies in which God communicates Himself and reveals Himself to those who have purified their hearts. This light Continue reading
The vision of the Divine Light
“In place of the intellect, the eyes and ears, they acquire the incomprehensible Spirit and by Him hear, see and comprehend . . . Thus it is that the whole man becomes spirit, as it is written: ‘He who is born of Spirit, is spirit’” (Gregory Palamas, The triads).
Why we can become deified
Three reasons exist in the New Testament as to why we humans, not gods by nature, can become deified by grace; by partaking in the Divine nature. The reasons are as follows: Continue reading
More on deification and meeting the Divine Light
“Man’s body participates in the theoria of God, but he sees the Light and hears God’s voice only after his perceptive faculties have been transfigured by divine grace. His senses are transformed in order to see the Light” (Met. Hierotheos, 2010, The science of spiritual medicine, p. 458). Not everyone can see the Divine uncreated Light Continue reading
Meeting the Divine Light – 12
The Divine uncreated Light dwells differently in different individuals “according to the worthiness and the way of life of those who seek Him” (Gregory Palamas).
Illumination and deification – We shall see Him as He Is
“Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God: and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when He shall appear we shall be like to Him: because we shall see Him as He is” (1 Jn 3:2). Continue reading
What is deification or theosis? – Clarification
Deification or theosis is the participation of man in the uncreated Divine Light (Met. Hierotheos, 2010, The science of spiritual medicine). Deification does not simply constitute “the forgiveness of sins through the Holy Spirit but man’s participation in the Holy Spirit. The forgiveness of sins is not the same as participation in the Continue reading
