The Transfiguration, Rubens. Via WikiCommons, CC0.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

From Kanon for the Fifth Day of Great Week, Ninth Ode, by St. Cosmas of Maiuma:

The Father begot me, creative Wisdom, before the ages;
He established me as the beginning of his ways
For the works now mystically accomplished
For though I am the uncreated Word by nature,
I make my own the voice
Of the nature I have now assumed.

As I am a man
In reality, not a mirage,
So divinized is the nature which,
By the manner of the exchange,
Is united to me.
Wherefore know that I am one Christ
Who saves that of which and in which I am.

From Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, NT Vol. IVa, ed. Joel C. Elowsky, 5.

Update: A friend gave me some congenial pushback on my theosis claim - he suggested that this passage is specifically about the hypostatic union (that Christ is one person with two natures) and not about theosis, per se. I initially read this as, "So divinized is the nature (human nature in general) which, / By the manner of the exchange, / Is united to me." But he may be right.

via WikiCommons, CC0.

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Mt. 5:13-16).

I am a coward.

No, really. I am. I fear and hate confrontation with a passion that, if instead was directed toward evil, would move mountains and save the world. As opinionated and outspoken as I can be, I usually only voice those opinions with trusted friends. I talk a good game, but can I play ball? Eh... heh.

I write this because I'm seeing our collective cultural insanity coupled with politics-as-usual coming home to our quiet West Michigan town, sending my old devil, anxiety, through the roof. It's hard not to fret.

At some point I may be called to stand up and say, no, that's not right, to be salt and light. And that terrifies me. To quote St. Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons, "This is not the stuff of which martyrs are made."

But God is gentle with the brokenhearted. When he asks of us more than we can give, he will give us what we lack. He is our source of peace.

I know this. But why is it so hard to believe sometimes?

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:10).

via Wikimedia Commons, CC0

From The Desert Fathers (ed. Benedicta Ward):

Lot went to Joseph and said, 'Abba, as far as I can, I keep a moderate rule, with a little fasting, and prayer, and meditation, and quiet: and as far as I can I try to cleanse my heart of evil thoughts. What else can I do?' Then the hermit stood up and spread out his hands to heaven, and his fingers shone like ten flames of fire, and he said, 'If you will, you can become all flame' (131).

Those of us who struggle with scrupulosity (myself included) fret about religious minutiae and often overdo our religious observance in an attempt to justify and perfect ourselves from our sins, real and perceived. Our fear of sin causes a great deal of anxiety; we struggle to know Christ's freedom.

The monk Lot shows us what the first step toward holiness looks like for the scrupulous person: a moderate (moderate!) rule, a little fasting, prayer, meditation, quiet, and cleansing our hearts of evil thoughts as far as is humanly possible (because having evil thoughts is sometimes outside our control).

Most importantly, Lot shows us the importance of seeking out spiritual direction, which St. Alphonsus Liguori says is necessary for the person suffering from scruples.

But as Abba Joseph shows us, there is more to Christian salvation than Lot's pious life. If we will, we can become all flame. This is theosis in a nutshell. Salvation is more than being saved from sin. Salvation is being saved for unity with God. And unity with God means being drawn into him to the point that we become him.

In Jesus our humanity has been united to God, which is to say that our humanity is united to divinity. God can do this without violating his nature as Creator or our nature as creature because he stands outside his creation. He is other and can therefore enter into his creation as he wills. He does not cease to be God; we do not cease to be his creatures. And yet we become him.

When we turn our attention from being saved from to being saved for, we discover how much God is fighting for us. For me, this was the single most important turning point in my struggle against scruples. When my spiritual director told me to meditate every day on God's love for me, I discovered that God isn't ready to jump on me for each and ever fault and failing. He is loving and patient with me because He wants - wants! - to give me his very self.

When I began to believe this, I began to experience freedom, despite those pesky scruples. I have learned that I can ignore my doubts (so hard to do, by the way) because God wants me to know the freedom he offers in Christ. By God's grace, if I keep my eyes on him, I too will become all flame.

via Wikimedia Commons, CC0

From today's Office of Readings:

From the treatise On the Trinity by Saint Hilary, bishop
(Lib. 8, 13-16: PL 10, 246-249)

We believe that the Word became flesh and that we receive his flesh in the Lord’s Supper. How then can we fail to believe that he really dwells within us? When he became man, he actually clothed himself in our flesh, uniting it to himself for ever. In the sacrament of his body he actually gives us his own flesh, which he has united to his divinity. This is why we are all one, because the Father is in Christ, and Christ is in us. He is in us through his flesh and we are in him. With him we form a unity which is in God.

How then can we fail to believe that he really dwells within us? Because we can only see two inches in front of our noses. Because the weight of our sin binds us to anxiety and fear.

I need to be reminded, over and over, that God is for us. Who can be against us? He united himself to my weakness. I need not be afraid of his just punishment if I remember that my weakness is my strength. 

Another confirmation from another Church Father (St. Cyril of Jerusalem) that God really, really, really likes us (yay!) and wants to transform us into His likeness. From this morning's Office of Readings:

From the Jerusalem Catecheses
(Cat. 21, Mystagogica 3, 1-3: PG 33, 1087-1091)

When we were baptized into Christ and clothed ourselves in him, we were transformed into the likeness of the Son of God. Having destined us to be his adopted sons, God gave us a likeness to Christ in his glory, and living as we do in communion with Christ, God’s anointed, we ourselves are rightly called “the anointed ones.” When he said: Do not touch my anointed ones, God was speaking of us.

We became “the anointed ones” when we received the sign of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, everything took place in us by means of images, because we ourselves are images of Christ. Christ bathed in the river Jordan, imparting to its waters the fragrance of his divinity, and when he came up from them the Holy Spirit descended upon him, like resting upon like. So we also, after coming up from the sacred waters of baptism, were anointed with chrism, which signifies the Holy Spirit, by whom Christ was anointed and of whom blessed Isaiah prophesied in the name of the Lord: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor.

Christ’s anointing was not by human hands, nor was it with ordinary oil. On the contrary, having destined him to be the Savior of the whole world, the Father himself anointed him with the Holy Spirit. The words of Peter bear witness to this: Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit. And David the prophet proclaimed: Your throne, O God, shall endure for ever; your royal scepter is a scepter of justice. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above all your fellows.

The oil of gladness with which Christ was anointed was a spiritual oil; it was in fact the Holy Spirit himself, who is called the oil of gladness because he is the source of spiritual joy. But we too have been anointed with oil, and by this anointing we have entered into fellowship with Christ and have received a share in his life. Beware of thinking that this holy oil is simply ordinary oil and nothing else. After the invocation of the Spirit it is no longer ordinary oil but the gift of Christ, and by the presence of his divinity it becomes the instrument through which we receive the Holy Spirit. While symbolically, on our foreheads and senses, our bodies are anointed with this oil that we see, our souls are sanctified by the holy and life-giving Spirit.

(Emphases mine.)

Reading this, I can't help but wonder, What happens to a person when God is within? We're so used to talking about Jesus In My Heart, etc., etc., that we don't stop to think about how scandalous and radical the basic tenets of our faith are.

The Holy Spirit dwells within - That's GOD HIMSELF! We receive Jesus in Holy Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity - That's GOD HIMSELF!

We believe that God comes to dwell within us, and not metaphorically in a psychologically-affirming, warm-fuzzies way. No, we mean that literally - God is within! And because He is, something happens to us: He comes within so that we might have union with Him. Our nature is elevated by the fact of his not-merely-metaphorical redemptive presence. 

!!!

The Good News of the Gospel cannot be reduced to some nice platitudes that get cross-stitched on throw pillows. The Good News of the Gospel is not that Jesus Christ will make you feel better about yourself (though I hope you do). The Good News of the Gospel is that the God will transform and transfigure us into Himself. He loves us that much.