St Gregory Palamas

St. Gregory also teaches, along with all the great Fathers of the Church, that the vision of Christ in glory – our salvation – is synonymous with the mystery of the precious and life-giving Cross. And this is true precisely because the Cross reveals to us the WAY of Jesus, the only way to salvation and to:

• the cleansing of the passions and the cultivation of the virtues,
• the illumination of the mind, heart and soul,
• the sanctification of the body,
• the vision of God, and
• the perfect union with God.

For the vision of Christ in glory is given only when we arrive at the foot of the Cross, in imitation of Christ’s own self-empting, in His descent from on high down to the nethermost parts of the earth. This inevitably involves repentance (metanoia) a profound and continuous change of the part of the human person, without which it is impossible to become Christlike, since His perfection has no end.

I realize that it is difficult for many to even conceive of the fact that they need to be involved in continuous change. Why? Because it is difficult, I believe, for any of us to see the things that we have to change in our lives. I believe one reason why personal change must be continuous is that each and every day we are challenged by events and people around us to think and act is ways that are not Christlike.

What all this means, in practical terms, is each time we find ourselves in difficult circumstances, each time we are tempted to think or act according to the way of the world, and every time that we resist this impulse for the love of Christ, asking for His help and mercy, we are taking up our cross – we are striving to change our way of life in accordance with Christ’s commandments and example. When we resist the impulse to be like others in our society instead of like Christ, we are beginning to repent.

The fact is that if we wish to be with Christ, then we must become like Him. This is the mystery of the adoption of sons and daughters, of which the great Paul speaks, which is offered to each and every one of us. We can never be God. Only God is divine by nature, but as St. Maximos says, “the person who has been deified by grace will be, in every respect, as God is, except for His very essence. This means that we have been created to contain the very Life of the Holy Trinity. That is what is meant by being created in the image of God: to have the God-given capacity of containing and living the divine life.

In truth, it is all a matter of raising our awareness of the reality that we are the temples of God’s own Spirit.