In the interest of remaining consistent with the time period of Great Lent, I have decided not write an article about the Sunday of Orthodoxy1 two weeks ago (Marth 5th, 2017), but to rather about write about the Sunday of Gregory Palamas this past week (Marth 12th, 2017).
One of the main contributions of St. Gregory Palamas to the life is the Church is his defense of monks who claimed to have received a vison of God’s uncreated light against Barlaam. Barlaam was a Greek monk influenced by Western theological scholasticism who stated God’s essence is unknowable for mere humans and, therefore, these monks could not have received said vision. St. Gregory responded by writing treatises on how God’s grace is uncreated and thus the monks were accurate in their vision. Reflecting on this, a writer for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America noted:
This uncreated grace is the very glory of God which, as it sprang forth from the body of Christ on the day of the Transfiguration, overwhelmed the disciples (Matthew 17). Shining now in the heart purified from the passions, it truly unites us to God, illumines us, deifies us and gives us a pledge of that same glory which will shine on the bodies of the Saints after the general Resurrection. In thus affirming the full reality of deification, Gregory was far from denying the absolute transcendence and unknowableness of God in His essence. Following the ancient Fathers, but in a more precise manner, he made a distinction between God's imparticipable essence and the eternal, creative and providential energies by which the Lord enables created beings to participate in His being, His life and His light without, however, introducing any division into the unity of the divine Nature. God is not a philosophical concept for Saint Gregory: He is Love, He is Living Person and consuming fire, as Scripture teaches (Deuteronomy 4:24), Who does everything to make us godlike.
The importance in our lives of this distinction of God’s grace being uncreated instead of created deals with our fundamental understanding of our relationship to God in this life. If God’s grace is uncreated, then this means it is in His nature to love us. It is in His nature to be self-giving, that is, to give Himself up for the life of the world. It is this self-sacrificing God, Who is Jesus Christ Himself, that Christians serve and worship.
This means, of course, that God loves us. He loves me. He loves you. Perhaps this is an obvious statement, but I think we often (myself especially) let this escape us. God loves us. It is in His nature to love us. And nothing we can do can change that. Our sin cannot extinguish His love.
This is important for us to remember. I often have the tendency to think that God is somehow angry or disappointed in me because of my faults. But this is a lie. I have no power to make God angry at me. God accepts us as we are, but in His love for us, He gives us every opportunity to change and become unto His likeness for our salvation.
And maybe this is good for us to keep in mind during Great Lent. Through all of our failings, whether it be struggling to keep the fast, having difficulty relinquishing sinful habits and inclinations, or trouble continuing to love others despite their faults, God loves us. He waits patiently for us to repent, prompting us through the quiet work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds.
Perhaps it is time to pay attention to that quiet work.
1: If you wish to read about the Sunday of Orthodoxy, please click here.
2: The latter part of this article has ideas taken from the work of Fr. Barnabas Powell and his oral commentary on God's love and God's anger.
