Svetlana sent us very good questions. How can we create our own kingdom? How does the dispensation of graceoccur? How is it possible to build something? These are good questions. While answering these questions, we will also talk about the essence of Orthodoxy, as it was before synodal period.

And the essence is very simple: there is God and there is man, and Christ came to earth for that man might learn to be god by grace, that is to say, to reach God’s likeness. Our Creator, through his Holy Trinitarian power, creates our world. We must also learn to create our own kingdom, through this same Trinitarian power, as our Lord did it. That is to say, it is necessary to put ourselves, literally, on the place of the Creator, and start to solve creative problems.

To create our own kingdom means comprehend, by our mind, how the Lord creates Creation and manages it by means of angelic forces. Through understanding of various aspects of the mysterious reality, our earthly mind is connected to the heavenly wisdom, and the dispensation of divine grace occurs. Here's how it's done. Grace is created by connection of the heavenly power of God with our earthly mind. Heavenly wisdom + earthly mind = grace. It is necessary to imagine ourselves on the place of Holy Trinity and recreate Creation in our heart, exactly as it is done by our Lord. We must understand how the Lord arranged everything. And when everything will gather into an integral system in our head, then we will understand the liturgy, because it reflects the holy life of the Creation from the point of world’s creation to the point of the Coming of Heavenly Jerusalem.

Here, Asterisk opens during the Proskomedia (Liturgy of Preparation) at the beginning of the divine office, and here it closes; it's already the end of times when God completely defeats the devil. That is why the sacred animals are singing the triumphal hymn, shouting, crying aloud and saying: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Sabaoth”, and between these two events, passes the holy life of all Creation which the Liturgy symbolizes. Here is the north gate, it is a starting point for all events, it is a place where the seals are opened and the power of God is poured out in our world; that is why all processions begin from this gate and return, trough the royal gate, to the Throne of God; this is a symbol of our prayer’s ascent and symbol of the knowledge of the spiritual world.

When at the beginning of the service, at small entrance, the priest goes with the Gospel through the gate, and then kisses the Icons of Christ, His Mother the Theotokos, while the deacon proclaims: «Wisdom» which means «stand straight». What does it mean «stand straight»? Stand straight symbolizes the seven stages of knowledge of the spiritual world; it is a symbol of wisdom.

The sense of spiritual life is to build a vertical of wisdom that rises to the Throne of God. The kiss of the Icons of Christ and His Mother the Theotokos symbolizes a scroll, in the right hand of the One sitting on the throne, that was written on back and front; this is a foundation of the knowledge of spiritual world, a starting point.

We have already examined it: internal flows into external and external into internal. Our task is not to assist in divine office, like the spectators in theatre, flapping ears and eyes, but to participate in the Eucharistic ascension and be royal priests. We must learn, for example, to vivify the angels through the Trinitarian light and Asterisk. The diskos symbolizes Creation; it is an inner space of our soul in which we must create heaven and earth.

It’s exactly for this purpose that these articles have been introduced in divine office. All Heavenly Liturgy must always be served on diskos of our soul, not only in the church but also in everyday life. To understand these things, we must pray, ask questions to God and pray Him to give us wisdom. St. Basil the Great compared God with an unimaginable ocean of light. People put themselves on the place of God, and, step by step, recreate Creation in their minds.

Try to create, from the ocean of infinite and invisible Trinitarian light, seraphim, cherubim, thrones, and the rest of the angelic hierarchy, as well as the earth, and then go through all the sacred history until the ascension of the Saviour.

And when we will recreate the whole system in our internal church, that is to say, a whole cycle of divine offices, then it will begin to live within us, so to speak, and we will get the Seal of the Living God, we will integrate ourselves into the holy life of the celestial church. By acquiring an integral vision of the spiritual structure of the world, we obtain holiness and the dispensation of grace occurs.

For God might come and live in our inner kingdom, we must know, first of all, the Dogma of the Holy Trinity; this is a starting point. The Asterisk serves exactly for this purpose, and when we’ll master this step, the following path of the dispensation of grace will go like on rails.

Ultimately, the goal of spiritual life is to bring together all Creation in our heart: from the Holy Trinity to the King of Glory, sat on the right hand of God, and when that happens, man rises to the Throne of God and dresses in the power of Creation.

In iconography, this aspect is represented in the form of a throne with a curved back, covering the one who sits; it is a symbol of Creation in which rise and are enthroned the Saints following Christ. Another example is the icon "Christ in Majesty". This system of God and the angelic forces should conceptually line up inside our soul, and with such internal device, as bearers of sacred divine world, we must come to church for the liturgy and, with such understanding, be incorporated into divine office. Then it starts to happen within us the movement of the holy power of God, transforming the mind. When, at the climax moment during the Eucharistic canon, priest raises his hands and says: "Let’s have burning hearts" means that we must rise, with our mind, to the Throne and serve God together with angels and saints.

If we didn’t build the Throne of God in our hearts, if we didn’t acquired its spiritual understanding, then we have nowhere to raise our mind and the power of the liturgy walks past; we remain with no participation in the life of the Kingdom of Heaven. And until we do not restore the original semantic framework of the Orthodox faith, our people will still remain in the exhausted, fragmented, and blind state.

 

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