"...let us make our way towards the radiance of the light of grace, that we may acknowledge and venerate the threefold Godhead, who shines with a single indescribable radiance from one nature in three persons.
"Let us lift up the eyes of our understanding to the Word who now sits, with His body, above the vaults of heaven. And He who sits in divine splendour on the right hand of majesty, utters these words to us as if from afar, 'If anyone wants to stand in the presence of this glory, let him imitate Me as far as he can, and follow the way and the manner of life I taught on earth.'
"Let us look with our inner eyes at this great spectacle, our nature, which dwells for all eternity with the immaterial fire of the divinity. And let us take off the coats of skins (cf. Gen 3:21), the earthy and carnal ways of thinking, in which we were clothed because of our transgression, and stand on holy ground (cf. Exod. 3:5), each one of us hallowing our own ground by means of virtue and reaching up to God.
"In this way we shall have boldness when God comes in light, and as we run to Him we shall be enlightened, and, once illumined, shall live for ever to the glory of the one brightness in three Suns, now and for ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen."
- Excerpted from Greogry Palamas, The Homilies, Christopher Veniamin, trans. and ed. Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2009, 281.
Icon of the Transfiguration.
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