Seeing
- Michael Haldas
- 7 days ago
- 5 min read
“People always seem to be thinking too literally, and Jesus is always moving them from the literal to the spiritual level—to seeing deeper—…Recognition of the need to “see deeper” than the surface, understanding the inadequacy of language, along with the fact that the more one purifies one’s heart and draws closer to God, the deeper one’s understanding of Scripture will be—all these aspects are reflected in the other main emphasis in the analogies for Scripture: its endless depths and riches. Hence, to add to the list of images for Scripture that we gave above, Scripture is also compared to a vine with endless fruit; endless wealth; a never-failing spring; a meadow with diverse flowers and copious fruit; abundant fragrance—a paradise of flowers and fruit; a fair garden with varied sounds; a treasure chest with inestimable riches and precious stones; a rock with oceans of water springing from it; and something possessing inexhaustible grace.” (Dr. Mary S. Ford)
“This is the same reason that I have written against popular notions of morality. The Christian life does not consist of flesh and blood struggling to behave better. Rather, it is the transformation of flesh and blood into spirit and life. Only a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17) sees and understands and lives the new life of the resurrected Christ. This spiritual ability to see beneath the letter and perceive the truth continues in the life of the Church, unabated. It is particularly evident in the dogmatic formulations of subsequent centuries. Only a nous, properly illumined, could learn to profess the Trinity in the fullness of its mystery. The same is true of Christ’s God/Manhood and the nature of our salvation through the Divine Union. But these habits of the transformed heart have been diminished and replaced over the centuries in many parts of the Christian world. The doctrinal formulations have become dry statements that sound merely antique. The new language of morality and psychology have largely displaced true noetic perception of the truth. The result is a Christianity that, though often using the terms of the Fathers, gives them completely different meanings. It becomes nothing more than a system of interpretation, not actually requiring God Himself at all.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“A man becomes spiritual insofar as he lives a spiritual life. He begins to see God in all things, to see His power and might in every manifestation… But insofar as a man lives a bodily life, so much he does bodily things; He doesn’t see God in anything, even in the most wondrous manifestations of His Divine power. In all things, he sees [only] body and material [things]. Everywhere and always, “God is not before his eyes.” (St. John of Kronstadt)
“The nous, the “eye of the heart,” we might describe as the organ of iconographic seeing and iconological understanding. The nous is the center of our soul, or heart, the point at which we can connect most directly to God—which is also to say, connect with ultimate reality…The nous is that aspect of the human mind that has the capacity to contemplate God.” (Andrew Williams, Dr. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou)
“The Church’s two millennia-long experience is that the mind becomes much healthier when it can take periodic rests from all analysis, from discursive reason, and especially from rationalizations. These vacations of the mind can be achieved through noetic prayer, and when the mind descends from such noetic prayer, we find that it has been “re-booted,” has received new default settings, has become more an icon of Christ’s mind and less a dangerous weapon firing powerfully yet wildly…noetic prayer is not a technique, even if technique can accompany or aid its arrival, but a falling in love with Christ. It’s the mind of Christ, and why any of us is ever given that is the greatest mystery of all.” (Timothy G. Patitsas)
“… in John 1: 14, “the Greek word for ‘beheld,’ etheasametha, is used [only] of physical sight, and is in the historic tense.… The evangelist does not shrink from using the word ‘beheld’, which [in the Greek] implies that what is believed about the incarnate Word is not derived solely from spiritual insight, but is rooted also in ordinary sense perception.” So the Greek word used for “beheld” emphasizes that Jesus’ glory was truly manifested in history, and literally seen.” (Dr. Mary S. Ford, John Marsh)
“Christ is always presented as being seen, looked upon, and beheld.” He gives this example: when Luke tells us that Christ was seen by them for forty days [Acts 1: 3], you know what this means: perfection, completion, a fullness that cannot be surpassed. It designates a perfect period of time during which the One from beyond time revealed Himself perfectly. And He chose to do this, not simply through the medium of time, but through sight, by means of vision, by being seen, because seeing is the most powerful of our senses, and the one which provides us with the clearest and most enduring impressions.… what really makes an impression on me, what is unforgettable, is what I see.… That is why Christ is always presented as being seen, … and beheld…” (Archimandrite Aimilianos)
“ “On the first day of the week” the disciples continued to meet. “On the first day of the week” they continued to read Scripture and Break the Bread. And He appeared. And they met. And He appeared. And it is this appearing, His parousia, that abides. It is this appearing that the liturgy remembers. And it remembers actively as the appearing itself continues. If the liturgy did not remember His appearing, it would have ceased. But it is His appearing that is participation, coinherence, incarnation, mystery, timeless form and formless time, fullness and emptiness, fulfillment and full-formed teaching. It is not history that draws Christ’s disciples back behind the doors year by year and week by week. It is not memorial and sentiment that stands for hours in darkened Churches, lighting candles and breathing prayers. It is not superstition and ethnic pride. It is the appearing.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“Unbelievers have only bodily sight and truly can’t see what is spiritual and holy. Our passions and sins prevent us from seeing Heavenly things, from sensing and understanding the unearthly. So, the blind don’t see the sun, moon, stars, the things around them, or even the outline of entire cities that were created for them, but does that really prove that nothing exists? Faith is spiritual vision by means of the human heart, and anyone can easily see how the heart quickly and clearly sees even distant objects of the spiritual world. The freer and purer the heart is from sins and passions, the quicker, further, and clearer it sees.” (St. Seraphim Chichagov)
“People often ask, “If God is real, where is He? Why can’t I see Him?” Or, “If God wants people to be saved, why doesn’t He appear to them and tell them the truth?” The answers modern Christians tend to give—that God is invisible or that this is how He tests people’s faith—are not very compelling, and for good reason: they’re not true. The truth is that God is constantly revealing Himself to everyone, all the time—He is, after all, reality itself. It’s just that we are unable to see Him fully, correctly, or even at all, to the extent that our ability to see reality is clouded. It’s not that God is hidden; it’s that we are blind. Another of way of putting it is that we can encounter reality only to the extent that we ourselves are real.” (Dr. Zachary Porcu)
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