glorycloud's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the first grace awakens in us the hypostatic principle It is 1:14 PM or 13:16 Wednesday afternoon. The sun is still shining this afternoon here on Lake Michigan. I picked up Carol at the hospital around 9 o'clock AM. She went to bed around 10 o'clock AM. She is off the next six nights. I left the house around 10:15 AM to go to a thrift store, our credit union, Windmill Island and the Full Circle music shop. I forgot that before going to the Full Circle I got myself a latte at Lemonjello's. At a local thrift shop I purchased these three used book--- "Grammar, Rhetoric, and Composition for Home Study" by Richard D.Mallery (A basic course in speaking and writing effective English.). I do not know how to write or speak effective English. "The Random House Dictionary" Concise Edition (I love words!) "Moby Dick" a novel by Herman Melville (I already have this famous novel by Melville, but I wanted a paperback copy to carry around with me.) After visiting Bibles For Mexico thrift shop I went to our credit union and then for a walk at Windmill Island Gardens. As I was walking around Windmill Island I could heard ice cracking in the river that runs around the island. After my brisk morning walk (Rudy refuses to go for walks with me these days. He will only go for walks with Carol. Weird.) I drove over to Lemonjello's and the Full Circle. After getting a latte at Lemonjello's I went next door and talked to Steve at the Full Circle music shop. I left around 12:30 PM to come home and have lunch. So goes existence thus far. I read this morning in a book titled "Remember Thy First Love (Revelation 2:4-5) The Three Stages Of The Spiritual Life In The Theology Of Elder Sophrony" by Archimandrite Zarcharias--- "Father Sophrony emphasizes that the visitation of the first grace awakens in us the hypostatic principle, that is, the potential that God has planted in our nature to embrace the gift of God and become like unto Him. This first grace gives man a foretaste of how the gift of the Holy Spirit enables him to be in full possession of his nature. For instance, when we are given a certain degree of contrition, we have a sense of being in command of our whole being: we are able to observe and control every thought, every movement of our heart. And the more grace we receive, the more fully we master our nature. In other words, as our hypostatic principle awakens in us, our regeneration beings. Although grace is very active in the beginning, our nature is not yet obedient to the great and perfect will of God. Grace draws our attention inward and reveals to us great truths about the spiritual life, but we cannot yet call them our own. We are still divided, fallen beings and when we come to face the loss of grace, we discover the division within us. The part of us in which regeneration has begun follows the hypostatic principle, while the other, our old nature, goes the opposite way. We tend to be taken by surprise when we observe this in ourselves, and exclaim, 'I used to feel so well. My prayer was ardent. What has happened to me?' We do not understand that our nature is still divided. However, if we do everything we can to stand, as the Apostle says, our nature and our will will be conformed to the new life which the hypostatic principle has awakened in us. The gradual dynamic increase of our hypostatic principle will overcome the heaviness of our unregenerate nature. Mortality will be swallowed up by immortality so that the will of God, the sole true law of our existence, will be established in us. In his Epistle to the Romans the Apostle describes this internal division: 'I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.' Thanks to the illumination of the first grace, the division within us is now sharply revealed. As a spiritual father, Father Sophrony would never attempt to diminish a person's feeling of inner division: on the contrary, he would sometimes even try to intensify it, knowing that those who are willing to stand in that tension will turn to God with their whole being. Then, having endured the trial, His grace becomes theirs." pg. 188,189 Archimandrite Zacharias It is going on 2 o'clock PM Wednesday afternoon. I will close to rest my mind. I recommend these books on the doctrine of regeneration--- "Transforming Conversion: Rethinking The Language And Contours Of Christian Initiation" by Gordon T. Smith "The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life" by Robert E. Webber "The Love of the Spirit Traced in His Work" by Robert Philip "Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart" 1 Peter 1:22. music: Weekend "Sports" 2:09 p.m. - 2011-02-23 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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