“The hour comes and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in Spirit and in Truth. For the Father also seeks such to adore Him. God is a spirit and they that adore Him must adore Him in Spirit and in Truth” (Jn 4:23-24).

But what does it mean to worship God the Father in Spirit and in Truth? How do we worship Him in the way He seeks to be worshipped? 

Prayer, as many of us already know, initially consists of rational worship. However, after purification and illumination, prayer becomes noetic: that is, it becomes true prayer from the heart. Noetic prayer occurs according to the degree of liberation of our nous, the heart of our souls, from reason, through illumination of the nous itself by divine grace. Rational worship or prayer tends to be full of images and concepts, whereas noetic prayer is pure, free from both images and fantasies. Rational prayer results from our actively having to concentrate when praying. It occurs when we are in a state of purification, but before we have been fully purified. However, noetic prayer, prayer from the heart, is activated spontaneously by the Holy Spirit, after our nous, the heart of our souls, has been illuminated through grace. Some call this baptism in the Spirit.

For those who may be thinking about the relevance of all this to our present times, the era of the 8th day, and worshipping the Father in the manner that He desires, we can see from the above that it is paramount that we go through our present and ever-increasing purification, both individually and globally, no matter how unpleasant they may be; as well as both our individual illumination of conscience and the global illumination of all consciences, so that the very Presence of God the Father may come to reside in the heart of our souls and our nous may ascend once again to God.

Purification and illumination are necessary, because the nous is a place only He can access but which He refuses to enter, insofar as we decide to keep it darkened by sin, especially deliberate sin. It is only after both complete purification and illumination have occurred, that the Father will start being truly worshipped by all, as He has always desired to be, in His Holy Spirit and in His Truth Who Is Jesus Christ. This is the meaning of the words of the Apostle John: (1) “But the hour comes and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in Spirit and in Truth. For the Father also seeks such to adore Him” (Jn 4:23).

References

• Apostolate of the Divine Heart. (2011). Devotion to the Divine Heart of God the Father, 2nd. ed.
• Letter of Basil the Great to Gregory of Nyssa.
• Met. Hierotheos. (2010). The illness and cure of the soul, 2nd ed. rev.
• St Andrews Productions. (2009). Seeing with the eyes of the soul: Revelations of God the Father to all mankind.