The process

The following aptly describes the process by which we become capable of worshipping God the Father in Spirit and in Truth (cf. Jn 4:23-24), as He so longingly and longstandingly desires:

“God descends to man in two senses, although simultaneously. By one descent He places in us an activity of divine love for Him, by the other He opens Himself up before our love, which is from Him, and which He now seeks. God first loves us with such a love, that it makes us also love Him. First God seeks our heart, that later we can try too to enter into Him . . . It’s a descent only in so much as it’s a willingness to raise to His bosom a created mind” (D. Staniloae, 2002). By such a union, “the mind sees God in the Spirit in a manner transcending human powers” (Gregory Palamas).