Category: Union with God

NEW – Deification of Man in Christianity

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Deification Front CoverDeification is the transformation of man into god through the grace of God. Predominant in the theology of Eastern Christianity, but marginalized and obscured in contemporary interpretations of the theology of Western Christianity, Bartolo-Abela explores how it is deification, not just salvation, that was and remains the intent of God for mankind, with deification occurring not solely in patria, but in via and in patria. This is an understanding of deification which has been largely lost and needs to be recovered in the Western Church.

Examining the works of the Church Fathers on both sides of the East-West divide in Christianity, Bartolo-Abela shows that rather than being restricted to the East, deification featured consistently in many theological works popular in the West, with Continue reading “NEW – Deification of Man in Christianity” →

NEW RELEASE – The Divine Family: Experiential Narratives

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The Divine Family.jpg Resized to 800 pxThe Apostolate of the Divine Heart announces the publication of its latest book titled The Divine Family: Experiential Narratives. The book is available directly from the publisher and the online bookseller Amazon. For those outside the US, you can obtain the book either from the respective Amazon sites or directly from the distributors.

In The Divine Family: Experiential Narratives, the lived experiences of the author with the Members of the Divine Family and others are presented openly in print for the first time. These experiences occurred from 2010 through 2012. Written predominantly in a dialogical narrative style suitable for believers and non-believers alike, the author chronicles first-hand some of her personal experiences with the archangels Michael and Raphael; demons and Satan, the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and God the Father.  Continue reading “NEW RELEASE – The Divine Family: Experiential Narratives” →

Beautiful love

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Beautiful love is the most tender Father of all, for He is beautiful beyond measure and Infinite Love. Truly what “no eye has seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the mind of man” (1 Cor 2:9) are what the Father has prepared for us, because He wants to live in us, giving us Himself forever in an unimaginable exchange of love. The Kingdom of God is where the Father is, because He is Continue reading “Beautiful love” →

What is deification? – Response to a question

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Deification is the attaining of likeness to God and union with Him so far as is possible (Dionysus the Aeropagite, EH 1. 3, PG 3. 376a).

God, you see, wants to make you a god; not by nature, of course, like the One whom He begot but by His gift and by adoption (Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 166.4).

Deification or the “divinization of the Christian is not an identification with God [but] an assimilation, a very eminent restoration of the original divine likeness [through a process where one] participates by grace in the perfections that God possesses by nature” (Gross, 1936/2003). Deification results Continue reading “What is deification? – Response to a question” →

Purification – The ascent

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Purification in the desert is an ascent, for all our untoward attachments are removed so the Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – can come and live in us. If we are not thoroughly purified this way, how can we open ourselves up sufficiently for Them to come and live in us with power and might? Perfect light and life cannot dwell where darkness resides. This is why we are presently being Continue reading “Purification – The ascent” →

Worshipping the Father in Spirit and in Truth – 5 – Becoming partakers of the divine nature

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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 Continue reading “Worshipping the Father in Spirit and in Truth – 5 – Becoming partakers of the divine nature” →

Seeing God the Father – 3 – From the Core of the Father’s Divine Heart

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Those who have not seen this light have not seen God: for God is Light (Symeon the New Theologian)

“Divine love descends from above as a fire over a sacrifice passively laying on a mountain peak or on an altar before the unseen God. Then divine love can ravish it that it might by itself go beyond the curtains of darkness which hide God from men . . . The mind which no longer sees even itself Continue reading “Seeing God the Father – 3 – From the Core of the Father’s Divine Heart” →

Meeting and knowing God – Patristics

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“If you have not discerned that the eye of your mind has been opened,
And that it has seen the light;
If you have not perceived the sweetness of the Godhead;
If you have not been personally enlightened by the Holy Spirit . . .  Continue reading “Meeting and knowing God – Patristics” →