St Justin Popovich: Human nature is capable of true contemplation when it is cleansed from the passions by the exercise of the virtues...
Labels:
Lessons by our Holy Fathers
The true contemplation of the material and immaterial world, and of the Holy Trinity Itself, is the gift of Christ. He revealed this contemplation to men and instructed them in it “when He, in His own Divine Person, completed the renewal of human nature and, through His life- giving commandments, cleared a path to the truth.
Human nature only becomes capable of true contemplation when a man first puts off the old Adam through enduring the passions, through fulfilling the commandments and by suffering misfortune … In these circumstances the intellect becomes capable of spiritual birth and of the contemplation of the spiritual world, its true fatherland …
The contemplation of the new world revealed by the Spirit, in which the intellect takes spiritual delight, occurs under the action of grace …
This contemplation becomes a food that nourishes the intellect, preparing it to receive a contemplation that is yet more perfect. For one contemplation leads into another, until the intellect is brought into the realm of perfect love.
Love itself is the abode, the ‘place’ of spiritual man; it dwells in purity of soul. When the intellect reaches the realm of love, grace works in it and the intellect receives spiritual contemplation and becomes a beholder of hidden things.”
St Justin Popovich
