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Bill_A
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There was a good piece on PBA abotu Iconoclasts.
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Leao
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what is PBA?
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GAssisi
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Dear Leao,
For hesychast spirituality, I think icons would be better as the interplay of light will help achieve the inner calm required – at least for me. When it comes to statues, I find that meditating on the posture of the statues, especially if the statue has the eyes looking to heaven or the arms are uplifted in the orans position is a similar meditative aid. For me, focusing on the eyes of a statue moves me to the point of tears. That’s just me. I’m an emotional mess. Hehehe.
God bless,
Greg
For hesychast spirituality, I think icons would be better as the interplay of light will help achieve the inner calm required – at least for me. When it comes to statues, I find that meditating on the posture of the statues, especially if the statue has the eyes looking to heaven or the arms are uplifted in the orans position is a similar meditative aid. For me, focusing on the eyes of a statue moves me to the point of tears. That’s just me. I’m an emotional mess. Hehehe.
God bless,
Greg
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Fr_Ambrose
Guest
Gentlemen, gentlemen, back up here! One of the absolute prerequisites of the practice of hesychasm is an absolute absence of images. Prayer must be totally imageless. The mind must NOT be engaged with any image or icon or visualisation or what the West would term meditative prayer. For the hesychast, whether tyro or proficient, all of these things must be swept away, out of the mind and out of the soul. Now I know that this may seem odd since Orthodoxy is always connected in people’s minds with an abundance of icons and images… but that is the way of it…
God is the one loveable who is always rejoicing without end in infinite happiness.
~St.Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, died 395
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GAssisi
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Dear Father,
Maybe its just me, but “heyschast spirituality” does not translate to prescribed forms of meditative technique or rules. Hesychast spirituality is first and foremost the attainment of the divine illumination – it refers to the ultimate goal of the hesychast. How you get “there” ain’t the point. “Hesychast spirituality” is not identical to “hesychasm.” If Leao feels comfortable achieving a hesychast awareness of God by meditating on holy things, that’s perfectly fine. But that’s just my definition. Perhaps you’ll object.
God bless,
Greg
Maybe its just me, but “heyschast spirituality” does not translate to prescribed forms of meditative technique or rules. Hesychast spirituality is first and foremost the attainment of the divine illumination – it refers to the ultimate goal of the hesychast. How you get “there” ain’t the point. “Hesychast spirituality” is not identical to “hesychasm.” If Leao feels comfortable achieving a hesychast awareness of God by meditating on holy things, that’s perfectly fine. But that’s just my definition. Perhaps you’ll object.
God bless,
Greg
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Bill_A
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Fr Ambrose:
It is a reminder of how he lived and the importance of community and all the things that he taught us about his life and God. Protestants and Orthodoxology have this preset idea that were commiting some kind of heresy and praying to Saint Benedict and venerating him like he is God. WHen in all reality nothing could be farther from the truth. They didnt have cameras back then so we only have this small reminder. If we did nt have that Saint Benedict would be forgotton.
I dont think theres any right or wrong here. Just two prevelant minds of though. The only wrong is if we let our preconceived ideas get in the way of loving eachother.
Yes but for us, we pray to God and we are reminded of how a saint, like Saint Benedict lived in his black robe, 1500 years ago. We are humbled by the story of how he fed his crow and God sent the crow to follow him and keep him company when he was a hermit.
It is a reminder of how he lived and the importance of community and all the things that he taught us about his life and God. Protestants and Orthodoxology have this preset idea that were commiting some kind of heresy and praying to Saint Benedict and venerating him like he is God. WHen in all reality nothing could be farther from the truth. They didnt have cameras back then so we only have this small reminder. If we did nt have that Saint Benedict would be forgotton.
I dont think theres any right or wrong here. Just two prevelant minds of though. The only wrong is if we let our preconceived ideas get in the way of loving eachother.
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Leao
Guest
Fr Ambrose:
Why would the Church during the 7th Ecumenical Council dogmatized the veneration of the icon if it was an obstacle to prayer? Also, most of the great iconographers (e.g. Andrei Rublev) were hesychast monks. Why would they create an image their spiritual practice prohibited?
The hesychast rule against engagement with images during prayer does not apply to the icon. The ascetic rule deals with images created in the mind by the imagination, not to be confused with the icon, the image of the Divine reality.
Why would the Church during the 7th Ecumenical Council dogmatized the veneration of the icon if it was an obstacle to prayer? Also, most of the great iconographers (e.g. Andrei Rublev) were hesychast monks. Why would they create an image their spiritual practice prohibited?
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Fr_Ambrose
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It will take a bit of work to answer these questions so before I do it I need to know if you are genuinely asking or if you are more or less simply saying that the Catholic understanding of hesychasm is more accurate than the Orthodox?
There is no dichotomy with a hesychast being an iconographer. It is just that the practice of hesychastic prayer precludes the use of images, mental or external, during the times of praying the prayer of the heart.
Also the Orthodox do not speak of “hesychast monks” as if there were another class of “non-hesychast monks.” ALL Orthodox monks and nuns are given a prayer rope at their tonsuring which means a commitment to the Jesus Prayer - although some may have more active lives and so have less time for this form of prayer. But it is expected of all Orthodox monastics, as much as their circumstances will allow and their spiritual father or mother decides is advisable.
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Leao
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Fr Ambrose:
Fr Ambrose:
Anthony Dragani:
The divisions over the hesychasm, the Uncreated light etc. appears to me to be down to polemicists rather than any real difference between the two Churches.
Please inform me if I’m wrong… many thanks for your time, LEO
Ouspensky in Theology of the Icon (1992, p. 505) is quite unambiguous when he writes that although ‘a widely accepted opinion maintains that this rule (against the access of the mind of images during prayer) also applies to the icon… this is a misunderstanding indeed, because the ascetic rule deals with images created by the mind by the imagination - images which on no account could be identified with the icon, the image of reality.’
Fr Ambrose:
I’m confused as to whether the Catholic understanding of hesychasm is any different from the Orthodox. For example, in a previous thread it was agreed that New Advent had wrongly condemned Hesychasm as heresy by confusing it with Quietism. This is the current postion of the Catholic Church on hesychasm from the EWTN expert in Eastern Catholicism Anthony Dragani.
Anthony Dragani:
Churches to restore St. Gregory Palamas to their calendars, as many had previously removed him.
The divisions over the hesychasm, the Uncreated light etc. appears to me to be down to polemicists rather than any real difference between the two Churches.
Please inform me if I’m wrong… many thanks for your time, LEO
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Fr_Ambrose
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Ouspensky was not a monk and it is doubtful that he ever used the Prayer of the Heart seriously. Many of the laity use it rather like the Catholic rosary.
But maybe we are talking at cross purposes? Of course there is no prohibition against the use of icons and images in worship and liturgical services and in personal religious life… that is obvious. Monks and nuns often have their cells completely covered with them.
But no teacher of the art of prayer would allow the use of icons and images when it comes to the Jesus Prayer. If you are standing in front of an icon during the time of this ‘hesychastic’ prayer, then all the elders on Mount Athos and in any monastery will tell you to shut your eyes, to not look at the icon, and to clear your mind of any image created there by the icon.
Ouspensky is correct and the mind certainly must contain no image created by the imagination during the time of prayer, but he does not go to to say that, during the time of the Jesus Prayer the mind must close itself off from all images, both internal and external (including icons), and it must be formless and enclosed only in the words of the prayer.
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Fr_Ambrose
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Well, we all love our polemics
Hesycham only ‘works’ if we accept the distinction between God’s Essence and God’s Energies. In the past Catholic theologians have not been willing to do this and have termed us heretical on this point. I am not sure if they now accept Orthodox theology on this point but without the theology hesychasm is a dead thing.
George Maloney has written a lot on this, and I think that his writings may be having an effect on Roman Catholic acceptance of the theology underpinning hesychasm but to be honest, I am not sure how ‘mainstream’ he is or if he is more like Anthony de Mello and his writings.Fr Maloney puts aside the Catholic vs. Orthodox polemics of past centuries and presents a better understanding of Orthodox theology.
"Uncreated Energy: A Journey into the Authentic Sources of Christian Faith"
by George A. Maloney S.J.
ISBN: 0916349209
**“Theology of Uncreated Energies of God” **
(Pere Marquette Lecture Ser.)
by George S. Maloney S.J.
ISBN: 0874625165
I wrote about this earlier in another thread
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=374608&postcount=47
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