In looking at a person who has repented, we are looking at a person who has actually entered into communion with God, but this communion is still hidden, secret, unmanifest. His goal is to attain communion that is complete, tangible, and perceptible. We must precisely determine all of this for ourselves and be assured, because all the penitent's labor for salvation should be built upon this foundation, namely: that in the Sacrament of Confession (or Baptism) grace descends perceptibly to the spirit but then hides itself from the awareness, although it does not in fact go away. It remains imperceptible until the heart is purified, at which time it dwells visibly and finally. It is obvious that our only instructors in this matter can be the Holy Fathers. None of them expresses it so well as St. Diadochus, Bishop of Photiki, and St. Macarius of Egypt. We present their witness to our suppositions.
Grace Settles in a Person and Stays with Him from the Moment he Receives the Mysteries.
"From the instant we are baptized," says St. Diadochus, "grace is hidden in the depths of the intellect." Also: "For when through Holy Baptism divine grace in its infinite love permeates the lineaments of God's image — thereby renewing in the soul the capacity for attaining the divine likeness — what place is there for the devil?" St. Macarius says: "Grace is constantly present, and is rooted in us, and worked into us like leaven, from our earliest years, until the thing thus present becomes fixed in a man like a natural endowment, as if it were one substance with him.
When Grace First Settles in a Person through a Sacrament, it Vouchsafes that Person a Complete Taste of the Blessedness of Communion with God.
Grace Settles in a Person and Stays with Him from the Moment he Receives the Mysteries.
"From the instant we are baptized," says St. Diadochus, "grace is hidden in the depths of the intellect." Also: "For when through Holy Baptism divine grace in its infinite love permeates the lineaments of God's image — thereby renewing in the soul the capacity for attaining the divine likeness — what place is there for the devil?" St. Macarius says: "Grace is constantly present, and is rooted in us, and worked into us like leaven, from our earliest years, until the thing thus present becomes fixed in a man like a natural endowment, as if it were one substance with him.
When Grace First Settles in a Person through a Sacrament, it Vouchsafes that Person a Complete Taste of the Blessedness of Communion with God.
