Illumination of our nous

Question from the audience:

Is illumination a permanent state or is the Holy Spirit coming back and forth?

Answer by Fr. Savvas:

When we progress to illumination, this state is permanent. It’s there and you live it 24 hours a day. This means we live this state also during our sleep… The Holy spirit prays within us and we feel it also during our sleep! This is a state described in the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) 5:2, “I sleep, but my heart waketh”. How does my heart hold this wake? By praying ceaselessly. Our heart, at this state, never stops praying all day through. This is the state of illumination. It is when a man becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit!

Catanyxis – Illumination – Tears

Question from the audience:

Does illumination have anything to do with catanyxis (a combination of the following for a limited period of time: sense of reverence, contrition and inner rejoicing)? For example, when a faithful prays heartfelt inside the church and is in catanyxis, can we assume he/she is also illumined?

Answer by Fr. Savvas:

It depends. Maybe yes, maybe no. Tears (and catanyxis) is an issue that needs an illumined spiritual father to discern what is going on. There are many kinds of tears.

There are emotional tears, who are shed, because we remember something and got emotional.

There are egoistical tears: Somebody told us something, we could not stand it, we felt wronged (insulted) and we started crying… because of our selfishness, it was our selfishness which was actually affected.

Many times, a husband says something to his wife, she can’t take it and feels wronged (and starts crying). This is obviously not catanyxis. Just the opposite; by shedding these tears, instead of attracting God’s Grace, we get demonized and darken our nous and soul!

There are also tears of repentance, the ones St. Peter shed… bitter tears; “And Peter went out, and wept bitterly”, says Luke 22:62 in the New Testament.

There are also sweet tears, another kind of tears, shed when the Light of God, the Holy Spirit, comes to us. So, then we cry and at the same time we are happy, we rejoice, and our soul is fed by the love of God. It is, though, necessary to be under the guidance of a spiritual father (Pnevmatikos), to be guided on which kind of tears to cultivate and whether we should or should not cultivate the tears that come to us.

But, let me tell you a secret:

We can make a big spiritual turn, instead! Let us suppose we feel tears coming to our eyes for a reason, any reason… Let’s turn them into tears of repentance. If we want, we can really convert our tears into tears of metany. We can say to our Lord: “My God, forgive me.” We can start confessing our sins before our Lord by saying: “I have done this and that… I am a BIG sinner. Please, forgive me.” So, this way, even if the initial tears were selfish tears, we can sort of break the backbone of the devil and turn them into tears of repentance.