Introducing Θεανδρικαὶ Ἐνέργειαιto the Church

"You ask how it could be that Jesus, who transcends all, is placed in the same order in being with all men.  He is not called a man here in the context of being the cause of man but rather as being himself quite truly a man in all essential respects.  But we do not confine our definition of Jesus to the human domain.  For he is not simply a man, nor would he be transcendent if he were only a man.  Out of his very great love for humanity, he became quite truly a human, both superhuman and among humans; and, though himself beyond being, he took upon himself the being of humans.  Yet he is not less overflowing with transcendence.  He is the ever-transcendent, and superabundantly so.  He takes on being, as is himself a being beyond being.  Superior himself to the human condition he does the work of a man.  A proof of this is that a virgin supernaturally bore him and that flowing water, bearing the weight of his corporeal, earthly feet, did not yield, but, rather, held him up with supernatural power.  There is so much else and who could list it all? As one considers it all in a divine manner, one will recognize in a transcending way that every affirmation regarding Jesus' love for humanity has the force of a negation pointing toward transcendence.  For, if I may put the matter briefly, he was neither human nor nonhuman; although humanly born he was far superior to man, and being above men he yet truly did become man.  Furthermore, it was not by virtue of being God that he did divine things, not by virtue o fb3eing a man that he did what was human, but rather, by the fact of being God-made-man he accomplished something new in our midst--the activity of the God-man [θεανδρικαὶ 'ενέργειαι]."

Dionysius the Peudo-Areopagite
Epistola IV ad Caiaum

St John of Damascus on Ἐνέργεια Θεανδρική

St John of Damascus

"When the blessed Dionysius said that Christ had used a certain new theandric operation with us [Epistle IV], he was not doing away with the natural operations and saying that there was one operation proceeding from the human and divine natures.  For, if such were the case, we might also say that there was one new nature made from the human and the divine, because, according to the holy Fathers, things which have one operation also have one substance.  on the contrary, he wanted to show that the new and ineffable manner of the manifestation of the natural operations in Christ was consonant with the mutual indwelling of Christ's natures in each other, and that His living as a man was both unusual and incredible and unknown to the nature of things.  He also wanted to show the manner of the exchange arising from the ineffable union.  Thus, we do not say that the operations are separated and that the natures act separately, but we say that they act conjointly, with each nature doing in communion with the other that which it has proper to itself.  He did not perform the human actions in a human way, because He was not a mere man, nor did He perform the divine actions in a divine way only, because He was not just God, but God and man together.  And just as we understand both the union of the natures and their natural difference, so also do we understand that of the natural wills and operations.

"So that one must know that while we sometimes speak as of two natures in our Lord Jesus Christ, we sometimes speak as of one person, and that both the former way of speaking and the latter refer to the same concept.  For the two natures are one Christ and the one Christ is two natures.  It is therefore the same thing to say that Christ acts according to each of His natures and to say that each nature in Christ acts in association with the other.  Accordingly, when the flesh id acting, the divine nature is associated with it because the flesh is being permitted by the good pleasure of the divine will to suffer and do what is proper to it and because the operation of the flesh is absolutely salutary--which las does not belong to the human operation, but to the divine.  And when the divinity of the Word is acting, the flesh is associated with it, because the divine operations are being performed by the flesh as by an instrument and because He who is acting at once in a divine and human way is one.

"One should furthermore know that His sacred mind performs His natural operations, both understanding and knowing itself to be the mind of God and adored by all creation, but at the same time still mindful of His doings and sufferings on earth.  It is, moreover, associated with the operation of the divinity of the Word by which the universe is ordered and controlled, understanding and knowing and ordering not as a mere human mind, but as one hypostatically united to God and reckoned as the mind of God.

"Thus, the theandric operation shows this:  when God became man, that is to say, was incarnate, His human operation was divine, that is to say, deified.  And it was not excluded from His divine operation, nor was His divine operation excluded from His human operation.  On the contrary, each is found with the other.  Now when one expresses two things with one word, this figure of speech is called circumlocution [περίφασις].  Thus, while we speak of the cut burn and the burnt cut of the red-hot knife, we nevertheless hold the cutting to be one operation and the burning another, the one belonging to one nature and the other to the other--the burning to the fire and the cutting to the steel.  In the very same way, when we speak of one theandric operation of Christ, we understand the two operations of His two natures:  the divine operation of the divinity and the human operation of the humanity."

St John of Damascus,
de fide Orthodoxa, III.19

The Deer's Cry

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity
Through belief in the threeness
Through confession of the Oneness
Towards the creator.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension
Through the strength of his decent for the Judgement of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim
In obedience to the Angels,
In the service of the Archangels,
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In prayers of patriarchs,
In predictions of prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faiths of confessors,
In innocence of Holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun
Brilliance of moon
Splendor of fire
Speed of lightning
Swiftness of wind
Depth of sea
Stability of earth
Firmness of rock.

I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me:
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,
God’s host to secure me
against snares of devils
against temptations of vices
against inclinations of nature
against everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and anear,
alone and in a crowd.

A summon today all these powers between me and these evils
Against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and my soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of heathenry,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that endangers man’s body and soul.

Christ to protect me today
against poison, against burning,
against drowning, against wounding,
so that there may come abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Thrones,
Through confession of the Oneness
Towards the Creator.

Salvation is of the Lord
Salvation is of the Lord
Salvation is of Christ
May thy salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.

Lorica Sancti Patricii, 
Source: http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/p03.html 

The Church of the Holy Spirit

Just as I have been reading St John Climacus' The Ladder of Divine Ascent since the beginning of Pre-Lent and will conclude on the afternoon of Holy Saturday, I have set aside Fr Nicholas Afanasiev's The Church of the Holy Spirit for my reading throughout the Easter Season and the Pentecost Octave.  The first few paragraphs of Fr Afanasiev's book included the following, tantalising observation:

The conflict of the [C]atholic [C]hurch with Montanism is perhaps the strangest conflict ever found in church history.  Everyday routine and stagnation are inevitable in the life of the [C]hurch, but the [C]hurch of the end of the second and beginning of the third centuries by no means intended to deny the gifts of the Spirit.  By fighting against Montanism the Church was not rejecting prophecy--that was something it could not do.  Rather it was fighting for its own existence.  Seeking inspiration, Tertullian did not see that he had entered the path that would lead him out of the Church, since Montanism was destroying the Church, and by destroying the Church, it was denying also the gifts of the Spirit (N. Afanasiev, The Church of the Holy Spirit [South Bend:  University of Notre Dame Press, 2012], 1).

When St John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, it was not without the solemn intonation of the Veni, Creator Spiritus in front of the tomb of St Peter and, moments later, his opening allocution where he said to the Council Fathers that

...all of you are here so that, readily obeying the heavenly inspirations of the Holy Spirit, you may eagerly set to work so that your efforts will appropriately respond to the desires and needs of the various peoples. For this to happen requires of you a serene peace of mind,  fraternal harmony, moderation in your proposals, dignity in your discussions, wisdom in all your deliberations... (Opening Allocution, Gaudet mater Ecclesia, ¶22 [11 October 1962]).

It is worth highlighting just how the Fathers were to obey "the heavenly inspirations of the Holy Spirit":  By "peace," "fraternal harmony," "moderation in your proposals," "dignity in...discussions, and "wisdom."

In point of fact, the pope's Apostolic Constitution Humane salutis formally convoking the Council included the following prayer which he proposed to all believers:

Renew Your wonders in our time, as though for [by] a new Pentecost and grant that the holy Church, preserving unanimous and continuous prayer, together with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and also under the guidance of St. Peter, may increase the reign of the Divine Savior, the reign of truth and justice, the reign of love and peace.  Amen (¶4 [25 December 1961]).

Clearly, there was a "Pentecostal" thrust for the Council and the Church intended by John XXIII.  And when I, for one, read the documents of the same Council, it is clear to me that the Holy Spirit indeed did respond to the Church's prayers for his intervention during that tremendous moment.  I shall never forget my very first encounter with the Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum concilium.  I was an undergraduate in New York City on my way to the university, but decided to stop at Starbucks' Coffee on Lexington Avenue for my usual fare of Irish cream coffee after getting off the 79th Street station on the red line.  The Council's description of the Church's worship was astonishing beautiful and it resonated deeply with my 'Byzantine bias.'

Years later, however, whilst a graduate student in Berkeley studying the Trinitarian theology of the Cappadocian Fathers, it was clear to me that the "triumph" of the Council of Nicaea left in its wake a deeply tumultuous Church.  St Athanasius, in fact, described the internecine fights of the post-Nicene Church as both sides "shooting arrows in the dark."  Even in the capital of the empire, only a dinky house-church pastored by St Gregory the Theologian upheld the faith of the Nicene Creed.  It would take well over a hundred years for the Body of Christ to get comfortable with the clause "consubstantial with the Father..."  As I wrote my thesis, I distinctly recall saying to myself--"This isn't entirely different from the Church in the wake of the Second Vatican Council."

Why is that?

Well, the long answer is the dissertation I am writing, The Anointed One and the Anointing One:  The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Soul of Christ in the Biblical Commentaries of St Thomas Aquinas.  Among other things, I point out that Jesus Christ, the very God-Man, Himself a divine Person, needed still another divine Person alongside Him in order to carry out His ministry--namely the Holy Spirit.  Otherwise He wouldn't be "Jesus Christ."

In the conclusion of my dissertation, I issue the following challenge:

If the God-Man, Himself a divine Person, needed yet another divine Person accompanying Him (as St Basil the Great put it), how much more do we, who are anything but divine, need the Holy Spirit to accompany us?

It seems to me that we--the Church--have mistakenly projected the sacramental principle ex opere operato onto the Church's goings-on as if, despite everything, the outcome of most ecclesial action is guaranteed to be what the Holy Spirit willed.  Not only does this forget that the principle ex opere operato does not apply beyond the sacraments, and not only does it misunderstand the doctrine of the Church's indefectibility, it fundamentally misunderstands how grace works, especially in terms of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit.  (The fact that the majority of Confirmation prep modules pay little attention to the Seven Gifts and even less--if at all--to how the Seven Gifts are used ought to clue us in in this regard).

I have been in full-time pastoral ministry since 1999, and I have been ordained since 2012.  Personal experience and reports from my colleagues in ministry, as well as a plethora of anecdotes, have shown me that many within the Church wish to recast it in their own image and likeness rather than to explicitly and deliberately seek out the guidance of the Holy Spirit as to what purpose he has for the Church in the wake of the Council.

Sure, there are claims of appealing to the Holy Spirit.  Yet when one turns to the world and takes the latest sociopolitical concern as cues, we must recall the words of Jesus, "the Father...will give you another Counsellor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him..." (Jn 14:17).  Such an assumption that latest social concern is necessarily divinely willed forgets that, according to St Thomas Aquinas, God is in all things "essence, power, and presence" but is "known is in the knower, and the beloved in the lover" only by sanctifying grace, that is, in the baptised and especially confirmed Christians' obedience to the Holy Spirit (S.th., 1a, q. 43, art. 3, resp.).

Likewise, claims of appeal to the Holy Spirit must be called into question among those circles where the reliability of the Bible's testimony is denigrated and where the possibility of "signs and wonders" is not only slighted but also denied.  Nor can we imagine that the Holy Spirit is something like baseball players' "team spirit" or the sticky emotionalism or groupthink of a Call to Action conference.

A direct consequence of what I've just outlined is an undue overdependence on human ingenuity and administrative prowess to run the Church, or even those kinds of pastoral planning that rely on "programmes" and the like.  A further consequence is something far more disastrous:  Creating a "church" after our own image and likeness--the very stuff of idolatry.

And need I say anything about power struggles at various levels in the Church's bureaucracy?

The manifestation of the Holy Spirit at Jesus' baptism inaugurated His public ministry.  The Synoptic Evangelists all agree that Jesus afterward went immediately into the desert.  Mark, however, uses an interesting verb to describe what Matthew and Luke said about how Jesus "was led" (Mt:  ἀνήχθη; Lk: ἤγετο) by the Holy Spirit into the desert; Mark, on the other hand, says that Jesus was ἐκβάλλει into the desert--that is, tossed or thrown or even hurled into the desert, from the Greek compound verb ἐκβάλλω with the preposition ἐκ ('out of') and the verb βάλλω ('to throw, cast').  It suggests a vigorous movement on the part of the Holy Spirit on Jesus.  It is almost a crude description of the effects of Jesus' being filled with the Holy Spirit.

What are we to make of this?  Two things, quite simply:  First, that Jesus surrendered His humanity to the movements of the Holy Spirit without compromise and, second, we Christians also need to be uncompromisingly surrendered to the Holy Spirit.  In fact, St Thomas tells us that the whole point of the Seven Gifts is to be amenable, to be docile, to be yielding and open to the Holy Spirit's movements in our lives in such a way that we have honed and polished our instinct to move, act, and speak upon his inspirations.  But it's not something that comes automatically, but with spiritual maturity which we have grown into after much training, discernment, and prayer.

Only then can we truly begin to live out the prayer of St John XXIII for a "new Pentecost."

I would suggest, therefore, that we need to rethink aggiornamento not as in opening the windows to let in the stench of worldliness but, rather, to let in that "rush of a mighty wind" (Acts 2:2).

Only then can we be a Church of the Holy Spirit.

St John of DamascusOn Christ-ward Prayer

"It is not without reason or by chance that we worship towards the East.  But seeing that we are composed of a visible and an invisible nature, that is to say, of a nature partly of spirit and partly of sense, we render also a twofold worship to the Creator; just as we sing both with our spirit and our bodily lips, and are baptized with both water and Spirit, and are united with the Lord in a twofold manner, being sharers in the mysteries and in the grace of the Spirit.

"Since, therefore, God is spiritual light [1 Jn 1:5], and Christ is called in the Scriptures Sun of Righteousness [Mal 4:2] and Dayspring [Lk 1:78], the East is the direction that must be assigned to His worship.  For everything good must be assigned to Him from Whom every good thing arises.  Indeed the divine David also says, 'Sing unto God, you kingdoms of the earth: O sing praises unto the Lord:  to Him that rides upon the Heavens of heavens towards the East' (Ps 37:33-34 LXX).  Moreover the Scripture also says, 'And God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed' (Gen 2:8): and when he had transgressed His command He expelled him and made him to dwell over against the delights of Paradise, which clearly is the West.  So, then, we worship God seeking and striving after our old fatherland.  Moreover the tent of Moses [Lev 16:14] had its veil and mercy seat towards the East.  Also the tribe of Judah as the most precious pitched their camp on the East [Num 2:3].  Also in the celebrated temple of Solomon the Gate of the Lord was placed eastward [cf Ez 43:1-4].  Moreover Christ, when He hung on the Cross, had His face turned towards the West, and so we worship, striving after Him.  And when He was received again into Heaven He was borne towards the East, and thus His Apostles worship Him, and thus He will come again in the way in which they beheld Him going towards Heaven [Acts 1:11]; as the Lord Himself said, 'As the lightning comes out of the East and shines even unto the West, so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be' (Mt 24:27).

"So, then, in expectation of His coming we worship towards the East.  But this tradition of the Apostles is unwritten.  For much that has been handed down to us by tradition is unwritten."

St John of Damascus,
de fide Orthodoxa, IV.12

'The Last of the Fathers'on Dogmatic Pneumatology

We likewise believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and Giver of Life,
Who proceeds from the Father,
and abides in the Son;

Who is adored and glorified

with the Father and the Son

as co-Essential and co-eternal with Them;

Who is the true and authoritative Spirit of God,

the Source of wisdom and life and sanctification;

Who is God together with the Father and Son,

and is thus proclaimed;

Who is uncreated, full, creative, almighty;

Who is ever-active, all-powerful, infinite in strength;

Who rules over all creation, but is not ruled,

Who deifies everything, but is not deified,

Who fills all things, but is not filled,

Who is participated, but does not participate,

Who sanctifies, but is not sanctified,

Who receives the intercessions of all, and is The Intercessor;

Who is like the Father and the Son in all things;

Who proceeds from the Father,

and is communicated through the Son,

and is participated in by all creation;

Who through himself creates and gives being to all things,

and sanctifies and preserves them;

Who is distinctly Personal,

and exists as his own Person,

indivisible and inseparable from the Father and the Son;

Who has all things that the Father and Son have,

except that he is not the Unbegotten Father,

nor is he the Only-Begotten Son!

St John Damascene,
Expositio de fide Orthodoxa, I.8