What we can say about deification?
Here are we who lie in the deepest pit of ignorance, in the dark passions of this body and in the shadow of death, having the temerity to begin to philosophize about heaven on earth. The firmament has the stars for its beauty, and dispassion has the virtues for its adornments; for by dispassion I mean no other than the interior heaven of the mind, which regards the tricks of the demons as mere toys.
And so he is truly dispassionate, and is recognized as dispassionate, who has made his flesh incorruptible, who has raised his mind above creatures and has subdued all his senses to it, and who keeps his soul in the presence of the Lord, ever reaching out to Him even beyond his strength.
Some say, moreover, that dispassion is the resurrection of the soul before the body; but others, that it is the perfect knowledge of God, second only to that of the angels.
The soul that has dispassion is immersed in the virtues, just as the passionate are in pleasures.
The mind must be free of all things created in order to reach the Creator.
Based on St. John of the Ladder
In this photo the priest is saying the prayer before the gates at the end of the Divine Liturgy in the Chapel of Saint Nicholas.
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