Friday, May 2, 2014

Symeon the New Theologian - Light



The following meditation is a ‘Hymn to God’ which came to St. Symeon as light from his appreciative heart. Symeon was a tenth-century Christian, who came to be known as The New Theologian. He wrote about his inner experiences more freely than any previous Christian known to us. He also wrote with great love about his spiritual master, Symeon, the Pious, whom Symeon, the New Theologian, acknowledged as the essential key to his own enlightenment.

“Then as I was meditating, Master, on these things, suddenly you appeared from above, much greater than the sun and you shone brilliantly from the heavens down into my heart:

O what intoxication of Light,
O what movements of Fire,
Oh, what swirling of the flame in me,
miserable one that I am.
Coming from you and your Glory!…
I fall in adoration before You…
You appeared as light, illuminating me
completely from your Light,
and I become Light in the night.
I who was found in the midst of darkness.
There was poured into my soul in unutterable fashion
a great spiritual joy and perception.
And a sweetness surpassing every taste of visible objects.
Together with a freedom and forgetfulness’
of all thoughts pertaining to this life…
Thus all the perceptions of my mind and my soul
were wholly concentrated on the ineffable joy
of that Light.”





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