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Maximus the Confessor, in Ambiguum 7, writes:
“If it perceives, it certainly loves what it perceives. If it loves, it certainly experiences ecstasy [εκστασιs] over what is loved. If it experiences ecstasy, it presses on eagerly, and if it presses on eagerly it intensifies its motion; if its motion is intensified, it does not come to rest until it is embraced wholly by the object of its desire. It no longer wants anything from itself, for it knows itself to be wholly embraced, and intentionally and by choice it wholly receives the life-giving delimitation. When it is wholly embraced it no longer wishes to be embraced at all by itself but is suffused by that which embraces it. In the same way air is illuminated by light and iron is wholly inflamed by fire, as is the case with other things of this sort.”[1]
I have commented on passages of this sort by Maximus before. I will just let it sit here as a reminder of the nature of your salvation in Christ: to receive the full-embrace, the full “delimitation” of being united to the Trinity in the humanity of Christ the Son.
Soli Deo Gloria
[1] Maximus the Confessor, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings from St. Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), 51.
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