The Sanctified Mind
Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown. Revelation 3.11
The sanctified mind is a mind that has been purified, rehabilitated, set apart and perfected, through its submersion in a heart that has been, likewise, cleansed, restored, consecrated and divinized, and its attainment is one of the primary goals of ancient Christian praxis.
The sanctified mind has the ability to remain continuously open to the grace of God and to discern matters that are close to His heart as a result: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path (Psalm 119.105).
Lit by the lamp of the Spirit and united with God’s heart, the sanctified mind is filled with the radiance of Christ: For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4.6).
Spiritual discernment is a gift that is given by God and it is a virtue that is acquired as a result of diligence in renunciation and participation in the sacraments. The ability to discern hidden mysteries—which is what the attainment of the state of nepsis is—is a prophetic calling to which we are all called: The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light (Matthew 6.22). A calling that is as glorious as it is costly. It is glorious because it is divine, but it is costly because it requires sacrifice.
In order to become sensitive to the gentle messaging of the Holy Spirit, withdrawal from engagement with certain energies, activities and entities is necessary: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations (Jeremiah 1.5).
It is for this reason that Paul, quoting Isaiah, emphasizes the vitality of setting oneself apart from engagement with certain earthly powers and pleasures: Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you (2 Corinthians 6.17).
To be set apart from the world (the passions not creation itself), means to consciously reject the world’s logic: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12.2).
The child of God is, instead, encouraged to think according to the mind of Christ: Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2.5b). As a result of being baptized into Christ, we are able to experience God’s divine energy, which illuminates our hearts and enlightens our minds, by degrees.
The Holy Spirit is the Person of the Trinity who gives us the ability to discern unseen matters and to anticipate the direction in which certain trends and movements will develop. Guided by the Spirit of truth (John 16.13), the sanctified mind is able to differentiate what is of God, from what is not: Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5.20).
There is a very important reason for this: the truth with which the sanctified mind is illumined, is not simply a reality, but rather a real Person, the Truth Himself, Jesus Christ: I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14.6a).
Christ implores us to be vigilant in these confusing and critical times, because He, more than anyone else, knows the extent to which the passion driven, unsanctified human mind is vulnerable to deception and distraction: Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man (Luke 21.36).
The grace to be fastidious in fasting, praying, reading and sacrificing is available to everyone who wants it. The more diligent that we are in our spiritual disciplines, the more quickly our minds will be purified and thus able to perceive, receive, integrate and disseminate the beautiful things of God: Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you (Hosea 10.12).
Amen +
Author of You Are Mine and Apocalypse, Sister Anastasia writes on the role of the ancient, ascetic Church in a rapidly changing, modern world.
Photo by Annamaria Kupo on Unsplash
The sanctified mind is not a triumph of intelligence but a wound slowly healed by grace. It is shaped in the shadows… where silence is sharper than speech, and the heart is taught, not by answers, but by waiting. It does not dazzle. It sees. And what it sees, it often cannot say.
In an age drunk on noise and novelty, such a mind is a kind of exile. It walks apart, not out of pride, but because the world no longer speaks its language. It hears the whisper of the Spirit in places others find empty. It names things truly, even when truth costs. Especially then.
To think with Christ is not to escape the world, but to bear it differently. The sanctified mind does not flee suffering; it learns to discern within it. It weeps where others cheer. It stays awake while the world sleeps. And when it prays, it does not ask to be brilliant, only faithful. For the lamp is lit only in the dark… and the mind that shines with God’s light is the one that first consented to be broken.
Beautifully put! This teaching is missing from church today. I have to search out deeper meaning online and from my own Bible study. But God is in the details of life and a wise man will marvel at those details and discover God is close. Blessings!