Language of the Logos

The divine Word, reason, and ordering principle of all reality.

Self-giving divine love, beyond preference, emotion, or reciprocity.

The fullness of divine life, distinct from mere biological existence.

Desiring love that seeks union, often purified and elevated in mystical theology.

The spiritual intellect—the faculty by which the soul perceives God.

Participation in the divine life; union with God.

Spirit, breath, or wind—the animating presence of God.

Divine wisdom, both an attribute of God and a mystical reality.

Communion, participation, and shared life in God.

Self-emptying love, especially Christ's descent in the Incarnation.

The mysterious word translated "daily" in the Lord's Prayer—possibly meaning "supersubstantial."

The way of negation—approaching God by what cannot be said.

The way of affirmation—speaking of God through images and analogies.

Truth as unveiling—reality disclosed rather than merely stated.

Glory—the radiant manifestation of divine presence.

Divine activity or operation—how God is present and active in creation.

Essence or being—the fundamental nature of a thing.

Person or underlying reality—used in Trinitarian theology.

"Of the same essence"—the term used in the Nicene Creed to affirm that the Son is fully and truly God, sharing the same divine being as the Father.

A transformation of mind and heart—often translated as repentance.

Stillness or inner silence—the condition for contemplative prayer.

Grace — gift freely given, favor undeserved, beauty that draws and transforms.

Eternal progress — the soul's unending advance into the infinite depths of God, where perfection is not a destination but an ever-deepening journey.

The divine economy — God's providential plan of creation, revelation, and redemption unfolding through history.

Mutual indwelling — the dynamic interpenetration of the three divine Persons, each wholly in the others without confusion or separation.

Nature — the essential character of a thing, what makes it what it is. Central to the Christological definition of two natures in one Person.

Face or countenance — an early term for "person" in Trinitarian theology, emphasizing the relational, outward-facing reality of each divine Person.

Divine darkness — not the absence of God but the overwhelming excess of divine light, in which the soul encounters what surpasses all understanding.

Cooperation — the working together of divine grace and human will in the soul's journey toward God.

Will — the faculty of willing and choosing, central to the question of whether Christ possessed one will or two.

God-bearer — the title given to Mary affirming that the child she bore was not merely human but the incarnate God.

Greening power — Hildegard of Bingen's term for the life-giving energy that flows from the divine Word into all creation.