In the first part of the Letter of St James he says, ‘Count yourselves as fortunate when difficult times and challenges come to you because they are going to deepen your faith and shape your character and they are going to bring you growth and grace.’ (Jam 1:2-3) How can we understand that in a more spiritual way?
St Gregory of Nyssa, one of the great figures of the Christian mystical tradition was the first Christian teacher to articulate that God is infinite, not as an abstract idea only but because this explains how we make our journey, how we seek, know, and eventually are deified, divinised – how we eventually become one with God. So understanding the infinity of God is helpful to us because it’s going to allow us to make the journey and all the stages and all the diversity of the journey in a deeper and fuller way.
( Enlightenment by Laurence Freeman OSB )
