When the Homily is about Immunology

Saint Gregory Palamas

Today is/was my Godfather's nameday who took the name Gregory after the 14th century Saint Gregory Palamas. St. Gregory was known as the defender of Hesychasm. Hesychasts believed that through intensive contemplative prayer, one could come to see the "uncreated light" of God. In his book The Orthodox Church Bishop Ware describes St. Palamas' position as thus:

From this, Gregory [Palamas (1296-1359), Archbishop of Thessalonica] turned to the main problem: how to combine the two affirmations, that man knows God and that God is by nature unknowable. Gregory answered: we know the _energies_ of God, but not His essence. This distinction between God's essence (ousia) and His energies goes back to the Cappadocian Fathers. "We know our God from His energies", wrote Saint Basil, "but we do not claim that we can draw near to His essence." ... But however remote from us in His essence, yet in His energies God has revealed Himself to men. These energies are not something that exists apart from God, not a gift which God confers upon men: they are God Himself in His action and revelation to the world. God exists complete and entire in each of His divine energies. The world, as Gerard Manley Hopkins said, is charged with the grandeur of God; all creation is a gigantic Burning Bush, permeated but not consumed by the ineffable and wondrous fire off God's energies.
It is through these energies that God enters into a direct and Immediate relationship with mankind. In relation to man, the divine energy is in fact nothing else than the grace of God; grace is not just a "gift" of God, not just an object which God bestows on men, but a direct manifestation of the living God Himself, a personal confrontation between creature and Creator. "Grace signifies all the abundance of the divine nature, in so far as it is communicated to men." [V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p 162] When we say that the saints have been transformed... by the grace of God, what we mean is that they have a direct experience of God Himself. They Know God--that is to say, God in His energies, not in His essence.

Though St. Gregory suffered a good deal of persectuion initially, the Church eventually upheld his view.

Troparion of St Gregory of Palamas
Light of Orthodoxy, Pillar and Teacher of the Church,
adornment of monks and champion of theologians,
O Gregory, wonderworker, boast of Thessalonica,
preacher of grace, pray that our souls may be saved.