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From what has been said it may be seen in some
measure how great a distance there is between all
that the creatures are in themselves and that which
God is in Himself, and how souls that set their
affections upon any of these creatures are at as
great a distance as they from God; for, as we have
said, love produces equality and likeness. This
distance was clearly realized by Saint Augustine, who
said in the Sololoquies, speaking with God:
'Miserable man that I am, when will my littleness and
imperfection be able to have fellowship with Thy
uprightness? Thou indeed art good, and I am evil;
Thou art merciful, and I am impious; Thou art holy, I
am miserable; Thou art just, I am unjust; Thou art
light, I am blind; Thou, life, I, death; Thou,
medicine, I, sick; Thou, supreme truth, I, utter
vanity.' All this is said by this Saint.[102]2.
Wherefore, it is supreme ignorance for the soul to
think that it will be able to pass to this high
estate of union with God if first it void not the
desire of all things, natural and supernatural, which
may hinder it, according as we shall explain
hereafter;[103] for there is the greatest possible
distance between these things and that which comes to
pass in this estate, which is naught else than
transformation in God.
For this reason Our Lord, when showing us this
path, said through Saint Luke: Qui non renuntiat
omnibus quoe possidet, non potest meus esse
discipulus.[104] This signifies: He that renounces
not all things that he possesses with his will cannot
be My disciple. And this is evident; for the doctrine
that the Son of God came to teach was contempt for
all things, whereby a man might receive as a reward
the Spirit of God in himself. For, as long as the
soul rejects not all things, it has no capacity to
receive the Spirit of God in pure transformation.
3. Of this we have a figure in Exodus, wherein we
read that God gave not the children of Israel the
food from Heaven, which was manna, until the flour
which they had brought from Egypt failed them. By
this is signified that first of all it is meet to
renounce all things, for this angels' food is not
fitting for the palate that would find delight in the
food of men.
And not only does the soul become incapable of
receiving the Divine Spirit when it stays and
pastures on other strange pleasures, but those souls
greatly offend the Divine Majesty who desire
spiritual food and are not content with God alone,
but desire rather to intermingle desire and affection
for other things.
This can likewise be seen in the same book of Holy
Scripture,[105] wherein it is said that, not content
with that simplest of food, they desired and craved
fleshly food.[106] And that Our Lord was greatly
wroth that they should desire to intermingle a food
that was so base and so coarse with one that was so
noble[107] and so simple; which, though it was so,
had within itself the sweetness and substance of all
foods.[108] Wherefore, while they yet had the morsels
in their mouths, as David says likewise: Ira Dei
descendit super eos.[109] The wrath of God came down
upon them, sending fire from Heaven and consuming
many thousands of them; for God held it an unworthy
thing that they should have a desire for other food
when He had given them food from Heaven.
4. Oh, did spiritual persons but know how much
good and what great abundance of spirit they lose
through not seeking to raise up their desires above
childish things, and how in this simple spiritual
food they would find the sweetness of all things, if
they desired not to taste those things! But such food
gives them no pleasure, for the reason why the
children of Israel received not the sweetness of all
foods that was contained in the manna was that they
would not reserve their desire for it alone. So that
they failed to find in the manna all the sweetness
and strength that they could wish, not because it was
not contained in the manna, but because they desired
some other thing. Thus he that will love some other
thing together with God of a certainty makes little
account of God, for he weighs in the balance against
God that which, as we have said, is at the greatest
possible distance from God.
5. It is well known by experience that, when the
will of a man is affectioned to one thing, he prizes
it more than any other; although some other thing may
be much better, he takes less pleasure in it. And if
he wishes to enjoy both, he is bound to wrong the
more important, because he makes an equality between
them. Wherefore, since there is naught that equals
God, the soul that loves some other thing together
with Him, or clings to it, does Him a grievous wrong.
And if this is so, what would it be doing if it loved
anything more than God?
6. It is this, too, that was denoted by the
command of God to Moses that he should ascend the
Mount to speak with Him: He commanded him not only to
ascend it alone, leaving the children of Israel
below, but not even to allow the beasts to feed over
against the Mount.[110] By this He signified that the
soul that is to ascend this mount of perfection, to
commune with God, must not only renounce all things
and leave them below, but must not even allow the
desires, which are the beasts, to pasture over
against this mount -- that is, upon other things
which are not purely God, in Whom -- that is, in the
state of perfection -- every desire ceases.
So he that journeys on the road and makes the
ascent to God must needs be habitually careful to
quell and mortify the desires; and the greater the
speed wherewith a soul does this, the sooner will it
reach the end of its journey. Until these be quelled,
it cannot reach the end, however much it practise the
virtues, since it is unable to attain to perfection
in them; for this perfection consists in voiding and
stripping and purifying the soul of every desire.
Of this we have another very striking figure in
Genesis, where we read that, when the patriarch Jacob
desired to ascend Mount Bethel, in order to build an
altar there to God whereon he should offer Him
sacrifice, he first commanded all his people to do
three things: one was that they should cast away from
them all strange gods; the second, that they should
purify themselves; the third, that they should change
their garments.[111]
7. By these three things it is signified that any
soul that will ascend this mount in order to make of
itself an altar whereon it may offer to God the
sacrifice of pure love and praise and pure reverence,
must, before ascending to the summit of the mount,
have done these three things aforementioned
perfectly.
First, it must cast away all strange gods --
namely, all strange affections and attachments;
secondly, it must purify itself of the remnants which
the desires aforementioned have left in the soul, by
means of the dark night of sense whereof we are
speaking, habitually denying them and repenting
itself of them; and thirdly, in order to reach the
summit of this high mount, it must have changed its
garments, which, through its observance of the first
two things, God will change for it, from old to new,
by giving it a new understanding of God in God, the
old human understanding being cast aside; and a new
love of God in God, the will being now stripped of
all its old desires and human pleasures, and the soul
being brought into a new state of knowledge and
profound delight, all other old images and forms of
knowledge having been cast away, and all that belongs
to the old man, which is the aptitude of the natural
self, quelled, and the soul clothed with a new
supernatural aptitude with respect to all its
faculties.
So that its operation, which before was human, has
become Divine, which is that that is attained in the
state of union, wherein the soul becomes naught else
than an altar whereon God is adored in praise and
love, and God alone is upon it. For this cause God
commanded that the altar whereon the Ark of the
Covenant was to be laid should be hollow within;[112]
so that the soul may understand how completely empty
of all things God desires it to be, that it may be an
altar worthy of the presence of His Majesty. On this
altar it was likewise forbidden that there should be
any strange fire, or that its own fire should ever
fail; and so essential was this that, because Nadab
and Abiu, who were the sons of the High Priest Aaron,
offered strange fire upon His Altar, Our Lord was
wroth and slew them there before the altar.[113] By
this we are to understand that the love of God must
never fail in the soul, so that the soul may be a
worthy altar, and so that no other love must be
mingled with it.
8. God permits not that any other thing should
dwell together with Him. Wherefore we read in the
First Book the Kings that, when the Philistines put
the Ark of the Covenant into the temple where their
idol was, the idol was cast down upon the ground at
the dawn of each day, and broken to pieces.[114] And
He permits and wills that there should be only one
desire where He is, which is to keep the law of God
perfectly, and to bear upon oneself the Cross of
Christ.
And thus naught else is said in the Divine
Scripture to have been commanded by God to be put in
the Ark, where the manna was, save the book of the
Law,[115] and the rod Moses,[116] which signifies the
Cross. For the soul that aspires naught else than the
keeping of the law of the Lord perfectly and the
bearing of the Cross of Christ will be a true Ark,
containing within itself the true manna, which is
God, when that soul attains to a perfect possession
within itself of this law and this rod, without any
other thing soever. |