Meditation 25
The Message of the Gateway and the Naked Feet
The purple is always a token of Kingship in the Bible and thus the purple reveals a mixture of the blue sapphire (the Son), the chalcedony (the Holy Spirit) and their emanation in the red hue of the agape or the love of the charity. It is in the purity of the shining white curtain in the gateway and its embroidery as their background – the purity of the humanity of Jesus – that God reveals how He will cure the soul of her deformation (Med. 15) by the formation of His Royal Image – the Archetype of the soul in the live of grace in the Sanctuary of the Tabernacle.
This He does as revealed by the red purple which refers both to the love and the purifying trials the soul must go through in the live of grace in order to attain to her Royal Image of Glory: the return home will both be delightful as well as hurtful. God reveals this truth already in the beginning: the soul must bear her cross as our Lord in His holy humanity on earth. Thus she attains to the glory of the amethyst which is revealed by the hue of the crimson.
When we study this embroidery still closer it sheds light on exactly how God accomplish this. When the Hebrew women sewed this beautiful pattern into the linen they used needles which went through the linen. Our heavenly Fathers desires that we will be molded in the image of His Son and thus we must go through a kind of spiritual acupuncture in the live of grace. God will gradually shed a light on this sketch of faith by the illumination of the jewels of the breastplate of our hearts and finally reveal it as a perfect painting of the high priest – our Archetype in the live of grace as our Royal Image on this King's Way in our stature to the fullness of Christ.
But everything the soul suffers on this Sacred Way is saturated by God's immeasurable love and thus she is urged to contemplate the screen of the entrance into the courtyard as He says; “No disaster can overtake you, no plague come near your Tent” (Ps 91. 10). It is because the soul seeks “shelter under his wings, His constancy is shield and protection” (v. 4). It is this which is proclaimed by the beautiful embroidery on the screen where the fourfold protection of the Holy Name of God decorates the center of the screen in His love and His wings of love are represented to the right and left. When the soul makes God her refuge and makes Him her fortress (see v. 9) He “gives his angels order about you to guard you wherever you go” (v. 11). It are the guardian angels who are the messengers of the higher celestial hierarchies when the soul takes her first hesitant steps in the vocal prayer here in the entrance,
in case you trip over a stone.
You will walk upon wild beasts and adder,
you will trample down young lions and snakes (Ps 91. 13).
I stood lost in a dark wood,
far from the road I should go. [1]
But a soul who is
freed from the fetters of her ignorance sees this Sacred Way when she
gazes to Zion, the city of our feast. She realizes she is already
endowed with the first effects of grace that it is here where “the eyes
of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed.” This she
does when she is cured of her deformation, “then the lame will leap
like deer and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy; for water will gush
in the desert and streams in the wastelands” (Is 35. 5, 6).
Souls who ignore this truth are thus deformed as a heavy weigthers in
the live of grace, but this is indeed one of the infirmities or
impediments which God lists above (Med. 15) as an hindrance in the way
of a soul desiring to become a high priest of the Royal Priesthood of
the New Covenant, “None of your descendants, for all time, may come
forward to offer the food of his God if he is deformed.” Of course the
burdens of the flesh are revealed here. God desires that His new
creation will be perfect and blameless in its stature and the soul has
no need for muscular rheumatism in the live of grace because
God's burden is light and joyous to bear. The Sacred Way of the
Tabernacle of the Heart is the way of those who are poor in spirit (Mt
5. 8). This is the message of the divine predestination at this
place emphasized by the curtains on both sides of the gateway
which were shining white in their purity. This is not the way of the
proud ones living in the glory of the flesh. They turn their backs on
this place of humility in disgust. This truth is still further
emphasized by the fact, that all of the children of the Old Covenant
had to crawl on their knees under the curtains in order to enter this
holy ground consecrated to the holiness of the living God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. This is the Royal Way to the glory of our heavenly
Father!
The
fact that the ancient Hebrews were obliged to crawl on their knees
under the curtains of the entrance sheds also light on how the soul
throws the burden of the flesh off her shoulders: by prostrating
herself before God in homage or by adoring Him. This is the meaning of
the Greek verb proskyneo in
the New Testament. The verb is combined of
the preposition pro which
refers to a direction forward or toward
something and the noun kyon or “dog.” Literally speaking the word
exposes the relationship between a dog toward its master. The animal
kisses or licks the face of his owner in love and complete trust. As
such the word is always translated as “worship” in the New Testament
where it occurs 60 times. Once a friend of mine who owns a
Dachshund told me how the animal jumped always without hesitating from
a sofa into his arms. This is a gesture of complete trust!
The four poles in the gateway refers both to the apostolic faith and to the four
Evangelists who proclaimed this faith. It is in the apostolic tradition
and in the New Testament where the soul can obtain education regarding
the various aspects of God's super mundane formation. The space within
the curtains of the courtyard was a holy ground consecrated to the
living God of life and thus a dead skin was prohibited in the Sanctuary
and the children of the Old Covenant were obliged to draw the sandals
off their feet, just as Moses did on the Mountain. The naked feet are
an admonition to the soul in order to walk the Sacred Way in repentant
heart to enkindle the efficiency of sanctifying grace. The ten cubits
from the entrance to the altar of burnt offerings are thus an
admonition to the soul in order to fulfill the ten commandments.
In
this Sanctuary of Living God the soul stands on holy ground as Moses on
Mount Sinai and no soul can walk here with her sandals on her feet.
This is what Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross emphasized in their
spiritual instructions: the soul must be discalced. As an abode of the
source of the life no human presumptuousness is allowed to enter
this holy ground. This is a warning to the lower ego of the fallen
nature that this is its place of execution.
The bride in the
Song of Songs had bathed her feet in the purity of the Word and thus
she said justly, “I have washed my feet, am I to dirty them again?” (Sg
5. 2). The gateway into the courtyard refers to the feet in the stature
of the fullness of Christ and He shall become as a lamp for the soul,
“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path” (Ps 119. 105).
Thus the soul can prevent that her feet become dirty again by washing
them in the bronze laver as a prefiguration of the Sacrament of
Repentance. But in order to realize this truth fully she is
obliged to enter the Prayer School of the Holy Spirit, as Teresa of
Avila emphasized in her spiritual instruction to the first Discalced
Carmelite sisters. The prayer is an entry into the Tabernacle of the
heart as God's abode in the deepest essence of the soul or its spark
within,
Insofar as I can
understand the door of entry to this castle [the gateway into the
courtyard] is prayer and reflection. I don't mean to refer to mental
more than vocal prayer, for since vocal prayer is prayer it must be
accompanied by reflection. A prayer in which a person is not aware of
whom he is speaking to, what he is asking, who it is who is asking and
of whom, I do not call prayer however much the lips move. [2]
The soul enters
the School of prayer at the altar of burnt offerings. She can now
approach it as the love has been enkindled in her heart. She is
“homesick” as a fruit of her love and as John of the Cross said, “loses
its appetite and taste for all food” outside the courtyard and despises
her past life intermingled with the beasts of the desert (the vices).
She must grow in knowledge of her God for as St. Augustine said, “the
knowledge is the prerequisite of love as the soul must know her
Beloved.” She doesn't want to nourish herself longer on the food of the
pigs as Abba Chearemon emphasized and dwell among the pig feeders of
the glory of the flesh.
The
choir of the angels so to say infect the soul with a divine sickness in
the entrance, and as John of the Cross emphasized on this stage
in the prayer life she “swoons as to sin and all things that are not
God.” In her premature love the soul turns thus her back on the desert
outside the courtyard. In her supplications in the vocal prayer she
implores her God and Creator to show her His mercy. In His mercy she is
able to proceed still further on this Royal Way of repentance. Thus the
soul cries in these first birth pangs of the eternal Word:
Sacred Heart of Jesus, Tabernacle of the Living God, be merciful to
me, the sinner!
