The third “memorial stone” which the soul picks out of the river of death to make a garland or a Gilgal (circle) around the Tabernacle of her heart is the sardius. The sardius refers to the third step in the Ladder of Love in the growth of the soul's awareness in the live of grace. In order to emphasize its importance God makes it the central jewel among the twelve jewels of the spiritual breastplate. It is thus the locus of the Christification and by its hue which is blood red it reveals the passions of our Lord in His humanity on earth as the source of all sanctification: Bleeding and crushed, bruised and pierced the Lamb of God sacrificed this blood for you and me.
    In the Song of Songs we can see how red the cheeks of the Bridegroom are and He will give the soul a participation in His healthiness by curing her of her sensuous disposition here in the courtyard. It was by following His Fathers will that the Son of God glorified His name on earth. We can't praise God in as sublime way as by walking according to His precepts in His divine predestination and follow the pattern of His Son as the first-born among many brothers and sisters – as our Royal Image! The sardius reveals our Lord as St. John saw Him in his Revelation as a blood red sardius in the rainbow encircling the heavenly Throne of Grace,


In the prayer of inner recollection at the bronze laver the soul learns to nourish herself on the gifts of God, just as the priests of Aaron stood empty handed in front of the entrance into the Holy and received their participation of the holy meat. Accordingly they were obliged to offer wave offering or tenufah – to make a prefiguration of the horizontal line of the cross – and heave offering or terumah – the prefiguration of the vertical line or pillar.
    God's daily nourishment is the Way of the Cross, all these crosses which confront the soul daily in her pilgrimage in this earthly Tabernacle. That is why the main message of the sardius is: remembrance of death in persevering repentance. God desires to teach the soul here that her homeland is in heaven and this earthly pilgrimage just a preparation for eternal life.

If the soul is negligent and doesn't stretch forwards her arms to receive its part of the sacred meat, this simply reveals that the soul has an injured armin the live of grace. At this great tool in the courtyard the Holy Spirit teaches the soul thus to embrace these crosses as her daily nourishment to spare her from the tragedy of the first man and woman who reputed this common share in the heavenly manna.
   The growth in love means the mortification of the ego of the fleshly attitude which appears as a continuously more intensive praise on behalf of the soul. It is the cereal offering which the soul brings forth at this stage which sheds light on the mystery taking place in the inscrutability of the Inner prayer of recollection. Now the offering is more sublime than the preceding one or an offering baked in an oven. The oven refers to the trials in the sensuous purification in the live of grace,


This truth the soul has already encountered in the first chapter in the Book of Life at the altar of burnt offerings: to let the booty of her senses go through the purifying fire of the prayer. In this context we can say that the growing sobriety of the soul is like a filter which cleanse evil and unworthy incitements in the heart streaming up to the conscious self.
   The composite of the offering is most valuable in this context in order to shed light on this sensuous purification. The dough itself represent all sensuous and erroneous images in the soul's memory and imagination which she must let pass through the fire. After the purgation the wheaten flour – the token of the souls’s new disposition –  must be prepared as unleavened cakes mixed with oil or unleavened wafers spread wit oil.
   Unleavened dough refers always to purity in the gospels and consequently to worship of praise. In this context we see the word pistikis (pure) appear in the gospel of St. John. Mary anointed the feet of our Lord with nardou pistikis or pure nard (Jn 12. 3). The word is derived from the same root as the word pistis or faith. This is a token of the soul's growing love in faith, to turn herself to God in persevering repentance in love.

 
The salt was always a symbol of the truthfulness of the testimony God had made with His people. It is the remembrance of God which plays an important role in this stage of the prayer along with the perseverance: to return  continuously to the fire of the altar. Thus the soul will gradually be saturated by the hue of the skin colored sardonyx in order to be able to become still more assimilated to her Royal Image in the illumination of the sardius, the Son of Man and the Son of God.
   It can take the soul by a surprise that her enthusiasm seems to cool simultaneously as she proceeds still further on in her straining forward in love on this Sacred Way. This is quite natural when God begins to draw the intellect inward in its intellection. The soul is as yet unable to discern the fire blazing in the depths of her heart in an authentic way as her spiritual senses have not as yet been restored. This is the sad story of numerous people who have taken active part in the charismatic movement in contemporary times. Everything is enjoyable in the beginning before the trials of the prayer life begin. In next meditation we will thus contemplate the importance of going daily to this laver of all blessings where the soul learns to purify herself of all stain of her venial sins as it is thus how her injured arms are healed.

In the mystical theology the human being is simultaneously “ratio et manus”, that is intellect and hands. By his intellect the man puts some goal before his mental vision to accomplish, and his hands help him to put this vision into works. Spiritually speaking the intellect refers to the highest faculty of the human being: the spiritual insight or the nous of the disciples of our Lord and the ancient fathers of the Church and the hands to the will of God and the human will. At the bronze laver the Holy Spirit teaches us to synchronize these two wills by the same methodology as the Lord used when He met the disciples on the road to Emmaus: by opening their nous (see Lk 24. 43).