The fourth “memorial stone” which the soul picks out of the river of death (Js 4. 8) here in the entrance to the Holy to make a garland or a Gilgal (circle) around the Tabernacle of her heart is the chrysolite. This fourth jewel which refers to the growth of the soul's awareness in the live of grace bears a golden hue. It is the first in the row of the “golden jewels” referring to the Christification taking place in the Holy. It awakes continuously wonder how purposefulness and attentively God chooses this jewel as a token of His divine illumination. In the Koine text of the New testament the word chrysolithos means the golden stone, but the noun chrysos refers also to the secret place of mysteries or to the Holy. As a matter of fact it is still another token of the almond or the womb of the Mother of God where He became incarnated. The chrysolite marks thus the beginning of the formation of the soul in accordance with the Royal Image of Glory in her spirit as revealed by the illumination of the infused grace in the prayer. The chrysolite refers thus directly to The Son of God in the image of the almond tree or the Tree of Life. If the soul does not nourish herself on the fruits of this Tree of Life she will never become a strong man in the live of grace.

In her rest at the Second entrance the soul enjoys rest and is nourished by the rays from the brightness of the great Seven days sun in order to enter into the richness of its inheritance in her first experience of the infused prayer of rest which enkindles her love still further. True love drives out all fear, “Perfect love drives out the fear” (1 Jn 4. 18). It is this perfect love of our Lord which makes the burden of the soul light and if she rejects this love she will always be a hunchback in the live of grace under the burden of the covetousness which the masters of darkness tries by all means to enkindle. It is in the illumination of this light of faith and in its curing effects where God rids the soul of this infirmity in her growing awareness and watchfulness which are gracious and infused gifts of the Uncreated Light. The Chrysolite is the fourth step in the Ladder of Love and a milestone for the soul in her ascension to the fullness of the final Beatific Vision in the heavenly Tabernacle.
   When the soul has been clothed in the purity of the shining white tunic of the priests by washing herself in the silver clear water of the bronze laver she can descend down to the Valley of the Balsam (Ps 84. 6) in growing humility and rest in the shadow of the almond tree in the radiance of the great Sun of Righteousness after having turned her back on her sensuous disposition. In order to certify her growth in her Christification the turban of the priests is now placed on her head as a token of victory in her sufferings and struggle in the dark night of the senses as this soul in question shall be a priest in the Royal Priesthood of the New Covenant.

In the shining rays of this sun the soul becomes tainted “of a dark coloring” as the bride in the Song of Songs (Sg 1. 6), as a well baked cake or wafer, but not roasted on one side and white on the other or half baked like Ephraim (Hs 7. 8). Ephraim had become the victim of erroneous teachings of the pagans, “Ephraim mixes with the nations, Ephraim is a half baked cake.” He is a symbol of a Church of compromises. The oven refers to the sufferings which consisted in the night of the senses. But in its growing purity the soul is now obliged to offer thanksgivings where she must literally speaking lay her heart on the griddle of the altar as a token of her humility, obedience and fear of God (love),


The cake was broken in pieces and oil poured over it which sheds light upon the inner attitude of the soul in the prayer of rest: to be completely passive when the Spirit begins to dissolve or break her former habits and natural inclinations into pieces in order to restore them to their lost dignity resulting from the transgression of the first man.
In the spiritual literature of the saints as St. John of the Cross the last ten cubits from the bronze laver to the entrance into the Holy marks the darkest phase of night of the senses, or the winter of the senses as Macarius of Egypt named this experience. It is in the prayer of inner recollection where the soul's powers get “recollected” in their inner activity and attain thus freedom from the fetters of the outer world or the world of the flesh and the old man, as they become enchanted by God's love along with the will,

One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
– ah, the sheer grace –
I went out unseen,
my house being now stilled. [2]

The house is the house of the senses and the soul walks out of it in this dark night, not to be without permanent lodging, but in order to walk into the Golden House of God or the Holy of the Sanctuary of the Tabernacle to enjoy the blessings of the prayer of rest and the prayer of union. Here at the bronze laver God sets the will in motionand send it along with its desire in order to spy out the land just as Jacob sent his sons as spies when his people was dying of hunger (Gn 42, 1-18) and Joshua sent spies to explore the way ahead in the Promised land (Js 2. 1), or by the words of St. Francis de Sales,


God sets the soul's powers in motion by following this golden chain of revealed truths as exposed in this Sanctuary of His. And the soul is now able to follow the urgings of His Spirit of Life as her senses have become spiritual by their purification at the laver.
   This mystery sheds light on the spiritual senses as the sense of a heart which is gradually approaching the state of purity, what Diadochus, bishop of Photike  in Epirus, called the aistheisis kardia (the sense of the heart) or aistheisis pnefmatos (the senses of the spirit) and Gregory of Nyssa referred to as aithria or the lucid air of the heart. It is this clear air of the spiritual senses which make the self capable to grasp the meaning of the Second entrance of the Sanctuary. God speaks always in an unveiled language by His sacred images when we learn to scrutinize their message within. When the soul goes out of the house of her senses she escapes from the three days of bondage of the Egypt of sin as Jacob's sons in order to destroy the Jericho of her passions and lust just as Joshua’s army. Thus Abba Isaac spoke also in an unveiled language when he explained how the presumptuousness and sensuous greed of a restless man can fetter him down in the live of grace, as the abba gives us account of,


The restlessness and lack of recollection of the soul is to be traced to the “decayed and dead rubbish of the passions be dug up, and the strong foundations of simplicity and humility be laid on the solid and (so to speak) living soil of our breast, or rather on that rock of the gospel (Lk 6.48), and by being built in this way this tower of spiritual virtues will rise, and be able to stand unmoved, and be raised to the utmost heights of heaven in full assurance of its, stability.” [5]  In the Sanctuary of our heart we refer to this tower as a Jacob's Ladder to heaven staked out by the twelve jewels or foundation stones of the Celestial City. Abba Isaac mentioned another rock and a spiritual hill, “The high hills are a refuge for the stags, the rocks for the hedgehogs” (Ps. 103 (104):18). He spoke also of “spiritual hedgehog” who is “protected by the continual shield of that rock of the gospel, i.e., being sheltered by the recollection of the Lord's passion and by ceaseless meditation” [6] The enemy of our salvation hates such “spiritual hedgehogs” and tries thus by all means to draw the awareness and attentiveness of the souls to trivial things “repairing what is unnecessary,” that is, occupying them by his deceitfulness of outer glory, just as he tempted our pattern in all holiness in the desert (Mt 4. 1-11). This he does because he realizes that a soul who walks the Sacred Way becomes a threat to his reign in the human hearts.
   In this Sanctuary of the heart God intends to illuminate the soul and make her able to mount to the manifold knowledge of the divine mysteries      – that she will become a “sort of spiritual hedgehog” and that she “escapes the snares of her opposing enemies.” [7] These enemies are actually the fallen guardian cherub – Satan – and his spirits of evil in the air (see Ep 6. 12). All this truth God exposes by the design of the Second entrance of His Sanctuary as His appointed Way to Glory,

The curtain or screen hanging for the second entrance – the gateway into the Holy – remind us in an authentic manner on our Royal Archetype in the live of grace, our Lord Jesus Christ as “the High Priest over all the Sanctuary of God” (Heb 10. 22). It is He who stakes our Sacred Way out in the desert prayer in the courtyard by His warfare with the three giants of the heart by His three great trials or temptations in the desert (see Mt 4. 1-11) which refers to the three primeval powers or the appetitive aspects of the soul as the holy fathers named them: the desiring power, the  intelligent power and the incentive power.

All the revelation of God in this Sanctuary of His and Tabernacle of the Holy Spirit is always intentional in order to show the soul what waits in store for her. We have already seen that the acacia in the courtyard was covered by bronze, but now it is covered by gold which refers to the Christification. All the five pillars or columns of the Second entrance are covered by gold and a true image of the Son of God as the bronze in the courtyard refers to the Son of man. The silver sockets which these golden pillars rested on are an admonition to the fact that His holy humanity is and will always be the foundation of all further progress on the Sacred Way as a source of super mundane life.

The screen of the second entrance was intended to hide what was behind it from the eyes of those not allowed an entry, that is from the eyes of the common Israelites, Nazirites and Levites who could not enter the Holy. Only the priests could walk behind the screen and only after having washed themselves in the bronze laver. And once more we get an admonition to the importance of the humility, obedience and the fear of God (the love). The priests were obliged to crawl on their four knees under the curtain into the Dwelling when they attended the golden table of loaves and the lamp stand. It is behind this screen where the three powers of the soul go through the Christification and are transformed into the image of the Lord in faith, hope and charity.
  
The number of the pillars reveal also the profound truth of the five spiritual senses. They were five which refers also to the live of grace and the five letters in the name of J E S U S. It is in the power of the grace of His Holy name where the five natural senses become wholly spiritual. Thus is how God makes the soul able to see, hear, feel, taste and touch all of His abundant riches. This is a state which the ancient church fathers named apatheia, to experience in an authentic way the energies of God's power by the state of dispassion – rest from the urgings of her passions and the incitements of the evil spirits in the air. It is when the soul enters the Holy that she begins again to understand and speak the internal speech, the lost mother language of her Royal Image,

When Teresa of Avila stood in this place His Majesty gave her a profound spiritual insight into the mystery taking place here in front of the this holy curtain,


The greatest heresy which the enemy of our salvation and his evil spirits in the air can infuse into the hearts of Christians is to cloud this mirror of a clear conscience because thus these souls in questions can never discern the real presence of our Lord in their hearts as exposed on Fig. 37 above and loose also their faith in His real presence in the Eucharist. Thus these souls are deprived of their eternal and heavenly inheritance and never raised above the “properties of bodily speech” as Pope Gregory  the Great said (Moralia, II), “It is fitting that our mind, rising above the properties of bodily speech, should be lifted to the sublime and unknown methods of interior speech.“ This was what His Majesty thought fitting when He raised Teresa herself to the stage of the infused prayer when she experienced spiritual rapture for the first time in an authentic way,


These souls will neither discern the shining radiance of the chrysolite as exposed on the curtain as the seventh jewel and foundation stone of the Celestial City as they have also lost faith in the redemptive power of our Lord active in the  sacraments of His Church as His living body on earth an are thus blindfolded.