Upper part: The
Mount of sensuous purification. A: The gateway and the emerald; B: The
altar of burnt offerings and the sardonyx; C: The bronze laver and the
sardius; D: The entrance into the Holy and the chrysolite; E: The golden table of loaves and the beryl. Lower part:
The pit of the dark night. A: The vocal prayer; B: The prayer of outer
recollection; C: The prayer of inner recollection and the night of the
senses; D: The entrance into the Holy and the prayer of rest; E: The first stage of the prayer of union at the golden table og loaves.
Meditation 43
The Mystery of the Four Jewels in the Courtyard
The Mystery of the Four Jewels in the Courtyard
Let us scrutinize this mystery taking place as the soul walks the last ten cubits between the bronze laver and the Second entrance still further. As was stated above (Med. 10) this distance refers to the ten days from the ascension of our Lord to the descending of the Holy Spirit over the community of the Church at Pentecost. This mystery was accomplished by the personal sanctification of each of its member as a prerequisite in order to enter the Holy.
We will discuss this mystery firstly as an individual experience and secondly as an inseparable part of the communion or koinonia of the Church as a community of the saints. Let me just emphasize this: love is as sublime in its nature as God Himself and as St. John said, “God is love” (1 Jn 4. 8), and just as God Himself it cannot be known otherwise than in its gracious effects. And love’s effects are always union, both as a procession within in the soul as well as communion or koinonia of the members of the Church. This should not come as a surprise to any one as love is the nature of the communion of the three Persons in the mystery of the Trinity, “My three”, as sister Elizabeth of the Trinity said. It is in the mystery of the prayer of inner recollection where the silver of the faith or the life of the Spirit begins to be revealed to the soul in an authentic way. The word prayer of recollection sheds a light on the fact that the powers of the soul begin gradually to return inward from the dispersion of the outer reality of the phenomena to the original unity of the image of God,
For where two or three meet in my
name, I am there among them (Mt 18. 20).
This is actually the efficiency of the prayer of mercy as continuous supplications. We can maintain that up to now the soul has sailed on the stormy high seas of the senses, but feels indistinctly how she is attracted to the deep within, this abyss of God which calls to the deep of the human soul (see Ps 42. 8). The intellect realizes that the treasures of the faith consist in fuller knowledge than the senses are able to give it. It begins gradually to reject the incitements of the natural senses which reaches culmination in the night of the senses.
When the intellect begins to attain to recollection within or discern everything in the courtyard with awareness, its strength grows considerably. In the prayer of outer recollection the senses try by all means to follow the intellect and will to get participation in their rest. The senses can simultaneously be very active in the exterior world of the senses and then it is most profitable to ignore them as well as the intellect, or by the words of Teresa of Avila: to treat them just like “fools”. [1]
In the prayer of inner recollection the senses begin gradually to follow the intellect and will inwardly in their growing recollection. They realize that the intellect has got participation and enjoys some precious knowledge which is foreign to them. This can be traced to the efficacious and strengthening grace which the soul receives at the bronze laver as prefiguration of the sacrament of Reconciliation and Penance.
By receiving the grace concealed in this sacrament of the dead in worthy manner the soul begins to ascend the Mountain of sensuous purification. Fig. 43 (upper part) sheds light upon this truth. On the diagram we can trace the route of the soul from the gateway (A) to the golden table of the loaves in the Holy (E). In the School of Prayer – where the Blessed Virgin herself is the headmaster – the soul in her remembrance of God attains purity and strength enough at the altar of burnt offerings (B) in order to begin her ascend up the Mountain slopes of her sensuous purification by rejecting sensuous incitements reaching culmination at the bronze laver (C) by the illumination of the senses.
From this mountain top in the live of grace the soul can gradually discern the Promised land ahead which is hidden behind the curtains of the entrance into the Holy. As the soul stands here she realizes simultaneously that she is again obliged to descent down from the mountain into the Valley below or to utter humility and submission.Here she stands in the steps of the pilgrims of the Old Covenant when they rested at the last halting place before they entered the holy city in the Valley of the Balsam (Ps 84. 6) and the soul sheds tears of joys, just as these children of the Old Covenant seeing her destination or zeal.
This is how we discern this mystery spiritually in the night of the senses, but from human point of view this development appears in an opposite manner, or as displayed on the lower part of Fig. 43. This can be explained by the clarity and brightness of the sudden glare from the divine light which for the soul in her imperfection is a darkness in its luminousness. This is actually the most abysmal phase of the Night of the senses which no soul can escape from and is a common experience. As the soul walks in security along the Sacred Way in conformity with God's precepts, she suddenly falls into a deep and dark pit. What is seemingly worse is that she loses sight of God and all the beauty which surrounded her before in the courtyard. Thus the master of the dark night – John of the Cross – exposes this mystery. In his Dark night he sheds light upon how God disciplines the soul in order to purify her and in the Ascend of Mount Carmel how the soul responds.
God begins to discipline the soul as His true child as He sees clearly that the eternal birth of the Word has taken place in this child of light which is still unaccustomed to the luminousness of His immanence,
Have you forgotten that
encouraging text in which you are addressed as sons? My son, do not
scorn correction from the Lord, do not resent his training, for the
Lord trains those he loves, and chastises every son he accepts (Heb 12.
5, 6).
St. Paul emphasized this discipline, “For God didn't give us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and discipline” (2 Tm 1. 7) and again, “It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom his father doesn't discipline?” (Heb 12. 7). God has set His eyes on this soul in the live of grace as a becoming praise of His glory.
Thus He desires to make it blameless and cloth it by His infused virtues like an adornment. This purification of the senses is unequivocal in the live of grace for otherwise the soul becomes stagnant on the Sacred Way as was prefigured by the Nazirites and Levites (Med. 16). In her exterior conducts and acts the soul judges herself as almost faultless, but has not cleansed the vessel inside and suffer still of her impediments. It is right that God forgives the soul completely her sins at the bronze laver, but this does not mean that she does not need healing. Let me give an example. Two men fight and inflect wounds upon each other. Later they become reconciled and forgive each other wholeheartedly, but their wounds need to be healed by the doctor’s hands. Same with the soul in this case. In her struggles with her enemies – the three giants of the heart (Med. 16) or the world, devil and the flesh.
This means literally speaking that the relationship of the soul with God and other human beings is not adequate. She is as a ticking time bomb in the live of grace suffering from numerous impediments within, deep spiritual wounds which God desires to heal in a profound way. We have all experienced this truth in our own lives in our relationship with other people and this is also the play ground of Satan and his evil spirits enkindling sudden anger, envy or wrath in the human heart, hurtful words or evil deeds. Suddenly a close friend turns against us in fury and accuses us of all kinds of overbearing behavior or we ourselves ride roughshod over someone we love. In numerous cases this can lead to life long hostility between former friends and former lovers. The reason is simple: the enemy of our salvation hates the procession of love in human hearts and tries by all means to put obstacles in the way of such a procession with is cunnings and his battlefield is the center of every human heart.
This is indeed Satan's playground in the human heart and while we lack spiritual discrimination we lack awareness against his cunnings and mistake his evil thoughts and incitements as our own thoughts, ideas or feelings. All such impediments within which are indeed of deep spiritual nature God will heal in the night of the spirit in the Holy. Until we attain this spiritual discrimination we can follow a simple methodology in order to discern this evil taking place in our own hearts. We can imagine how Jesus Himself had responded under such circumstances, imagine that He is actually standing at our side in faith – and that He certainly does at every moment of passing time. Dear reader! Try this methodology yourself next time you dispute with another human being. The result will be amazing. Here in the courtyard He gives us purity enough by the glistening white tunic of the priests and its waistband in order to follow in His steps in complete obedience and so His predestination regarding our own sanctification becomes clear in our intellect (nous). Here the Blessed Virgin is a shining star to follow in the live of grace in her humility as the soul descends from the Mountain of purity down to the Valley of meekness,
LET IT HAPPEN TO ME AS YOU HAVE
SAID (Lk 1. 38).
Thus the soul can proceed further on this Sacred Way of the divine predestination to a higher state of love than the base manner of loving God which previously were her habits, or by the words of John of the Cross, the master of the spiritual nights,
Since the conduct of these beginners in the way of God is lowly and not too distant from the love of pleasure and of self, as we explained, God desires to withdraw them from this base manner of loving and lead them on to a higher degree of divine love. [2]
That is why the Son of God came to earth. In His holy humanity He thus gave us a share in His own love – divine love – which is infused grace. He Himself was as a soft wax in the hands of His heavenly Father and thus we must also be in order to make God able to mold us into the image of His Son “so that he should be the eldest of many brothers [and sisters]” (Rm 8. 30).
