The fifth “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 beryl. Its name in Hebrew – yahalom – means to investigate or scrutinize and the beryl was the stone of the tribe of Dan in the war camps of God. The name Dan means to judge. The beryl refers thus to the gift of spiritual discrimination, to apprehend the truth which this jewel reveals, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ as He lives in the Eucharist in His holy Humanity and Divinity. The beryl refers thus particularly to the spiritual sense of taste in the live of grace. The beryl is the jewel of souls who taste everything in the illumination of the Uncreated Light. If the soul does not attain to this efficient grace she will soon become offer of the rickets in the live of grace, a sickness that is traced to a shortage of healthy nourishment.
   It is indeed this truth which the positive and negative sides of the golden hues of the beryl shed light upon. Its golden radiance reveals the immanence of the Living Word of God and His Kingly power. When the remembrance of God diminish in the soul the yellowish radiance becomes a token of breach of an oath. Thus the yellow color became a symbol of treachery and in Europe it was a common practice in the middle ages to mark the doors of traitors with yellow paint as a warning for others. In contemporary times this meaning of the color has been transferred to the “yellow press” of unreliable media power fighting against the truth of the cross.

It is at the golden table of loaves were God makes the soul fit to taste how sweet He is by nourishing her on the loaves which are the prefiguration of the bread of life, the heavenly manna. The beryl is the fifth step in the soul's Ladder of Love and praise. It is indeed at the golden table where His Majesty reveals Himself for the first time in an authentic way on the shining gold plate of the table as in a pure mirror. This He does because the mirror of the soul's heart has become pure enough in the vehement flames of love in this first stage of the prayer of union so that she is able to discern His real presence as it is revealed on the pure golden plate of the table which we will discuss later on. The offering of praise the soul carries now forth is still more sublime than the former one which was cooked on the griddle,


When the soul broke the cake of former offering into pieces she opened her heart for the gracious and inspired infusion of the Holy Spirit. Now she must prepare her offering of praise as His co-worker in the live of grace, that is, to allow the Holy Spirit to clean her gifts of offering as the first fruit of the infused virtues as her offerings of praise have been imperfect or mixed with the leaven of sin, “None of the cereal offerings which you offer Yahweh must be prepared with leaven, for you must never include leaven and honey in food burnt for Yahweh” (Lv 2. 11).
   The honey refers to the spiritual satisfactions the soul has enjoyed up till now, the remains of hidden imperfections and deep and concealed pride which must be uprooted completely as satanic weed. Thus the Holy Spirit literally cooks the soul as on a pan in the prayer of union. The pan with its lid gives us an account of the super mundane purification taking place here in the prayer of union and reveals it as a true prayer of sacrificewhere the soul learns to scrutinize our Lord's incense which He brought forth on the Sacrificial Hill of the Cross.

It was Christ in His role as our High Priest of coming blessings who took the memorial and burnt it on the Altar of the Cross as a sweet offering before God His Father. Here in the first stage of the prayer of union the soul learns to prepare the offering in a rightful manner. At the lamp stand the Holy Spirit gives the soul a still further lesson in order to prepare her offering in accordance with God's precepts and at the golden altar of incense He leads the soul into the mystery of the sweet offering and teaches her to bring herself forth as a living sweet offering before God in a perfect way. The preparation of the offering – the cooking on the pan – refers to the purification of the efficient grace in the fire of the prayer. It was indeed by these words that John of the Cross described how God assails the soul by His fiery love and consumes its spiritual substance,


The fathers of the Eastern Church emphasized as explicitly this inscrutability and fiery efficiency in the development of the prayer, as following words of Simeon the New Theologian reveal,

  
And when Teresa of Avila experienced this divine inscrutability it was difficult for her to find the appropriate words,


It is thus how the soul experiences in an authentic way the power of the Spirit in His Recycling Plant when He begins to form the created being according to its divine pattern: the passive formation of the Royal Image has begun in the night of the spirit!

Literally speaking God splits the personality asunder as a shortcoming diamond or cooks the soul's powers and hidden inclinations on the pan of His love in order to reach to the deepest and most hidden roots of the nature by replacing this weed with the infused virtues. By these hidden vices we do actually encounter the offspring of the foxes – the little foxes – “that make havoc of the vineyards” of the soul “for our vineyards are in fruit” (Sg 2. 15).
   Now the foxes – the remains of the seven capital vices and sins to death – have retreated before the rays of the Uncreated Light, but the little foxes have hidden themselves under the branches of the almond tree in the ornamental garden of the heart or in the holes left by their parents. These are unconscious and hidden sins and impediments which have shoot roots in the darkness of the unconscious. Now the Uncreated Light begins to search them out like a spotlight. The Holy Spirit raises now the whip of knots in order to clean this Sanctuary of the soul which shall be a Golden House of prayer and praise. The golden table was on the left hand of the entrance when Aaron's priests entered the Holy. Its two rows of loaves prefigured or were an anti type of the heavenly manna – the sublime mystery of the Eucharist. It was this super substantial bread or artos epi ousios which Abba Isaac spoke of by so lofty terms above (Med. 22, n. 2), the bread we ask our Lord to provide us with daily in Our Father and Cyril of Jerusalem emphasized that had nothing in common with our daily natural bread, but was of heavenly origin, that is, divine,


God intended this sacred bread to be a source of eternal life for His children and thus the Holy Spirit revealed it in the Psalms of David,


Let us thus meditate this table God has prepared for us in the illumination of the beryl still further. The enemies are of course the terrible red dragon (Rv 12) – but his name is also death – along with his spirits of evil in the air (see Eph 6. 12). All this truth is revealed to the soul by the fiery runes which God engraved in gold in the design of this golden table when the soul reads this fifth chapter in the Book of Life.
   It is here where the soul receives education regarding the mystery of the “Laws of the Spirit” (Rm 8. 2) in an authentic manner. It is to this tool prefiguring the Eucharist which the choir of the Principalities led the soul after her rest among the Dominions in the shadow of the almond tree in the prayer of rest in order to make her “a strong man” (Lk 11. 21) in the live of grace. It is here in the first stage of the prayer of union where the soul faces the power concealed in the Last Supper of our Lord on earth. It is this sacrament which will enkindle the love of the soul enormously in her sufferings which are at the same time sweet and delightful. The impulses of love become so strong that the “lover must needs see that which he loves, or die” as John of the Cross said above when he referred to this fifth step in the Ladder of Love,


In order to clarify this mystery still further God gives the soul the virtue of spiritual discrimination when He adorns her by His robe, charitable knowledge to read this chapter in the Book of Life attentively.
  
The measures of the golden table. It was 1.5 cubits in height which refers to Christ's sanctification. The numeral 1 reveals the unity which the soul attains when she is grafted as a branch on the Tree of life at the lamp stand. The numeral 5 refers to the live of grace or the fivefold blessing concealed in the Holy Name of Jesus, but also to the beneficence of His five holy wounds. Only thus the soul reaches to this stature of her Christification. God was discrete as regards these measurement when He ordered Moses to make the table,


The length of the table was 2 cubits which reveals the mystery of Christ's sanctification both in His Humanity and Divinity in the mystery of the Eucharist. This unity is still further  emphasized by the table's with which was 1 cubit. Let us gaze closer at the divine design of this celestial master piece of art as it conceals unheard of wisdom. 

The four legs. The table's legs refer to the four Evangelists and their gospels. It is thus how God intended to proclaim this precious truth of the unity in accordance with His predestination. Already before the foundation of the world (Ep 1. 4) this ordinance was born in His heart. It is into this unity which the soul enters in the Prayer of union. It are the gospels and the descendants of the apostles who are chosen to proclaim its truth and give the faithful a share in its mystery. It were the Evangelist who by their writings persevered the lofty words which His Majesty Himself used when He spoke of the bread of life. It is this same truth which has been persevered in the holy tradition of the Church as an unbroken and golden chain.

The golden rings. We encountered these rings already at the altar of burnt offerings covered by the bronze of judgment. These four rings shine now in the gold of sanctification as the four golden jewels on the Chaplet of the Sparkling Jewels. The four rings refers to the gradual growth of the soul in Christ's wisdom, justice, sanctification and redemption,


Thus Jesus praised souls who in the weakness of their human nature are assimilated to Him in faith by following His pattern in the live of grace.

The shafts. The two golden shafts of the table – the same as the soul encountered at the altar of burnt offerings overlaid by bronze –  reveals the divine staff and crook of David (Ps 23). The staff is the “scepter of His kingdom which is a scepter of justice” (Heb 1. 8). The crook refers to the shepherd staff. The shepherd staff is the crook the soul began already to follow in the prayer of inner recollection in the courtyard when the Spirit of the Lord led her as one of His sheep into His fold in the Holy as He will led it into the Sabbath rest in the Holy of Holies. Here the divine power of this scepter and crook is  emphasized by the gold, and as the staff and crook gave the Hebrews guidance on their way to the Promised land in the image of the pillars of fire and cloud, they guide the soul in the dryness of the desert of the Night of the spirit. The soul must follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the live of grace all the way to the inscrutability of the Shekinah glory in the Holy of Holies.
   Whatever God has to offer on this table of His predestination in the live of grace, the soul must wave it and lift up before God to praise His glory and grace. That is what Aaron's priests did in the communion offering when they received their participation of the sacred meal as was mentioned above. Always they raised their part aloft and made the prefiguration of the sign of the cross. This is the spiritual incense which the soul must continuously bring forth in the live of grace if she desires to receive the inflow of this divine life,


In this way these two shafts are transformed into spiritual arms stretched out to God in order to touch His heart as golden scepters.

The Moldings. The gold moldings around the table reveals another aspect of the soul's stature in her Christification, the crown of life given to the victorious ones in the live of grace, “Even if you have to die, keep faithful, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rv 2. 10). The powers of the soul are doomed to death from the bad habits and inclination of the ego of selfishness in the prayer of union. Thus the soul will be “crowned with glory and honor” (Heb 2. 11), the glory and honor of the thorn crown in the mortification of the ego of selfishness. This is how Christ gives His “brothers” (Heb 2. 11) a participation in the new live of grace. When the soul dies from its egocentric disposition in the inscrutability of the prayer of union she receives this golden thorn crown as a token of a new life – His life. This crown is an essential allotment of the vestments of the High priest, a token of the Royal Image of Glory.
   It is in the charitable knowledge which the soul receives at this golden table that she gets participation in the spirit of power, is given courage to offer itself as a sweet offering to God on the golden altar of incense under the guidance of the Choir of the Powers. That is why the Spirit  makes its “crooked path straight: then the injured limb will not be maimed, it will get better instead” (Heb 12. 13). “I am the Way; I am the Truth and Life” (Jn 14. 6) says His Spirit and if we follow His guidance we realize immediately how despicable the black tabernacle of evil presumptuousness really is as it is the abode of death. Pitiable souls are those who make it their abode and will never be capable of receiving this precious live of grace because the enemy of their salvation has blindfolded them by the harshness of their hearts. The prophet Ezekiel has given us an insight into the distorted worship which takes place in this black tabernacle of deceits,


The sacred images which God provides the soul with in the Sanctuary will be a tremendous shield in order to protect her from the incitements of Satan enkindling passion filled images in the memory of the soul.

The Accessories. It are the accessories which belonged to this golden table, the dishes, cups, jars and libation bowls made of pure gold which the divine predestination uses to shed light on how the soul shall respond as regards the truth revealed here by her intrinsic and exterior actions. It is by the impulses of pure love which the deepest inclinations of the soul – represented by these implements – are purified as holy vessels for service in this Sanctuary of the Living God as vessels of honor. Here the three powers of the soul are transformed into such holy vessels under the banner of love. It is in this manner how our Lord Jesus Christ  gives the soul a participation in His own holy actions, “My child, pay attention to what I am telling you, listen carefully to my words; do not lead them out of your sight, keep them deep in your heart” (Pr 4. 20. 21). Thus the soul is obliged to put her powers before the living God “on the table, in my presence” (Ex 25. 30). Thus the soul's powers are transformed into loaves of permanent offering and this melts the Sacred Heart of the Bridegroom and He says to His becoming bride, “Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come” (Sg 2. 10). He makes His proposal as the soul has not gazed to other and strange lovers and purified herself in the fire of His abundant love.

The loaves. The loaves were placed in two rows of six on the golden plate of the table and were thus altogether 12 in number as the jewels and foundation stones of the holy city Jerusalem. A pure incense was poured over each row as this was a sacred food,


When we contemplate these two rows of loaves as they are placed on the golden table in the light of the Incarnation they actually  emphasizes how God works through matter. He wants to spare us the sad experience of unrealistic or “angelistic religion,” as Peter Kreeft stated above (Med. 19), to save us from a fate which is far worse than corporeal death: to fall victims of the deceits of the enemy of our salvation, save us from the sad fate of being more “spiritual” than God Himself. The loaves reveal as a matter of fact God's immeasurable love to His creation by sending His Son to earth in order to take His brother and sisters up with Him to heaven.

It is this fact which makes Christianity unique among all religions on earth and reveals the core of the Trinitarian mystery. The two other monotheistic religions on earth – Judaism and Islam – have lofty doctrines as regards the transcendence and omnipotence of God. This applies also to Hinduism and Buddhism. Islam stand as a matter of fact so close to Judaism and Christianity that in the beginning, the church fathers regarded Islam as still another schism of heresy as Arianism and Nestorianism.
   The emperor in Constantinople joined even hands with the Caliph of Damascus in the times of the iconoclasm in order to uproot what they called all traces of pantheism within Christianity appearing in the tradition of the iconography. This was actually a part of the foreign policy of the Byzantine Empire to secure its eastern frontiers. But in Christianity God reveals Himself as a human being, a God among men, a fact which sounds as a horrifying blasphemy in the ears of Islamic theologians. They warn their followers as not giving ears to such outrageous degradation of an Omnipotent God. But in spite of this Muslims maintain that God is love! This is what the Jesuit father Henry Boulad [6] heard one morning a sheik say to his pupils in a school on the banks of Nile. “I hear it with my own ears when he said,


I am glad! This came unexpectedly and touched my heart! Everything seems to indicate that our Muslim brothers are more than ready to proclaim that God is love. But led us be careful. When we take this first step this statement demands a logical answer and we have to face the consequences. When we say that God is love it leads us directly into the Trinitarian mystery. The assertion that God is love and Three in One is when we scrutinize this one and the same assertion. Both of these assertions are inseparable unity. How can this be?”

Father Boulad took an example of two women.  The women lived in the same house block and had each a son. One day they decided to go together to the store at the corner not faraway from their home. They left the boys alone at home as they did not intend to be long away. When they  returned home they discovered that a fire had broken out and the house block was in flames and the fire brigade had already arrived and let none enter the house which was covered by a veil of black smoke.
   How did these two mothers respond? One of them followed the voice of her reason and the commands of the police and realized that the situation was hopeless. She ran into the backyard and cried to her boy, who had sought a refuge from the fire on the balcony, “Find the robe in the kitchen closets! Hurry, boy, hurry!” But the boy did not hear her as her calls choked in the noise from crowd of spectators and the house burned.

The second mother responded quiet differently. She did not listen to the warnings words, neither of the firemen or the police and  did not give them any notice. At this moment it was only her boy who was somewhere in this dark cloud of smoke that did matter to her. The policemen tried to hold her back but she broke herself loose out of their grips. The only thought that prevailed in her mind was her boy, frightened in the merciless flames of the fire. She broke herself loose and ran into the fire and vanished before the eyes of the crowd because her only thought was to be with her boy.
   Father Boulad went on and concluded: If human love reacts in such a manner in an approaching danger – and the examples are at hand – how does the divine love then respond? Exactly in the same manner as the second mother. He offers everything and sacrifices Himself on behalf of His friends. God is Emmanuel, and His delight consist in being with the children of men (Pr 8. 31). This is the instinctive response of God when He sees the earth on fire in the cruelty and hate of the enemy of all life that he has enkindled in the senseless hearts of erroneous men.

We confront here two different ideas regarding the inmost nature of the Divinity. One the one hand a remote god who is certainly just, almighty and omnipotent. But this is a merciless god, a cruel god, and every time when he has appears in Christianity the consequences have been tragic. Father Boulad said that rather would he be an atheist than believing in such a god! Hindus know this god too and as a human being approaches this god his omnipotence diminishes the value of the man: the individual is crushed under his burden. A Dutch Carmelite that stayed in a Japanese Zen monastery for fourteen years and had reached the state of zatori (the highest wisdom) suddenly discerned the coldness in the silence: he was completely alone. Suddenly he realized how a terrible mistake and sin he had committed. Later he said, “This was just as going on a honeymoon without the Beloved.”
    On the other hand we encounter the Father of Jesus, the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And when Jesus proclaimed His love among the Jews, they cried: “crucify him, crucify him! He is a blasphemer!” It is this God whom we face in the prayer of union in the Holy. And when He sees the house of the soul on fire He comes running, not to extinguish the fire, but to enkindle it still further as this fire are the flames of a living love. It can not be otherwise, because what is a true love? It is as father Boulad said,

[1]. The Dark Night, II. 19, 5.
[2]. Ibid, II. 6, 1.
[3]. Quotation from Lossky, “The Vision of God,” p. 145: “Esti pyr to Theion ontos. Aktiston, aopaton ge, anarchon kai aülon te aperigrapton osaytos, Analloioton eisapan, Asveston, athanaton, aperilipton panti. Exo panton ton ktismaton.”
[4]. Life, 18. 2, 3.
[5]. Lectures on the Cristian Sacraments, 6. 15.
[6]. Following quotations are taken from a personal letter of this remarkable contemplative of our own time.