meditation

Meditation 64
The Purity of the Heart and the Breastplate

As was already mentioned above (Med. 33) the holy fathers compared God's ordinance to a castle which He build faultless in the beginning of creation, but later one of its walls collapsed by the fall of the first man. The Father had thus sent His Son to earth to collect living stones (1 Pt 2. 5) to repair this wall. This collapsed wall was the lost pristine beauty of Adam and Eve in the garden, the purity of the heart restored by the exalted fairness of the baptismal grace in order to enhance the status of man as God’s creation. Soon the soul looses this bounteous grace again by becoming attached to the sensuous and presumptuous disposition of the flesh.

By referring to Fig. 47 above this wall alludes to the western side or wall of the Celestial City – to Christ’s wisdom – as a gate to the new Jerusalem. In the silence of a pure heart the soul discerns now this sublime truth as revealed by the three foundation stones or the theological virtues: the faith, hope and charity. Thus she is able to do because God has so to say “fenced her off” from the enemy of her salvation with the walls of the virtues, or as we read in the Songs of Songs, “made her an enclosed garden” (Sg 4. 12) and thus this becoming bride is “wholly beautiful and without blemish” (Sg 4. 8). All the super mundane graces in their beauty, light, truth and love can now flow back and forth in the depths of the bride’s essence and the enemy of her salvation is unable to discern what is taking place now in this hidden abode of God and thus she is also full of peace and joyous gladness.

The barricade or four protections walls which the Holy Spirit raises around the heart of this beloved bride are the infused virtues which began to bloom as almond blossoms in the illumination of the lamp stand by nourishing themselves on the rays of the Uncreated Light. They shine now in the breastplate of the high priest which is still another adornment of the bride’s garments of glory. The uppermost row refers to the theological virtues, the second row to the intellectual virtues, the third to the moral virtues and the last row to the virtues of obedience, poverty and purity. Altogether they are exposed by the numeral twelve, but by their numerous effects on the three primeval powers they become 144 (3 x 12) or the measurements of the Celestial City.
Later we will see in how wondrous manner the Holy Spirit reveals this barricade or walls of defense by the golden frames and four fabrics of the Dwelling when the Holy Spirit completes this master piece of art: the Golden House of God. (Med. 82-89).

The twelve stones of the breastplate were engraved by the names of the twelve tribes in the Old Covenant, “The stones will correspond to the names of the sons of Israel, twelve like their names, engraved like seals, each with the name of one of the tribes” (Ex 28. 22). Generally speaking psychologists in contemporary times confirm that the self identification of an individual is formed and based on the condition he has to face in the world of living experience. In this inner world of love, beauty and truth the self has gone through a phase of becoming to being consisting in a new disposition: the scale of value judgment of this fiancee of God has changed and become golden in a revolutionary way by this ontological transformation which Gregory of Nyssa mentioned in previous meditation. This is explainable by the fact that in this infused divine knowledge shining forth from “Zion, perfection of beauty” (Ps 50. 2) God has “created a clean heart” in His becoming bride, literally speaking “renewed within her a resolute spirit” (Ps 51. 10).
By referring to Fig. 20 above we can earnestly maintain that the bride has become cross shaped in this live of grace by holy inclinations of the virtues when God renders her heart into His own, that the mystery of the cross has been marked or engraved in her heart. We see thus when we scrutinize the truth exposed on Fig. 20 that the golden altar refers to the heart in the stature of Christ were the vertical line of the cross and its horizontal line meets in one point. The reason is that God’s love has streamed down its pillar as the bride has stood at a standstill in her meekness on the rock of salvation and thus the beam of the cross has changed into open arms of love ready to embrace friends as well as enemies. The ancient fathers of the Icelandic church had a keen understanding as regards this mystery when God accomplish His predestination by rendering the bride’s heart into His own, literally speaking makes her cross shaped,

The upper edge of the cross signifies God’s love also, and the arms of the cross signify love towards neighbors, both friends and enemies. The feet are the end of the body. Therefore the significance of that edge of the cross, where His feet were nailed, is steadfastness in good works until the very end of life. The part that was below His feet signifies humility. For as our mind should rise to God’s rewards, so it should humiliate itself before men. And the part, which was in the earth, so that one could not see it – though it upheld all the heaviness of the cross – that part signifies the unseen might and hidden things. For as it upheld the whole cross, and was in the earth and one could not see it, so also the unseen God’s might rules all the visible things. We bear the cross in our soul, if our heart grieves about others’ misfortunes or sins, as Paul did: “If anyone weakens, I am weakened as well;” he said, “and when anyone is made to fall, I burn in agony myself. [1]

That is because the bride has asked the Holy Spirit to infuses into her heart the virtue of the silence of the Cross in order to be able to intercede on behalf of the Church in her Tabernacle prayer in her growing participation in Christ like humility: to carry her brothers and sisters before God in her intercession as a true high priest in the Royal Priesthood of the New Covenant,

No one can have anything except what is given him from heaven (Jn 3. 27).

The urim and thummim [2] concealed in the breastplate reveals still another and profound mystery as regards these vertical and horizontal lines of the cross: complete submittance to God’s will, THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IN HEAVEN. These mysterious stones reveal the divine government or theocracy which the King of Life intended to instituted on earth and is accomplished in His Church as His living body. The breastplate was supposed to be the “supreme court” of Israel – and thus the high priest was obliged to go into the Holy of holies to gave heed to God’s davar or word in times of distress in Israel and when the common Israelites in the towns and cities did not compel to the sentences of the Levites. [3] When the offenses of the people rose high God became silent, as we can see in the 1. Samuel,

Saul then said, “Yahweh, God of Israel, why did you not answer your servant today? Yahweh, God of Israel, if the fault lies with me or with my son Jonathan, give urim: if the fault lies with your people Israel, give thummim.” Jonathan and Saul were indicated and the people went free. Saul said, “Cast the lot between me and my son Jonathan,” and Jonathan was indicated (1S 14. 41, 42).

The voice or davar of God became finally silent once and for all among the nation because the Israelites did not submit to the judicial power of God, but became like the pagan nations around them. They choose rather king as other nations instead of becoming a theocracy: choose rather to follow their presumptuousness than this divine government. The breastplate sheds an unique light on Christ’s sanctification as a perfection of the human being as a six days creation,

For the breastplate you will make chains of pure gold twisted like cords, and on the breastplate you will make two golden rings, putting the two rings on the outside edge of the breastplate. The other two ends of the cords you will fasten to the two rosettes, putting these on the shoulder straps of the ephod on the front. You will also make two gold rings and put them on the two edges of the breastplate on the inner side, against the ephod; and you will make two gold rings and put them low down on the front of the two shoulder pieces of the ephod, close to the join, above the waistband of the ephod. The breastplate will be secured by a violet purple cord passed through its rings and those of the ephod, so that the breastplate will sit above the waistband and not come apart from the ephod (Ex 28. 22-29).

The breastplate or the plate of judgment was intended to be inseparable part of the ephod – the armor of the heart in the stature of Christ – and God emphasized this unity by the six golden rings which secured that the plate rested always upon the heart of the high priest, above the waistband, the token of obedience. These six golden rings prefigured the Christification of the six days creation in the power of the infused virtues. This perfection of the six days creation revealed by these six golden rings refers to the first six foundation stones of the new Jerusalem as has been discussed above. It is by their illumination that the bride has been able to reach this stage of her stature in Christ. They reveal also how the bride has reached to this super mundane stature in the live of grace: by obeying God’s commandments and the virtues of obedience and humility conform to each’ other growth,

These virtues, more than any others, prepare and attune a soul to true prayer. From obedience comes humility, as the Fathers say. Humility is born of obedience and is kept alive by obedience, as the burning flame of a lamp is kept alive by the in pouring of oil. Obedience brings the peace of God into the soul. God’s peace is His spiritual place, His interior Heaven. [4]

The word davar sheds still further light on this truth, but it is derived from the same Hebrew root br, just as the words debir and midbar. Midbar means desert in Hebrew and refers thus to the courtyard of the Tabernacle and the word debir alludes to the inner part of the Dwelling or God’s Golden House of Glory. In the Old Testament we see how seriously God condemned the disobedience of the Israelites when the prophet Samuel confined in Him when the Israelites wanted to have a king to judge them instead of God,

It is not you they have rejected but me, not wishing me to reign over them any more (1 S 8. 8).

How numerous souls do not reject God the right to reign over them in their hearts as a King in modern times. But in the night of the senses the soul began to discern the eternal Kingship of her shepherd as is exposed on Fig. 38 above: there Jesus became the King of her heart. All the development in the prayer has gradually revealed His Kingship in an more authentic way in the illumination of the four jewels in the Holy: the chrysolite, beryl, topaz and the chrysophrasus.
Let us thus ask the Blessed Virgin to enlighten us still further on the mystery of these four jewels or foundation stones which impelled the soul to carry forth continuously more sublime offerings of her first fruit harvest or her share in this live of grace. No one has obeyed God’s davar in as perfect a way as the Blessed Virgin and she will gladly shed light on this mystery as our Hodigitria and Queen of Heaven.

[1]. The Book of Homilies, pp. 53-54.
[2]. Many reason seems to point to the Acadian or Sumerian origin of these words. The word urim is derived from the same Sumerian root as the word arah or the Ark which means “light” in Sumerian. The word thummim seems to be derived from the Sumerian word tummal or temple. These two words seem thus to imply: “the light in the temple.” As a shield of judgment the breastplate is thus connected to the acacia wood or me’et in Hebrew as a “three of judgment.” The divine law in Sumerian was named me appearing again in Egyptian as ma’at and in the name of the goddess of justice: Ma’at.
[3]. The temple in Jerusalem was thus the supreme court. In such cases the high priest went into the Holy of holies and cast a lot with urim and thummin in front of the ark.
[4]. St. Ignaty Brianchaninov, Divine Ascent, p. 89.