When the ancient fathers of the Icelandic church said that the Cross is release from bondage” they referred to the alienation from God, that, is that the grace is more original than sin,” [1] that the fallen sinful nature is unnatural as was discussed above (Med. 55). The greatest trap which the enemy of our salvation – the fallen guardian cherub, Satan – places for a soul in his cunnings is self rejection which contradicts the sacred voice within of the Beloved who transforms His beloved into the Lover being the Lover of the soul. And St. Paul urged the ancient Christians to become his imitators he said,


The golden altar of incense give us an eternal admonition as to the fact that the crucifixion is the prerequisite of the resurrection to an eternal life and when St. Paul had crucified his heart he could ascertain, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, they have become new” (2 Cor 5. 17) and “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me” (Gl 2. 20). When the soul crucifies her heart by placing it on the altar it does it but in Christ that is living in her in an authentic way.
   On this third stage in the Christification or the hypostatic union its core is not an identification with the Son of God or Logos in person or an annihilation of the person, far from it! It is a penetration or procession of a new life, a divine life of the King of Life. As Thomas Aquinas stated above “God alone is Being in virtue of His own Essence, since His Essence is His existence” (Med. 48). The soul gets a participation in this divine Essence in such a profound way in the prayer of union at this stage that its own existence seems to become one with God’s Essence in the transcendence of the Trinitarian mystery where all the movements of the soul’s power originates in the Spirit.
   I prefer myself to call this intimate union fusion of the divine Life of Christ and the human life as previously separated levels of being. St. Luke (Lk 1. 35) preferred the Greek verb episkiazo as Matthew (Mt 17. 5) and Mark (Mk 9. 7). Usually it is translated as “overshadowing” in English as was discussed above when the soul is bathed in the splendor of the seven lamps of the lamp stand. Now these gracious effects become so intensified that we experience them as fusion or a superimposition of a mightier life.

Such an overshadowing or superimposition is displayed on Fig. 66 as a fusion of two initially independent life forces, the human life and the live of grace which is the Life of Christ. We can define the process as a fourfold a procession of this infused life in the prayer as revealed in the Sanctuary of the Tabernacle,


In such a procession the two independent streams or life forces draw near each another gradually more and finally the fields become one in a center point or field of gravity. It is almost inevitable to notice how similar this fusion is to a whirlpool where the “speed of rotation”or the efficient power of this fusion increases continuously until all movement culminates in a standstill in the silence of the heart. We can compare the center itself to the eye or calmness which is predominant in the center of a hurricane. As we have now entered a stage in the prayer life where the range of vocabulary of daily human experience become meaningless the sacred images which God provides us with in the Sanctuary become an invaluable help, as shining torches to follow.
   From now on all this discussion is based on the suspension of the time of becoming which I beg the reader to keep in mind. “To be or not to be” of Shakespeare attains a new meaning here. Everything from now on is a matter of “order of priority” just as in the life of the Holy Trinity, but doesn’t follow the rules of natural laws of addition in becoming time.

The soul feels in an authentic way that she has reached to the seat of her personality, to the spark within, to its center of essence which is a super essence, to the ground of her own origin and the source of her person in the purity of the heart as revealed by the breastplate as she has opened herself completely in the illumination of the chrysophrasus.
   She has indeed returned to her own origin where the human spirit flows literally speaking in the Trinitarian mystery in organic union. It stands so close to God that it is filled by awe and wonder. “Oh wonder of wonders,” exclaimed Meister Eckhart,


Teresa of Avila was as awe-struck, “O my powerful God, how sublime are your secrets, and how different spiritual things are from all that is visible and understandable here below. These are the divine touches of the Beloved Bridegroom in the soul, or by the words of John of the Cross,


As was mentioned above (Med. 65) it was the opobalsam which referred to the inmost essence or center of the soul: the spiritual or contemplative intellect or nous. It is now bathed in this “divine love spring which surges over the soul sweeping her out of herself” in the transports of the suspension of the Spirit of Live which is as the bride in the Songs of Songs said “Fountain of the garden, well of living water, streams flowing from Lebanon!” (Sg 4. 15). This is because the soul has dug into the earth of humility in the garden of her heart as the Blessed Virgin showed Bernedette in Lourdes. The water is at hand in this fruitful soul as it was qualified on the Sacrificial Hill of the Cross.

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