Meditation 77
A Living Gilgal
Here comes
Solomon's litter.
Around it are sixty champions,
the flower of the warriors of Israel;
all of them skilled swordsmen,
experts in war.
(Sg 3. 7-8).
Around it are sixty champions,
the flower of the warriors of Israel;
all of them skilled swordsmen,
experts in war.
(Sg 3. 7-8).
The name of Galilee,
the native land of Jesus – His place of birth and growth on earth in
His holy Humanity – was also the place where He began to reveal the
power of His Father by His ministry and where He performed many of His
miracles, and where from He drew His apostles. Its name is derived from
the same Hebrew root as Gilgal, or the verb gâlal or “to roll.” It means
also as was mentioned above (Med. 5) a
circle or a district and occurs first in the Bible in the place name Gâlîl (Galilee) in Js
20. 7. This blessed spouse of the heavenly Bridegroom has now become
His abode, a true Gilgal, God's Sanctuary on earth. He has given her a
new name in accordance with His promise,
This last name the soul has attained in her Christification: she has become a christ, has received the ointment of the Holy Spirit. She has become a new and spiritual Israel, prefigured by the name of Jacob in the Old Covenant, “No longer are you to be called Jacob, since you have shown your strength . . . Jacob named the place Peniel, 'Because I have seen God face to face” (Gn 32. 29, 31). The name Israel means a place where God shows His power and the spouse has become a strong man in the live of grace by seeing God face to face in the power of His glory above the mercy seat, in His Shekinah glory. Thus she has been endowed with the fullness of strength: the four cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, fortitude and temperance and the eight Beatitudes. The flowers of the virtues make a garland around her heart.
This virtuous bride has followed the Blessed Virgin’s council on this way of obedience, poverty and purity and quested for her Son and has thus become beautiful and strong, “Thus the soul reflects the pure image of the unstained beauty, if it has prepared itself in righteousness and purified itself of all material stain. Then she (the bride) can with certitude say, as she is a living mirror with free will: When I turn myself to my Beloved by all my surface I reflect His own beauty within myself.” [1]
She has attained to the fullness of the Beatitudes and the four cardinal virtues shine as emblems in this living Tetramorph and just as the Blessed Virgin this Ark of the New Covenant is well protected within by God’s glorious power. She is,
The reason why so few souls enjoy His inaccessible beauty in this LIGHT OF GLORY and possess Him consciously within are their idols, “They have idols of silver and gold, Their makers will end up like them” (Ps 115. 4, 8). The idols of human presumptuousness in contemporary times are pitiable political leaders who in their greediness after silver, gold and power lead people on the Way of death by trampling under foot the right of the the fatherless, widow and the sojourner (see Dt 10. 18) and thus God fills them with a giddy spirit,
That is why God has infused the Egypt of sin “with a giddy spirit” by leading them astray “like a drunkard straying about as he vomits” (Is 19. 14) as they have not even “pity for the fruit of the womb, or mercy in their eyes for children” (Is 13. 18). Over their war camp the smoke from their “medical centers” of abortions covers everything as a cloud of sinful deeds and conducts, just as the dark smoke from the ovens covered the evil deeds of the Third Reich in the concentration camps.
Let us now scrutinize to what dignity the bride has been raised in the illumination of the last jewels: the amethyst.
I will inscribe on it
the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new
Jerusalem which is coming down from my God in heaven, and my new name
as well (Rv 3. 12).
This last name the soul has attained in her Christification: she has become a christ, has received the ointment of the Holy Spirit. She has become a new and spiritual Israel, prefigured by the name of Jacob in the Old Covenant, “No longer are you to be called Jacob, since you have shown your strength . . . Jacob named the place Peniel, 'Because I have seen God face to face” (Gn 32. 29, 31). The name Israel means a place where God shows His power and the spouse has become a strong man in the live of grace by seeing God face to face in the power of His glory above the mercy seat, in His Shekinah glory. Thus she has been endowed with the fullness of strength: the four cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, fortitude and temperance and the eight Beatitudes. The flowers of the virtues make a garland around her heart.
This virtuous bride has followed the Blessed Virgin’s council on this way of obedience, poverty and purity and quested for her Son and has thus become beautiful and strong, “Thus the soul reflects the pure image of the unstained beauty, if it has prepared itself in righteousness and purified itself of all material stain. Then she (the bride) can with certitude say, as she is a living mirror with free will: When I turn myself to my Beloved by all my surface I reflect His own beauty within myself.” [1]
She has attained to the fullness of the Beatitudes and the four cardinal virtues shine as emblems in this living Tetramorph and just as the Blessed Virgin this Ark of the New Covenant is well protected within by God’s glorious power. She is,
Pure emanation of the
glory of the Almighty; so nothing impure can find its way into her. For
she is a reflection of the eternal light, untarnished mirror of God’s
active power, an image of his goodness (Ws 7. 25, 26).
The reason why so few souls enjoy His inaccessible beauty in this LIGHT OF GLORY and possess Him consciously within are their idols, “They have idols of silver and gold, Their makers will end up like them” (Ps 115. 4, 8). The idols of human presumptuousness in contemporary times are pitiable political leaders who in their greediness after silver, gold and power lead people on the Way of death by trampling under foot the right of the the fatherless, widow and the sojourner (see Dt 10. 18) and thus God fills them with a giddy spirit,
God will strike you
down with madness, blindness, distraction of mind, until you grope your
way at moon like a blind man pooping in the dark (Dt 28. 29).
That is why God has infused the Egypt of sin “with a giddy spirit” by leading them astray “like a drunkard straying about as he vomits” (Is 19. 14) as they have not even “pity for the fruit of the womb, or mercy in their eyes for children” (Is 13. 18). Over their war camp the smoke from their “medical centers” of abortions covers everything as a cloud of sinful deeds and conducts, just as the dark smoke from the ovens covered the evil deeds of the Third Reich in the concentration camps.
Let us now scrutinize to what dignity the bride has been raised in the illumination of the last jewels: the amethyst.
