God communicates himself to pure souls, and blesses, through them,
other souls, who are in a state of receptivity. All these little
rills, which water others, little compared with the fountain from which
they flow, have no determinate choice of their own, but are governed by
the will of their Lord and Master. The nature of God is communicative.
God would cease to be God if he should cease to communicate himself, by
love, to the pure soul. As the air rushes to a vacuum, so God fills
the soul emptied of self.
The seven blessed spirits around the throne, are those angels who
approach nearest to God, and to whom he communicates himself the most
abundantly. St. John, perhaps, was better prepared than any of the
apostles to receive the Word, incarnate, dwelling in the soul.
On the bosom of Jesus,--in close affinity with him,--John learned the
heights and depths of divine love. It was on this account our Lord
said to his mother, "seeing the disciple stand by whom he loved, Woman
behold thy Son." He knew the loving heart of John would give her a
place in his own home.
God communicates himself to us in proportion as we are prepared to
receive him. And in proportion as he diffuses himself in us, we are
transformed in him, and bear his image. O, the astonishing depths of
God's love! giving _himself_ to souls disappropriated of self, becoming
their end, and their final principle, their fulness, and their all.