“To reach the lowest place is to have no longer any desire towards
evil; and as we have always some sin to forsake, so long as we are in
this mortal life, we never reach the lowest place, for to die is to
attain, not according to the senses, but in a spiritual paradox. And if
any one were to say that to be steeped in humility is to have reached
the lowest place, I should not contradict his opinion. But it seems to
me that to bathe oneself in humility is to bathe oneself in God, for
God is the source of humility, and He is at the same height and the
same depth above and below all places. And between self-abasement and
the attainment of the lowest place, there is, to my mind, a difference.
For to reach the lowest place is to have no longer any desire towards
evil, and to experience self-abasement is to be steeped in humility,
and that is self-annihilation in God and death in God. Now, we have
always something to forsake so long as we live, and to have nothing
more to forsake is to have reached the lowest place. This is why we
cannot attain to the lowest place. For what man was ever so humble
that he could not have been more humble still? and who ever loved so
fervently that he could not have loved more fervently still? Except
Christ, assuredly not one. And so let us never be satisfied while in
this dying life, for we may always become more humble than we are
to-day. It is a most joyful thought that we have so great and good a
God that we can never give Him sufficient homage and praise. Yes, not
even if each single man could give every moment that which is given
by all men and by all angels. But if we steep ourselves in humility,
that is enough, and we please God by Himself, for in that immersion we
are _one life_ in Him, not according to nature, but by being bathed in
humility, because by humility we have descended below our creation,
and we have flowed into God, who is the source of humility. And there
we lack nothing, for we are beyond ourselves and in God, and there is
neither giving nor receiving, nor anything which can be called _there_,
for it is neither _there_ nor _here_, but I know not where.”
From the same book I transcribe the following passage on detachment
from all things:--
“Now, he who has found God thus reigning in him by His grace, and who
dwells in God above the measure of his human strength, may remain
insensible to joy, to grief, and to the multitude of creatures. For
God is _essenced_ in him, and he is more disposed to introversion than
to extroversion; and this essence is recalled to him wherever man is
found; and this inclination and this essence are never forgotten,
unless the man should deliberately turn away from God; and this he
will not readily do, for he who has experienced God in this way cannot
easily turn away from Him. I do not say that this can never happen, for
no one is certain of anything in this mortal life, except of certain
revelations.
“God takes by His divine power the man whom he has _essenced_ in
himself in this way, and enlightens him in everything, for everything
is full to him of divine enjoyment; for he who refers all things to the
glory of God, enjoys God in all things, and he sees in them the image
of God. For he takes all from the hand of God, thanks Him and praises
Him in everything, and God shines ever brightly before him, for he
watches God with close attention, and never willingly turns away to
worthless things. And as soon as he sees that he has turned towards
worthless things, he at once turns away from them with great bitterness
against himself, and bewails his unfaithfulness to God and resolves
never again to turn knowingly towards worthless things. For all is bare
and empty in which there is not either the glory of God or the good of
our neighbour or our own salvation. He who thus watches over himself is
less and less distracted, for his friend is often present with him,
and that delights him above all. He is like to one who has a burning
thirst. In his thirst he does nothing but drink. He may think of many
other things besides the thirst which consumes him; but whatever he
does, and whoever he is, or of whatever object he thinks, the image
of drink does not disappear from his mind so long as he suffers from
thirst. And the longer the thirst endures, the greater is the suffering
of the man. And it is even so with the man who loves anything so
passionately that he has no taste for aught besides, while nothing
really touches his heart except that with which he is busied, and on
which his love is set. Wherever he may be, with whomsoever he may find
himself, nothing removes from him that which he so ardently loves. And
he sees in all things the image of the beloved object; and the greater
and more powerful his love, the more vividly that image is present to
him. He does not seek repose and idleness that he may enjoy it, for no
distraction hinders him from having the image of the beloved abiding
ever with him.”
Let us glance next at the little work on _Christian Faith_, to which
Surius gives the title _De fide et judicio, tractatulus insignis_. Its
twenty pages form a kind of catechism, splendid in its precision, from
which I take the following fragment on the happiness of the elect:--
“We shall behold with our inward eyes the mirror of the wisdom of
God, in which shall shine and be illumined all things which have ever
existed and which can rejoice our hearts. And we shall hear with our
outward ears the melody and the sweet songs of saints and angels, who
shall praise God throughout eternity. And with our inner ears we shall
hear the inborn Word of the Father; and in this Word we shall receive
all knowledge and all truth. And the sublime fragrance of the Holy
Spirit shall pass before us, sweeter than all balms and precious herbs
that ever were; and this fragrance shall draw us out of ourselves,
towards the eternal love of God, and we shall taste His everlasting
goodness, sweeter than all honey, and it shall feed us, and enter into
our soul and our body; and we shall be ever an hungered and athirst
for it, and because of our hunger and thirst, these delights and this
nourishment shall remain with us for ever, ever more renewed; and this
is eternal life.
“We shall understand by love and we shall be understood by love, and
God shall possess us and we Him in unity. We shall enjoy God, and,
united to Him, we shall rest in blessedness. And this measureless
delight, in that super-essential rest, is the ultimate source of
blessedness, for we are then swallowed up in satisfaction beyond all
possibility of hunger. Hunger can have no place in it, for there is
nothing here but unity; all loving spirits shall here fall asleep in
super-essential darkness, and nevertheless they shall live and wake for
ever in the light of glory.”
Next we come to _The Book of the Sparkling Stone, De Calculo, sive de
perfectione filiorum Dei, libellus admirabilis_, as Surius adds. Here
the subject is the mysterious stone of which the Spirit says in the
Apocalypse: _Et dabo illi (vincenti) calculum candidum, et in calculo
nomen novum scriptum, quod nemo scit nisi qui accepit_ (Rev. ii. 17).
This stone, according to the monk of the forest of Soignes, is the
symbol of Christ, given to His loved ones only, and like a flame which
images the love of the eternal Word. And then again we have glimpses
of those dark shadows of love, from which break forth uninterrupted
sobs of light, seen in awful flowers through the gradual expansions of
contemplation and above the strange verdure of an unequalled gladness.
Let us examine this passage:--
“And hence follows the third point, that is to say, an inward exercise
above reason and without restraint; for that union with God which every
loving spirit has possessed in love continually attracts and draws
towards the inmost centre of its essence the divine persons and all
loving spirits; and all those who love feel this attraction, more or
less, according to their love and their holy exercises. And he who
keeps guard over this attraction and clings closely to it cannot fall
into deadly sin. But the contemplative one, who has renounced his own
being and all things else, does not experience an expulsive force,
because he no longer possesses anything, but is emptied of all; and so
he can always enter naked and imageless into the secret place of his
spirit. There he sees the eternal light revealed, and in that light
he feels an eternal craving for union with God. And he himself feels
a constant fire of love which desires above all things to be one with
God. And the more he observes that attraction and that craving, the
more keenly he feels it; and the more he feels it, the more he desires
to be one with God, for he longs to pay the debt which God calls on him
to pay. This eternal craving for union with God causes the spirit to
glow evermore with love; but as the spirit uninterruptedly continues
paying its debt, a perpetual consumption goes on within it; for in
the refreshment of unity all spirits grow weary in their task, and
feel only the absorption of everything into simple unity with God.
This simple unity can be felt and possessed by none save by those who
stand before the immense brightness and before love, above reason and
without restraint. In this presence the spirit feels itself perpetually
inflamed with love; and in this glow of love it finds neither beginning
nor end. And it feels itself _one_ with that burning fire of love.
The spirit remains always on fire in itself, for its love is eternal,
and it feels itself always consumed away in love; for it is attracted
towards the refreshment of union with God, in which the spirit burns
with love. If it observes itself, it finds a distinction and a
difference between itself and God, but where it burns it is pure and
has no distinction, and that is why it feels nothing else but unity;
for the immeasurable flame of the divine love consumes and swallows up
all that it has enveloped in its essence.
“And you may thus understand that the attracting unity of God is
nothing else save boundless love, which lovingly draws inwards, in
eternal enjoyment, the Father, the Son, and all who live in love. And
we desire to burn and be consumed in that love everlastingly, for
in it the blessedness of all spirits is found. And so we ought all
to found our lives on a fathomless abyss; we shall thus be able to
descend evermore in love, and to plunge ourselves beyond ourselves
into its unsounded depths; and by the same love we shall rise and go
beyond ourselves into its inconceivable height, and we shall wander in
that measureless love, and it will lead us away into the boundless
expanse of the love of God. And there will be a flow and outflow
beyond ourselves, in the unknown pleasure of the divine goodness and
riches. There will be an eternal fusion and transfusion, absorption and
perabsorption of ourselves in the glory of God. See how, in each of
these comparisons, I have shown to the contemplative mind its essence
and its inward exercises. But no other can understand me, for no man
can teach contemplation to his fellow. But when the eternal truth is
revealed to the spirit, it is instructed in all that is needful.”
I ought in fairness to translate also the many strange things in
chapters vi., vii., and viii., which deal with “The difference between
the hirelings and the faithful servants of God,” “The difference
between the faithful servants and the secret friends of God,” and “The
difference between the secret friends and the hidden sons of God.”
Here it does really seem as if the anchorite of the Green Valley had
dipped into things beyond this world. But having run to such lengths
already, I can hardly attempt it I must, however, be permitted to give
the following fragment, which shall be the last from this book. It is
strangely beautiful:--
“Understand, now, that this is the mode of progress: in our going
towards God, we ought to carry our being and all our works before
us, as an eternal offering to God; and in presence of God we shall
surrender ourselves and all our works, and, dying in love, we shall
pass beyond all creation into the super-essential kingdom of God. There
we shall possess God in an eternal death to ourselves. And this is why
the Spirit of God says in the book of the Apocalypse, ‘Blessed are the
dead who die in the Lord.’ Rightly indeed does He call them the blessed
dead, for they remain continually dead to themselves and immersed
beyond their own nature in the gladdening unity of God. And they die
ever newly in love, by the attracting refreshment of that same unity.
Furthermore, the divine Spirit saith, ‘They shall rest from their
labours, and their works shall follow them.’ In this finite existence,
where we are born of God into a spiritual and virtuous life, we carry
our works before us as an offering to God; but in that unconditioned
life, where we die anew in God, into a life of everlasting blessedness,
our good works follow us, for they are one life with us. In our walk
towards God, God dwells within us; but in our death to ourselves and
to all things besides, we dwell in God. If we have faith, hope, and
love, we have received God, and He dwells in us with His mercies, and
He sends us out as His faithful servants, to keep His commandments. And
He calls us in as His mysterious friends, and we obey His counsels. But
above all things, if we desire to enjoy God, or to experience eternal
life within us, we must rise far above human reason, and enter into God
through faith; and there we shall remain pure, at rest, and free from
all similitudes, lifted by love into the open nakedness of thought. For
when in love we die to all things, when in ignorance and obscurity we
die to all the notice of the world, we are wrought and reformed by the
eternal Word, who is an image of the Father. And in the repose of our
spirit we receive the incomprehensible splendour which envelops and
penetrates us, just as the air is penetrated by the brightness of the
sun. And this splendour is merely a boundless vision and a boundless
beholding. What we are, that we behold; and what we behold, that we
are; for our thought, our life, and our essence are closely united with
that truth which is God, and are raised along with it. And that is why
in this pure vision we are one life and one spirit with God; and this
is what I call a contemplative life. By connecting ourselves closely to
God through love, we choose the better part; but when we thus behold
God in super-essence, we possess Him altogether. This contemplation
is united with an untrammelled inward devotion, that is to say, with
a life in which earthly things are destroyed; for when we go outside
ourselves into darkness and into unlimited freedom, the pure ray of
the brightness of God shines perpetually on us; we are fixed in the
ray, and it draws us out of ourselves into our super-essence till
we are overwhelmed in love. And this overwhelming in love is always
accompanied and followed by the free inward exercise of love. For
love cannot be idle; it longs by knowledge and taste to enter into
the immense riches which dwell in its inmost heart; and its hunger
is inappeasable. To be always receiving in this powerlessness is to
swim against the stream. We can neither leave nor take, do without nor
receive, speak nor be silent, for it is above reason and intelligence,
and higher than all created beings. And so we can neither attain nor
pursue it; but we shall look within, and there we shall feel that the
Spirit of God is leading us and drawing us on in this impatience of
love. We shall look above, and there we shall feel that the Spirit of
God is drawing us out of ourselves, and that we are lost in Him--that
is, in the super-essential love with which we are one, and which we
possess more deeply and more widely than all other things.
“This possession is a pure and profound enjoyment of all good and of
eternal life; and we are swallowed up in this enjoyment, above reason
and without reason, in the deep calm of Godhead, which shall nevermore
be stirred. It is by experience only that we can know that this is
true. For how this is, or who, or in what place, or what, neither
reason nor inward exercise can tell us, and it is for this reason that
our inward exercise which follows must remain without mode or limit.
For we can neither conceive nor understand the unfathomable good which
we possess and enjoy; neither by our inward exercises can we go out
of ourselves to enter into it. And so we are poor in ourselves, but
rich in God; hungry and thirsty in ourselves, satiated and full of
wine in God; laborious in ourselves, in God enjoying perfect rest. And
thus we shall remain throughout eternity. For without the exercises of
love we can never possess God, and he who feels or thinks otherwise is
deceived. And thus we live wholly in God, by possessing our beatitude,
and we live wholly in ourselves by exercising our souls in love towards
God; and although we live wholly in God and wholly in ourselves, yet it
is but one life, which has two-fold and contrary sensations. For riches
and poverty, hunger and satiety, work and idleness, these things are
absolutely contrary to one another. Nevertheless, in this consists the
nobility of our nature, now and everlastingly, for it is impossible
that we should become God, or lose our created essence. But if we
remain wholly in ourselves, separated from God, we shall be miserable
and unsaved; and so we ought to feel ourselves living wholly in God and
wholly in ourselves, and between these two sensations we shall find
nothing but the grace of God and the exercises of our love. For from
the height of our highest sensation, the splendour of God shines upon
us, and it teaches us truth and impels us towards all virtues into the
eternal love of God. Without interruption we follow this splendour on
to the source from which it flows, and there we feel that our spirits
are stripped of all things and bathed beyond thought of rising in the
pure and infinite ocean of love. If we remained there continually,
with a pure vision, we should never lose this experience, for our
immersion in the enjoyment of God would be without interruption,
if we had gone out of ourselves and were swallowed up in love, so
possessing God. For if, overwhelmed in love, and lost to ourselves, we
are the possessors of God, God is ours and we are His, and we plunge
far beyond our depth, eternally and irrevocably having God as our own.
This immersion in love becomes the habit of our being, and so it takes
place while we sleep and while we wake, whether we know it or whether
we know it not. And in this way it deserves no other praise; but it
maintains us in possession of God and of all the good which we have
received from His hands. It is like unto streams, which, without pause
and without returning, flow continually into the sea, since that is
the place to which they belong. And so, if we possess God alone, the
immersion of our being through habitual love is always, and without
return, flowing into an unfathomable emotion, which we possess, and
which belongs to us. If we were always pure, and if we always beheld
with the same directness of vision, we should have such a feeling as
this. Now, this immersion in love is above all virtues, and above all
the practices of love. For it is simply an eternal going forth out of
ourselves, by a clear prevision, into a changed state, towards which
we lean out of ourselves, as if towards our beatitude. For we feel
ourselves eternally drawn outside ourselves and towards another. And
this is the most secret and the most hidden distinction which we can
experience between God and ourselves, and above it there is no more any
difference. Nevertheless, our reason remains with its eyes open in the
darkness--that is to say, in infinite ignorance--and in that darkness
the boundless splendour remains secret and hidden from us, for the
presence of its immensity blinds our reason. But it wraps us round with
its purity and transforms us by its essence, and so we are wrought
out of our personality and transformed until, overwhelmed in love, we
possess our beatitude, and are one with God.”
Let us next look at _The Book of the Seven Steps of the Ladder of Love_
(called by Surius _De Septem Gradibus amoris, libellus optimus_) in
which the prior of Grönendal studies seven virtues which lead from
introversion to the confines of absorption. This seems to me one of
the most beautiful works of a saint, whose works are all strange and
beautiful I ought to translate from it some rather singular passages;
among others, that in which he discusses the four melodies of heaven;
but space fails us, and this introduction is already too long. I shall
content myself with giving the following page:--
“The Holy Spirit cries in us with a loud voice and without words,
‘Love the love which loves you everlastingly.’ His crying is an inward
contact with our spirit. This voice is more terrifying than the storm.
The flashes which it darts forth open the sky to us and show us the
light of eternal truth. The heat of its contact and of its love is
so great that it well-nigh consumes us altogether. In its contact
with our spirit it cries without interruption, ‘Pay your debt; love
the love which has loved you from all eternity.’ Hence there arises
a great inward impatience and also an unlimited resignation. For the
more we love, the more we desire to love; and the more we pay of that
which love demands, the greater becomes our debt to love. Love is
not silent, but cries continually, ‘Love thou love.’ This conflict is
unknown to alien senses. To love and to enjoy, that is to labour and
to suffer. God lives in us by His grace. He teaches us, He counsels
us, He commands us to love. We live in Him above all grace and above
our own works, by suffering and enjoying. In us dwell love, knowledge,
contemplation, and possession, and, above them, enjoyment. Our work is
to love God; our enjoyment is to receive the embrace of love.
“Between love and enjoyment there is a distinction, even as between
God and His grace. We are spirits when we hold fast by love, but when
He robs us of our spirit, and re-makes us by His own spirit, then we
are enjoyment. The Spirit of God breathes us out towards love and
good works, and it breathes us in to rest and enjoyment; and that is
eternal life, just as we breathe out the air which is in us and breathe
in fresh air; and in that consists our mortal life and nature. And
although our spirit should be ravished and its powers fail in enjoyment
and in blessedness, it is always renewed in grace, in charity, and in
virtues. And so what I love is to enter into a restful enjoyment, to
go forth in good works, and to remain always united to the Spirit of
God. Just as we open the eyes of the body, see, and shut them again, so
quickly that we hardly notice what we have done, even so we die in God,
we live out of God, and we remain always one with Him.”
Next we have _The Book of the Seven Castles_, called by Laurentius
Surius _De Septem Custodiis, Opusculum longe piissimum_. It is not
without resemblance to the _Castle of the Soul_, by Saint Teresa of
Avila, which has also seven dwellings, of which prayer is the door.
The hermit of the forest of Soignes sends this work, with the _Mirror
of Eternal Salvation_, “To the holy Clare, Margaret van Meerbeke, of
the convent of Brussels,” and so the counsels on which he touches in
the prologue have a slight note of pitying sadness. For instance, he
teaches her in what way she shall go to the window of the convent
parlour, shutting out from her eyes the face of man; and speaks of
the joy of pain and the care of the sick, with pale counsels for the
sick-ward. Then there rise the seven spiritual castles of St. Clara,
the doors of which are closed by divine grace, and must no more be
opened to look into the streets of the heart. Let us hear what follows,
still on the subject of love:--
“And the loving soul cannot give itself wholly to God, nor perfectly
receive God, for all that it receives is but a little thing as
compared with that which it lacks, and counts as nothing in its eager
emotion. And so it is disturbed, and falls into impatience, and into
the strong passion of love; for it can neither do without God nor have
Him, reach His depth nor His height, follow nor forsake Him. And this
is the storm and the spiritual plague of which I have spoken; for no
tongue can describe the many storms and agitations which arise from
the two sides of love. For love makes a man now hot, now cold; now
bold, now timid; now joyous, now sorrowful; it brings him fear, hope,
despair, tears, complaints, songs, praises, and such things without
number. Such are the sufferings of those who live in the passion of
love; and yet this is the most spiritual and the most useful life which
man can live, each according to his own capacity. But where man’s
method fails and can reach no higher, then God’s method begins; where
man, by his sufferings, his love, and his unsatisfied desires, entwines
himself with God and cannot be united to Him, then the Spirit of our
Lord comes like a fierce fire which burns and consumes and swallows up
all things in itself, so that the man forgets his inward exercises, and
forgets himself and feels just as if he were one spirit and one love
with God. Here our senses and all our powers are silent, and they are
calmed and satisfied, for the fountain of divine goodness and wealth
has flowed over everything, and each has received more than he can
desire.
“Next comes the third method, which we attribute to our heavenly
Father--that in which He empties the memory of forms and images, and
lifts up our naked thought to the ultimate source, which is Himself.
There man is fixed firmly at his beginning, which is God, and is
united to Him. And there is given to him strength and freedom to work
inwardly and outwardly by means of all the virtues. And he receives
knowledge and understanding in all exercises which are according to
reason. And he learns how to receive the inward working of God and the
transformation of the divine methods, which are above reason, even as
we have already said. And above all divine limits, he will understand
by the same boundless intuition, the boundless essence of God, whose
being is without limitation. For one cannot express it by words, nor
by works, nor by methods, nor signs, nor similitudes, but it manifests
itself spontaneously to the simple intuition of pure and naked thought.
“But we may place on the road signs and similitudes which prepare
man for the sight of the Kingdom of God, and you shall imagine this
essence like the glow of a boundless fire, in which everything is
silently consumed--a red and motionless conflagration. And so it is
with the calm of essential love, which is the enjoyment of God and of
all the saints, above all limitations, and above all the works and all
the practices of virtue. This love is a wave, boundless and calmed,
of riches and joys, in which all the saints are swallowed up with God
in an unlimited enjoyment. And this joy is wild and lonely like a
wandering, for it has neither limit, nor road, nor path, nor rest, nor
measure, nor end, nor beginning, nor anything which one can show or
express by words. And this is the pure blessedness of all of us, this
divine essence, and our super-essence, above reason and without reason.
If we desire to experience it, our spirit must go forth into it, above
our created essence, towards that eternal centre in which all our lines
begin and end. And in this centre these lines lose their name and all
distinction, and are united to this centre, and become that same unity
which the centre itself is; and nevertheless in themselves they always
remain as converging lines.
“See, then, how we shall thus always remain what we are in our created
essence, and yet by the ascent of our spirit we shall continually
pass into our super-essence. In it we shall be above ourselves, below
ourselves, beyond our breadth, beyond our length, in an eternal
wandering which has no return.”
I shall say little of the small work entitled _Four Temptations_, which
deals with the very subtle dangers which threaten the contemplative
mind, the most formidable of them all being quietism. With the
exception of certain discoveries in the unknown psychology of prayer,
this work, which, as I have said, is very short, does not present any
very exceptionally lofty summit to our souls.
The other little work, which is about the same length--that is to
say, about twenty pages--is called _The Book of Supreme Truth_,
or, according to Surius, _Samuel_. He adds:--“Qui alias de alta
contemplatione dicitur, verius autem apologice quorumdam sancti
hujus viri dictorum sublimium inscribi possit.” But this book is so
marvellous that one would need to translate the whole. At present I
shall make no extract from it, since we can no more divide it than we
can divide that essence whose perpetual effusion is displayed in its
unique and awful mirror.
I come, therefore, to _The Book of the Kingdom of Lovers_, the
strangest and most abstract work of the sage of the Green Valley, in
the midst of which the soul stretches itself, and is filled with terror
in a spiritual void which is doubtless normal, and which for the mind
that does not follow it is like some dark glass bell, in which there
is neither air, nor image, nor anything that can be exactly conceived,
except uninterrupted stars in the eternal spaces.
The work is founded on that verse in Wisdom, “Justum deduxit per vias
rectas et ostendit illi regnum Dei,” and includes the three virtues of
theology and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost I proceed at once to
translate, and more fully than ever.