glorycloud's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- come to him and be enlightened It is late Sunday night and I have been visiting with my wife before she goes off to work. I got home from the coffee house around 8:30 PM to find Beth home and Carol up to face the first day of another week. I do not have to go to work tomorrow so I am still up wandering the house reading my books. What have I done since coming home? I remember copying off what I wrote at the coffee house. I talked to Carol about the spiritual life. I read to her from "Carthusian Spirituality" and "The Fullness Of Christ" by Octavius Winslow. I read to Carol this from "The Roads To Zion Mourn" by Hugh Of Balma--- "30. Come to him and be enlightened, and so forth (Ps.33:6 [34:5]). Since God most blessed inhabits light inaccessible (1 Tim. 6:16), as the Apostle Paul says, and since an infinite number of degrees separates every rational creature from him, if the soul is to be bathed by the super-beautiful brilliance of eternal light, she must, as it were, depart from herself and be raised above by the Creator's freely bestowed favor until an approximate similarity and conformity between the creature, who receives, and the benevolent Creator, who flows into her, is established. Therefore the divine prophet says, Come to him and be enlightened, so that this might precede and illumination might immediately follow. With this might we fully enter upon the theme of the present book. For, by a roundabout path, contrary to all writers on matters of theology and divinity, it teaches that one attains unmediated cognition of the Creator not by the mirror of creatures nor by genius in research nor by exercise of intellect, but through flaming gasps of love. By these, although living in sin and misery, we have an unfailing foretaste not only of the fact that God is but indeed of how the most blessed God himself is the beginning and origin of all beatitude. As we shall see later, this foretaste exceeds the knowledge gained by reason as much as the morning star outshines all the other gleaming stars. Unitive love reveals hidden things and unlock secrets. Rather than making the lover pursue earthly and human things, these secrets make him (now raised above himself) push directly for divine and heavenly formation." pg. 118 Hugh Of Balma I read the above to my wife because Hugh Of Balma paints for us what it means to know the Lord Jesus Christ in a saving way "we have an unfailing foretaste not only of the fact that God is but indeed of how the most blessed God himself is the beginning and origin of all beatitude." Also Hugh Of Balma gives us a beautiful picture of prayer "flaming gasps of unitive love". I often at work know "flaming gasps of unitive love". Years ago when I first read Hugh Of Balma I experienced in my inner man these words "Unitive love not only brings the soul to possess the glory of eternal beatitude as she retreats from the body, not only brings her to live the celestial life on earth, not only do lower things no longer make the soul anxious and divert her from her actions stretching toward the heights-more than all that, the yearnings of unitive love leave behind in the soul a perfection of knowledge that is incomparably more complete than any sought out by study, hearing, or exercise of reason." pg. 119 Because I have received "the bridal crown" I have been rejected by the american religious establishment and work hauling eggs till I am too old to eat an egg. No one in the american religious establishment wants to hear me talk about "mystical theology". What they want to talk about is how to get more support for president Bush and his war against humanity. Well I am going to close to regroup. I have a ton of stuff on mind this evening, but no one to unburden myself on. Carol has gone off to work and I am left alone with my thoughts. music: Mogwai "Mr. Beast" 11:25 p.m. - 2006-05-28 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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