glorycloud's Diaryland Diary

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carried off to the light of reality

It is 1:19 PM Tuesday afternoon. I called Carol around 11:30 AM this morning. They were at the hospital leaving the labor room. Carol thought this afternoon Caleb and Emily's little baby girl will come out of the womb and into this sin cursed world. So we wait.

I thought of leaving the house in search of fresh food to eat, but decided not to risk going out into the world and someone killing me. So I ate for lunch left overs and an English muffin. The Lord is faithful. I have been meaning to quote something in the treatise "On Contemplation" by Guigo De Ponte that has been on my mind lately.

"When by God's grace the godly spirit is in the forementioned state, the understanding follows behind a thirsty affectus quickened by the Spirit, striving to discover a ray of purest truth. If the coarser worldly fog be dispensed from the viewer's heart, she sometimes sees ineffably that ineffable light which is truly is God. Two things are altogether necessary if this blessed vision is to be seen: The spirit must become even purer and, in her growing purity, let the innermost sprinkling of celestial dew make her fecund.

Moreover, this blessed vision occurs with wavering and unsteady sight, not with a fixed or firm gaze. It takes in a fleeting transit in which the pious spirit hurriedly and momentarily glimpses the light of divine glory, the flash of blessed and divine reflection. This occurs by means of the sweetness of godly devotion and of burning, envisioning love. Indeed, to be more accurate, she sees that she is unable to see on account of her great weakness and incapacity, an incapacity which ineffably stretches almost but not quite to the point of seeing-she sees within her limits as she is lifted up in spirit. How absolutely lucid this most brilliant brightness is, and, as the Scriptures say, how far removed it is from every thought of human effort, understanding, prudence, investigation, and estimation. Christ alone reveals it to whomsoever he wishes and when he wishes, for he hides it from the wise and prudent and reveals it to infants as he pleases. Whoever wishes to attain this unspeakable light, which is really is God, should strive to be cleansed, clinging all the more attentively to the Mediator between God and man who unites the lowest to the highest.

Gregory speaks of this blessed vision as follows: "By first burning off listlessness from the spirit's vision, the cloud of sins that covers the spirit is dissipated, and the soul is suddenly flooded by the resplendent flash of indescribable light and sprinkled with heavenly dew flowing from the limitless fountain. Perceiving truth, she sees yet sees not the greatness of that very truth." He also says that, though she extends herself to the utmost, the human spirit scarcely knows the innermost limits, "for it is true that we know something of God when we sense that we are unable to know anything fully."

Likewise, the Book on the Solitary Life as cited above says: "Whatever God imparts of the vision and knowledge of God to the faithful here below, it is an enigmatic vision as if in a mirror and is so far removed from the future vision and knowledge as faith is from truth and time from eternity-except when God on occasion reveals his face to his chosen and beloved in a sort of intermittent light, just as a candle enclosed in someone's hands sheds light and conceals light according to the will of the person holding it. Permitted thus to glimpse the fleeting and passing light, the mind can then blaze with ardent longing for full possession of eternal light. Sometimes, to give one a sense of what he lacks, the lover's consciousness is, as it were, briefly sized by grace, snatched away from him, carried off to the light of reality, away from the tumult of affairs into silent joys. There, in a manner suited to his capacity, for a moment, for an instant, utter reality as it is in itself is revealed to him. For a time indeed he may be transformed, in his own way, into something like that ultimate reality. When he has thus learned the difference between clean and unclean, he is returned to himself and returned to the task of cleaning his heart for vision, to the task of fitting his mind for likeness, so that, should he be granted another glimpse, he might see in greater purity and enjoy it more steadily."" pg. 205,206 Guigo De Ponte

"The Golden Epistle" also known as "Book on the Solitary Life" by William of St Thierry

1:53 p.m. - 2014-09-09

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