Chapter IX — Part
1
Shows how one comes to see the Light and to hear the Truth of God That speaks to the Soul.
IF you desire to unfold the Contemplative Life in yourself, you must enter within, beyond your sense-life, and, in that high point of your being, adorned with all the virtues of which I have spoken, looking to God with thanks and love and continual reverence, you must keep your thoughts bare and stripped of every sensible image, your understanding opened and lovingly uplifted to the Eternal Truth, and your spirit spread out in the sight of God as a Living Mirror, to receive His Everlasting Likeness.
Behold, therein appears a Light of the understanding, Which neither sense, nor reason, nor nature, nor the clearest logic can apprehend, but Which gives us freedom and confidence towards God.
It is nobler and higher than all that God has created in Nature; for It is the perfection of Nature, and above Nature, and is the clear-shining Intermediary between us and God.
Our thoughts, bare and stripped of images, are themselves the Living Mirror wherein there shines this Light.
And the Light requires from us that we should be like to and one with God in this Living Mirror of our bare thoughts; and so God lives in us with His Grace, and we live in Him by reason of our virtue and good deeds.
In this Living Mirror are we like to our Eternal Archetype, Which is God Himself; for we live a life conformable to the Everlasting Providence of God.
The Light flows forth in similitude, and indraws Itself in unity; which we perceive, beyond the reason, in that high point of our understanding, which is bare and turned within.
And therein speaks the Truth of God within our spirit, and says:
"Behold Me as I behold you; and know Me as I know you. Love Me as I love you; delight in Me as I delight in you; and just as I am all yours, wholly and unreservedly, so would I that you should wholly and unreservedly be Mine.
From all Eternity have I seen you, before all Creation, in Me, and one with Me, and as I see Myself. Therein have I known you, loved you, called you, chosen you. I have created you in My Image and in My Likeness. I have adopted your nature, and therein have I imprinted My Archetypal Image, that you may be one with Me, without intermediary, in the Glory of My Father.
I have created My Soul, with all Its powers, and filled It with every good gift, in order that I might serve and obey My Father and your Father, My God and your God, in the humanity which is common to us both, with all My strength, and even to death.
And, out of My fulness of Grace and Mercy, have I filled your soul and your powers, in order that you may be like Me, and, in My strength and by My Gifts, may serve and thank and praise Our God to all Eternity, World without end."