THE FLEUR DE LYS SERIES ‘oF SpimITUAL Crassics FLEUR DE LYS SERIES [A paper bound series intended to make available at popular pri some of the shorter devotional works which have come down fr eee The Mirror of Faith Mrpirarions anp Devorions oF Févitow. 35. 6d OF Cuzavine 10 Gop. De Adheerendo Deo, attributed v0 Albert the Great. 25. 6d 4. Tue Tunsxrorp Grrr oF Crist. Brother Bernard, 2s. 6d. By WILLIAM OF SAINT THIERRY 5. Tae Mysticat Vine. St. Bonaventure. 35. 6d. 6, Ox ContenrLatine Gop. William of St. Thierry. 2s. 6d. 7. On Jesus ar Tweive Years Orv. St. Aclred of Rievauls. 36 8. Ta Scoot oF SeRKNOWLEDGE. 35. 9. Tue Diving Love, Hugh of St. Victor. 2s. 6d. _. Translated from the Latin by 10. a oH ‘Narone anp Diewrry oF Love, William of St. Thiet Geormzy Wann np ADRIAN WALKER 11, St, AEIRED's LETTER 70 HIS SISTER. 55, 12, Mrprravions 10 THs Hoty Serer. By an Augustinian. 4s. 13, Tu Srues or Hummrry. St. Bernard. 6s. 4, LexTens of Semuruat DimecTION. Bossuet. 55. 15, Tae Mimzor oF Farr, William of St. Thierry. 6 LONDON A. R. MOWBRAY & Co. Limrrepa THE MIRROR OF FAITH naturally and consubstantially. This is the Holy Spirit. Ang by His indwelling in the souls of the faithful, since He iy the mutual love and knowledge of the Father and Son, He brings about the same state within us. By grace He causey in us, through His presence, the mutual cleaving together in love of Father and Son, ‘Thus He brings about in us a resemblance to the divine Trinity, which anticipates the promise of Saint John. . .. “We shall be like to Him, because we shall see Him as He is.”** To be similar to God in the ultimate vision will be to see Him and know Him. To know Him and see Him will make us resemble Him the more. We shall see Him and know Him in the same proportion as we ate similar to Him. We shall resemble Him in precisely the measure in which we see and know Him. This perfect knowledge will be eternal life, and the joy which none can take away from us. In thi life our joy can never be full because it can only be fulfilled in the Complete knowledge of God. Whatever we may know of God in this life is a mere fragment of the know= edge we shall be given when we see Him face to face, a He is. Nor can the heavenly mode of knowing be gathered from any man’s telling, since it could not even be leamed from the lips of the Truth Himself. Not that the Lord was unable to tell us, but our human limitations would not allow oft. And those very limitations He uses for our good, for those whom He loves and who love Him, have a truer idea of the knowledge they seck, if only by knowing how miuch they lack. ‘The Holy Spirit, Who is the love of God, comes even to the poor in spirit, that is, to those who are lacking love and longing for it. Love works in their souls through the Holy Spirit's abundant grace and well-doing, and not because their need in any sense constrains Him. In the beginning, the Spirit of God moved over the waters at the creation of THE MIRROR OF FAITH a she world." Just as the sun moves over the water, warming ¢ with its rays, drawing it upwards so as to turn it into rain for the thirsty land, so the love of God moves over the love of faithful hearts, drawing it to Himself through its natural inclination to cleave upward to Him, like fire, And this jove is the love that God unites to Himself, making it one spirit with His own, and with Himself. When we read that God is a Spirit,* this applies equally to the Father and the gon. When we speak of the Holy Spirit, we put a special emphasis on the fact that in the third of the divine persons wwe see the unity of Father and Son in a special manner. ‘A man, for his part, may be called ‘spirit’ when this name is communicated to him by the Holy Spirit Himself, Then such a man of God is indeed one spirit with God, both in same and in fact. All men, if they have one heart and soul in God, are made one spirit with God, when heart and soul live in the unity of the Trinity, the source of all charity. 2 Union with God it the midst of the Trinity For a man to find himself in some mysterious way in the very midst of the Trinity, and united to God in the very charity which unites the Father with the Son—such a grace is more than the mind can grasp. Such goodness is un fathomable. To be made holy in the Spirit of all holiness, where Father and Son embrace. ...O sweetness, O deep security for the loving heart! The experience of such happiness, the realization of such an infinite good, although in this poor life they can never be complete, are yet enough in themselves to constitute a life of blessedness. And in the future life they will be gloriously falfilled, and their fullness will never change. When we have outlived all that6 THE MIRROR OF FAITH. is partial, we shall have the perfect vision of God as He ig, To promise such fallness of vision in this life would, of course, be a dangerous presumption. Just as infidelity is to be guarded against in all questions of belief, so temerity i to be avoided in all matters of knowledge and unde standing. Authority must be the rule of faith, and truth the rule of understanding. Meanwhile, even though God cannot be seen or known as He is, we can know a little about Him if we refuse to accept anything as God which is not God. By this we mean anything corporeal, or situated in place, and borrowing the nee and dimensions of things we know. We muse think on the Truth itself, as far as we may, and then with fall certainty know it and love it. For the true can be recognized as such, It may also be loved, even when it iy not fully known. Now this Truth is God, Who is what He is, and from Whom, through Whom, and in Whom all things exist. He is the highest Good, from Whom, in Whom, and through Whom, all that is good, is good. Take away from the Truth all chings that are true, and from the good all things that are good. ‘Then you can think about truth itself and goodness itself, and who can think on these things without loving them ? To think of God and to love Him are the same thing, although we may think about God and yet not love Him, We must always cleave to Him so that, in so far as we may, we can indeed taste how sweet the Lord is. Not even the loving heart or the humble mind can merit to enter into His sanctuary, because they are still impure. If they are allowed to taste His graciousness for a little while, their weakness does not permit them to stay and enjoy it. "They cannot stay, yet they can embrace the Lord’s goodness, even though their love is grieved to tears perhaps. His goodness admits us even when we are unworthy. His discipline THE MIRROR OF FAITH « teaches us, when our unworthiness excludes us from tasting His sweetness. Then we must abide patiently, for we are uutified the while, in order that we may come to God more often, and stay longer. Then at last we shall live in His presence for ever. We shall be with Christ, in the Father. But such a state does not belong to this life, but to that life in which we shall see God as He is. Then we shall no longer need to believe, for we shall see and know. If only we could understand all that this means! The blessed people who walk in the Lord’s light can see and understand, but we for our part can only get involved in words, and remain as distant as ever from what we try to make them express. And yet, what else can we do but speak in words? Words can at least signify certain things to the mind, things with forms familiar to our sight and thinking. But when they are applied to divine things, such words, instead of enlightening our minds, only serve to darken our understanding. Since divine things have no form, they can have no image of any kind, and therefore words can do them no justice. Yet if we have no recourse to words we cannot possibly think on spiritual things, although admittedly our words are in no sense an image of the things they stand for. What do we mean, for instance, by the name ‘God’ or ‘Lord’? One is a name of fear, the other of power. But if you ask the name of God Himself, He answers ‘I am Who am.’ This is His name, as He says, from all time, for there was never any better means of expressing His being. His name signifies what is eternal, but it does not express Him as He is for He passes on, even as He speaks to Moses. The very word ‘God,’ in our mouths, is transient, and only a Word as eternal as Himself can describe Him, Many things have been said about God, but who could speak of God Himself but God?” ‘THE MIRROR OF FAITH ‘Only love, an enlightened Jove, and one which speaks inwardly of God, can best describe Him. And humble devotion, whose striving is filial love, whose access to God is prayer—this kind of devotion can speak of God, for it has found Him. It enjoys Him, and gazes on Him with some measure of understanding. Where faith and under standing mect together, with mercy and truth, justice and peace, there God can be spoken of, for hope has at last merged into the long hoped-for reality. Love has been nortured by faith, healing and enlightening the soul's sight so that it has the deep understanding of faith, and can grasp truth without obscurity. ‘That which is still beyond under- standing is none the less believed without ambiguity. Thus we do not leave words behind entirely. We are simply no longer conscious of their ministry. We still perceive truth by the medium of words, but the assent of our minds goes beyond what services they can render us. For this reason the Word of God appeared in the form of man so that God, Who had spoken to our forefathers in many ways, might speak to us in His Son.** God’s Word could do what lesser words could not. Whatever happened to Him in His lifetime was designed to help us in our faith, In the beginning God promised to send us the Word in ‘Whom all was created. He sent His Word so that He might purify us by the sufferings of His Son, and for those who are purified He reserves an eternity of happiness in. the contemplation of that same Word. Christ is known as God in the eternal vision, and even here below He can be known as more than a man by those who desire Him, and who, rather than cling to the words spoken of Him, use them in order to pass over from faith to sight. If we take the words of Saint John literally: ‘As Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in us,*? would it not appear that we are setting up an idol in THE MIRROR OF FAITH a our hearts? We are indeed far from the truth if we think that since we each occupy a certain place, and God is within us, then God must be circumscribed by place. We can only understand the meaning of words when we realize that our thoughts about God are not God Himself, Our thoughts cannot do justice to God as He is, What Saint John really implies is ‘that the Father and the Son are two distinct petsons, but that the Son's whole being is the Father's existence in the Son, and the Father’s whole being is the Son’s existence in the Father. They live in us through the working of their most merciful love, and we live in them by means of our love for them. Our Lord’s words, and even our words by means of which we try to expound His, are not always within the grasp of our understanding. We need inner experience, and the enlightening inner sense of love. Our Lord, appearing in human flesh, took away the vanity of idols and offered us instead the reality of a God Who is three in one and one in three. With the bright light of His divinity, He stripped the human ideas of God, albeit formed in faith, of all their vain imagination. Since the understanding of divinity is beyond the powers of men, He taught men His own way of thinking on God. Every deed and every word of the incarnate Word of God is 2 word for our instruction. Everything that we read about Him, hear about Him, speak of Him, all our meditation (whether inciting us to love o striking fear into our hearts), all these call us to one thing only. And of this thing, many things have been said, and yet nothing can be truly said of it, for we cannot attain to what it is unless it comes first to us, seeking us out, and enlightening us towards it. The face of God, as it reveals itself to the inner sense of lovers, is His will, and the knowledge of His truth. Now we can have no true knowledge of God unless ourn THE MIRROR OF FAITH sense of love is first conformed to the sight of God’s face, Nor can our sense of love be reliable unless it makes its judgements in the light of God’s fice. Nor can we do ought well, or live as we should, unless all the acts of our lives are formed according to the desire to live as God wills us to live. Neither can we seek or receive anything from God unless it outstrips all our merits, and comes to us as a pure gift of grace. Therefore, © God, Whom no one truly seeks without finding, even though the truth which lives in our inmost souls may have no inkling that the Truth it seeks has already answered its prayer... find us that we may find Thee! Come into us, that we may find our way into Thee, and live in Thee! For it is not our will that wins the day, but only Thy mercy. Inspire us to believe in Thee. Strengthen us to hope in Thee. Set us on fire that we may love Thee. Grant us to be wholly Thine, that all may be well for us in Thee, in Whom we live and move and have our being. NOTES 11 Corinthians xii 13, 21 Corinthians i 8 = Romans vi, 22 #2°Thesalonia 82 Timothy ia # Romans i. 21. Se Matthew x. 33, ® St. Loke xvi 25, Joh vi. 66 29 Se Joba v.13. 11 Timothy i 13-13, St Matthew x. 7, 1 Ban vi 3 4 Ialah vit. 9 (Sepruagint). Galatians fi 2825 28 Galatians iv. 5-6; Romans vii, 15, 2 Corinthians it 7 38 Se Joba iv 42. » Psalm ai 1 Psalm exit 11, 81 Sc Matthew avi. 16 (i) St Jona 1 and Sa 7 © St Matthew iv. 9. 22 Kings evi 36, Se Luke xvi 3 St John 3.9. 2 ibid, vil 8. * bid. 2 Genesis xvi 27 % Genesis vie 3 ™ St, Luke i, a anatt Exo vi, 19, sim 8 Epins 9 Pole exit 3 2 Wel 05 6 John 8 a) ni 26, x * Psalm xlv. 5, Ce ae » £2 Tinchy 5 STi is ein ia Pei cure At 1.25, Cie, de Of 25. Te 57 “Pali 1. a