Light, Life, and Love: Selections from the German Mystics of the Middle Ages · Chapter 30On the Desire to Know God As He Is, in the Nature of His Godhead
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THE man who thus lives, in this perfection, as I have here described it, and who devotes all his life and actions to the honour and glory of God, and who seeks and loves God above all things, is often seized by the desire to see and know Christ, this Bridegroom who was made man for love of him, who laboured in love even till death, who drove away from him sin and the enemy, who gave him His grace, who gave him Himself, who left him His sacraments and promised him His kingdom. When a man considers all this, he is exceedingly desirous to see Christ his Bridegroom, and to know what He is in Himself While He only knows Him in His works he is not satisfied. So he will do like Zacchasus, the publican, who desired to see Jesus Christ. He will go in front of the crowd—that is to say, the multitude of the creatures, for they make us so little and short, that we cannot perceive God. And he will climb the tree of faith, which grows from above downwards, for its roots are in the Godhead. This tree has twelve branches, which are the twelve articles of faith. The lower branches speak of the humanity of Christ, and of the things which concern the salvation of our body and soul. The higher part of the tree speaks of the Godhead, of the Trinity of the Divine Persons and the Unity of the Divine Nature. A man will strive to reach the unity at the top of the tree, for it is there that Jesus must pass with all His gifts. Here Jesus comes, and sees the man, and tells Him in the light of faith that He is, according to His Godhead, immeasurable and incomprehensible, inaccessible and abysmal, and that He surpasses all created light and all finite comprehension. This is the highest knowledge acquired in the active life, to recognise thus, in the light of faith, that God is inconceivable and unknowable. In this light Christ saith to the desire of a man: "Come down quickly, for I must lodge at thy house to-day." This rapid descent to which God invites him is nothing else but a descent, by desire and love, into the abyss of the Godhead, to which no intelligence can attain in crested light. But where intelligence remains outside, love and desire enter. The soul thus bending towards God, by the intention of love, above all that the intellect can comprehend, rests and abides in God, and God abides in her. Then mounting by desire, above the multitude of the creatures, above the work of the senses, above the light of nature, she meets Christ in the light of faith, and is enlightened, and recognises that God is unknowable and inconceivable. Finally, bending by her desires towards this inconceivable God, she meets Christ and is loaded with His gifts; by living and resting upon Him, above all His gifts, above herself and above all the creatures, she dwells in God and God in her.
This is how you will meet Christ at the summit of the active life, if you have as your foundations justice, charity, and humility; and if you have built a house above—that is to say, the virtues here described, and if you have met Christ by faith—that is to say, by faith and the intention of love, you dwell in God and God dwells in you, and you possess the active life.
This is the first explanation of the word of Jesus Christ our Bridegroom, when He said, "See, the Bridegroom cometh; go forth to meet Him."