‘Works’ – Saint Elisabeth of the Trinity - I. HEAVEN IN FAITH - Fourth Day – First & Second Prayer; points 13-16; pages 5-6
[Saint Elisabeth of the Trinity/Elizabeth Catez – XIX-XX Century; Avord, France/Dijon, France; (aged 26); Mystic; Spiritual Writer; Gifted Pianist]“Fourth Day
First Prayer
13. “Deus ignus consumens.” (Heb 12:29) Our God, wrote St. Paul, is a consuming Fire, that is “a fire of love” which destroys, which “transforms into itself everything that it touches.” (Saint John of the Cross) “The delights of the divine enkindling are renewed in our depths by an unremitting activity: the enkindling of love in a mutual and eternal satisfaction. It is a renewal that takes place at every moment in the bond of love.” (Ruysbroeck) Certain souls “have chosen this refuge to rest there eternally, and this is the silence in which, somehow, they have lost themselves.” “Freed from their prison, they sail on the Ocean of Divinity without any creature being an obstacle or hindrance to them.” (Ruysbroeck)
14. For these souls, the mystical death of which St. Paul spoke yesterday becomes so simple and sweet! They think much less of the work of destruction and detachment that remains for them to do than of plunging into the Furnace of love burning within them which is none other than the Holy Spirit, the same Love which in the Trinity is the bond between the Father and His Word. They “enter into Him by living faith, and there, in simplicity and peace” they are “carried away by Him” beyond all things, beyond sensible pleasures, “into the sacred darkness” and are “transformed into the divine image.” (Ruysbroeck) They live, in St. John’s expression, in “communion” (Jn 1:3) with the Three adorable Persons, “sharing” their life, and this is “the contemplative life”; this contemplation “leads to possession.” (Ruysbroeck)
“Now this simple possession is eternal life savored in the unfathomable abode. It is there, beyond reason, that the profound tranquillity of the divine immutability awaits us.” (Ruysbroeck)
Second prayer
15. “I have come to cast fire upon the earth and how I long to see it burn.” (Lk 12:49) It is the Master Himself who expresses His desire to see the fire of love enkindled. In fact, “all our works and all our labors are nothing in His sight. We can neither give Him anything nor satisfy His only desire, which is to exalt the dignity of our soul.” Nothing pleases Him so much as to see it “grow.” “Now nothing can exalt it so much as to become in some way the equal of God; that is why He demands from the soul the tribute of its love, as the property of love is to make the lover equal to the beloved as much as possible. The soul in possession of this love” “appears on an equal footing with Christ because their mutual affection renders everything common to both.” (Saint John of the Cross) “I have called you My friends because all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (Jn 15:15)
16. But to attain to this love the soul must first be “entirely surrendered,” (Saint John of the Cross) its “will must be calmly lost in God’s will” (Saint John of the Cross) so that its “inclinations,” “its faculties” “move only in this love and for the sake of this love. I do everything with love, I suffer everything with love: this is what David meant when he sang, ‘I will keep all my strength for You.’” (Ps 58:10) Then “love fills it so completely, absorbs it and protects it” so well “that everywhere it finds the secret of growing in love,” “even in its relations with the world”; (Saint John of the Cross) in the midst of life’s cares it can rightly say: “My only occupation is loving!” (Saint John of the Cross).”
Image: Jaume_Ferrer_-_God_the_Father_surrounded_by_angels_altarpiece_from_Verdu
Music: ‘Plebs domini’ · Stephen Grant · Paul Guttry · William Sharp · Anonymous
‘Plebs Domini’ = ‘The people of the Lord’
>>> youtube.com/watch?v=y4V72D6KVBw