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St. Paul mentions his ecstasy very briefly and on this occasion gives the essence of the Christian life: “I know a man in Christ.”25.1 The ecstasy is only a special grace, by no means indispensable and never to be sought. On the other hand, every baptized person is “a man in Christ”.
We consider that this Pauline expression indicates the mystic state, which means that no one is excluded, and that Christian mysticism is sacramental.25.2 No one is a mystic apart from the eucharist. Baptism indeed inaugurates it by the birth of God in the soul. “When the redeemer was born, it was day in the middle of the night.”25.3 He takes possession of this place and never ceases deepening it. The Letter to Diognetos says: “The Logos who is always born in the heart of the saints is born and grows.” St. Gregory of Nyssa is more precise: “The child Jesus grows in various ways according to the measure of each one; he manifests himself as a child, as an adolescent, as a fully grown man.”25.4 According to St. Maximus the Confessor, a mystic is one in whom the birth of the Lord is best manifested. Likewise St. Ambrose writes: “Each soul that believes, conceives and brings forth the Word of God... According to the flesh there is but one mother of Christ, but according to faith, Christ is the fruit of us all.”25.5 In this way St. Paul defined his pastoral task: “In order that Christ be formed in you.”25.6
In following the progression described by St. Gregory of Nyssa, Christ becomes “a fully grown man” in the human soul when baptism is followed by the eucharist whose influence extends to the whole life of the faithful Christian. “If any man listens to my voice and opens the door to me, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me.”25.7 It is more than a birth; it is a communion whereby a man “in Christ” becomes a part of his body, his living member. “The same virtue belongs to both tables (one earthly, the other heavenly); the same guest is in both worlds; above, the nuptial palace, here below, a progress toward the nuptial kingdom, and at last to the Spouse.” “Great is this mystery,” wrote St. Paul to exalt this union; for here is the mystic marriage; the divine Spouse unites himself to his Church25.8 and to every human soul.
For the Pauline image of “the head”, Cabasilas substitutes “the triumphant and overflowing heart”, the inexhaustible source of the treasures of love. That is why the eucharist contains the biblical theme of the mystic espousals. “The man of sorrows” reveals himself as “the man of desires”, the eternal magnet and the divine lover of men. Christ alone is the magnet that attracts love and then enters into us in order that we may live again in him. Cabasilas gives clear and simple evidence for this: “The soul thirsts for the infinite. The eye was created for light, the ear for sounds, everything for its end, and the desire of the soul to throw itself toward Christ.”25.9 The love of God inclines toward earth, and espouses the impulse of the man who ascends.
In his ascent, “the man in Christ” learns the liturgical meaning of history; it suppresses all turning aside and leads him to the hidden reality. The words of St. Paul that God acquired his people “for the praise of his glory”25.10 have a parallel in the Apocalypse where the sole occupation of men is “to prostrate and adore”. This is because every doxology--eucharist, thanksgiving--“redeems the time”, which means that it opens it upon “the eternal present”.
“Give us this day our daily bread”25.11 means that the gifts of salvation and of the kingdom may be granted us even now, even today, here below. It is not a hope for future time, but an immediate requirement, here and now. “We enter paradise today when we are poor and crucified,” writes Leon Bloy.25.12
St. Matthew's Gospel, in speaking of the last judgment, stresses the decisive character of the present instant. As soon as time merges into eternity, division is done away with, and with it the schizophrenia of syncopated time.
We understand the immense importance of this when we note that the man of history lives outside time. Indeed by a strange alienation, the man of this world lives in the past, in his memories, or in expectation of his future. As for the present moment he tries to escape from it, and exercises his inventive spirit in order “to kill time” better. This man does not live in the here and now, but in reveries of which he is unconscious. An ascetic adage affirms: “The hour that you are living, the task that you are doing, the man whom you are meeting in this moment, are the most important in your life.” They are so because the past and the future in their abstract dislocation are non-existent and have no access to eternity; the latter converges only toward the present moment and is given only to the one who makes himself totally present at that moment. It is only in these instants that one can attain it and live it under the guise of the eternal present. The liturgical “memorial” clearly teaches this. It suppresses the past that has gone by, makes the totality of history actual, and bears it before the face of the Father, introducing it into the dimension of the present that actualizes the before and after. In the “memory” of the Father, all is present, actual, vibrant with life.
The liturgy, freeing us from the weight of time, a weight caused by its non-existent dimensions, brings the divine presence into a man's soul and permits him to recognize it. It is because Mary Magdalen was looking for her God following an image fixed and stabilized in her, and therefore non-existent, that she did not at once recognize her Lord at the tomb.
A monk has recently written a book called Presence of Jesus.25.13 He tells of a day passed with Jesus, a simple day, yet one very different from the ordinary day of a man. One can see in it a kind of osmosis and continuity between the human actions of our Lord and our own acts. Living the Gospel in the humblest things of daily life brings us amazingly close both to Jesus and at the same time to other men. A prayer springs forth spontaneously: “Do not allow thy word to be in my soul as in a sanctuary that is isolated by a grill from the house and the street.”25.14
We perceive clearly that it is not at all a question of a “rule of life”, often poorly adapted to real life, but of a “style of life”, of a spirituality attentive to the mysterious and multiform presence of Christ who awaits us, and who expects from us a certain inventive genius so that we can recognize him and follow him even to hell and beyond. Such a day has the value of a Gospel parable that has been lived; it opens an infinite series, the actual eternity of present moments. If spiritual writers have spoken much of ladders, it is because on these ladders we descend toward men and then, all together, we ascend toward the one who awaits us.
The description of the last judgment is striking in its simplicity, but this does not make it less formidable. The sole accusation is that of being inattentive, insensible to the presence of Christ in every suffering being, in every human person. It is therefore this recognition that Christ expects from man.
“After God, consider each man as God,” spiritual men used to say. In place of the usual salutations, they knew how to salute the human face of God in everyone, in every unknown passerby. Abbot Apollos would say to his disciples: “When a pilgrim or a guest comes to visit you, prostrate yourself before him. Not before the man, but before God. For it is said: `You see your brother, you see your God.”'25.15 Such an attitude is never a recipe or a rule, but a style that structures man from within and expresses an unquenchable thirst for Christ. One who knows how to say to each one, “my joy”, speaks to a man as the dwelling place of God, and that is why his joy is perfect.
The Shepherd of Hermas calls to our attention that whoever omits to help a man in distress will be held responsible for his loss.25.16 St. Maximus the Confessor warns us that we shall have to render an account “of the evil we have done, but above all, for the good that we have neglected to do, and because we have not loved our neighbor”.25.17 If the Gospel condemns every idle word, the agraphon quoted by Didymus of Alexandria goes further: “Of every good word that they do not utter, they will render an account on the day of judgment.”25.18 “At the evening of life, we shall be judged by our love,” notes St. John of the Cross.
We know that the piety of the Jews of the Old Testament was formed by hearing. “Listen, O Israel.” The Word structures history. But for the same Jews, at the time of the messianic restoration, eschatology replaced hearing by vision. It is no longer, “listen”, but “raise your eyes and see”. Likewise the Gospel has us hear the words of Jesus, invites us to listen to them, but as soon as history is transcended, “the pure of heart will see God”. At the moment of his martyrdom, the deacon Stephen saw heaven open before his eyes on “the glory of God and of Jesus standing at the right hand of God”.
G. Kittel25.19emphasizes that at the moment of the resurrection hearing passed to vision and marked the beginning of the parousia and entrance into eschatological time. A luminous cloud accompanied the Exodus, covered the tabernacle, filled the temple, and revealed the dwelling of the Shekinah, the glory of God, and the place of his manifest presence. That is why Moses and Elias, the great visionaries of the Old Testament, accompanied the transfigured Christ, in order to testify to the same divine light. The light of Thabor anticipates that of the parousia and of the world to come.
The spiritual life leads to ineffable contemplation where light is the object, but also the means of vision. The halos of the saints in iconography show the luminosity of bodies as being ontologically normative. They are shown on icons, but during life these exterior manifestations are rare, being very special charisms. The spiritual remains interiorized, intense, centered on the heart and on the lifting up of the spirit, visible to God alone.
Seen from above, a saint is already clothed in light, but seen from below, he never ceases to struggle. “We shall not be accused of not working miracles,” says St. John Climacus, “but we shall surely have to render an account to God because we have not ceaselessly wept over our sins.”25.20 St. Isaac declares: “Repentance is the trembling of the soul before the gates of the kingdom.”25.21
Not attempting a mediocre imitation, the man following Christ reproduces his image interiorly. “Purity of heart is love for those who fall.”25.22 The mystic soul dilates and opens wide in a cosmic charity, assumes universal evil, goes through the agony of Gethsemane, and rises to another vision that despoils it of all judgment. “The one who is purified sees the soul of his neighbor.” Like sees like. When one sees all men as good and no one as impure, then we can say that he is truly pure of heart. “If you see your brother in the act of sinning, throw about his shoulders the mantle of your love.”25.23 Such a love is effective because it changes the very substance of things.25.24
It is no longer the passage from passion to continence, from sin to grace, but the passage from fear to love: “The perfect reject fear, disdain rewards, and love with their whole hearts.”25.25
The soul is elevated above every determined sign, every representation and every image. The multiple gives place to the one and the simple. The soul, image and mirror of God, becomes the dwelling of God. The mystic elevation orients it toward the kingdom. “If the characteristic of wisdom is knowledge of realities, no one can be called wise if he does not embrace also the things to come.”25.26 “A spiritual man of the latter days,” says St. Isaac, “receives the grace that is conformable to him.” This is the iconographic vision of “the divine liturgy”. The heavenly choir of angels, where the “lost sheep”, humanity, has its place, stands before the mystic lamb of the Apocalypse, surrounded by the triple circle of spheres. On the whiteness of the celestial world, the royal purple of the passion stands out, tending toward the splendor of the noon without decline, the iconographic color of divine love clothed in humanity. This is the return of man to his heavenly dignity. At the moment of the ascension of Christ, the angels cried out: “Who is this king of glory?” Now the angels are in profound amazement before this final mystery--the lost sheep becomes one with the shepherd. The Canticle of Canticles sings the espousals of the Word and the dove. Love is the magnet, and the soul, attracted always more violently, casts itself into the luminous darkness of God. One feels the powerlessness of words: luminous darkness, sober ecstasy, well of living water, motionless movement.
“You have become beautiful in approaching my light; your approach has drawn to you a share of my beauty.” “Approaching the light, the soul becomes light.”25.27 At this level, it is not a question of learning about God, but of receiving him and being converted in him. “The knowledge that has become love” is clearly of a eucharistic nature. “The wine that rejoices the heart is called, since the passion, the blood of the vine.” “The mystic vine pours out sober intoxication.”25.28
“Love is God who throws his arrow, his only begotten Son, after having moistened its threefold point with the vivifying Spirit; the point is faith which not only introduces the arrow but the archer with it.”25.29
The soul transformed into a dove mounts always higher--grace upon grace. “Having once put your foot on the ladder on which God had leaned, do not cease to go up... each rung leads to one beyond.”25.30It is Jacob's ladder.
To meet man come “not only the angels, but the Lord of the angels”. “But what can I say of what is ineffable; what the eye has not seen, what the ear has not heard, what has not entered into the heart of man to conceive, how can all that be expressed in words?”25.31
Every movement ceases; prayer itself changes in nature. “The soul prays outside prayer.”25.32 It is hesychia, the silence of the spirit, its repose above all prayer, the peace that surpasses all peace. It is the face-to-face vision extended over eternity, when “God comes into the soul and the soul goes forth to God”. In this frontal meeting with the one who has already come, man finally becomes in himself such as divine eternity has changed him. Having arrived at the most desirable end:
“He is separated from all, and united to all;
Impassible, and of a sovereign sensibility;
Deified, and he esteems himself the off-scouring of the world;
Above all, be is happy,
Divinely happy...”25.33