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THIS, this is the formula which the mind should unceasingly cling to
until, strengthened by the constant use of it and by continual meditation,
it casts off and rejects the rich and full material of all manner of
thoughts and restricts itself to the poverty of this one verse, and so
arrives with ready ease at that beatitude of the gospel, which holds the
first place among the other beatitudes: for He says "Blessed are the poor
in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." And so one who becomes
grandly poor by a poverty of this sort will fulfil this saying of the
prophet: "The poor and needy shall praise the name of the Lord." And
indeed what greater or holier poverty can there be than that of one who
knowing that he has no defence and no strength of his own, asks for daily
help from another's bounty, and as he is aware that every single moment his
life and substance depend on Divine assistance, professes himself not
without reason the Lord's bedesman, and cries to Him daily in prayer: "But
I am poor and needy: the Lord helpeth me." And so by the illumination of
God Himself he mounts to that manifold knowledge of Him and begins
henceforward to be nourished on sublimer and still more sacred mysteries,
in accordance with these words of the prophet: "The high hills are a refuge
for the stags, the rocks for the hedgehogs," which is very fairly
applied in the sense we have given, because whosoever continues in
simplicity and innocence is not injurious or offensive to any one, but
being content with his own simple condition endeavours simply to defend
himself from being spoiled by his foes, and becomes a sort of spiritual
hedgehog and is protected by the continual shield of that rock of the
gospel, i.e., being sheltered by the recollection of the Lord's passion and
by ceaseless meditation on the verse given above he escapes the snares of
his opposing enemies. And of these spiritual hedgehogs we read in Proverbs
as follows: "And the hedgehogs are a feeble folk, who have made their homes
in the rocks." And indeed what is feebler than a Christian, what is
weaker than a monk, who is not only not permitted any vengeance for wrongs
done to him but is actually not allowed to suffer even a slight and silent
feeling of irritation to spring up within? But whoever advances from this
condition and not only secures the simplicity of innocence, but is also
shielded by the virtue of discretion, becomes an exterminator of deadly
serpents, and has Satan crushed beneath his feet, and by his quickness of
mind answers to the figure of the reasonable stag, this man will feed on
the mountains of the prophets and Apostles, i.e., on their highest and
loftiest mysteries. And thriving on this pasture continually, he will take
in to himself all the thoughts of the Psalms and will begin to sing them in
such a way that he will utter them with the deepest emotion of heart not as
if they were the compositions of the Psalmist, but rather as if they were
his own utterances and his very own prayer; and will certainly take them as
aimed at himself, and will recognize that their words were not only
fulfilled formerly by or in the person of the prophet, but that they are
fulfilled and carried out daily in his own case. For then the Holy
Scriptures lie open to us with greater clearness and as it were their very
veins and marrow are exposed, when our experience not only perceives but
actually anticipates their meaning, and the sense of the words is revealed
to us not by an exposition of them but by practical proof. For if we have
experience of the very state of mind in which each Psalm was sung and
written, we become like their authors and anticipate the meaning rather
than follow it, i.e., gathering the force of the words before we really
know them, we remember what has happened to us, and what is happening in
daily assaults when the thoughts of them come over us, and while we sing
them we call to mind all that our carelessness has brought upon us, or our
earnestness has secured, or Divine Providence has granted or the promptings
of the foe have deprived us of, or slippery and subtle forgetfulness has
carried off, or human weakness has brought about, or thoughtless ignorance
has cheated us of. For all these feelings we find expressed in the Psalms
so that by seeing whatever happens as in a very clear mirror we understand
it better, and so instructed by our feelings as our teachers we lay hold of
it as something not merely heard but actually seen, and, as if it were not
committed to memory, but implanted in the very nature of things, we are
affected from the very bottom of the heart, so that we get at its meaning
not by reading the text but by experience anticipating it. And so our mind
will reach that incorruptible prayer to which in our former treatise, as
the Lord vouchsafed to grant, the scheme of our Conference mounted, and
this is not merely not engaged in gazing on any image, but is actually
distinguished by the use of no words or utterances; but with the purpose of
the mind all on fire, is produced through ecstasy of heart by some
unaccountable keenness of spirit, and the mind being thus affected without
the aid of the senses or any visible material pours it forth to God with
groanings and sighs that cannot be uttered.
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