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After the dark and painful night of the spirit there is, St. John
of the Cross tells us, a divine awakening:
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'The soul uses a
similitude of the breathing of one that awakens from his sleep,'
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and says,
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'How gentle and loving is... thine awakening, O Word and
Spouse, in the centre and depth of my soul... wherein alone,
secretly and in silence, Thou dwellest as its Lord.'
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This divine
awakening is an inspiration of the Word manifesting His dominion,
His glory and His intimate sweetness. [162]
This inspiration shows the face of God radiant with graces and the
works which He accomplishes.
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'This is the great delight of this
awakening: to know the creatures through God and not God through
the creatures; to know the effects through the cause and not the
cause through the effects[163] Then is the prayer of the Psalmist
fulfilled: 'Arise, Lord, why sleepest thou?' 'Arise, Lord,'
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that
is to say, remarks St. John of the Cross,
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'do thou awaken us, and
enlighten us, my Lord, that we may know and love the blessings
that Thou hast ever set before us.' [164]
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The same grace is described in the 39th Psalm:
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'With expectation I
have waited for the Lord, and he was attentive to me. And he heard
my prayers and brought me out of the pit of misery and the mire of
dregs; and he set my feet upon a rock and directed my steps, and
he put a new canticle into my mouth.'
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In this 'powerful and glorious awakening' the soul receives, as it
were, an aspiration of the Holy Spirit, who fills it to
overflowing with His goodness and His glory,
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'wherein He has
inspired it with love for Himself, which transcends all
description and all sense, in the deep things of God.' [165]
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These graces are a preparation for that other awakening of the
supreme moment of death, when the soul issuing forth from the body
will see itself immediately as a spiritual substance, as the
angels see themselves. And the last awakening of all will be in
the moment of entrance into glory, when the soul, separated from
the body, sees God face to face, and sees itself in God. Happy the
saints who go straight to heaven. While those about them are
lamenting their departure, they have reached the end of their
journey in the clearness of the vision that gives them joy. As the
Gospel says, they have entered into the joy of their Lord.
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