The swift river: how grace fills the soul without means

Fluminis impetus laetificat civitatem dei: sanctificavit tabernaculum suum altissimus (Psalm 45:5). 'The sudden or swift river makes glad the city of God.' Here we must notice three things. First, the swift stream; next, the city it serves; third, the benefit it brings.

The prophet does not know how to hold back the rush of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit flows into the soul as fast as she pours herself out in humility, and as far as her capacity allows. He fills every space he can find. Now consider what city it flows through. It is really the soul. A city is something enclosed and gathered within itself. The soul must be the same, if God is to flow into her. She must be safe from outside disturbance, with her powers gathered within. According to St John, the twelve apostles were gathered together when they received the Holy Spirit. In the same way the soul must be gathered and brought home to herself, to welcome this divine stream that fills her cup of delight to the brim.

I sometimes say that beginners in the virtuous life should do what someone does when drawing a circle: once the starting point is fixed, he keeps it fixed, and then the line comes out true. In other words, learn first to fix your heart on God, on goodness, and on good works. Great deeds done with a wavering heart are worth little or nothing. There were once two teachers. One of them said the good man cannot be moved. The other disagreed. What I say is this: the good man can indeed be moved, but he cannot be changed for the worse. I believe the good man is not easily hindered. But if anything can make him worse, he is not perfect.

Third, the benefit of it. Which is, as the prophet says, that God is in the midst of her, and she shall not be moved. He means the soul. The soul does not want God to work in her through any mixture with creatures. Some things God does with the help of creatures, and some without any help at all. If the grace that comes through my words could enter your heart without any medium, as though spoken by God directly, your soul would be converted at once and could not help it. By speaking God's word I become a co-worker with God, and grace gets mixed in through me, God speaking it through me, and since I stand as a medium to you, it is not received whole and unmixed in your soul. But the grace spoken by the Holy Spirit itself is received directly and stamped unchanged on the soul, at the moment the soul is gathered into the single power that has direct knowledge of God. Grace springs up in the heart of the Father and flows into his Son, and in their mutual love it proceeds from the wisdom of the Son into the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in the Holy Spirit it is sent into the soul; and this grace is the face of God, and is sealed into the soul by the Spirit of God, without any medium and unchanged, making the soul like God. God does this by himself, with no help from any creature.

No creature is noble enough to help with this work. God has not given their nature that kind of excellence. But he can do it easily enough within his own perfect nature. God will not let a creature take part in this work, so for the time being he lifts the soul to a level far above her natural place, out of the reach of any creature. It would be well within the noble nature of an angel, if God would let an angel serve in this way. But that would offend the soul, for in that hour she will not tolerate even the slightest trace of creature. Even the light of grace by which she is united to God would be rejected by the soul, if she did not know she cannot do without it. In fact, it is not natural to her, it is entirely beyond nature, this rejecting of everything that is not God, for God is leading his bride out of all creaturely value into himself, and speaks with her in her heart, that is, he makes her like himself through grace. For this high act the soul must gather herself completely.

The powers of the soul are filled with delight by this pure pouring in of grace. Grace is to God as the shining is to the sun, it is one with him, and it carries the soul into God and makes her exactly like God, so that she shares in God's own perfection. To the soul that has received and enjoyed this divine perfection, everything that is not God tastes bitter and sickening. Then too, the soul wants the highest of all, so she cannot bear anything above her. I say, yes, and I dare to insist, she cannot even bear God being above her, and I can prove it this way. For if the soul were carried off far beyond all things into perfect freedom from them, and came into touch with God in his bare divinity, still she would never rest until, pressing into that, he had drowned her in himself and drowned himself in her alone. However far above her God may be in the nobility of his nature, she cannot rest until she has gotten God as fully as it is possible for a creature to grasp him. The greatest happiness in earth or heaven lies in being like God, and the divine nature produces this likeness in its highest degree, namely, as the image of itself. This is what the soul is striving for, since no soul can truly follow God without having in her the image of God. It is for us to see whether the grace we have received is wholly divine, whether it has the taste of God's own perfection, whether it shares in and flows out from his grace into whatever is able to receive it. In just this way a person ought to flow out into whatever is able to receive him. So help us God. Amen.