Why Christ had to leave: the soul as a spark of God

ASCENSION DAY

Expedit vobis etc. vado parare vobis locum etc. (Joh. 16, 7. 14, 2). When he was about to depart from this world to his heavenly Father, Christ said to his disciples, 'It is expedient for you, it is for your good, that I should go, for while I am with you the Holy Ghost the Comforter will not come unto you.' With these words our Lord consoled his disciples knowing full well that they were troubled because he had warned them of his ascension. Our Lord will not suffer his lovers to be troubled, for fear is painful. And St John says, 'Love casteth out fear.' Love is incompatible with fear and pain, for the waxing of love is the waning of fear, and when love is perfect all fear is gone. But at the beginning of the virtuous life fear is of use to man, providing him a thoroughfare for love. As the bodkin or the awl makes a passage for the thread and the shoe is stitched with thread, not with the iron; and as the bristle's part towards the thread is to put it in as fastening while the bristle is withdrawn; so, to begin with, fear makes room for love and love binds to God, whereas fear passes out.

Leaving now this argument we turn to the words of my Latin quotation, the words of our Lord, 'I go to prepare a place for you.' Here we notice two things taught and proved by our Lord in his ascension. The first one is that the soul is by nature heir to heaven. God is her lawful heritage, for no one generates the soul but God. God made her without any intervention. Some doctors will maintain, perhaps, that the divine light pouring into the angels, the whole creaturely idea that God reflects into the angels before it is exemplified in divers creatures, that this divine light, this image in the angels, is what makes the soul. Not so. The soul does not permit of any meddling, any interference in God's activity towards her, but fresh and pure as this flows out of God in one unbroken stream, so does the soul proceed from God. Most privily has God embarked and launched forth the soul, so that no one knows for certain what she is. One philosopher calls her a light, and that is well said; for like the light streaming out of the sun and shining into all creatures so is the soul sent straight from God. St Augustine says, 'Since the soul is emitted from God she is nowhere at rest except in God.' Another master says she is a spirit, and this is true in a certain sense; God is a spirit, and the soul is made like to God, so she may well be called spirit, being to God as spirit to spirit. A third master dubs her a fire, speaking the truth in symbol, for fire is most lofty in its nature, most theurgic in its operation, and it never rests until it licks the heavens. It envelops all the elements for being much wider and higher than the air, or than water or the earth, it must be surrounding all the rest. It comes next of all to heaven and revolves therewith. The air goes with it, partially, because of being dense, while water, which is altogether grosser, is unable to keep pace and runs behind. The soul is called a fire because, in her desire, she does keep pace with God, like fire with the heavens, for the soul cannot rest except in God. Some souls which are rather dense follow haltingly, as air lags after fire. And some, again, being downright gross, are, like water, earth-bound and incapable of keeping up with God but run behind; for seeing or hearing something good will stir them with desire to be good, so they do follow after; like water drifting to and fro without a change of level, so are these people moved while abiding of the same mind as before. A fourth doctor calls her a spark of God's celestial nature, and this jumps with our theory of her heavenly origin. Where one clod falls, there, generally speaking, all earth would fall as well; a single clod reveals the ground to be its resting-place. And whither one spark flies to from the fire, that place is revealed as the resting-place of fire.

Now we have sent one spark to heaven, the soul to wit of our Lord Jesus Christ, which shows the common resting-place of souls is nowhere but in heaven; and herein we have proof of the entire soul being heavenly. The body, on the other hand, is made of the four elements, so its habitat is naturally earth. But the soul is in intimate union with the body, and they must ever stay together despite that the body is of earth and the soul a denizen of heaven. God found a wise solution of this problem, himself becoming man and going in his proper power to heaven, so that in him we have already sent one clod of earth to heaven. And the whole earth likewise must belong to heaven, for Christ's resting-place is nowhere but in union with his Father; and as God is three in Person so is he one in nature, they having one being and one life. Thus our Lord Christ shows us that our being and our life are eternal in divine union.

The second thing our Lord has taught and proved by his ascension is how we must prepare ourselves to follow after him in pursuance of his words, 'I go to prepare a place for you.' Just as, on those four grounds, the soul is called light, spirit, fire or a spark of God's celestial nature, even so man is lifted up or gotten ready also by four things finely symbolised of old in the prophet Moses, of whom we read that he gathered his flock together and drove it into the wilderness, into 'the backside of the desert,' and there upon the mount of God he saw a bush burning but unconsumed.

Moses wished to turn aside and see this wonder, the burning bush which would not burn away. But the Lord called to him out of the bush, and said, 'Draw not nigh; put off thy shoes,' under which figure we are taught four precious lessons.

First, in the name Moses, for Moses being interpreted means, one taken from the water. So shall a man be rescued from instability, from out the tempests of this world.

Next, that man's animal passions and desires must all be herded up into the highest power of his soul. Unless the soul is gathered up and lifted out of created things the Holy Ghost cannot enter in nor energise in her. All divine work done by God is wrought by him in spirit, above time and place, for mortal things are fatal to the flow of God. Divine light shed on spiritual creature will engender life, but if it falls on mortal things it fades, either dimmed or extinguished altogether. That is why our Lord declared, 'It is expedient for you, it is for your good, that I should go away.' For his disciples loved him as a man and mortal. Now there can be no doubt that our Lord was nobler than anything God ever made. If he then was a hindrance to his followers it is unquestionably true that other things we love, which are inferior to God, will hinder us much more. Ergo, the soul must transcend the world if she wants God to ply his godly work in her. And St Augustine says explicitly, we can transcend the world in love and knowledge, and that lacking love and knowledge we are nothing, i.e., in the world.

In the third place we learn, that man can see and know God's work, but that while in this body he must needs stop short of actual attainment, just as Moses saw the burning bush but could not go right up to it; he wanted to, however: a case of the love which does not consume the body and has no spiritual potency.

Fourthly, putting off the shoes signifies the freeing of the soul's desire, its withdrawal from all mortal and perishable things. To this and things still higher, O God help us. Amen.