The eternal birth and the soul's threefold images

To return to the subject of the eternal birth. There is the question whether the soul brings forth the eternal Word in images or without images. Remember this. When the soul gives herself up to God and is made one with him and God takes over her work, she is receptive only and leaves God to act. Here the soul is pregnant without form or image, for anything conceived in form or image trenches on time and place and belongs to the domain of creatures. From this it follows that the more the work is the soul's, the less it is God's.

The soul conceives more truly without images than in them, for this birth happens more by way of Godhood than of selfhood. But we may still ask, in which image does the soul best succeed in giving birth to the eternal Word? There are three kinds of images. The first the soul takes in from outside through the senses. The second the soul calls up from within by thinking on the childhood of our Lord or on his suffering and death, but all images gotten this way are called divine births in the soul. The third kind of image is given to the soul directly by God. It is in these last that the soul conceives best. According to another gloss, this happens when the mind brings forth, feels and knows the eternal Word in its own proper image as the Father gets it in himself, supposing the soul able to reach that far, or, failing that reach of understanding, when, going out in birth and love, the mind reaches toward this same image. For in this final image the eternal Word is born most perfectly of all.

Another question is whether the birth of the eternal Word is passing or lasting. Now you must understand that it is this birth which makes the soul one, and in this respect it is inward and does not pass away unless a person falls into mortal sin. But as it happens in sense perception and in discursive thought, this birth passes away.

Further it is asked, in what particular place does the soul bring forth or seek the eternal Word? Mark this. It is in the Father as the intellectual image of his divine essence and the reflection of his divine nature, so that it carries both his essence and his nature. It is with the Father as the Son, as a Person. It is in the Holy Spirit as the overflow of their eternal joy in each other. It is in the soul as the likeness of God's equal forms, or Persons. It is in all creatures as what holds their being in place. It is here that the soul must seek the eternal Word, here in these places, and Christ says, 'Seek and you shall find.' May we seek in such a way that we find eternally. So help us almighty God. I will say no more at this gathering. Pray God to make me fit for that blessed moment. Amen.