Vigils Reading

THE PARADISE OF THE HEART

From the spiritual writings of John Comenius 4

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I walked between the rows of coffins until I came to the end of the world and the light. There people closed their eyes and blindly threw their dead into the abyss. Throwing off the glasses of delusion and rubbing my eyes, I proceeded as far as I was able… I beheld fearful darkness and gloom of which neither the bottom nor the end could be fathomed by human reason… I was terrified and fell swooning to the ground… I cried out dolefully “…Oh God… if you are God, have mercy on me, a wretched man!” When I stopped speaking but was still trembling all over with horror, I heard behind me a soft voice saying, “Return!” I lifted my head, and I looked around… but I saw nothing…

Then the voice sounded again: “Return!” Not knowing where to return or how to get out of the darkness, I began to grieve. But then the voice called out a third time: “Return whence you came, to the home of your heart, and shut the door behind you!” I obeyed this counsel as far as I understood it… Then, collecting my thoughts as well as I could and closing my eyes, ears, mouth, nostrils, and all external passages, I entered into my heart and found that it was dark… Then behold, a bright light burst forth from above. Raising my eyes toward it, I saw the upper window full of brilliance, out of which a man came down to me…

“Welcome, welcome, my dear son and brother.”… Seeing me so overwhelmed with joy, he spoke further to me: “Where have you been, my son?… What have you been seeking in the world? Happiness? And where should you have sought it but in God? And where should you have sought God but in his temple? And what is the temple of the living God but the living temple that he has prepared for himself, your own heart? I have watched, my son, while you wandered, but I did not want to see you stray any longer. I have led you to myself by leading you into yourself, for here I have chosen a palace for my dwelling. If you wish to dwell here with me, you will find here what you sought in vain in the world — rest, happiness, glory, and an abundance of everything. I promise you, my son, that here you will not be disappointed as you were there.”

Hearing this speech and realizing that this was my Savior, Jesus Christ, of whom I had heard some mention even in the world, I clasped my hands, not with fear and doubt as in the world, but with full joy and complete trust. Reaching out to him, I said, “Here I am, my Lord Jesus, take me to yourself. I wish to be yours and to remain yours forever… May I be nothing that you alone may be everything.”

I receive that from you, my son,” he said. “Stand firm in this: be mine, call yourself mine, and remain my own. Indeed, from eternity you were and are mine, but you did not know this before… I have led you to myself along strange paths, through circuitous and winding ways that you did not know… But I was with you everywhere, and that is why I led you through these roundabout ways, that in the end I might bring you closer to myself… I will teach you everything. I will enrich you. I will satisfy you.

This only I ask of you, that you transfer and turn over to me whatever you have seen in the world, whatever human efforts you have witnessed for the sake of earthly goods… Let the highest point of your learning be to search for me in my deeds, to see how wonderfully I guide you and all things… Thus ridding yourself of all created beings and denying and renouncing even your own self, I promise that you will find me, and in me the fullness of peace.