Vigils Reading

HOW JESUS IS HEAVEN TO THE SOUL

From “The Scale of Perfection” by Walter Hilton3

What is heaven to a reasoning soul? Surely, nothing other than Jesus, our God. For if heaven is that which is above all things, then God alone is heaven to a man’s soul, for he alone is superior to the nature of the soul. Therefore if grace enables a soul to perceive the divine nature of Jesus, it sees heaven itself, for it sees God…

It is commonly said that a soul shall see God in all things and within itself. It is true that God is in all created things, but not in the way that a kernel is hidden within the shell of a nut, or as a small object is contained within a greater. He is within all things, maintaining and preserving them in being, but he is present in a spiritual way, exercising the power of his own blessed nature and invisible purity. For just as an object that is very precious and pure is laid in a secure place, so by the same analogy the nature of God, which is supremely precious, pure, and spiritual, utterly unlike any physical nature, is hidden within all things. Anyone who desires to seek God within must therefore forget all material things, for these are exterior; he must cease to consider his own body or even his own soul, and consider the uncreated nature of God who made him, endowed him with life, upholds him, and gives him reason, memory, and love. All these gifts come to him through the power and sovereign grace of God. This must be the soul’s course of action when it is touched by grace; otherwise it will be of little use to seek God within itself or in his creation…

The soul that by grace possesses the fullest knowledge of truth has the clearest vision of God… For as the sun reveals itself and all material things to the eye by its own light, so God, who is also truth, reveals himself first to the understanding of the soul, and by this means bestows all the spiritual knowledge that the soul requires. For the prophet says: Lord, in your light we shall see all light. That is: we shall see that you are truth by the light of yourself.

In the same way, God is described as fire: Our God is a consuming fire. This does not mean that God is the element of fire which heats and consumes physical objects, but that God is love and charity. For just as fire consumes all material objects that can be destroyed by it, so the love of God burns and consumes all sin out of the soul and makes it clean, as fire purifies all kinds of metal. These descriptions and all other material comparisons applied to God in holy scripture must be understood in a spiritual sense, for otherwise they are meaningless. But the reason why such words are employed to describe God is that we are so worldly in our outlook that we cannot speak of God without at first using such expressions. However, when the eyes of the soul are opened by grace, and we are enabled to catch a glimpse of God, then our souls can quite easily interpret these material descriptions in a spiritual sense…

This is the beginning of contemplation, of which St Paul said: We do not contemplate the things that are seen, but those that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporal, but those that are not seen are eternal. It is these things that the soul should aspire to gain, partially indeed in this present life, but fully in the bliss of heaven. For the full bliss and eternal life of the rational soul consist in this vision and knowledge of God. Father, this is eternal life, that your chosen souls should know you, and Jesus Christ your son whom you have sent, to be the one true God