Tenth Day
" Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect."^ When my Master makes me hear this sentence in the depths of my soul, I realize that He is asking me to live, like the Father, in an eternal present, with no past, no future, but, in unity of being, solely in the eternal present.
What is this present ? David tells me : " They shall adore Him continually for His own sake." This is the u eternal present " in which a " Praise of glory " should abide. But if her attitude of adorer is to be real, so that she can sing : " I will arise early," || she must also be able to say : "For Him I have suffered the loss of all things "fl — that is, for His sake, that I may incessantly adore Him, I have isolated, separated, stripped myself of all things, natural and supernatural, as regards the gifts of God. For unless a soul has destroyed and become emancipated from self, it must necessarily, at certain times, be commonplace and natural, which is unworthy of a
I Osee xiii. 14. § St. Matt. v. 48.12
child of God, a bride of Christ, and a temple of the Holy Ghost.
As a protection against living according to nature, the soul must have a lively faith, and must keep its eyes fixed upon the Master ; then it can say : u I walked in the innocence of my heart, in the midst of my house."* It will adore God for His own sake, and will dwell like Him, as He does, by His example, in the " eternal present " in which He Jives.
" Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect." " God," says St. Denis, " is the great Solitary!' My Master bids me imitate this perfection, to render Him homage by living in strict solitude. The Divinity dwells in eternal and profound solitude ; He cares for the needs of His creatures without in any way leaving it, for He never goes out from Himself, and this solitude is nothing but His Divinity.
I must guard against being withdrawn from this holy interior silence by keeping myself always in the same state, the same isolation, the same retirement, the same detachment. If my desires, my fears, my joys, or my sorrows, if all the impulses coming from these four passions are not completely subjected to God, I shall not be solitary: there will be turmoil within me. Therefore calm, the slumber of the powers, the unity of the whole being, are needed.
K Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thine ear: and forget thy people and thy father's house. And the King shall greatly desire thy beauty."f
This injunction is a call to keep silence : " Hearken . . . incline thine ear." But in order to listen we * Ps. c. 3 f Ibid., xliv. ii, 12.
must forget our " father's house " — that is, whatever pertains to the natural life, of which the Apostle says : " If you live according to the flesh, you shall die."*
To forget our people is more difficult, for this c* people " is that world which is, as it were, a part of ourselves. It includes our feelings, memories, impressions, etc. — in a word, it is self. We must forget it, give it up, and when the soul has broken with it and is wholly delivered from all it means, " the King greatly desires its beauty," for beauty is unity, at least as regards divine beauty.
Footnotes
Chapter 10 of 16