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| Chapter VI. Of the reasons why Jesus Christ appears to each one of us either in His humility or in His glorified condition.
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Chapter VI.
Of the reasons why Jesus Christ appears to each one of
us either in His humility or in His glorified condition.
For according to the
measure of its purity, as I said in the former Conference, each mind is
both raised and moulded in its prayers if it forsakes the consideration
of earthly and material things so far as the condition of its purity
may carry it forward, and enable it with the inner eyes of the soul to
see Jesus either still in His humility and in the flesh, or glorified
and coming in the glory of His Majesty: for those cannot see Jesus
coming in His Kingdom who are still kept back in a sort of state of
Jewish weakness, and cannot say with the Apostle: “And if we have
known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no
more;”1668
but only those
can look with purest eyes on His Godhead, who rise with Him from low
and earthly works and thoughts and go apart in the lofty mountain of
solitude which is free from the disturbance of all earthly thoughts and
troubles, and secure from the interference of all sins, and being
exalted by pure faith and the heights of virtue reveals the glory of
His Face and the image of His splendour to those who are able to look
on Him with pure eyes of the soul. But Jesus is seen as well by those
who live in towns and villages and hamlets, i.e., who are occupied in
practical affairs and works, but not with the same brightness with
which He appeared to those who can go up with Him into the aforesaid
mount of virtues, i.e., Peter, James, and John. For so in solitude He
appeared to Moses and spoke with Elias. And as our Lord wished to
establish this and to leave us examples of perfect purity, although He
Himself, the very fount of inviolable sanctity, had no need of external
help and the assistance of solitude in order to secure it (for the
fulness of purity could not be soiled by any stain from crowds, nor
could He be contaminated by intercourse with men, who cleanses and
sanctifies all things that are polluted) yet still He retired into the
mountain alone to pray, thus teaching us by the example of His
retirement that if we too wish to approach God with a pure and spotless
affection of heart, we should also retire from all the disturbance and
confusion of crowds, so that while still living in the body we may
manage in some degree to adapt ourselves to some likeness of that bliss
which is promised hereafter to the saints, and that “God may
be” to us “all in all.”1669
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