Dominus (licit : sta in porta domus dornini et prcedica verhum istud (Jer. Tg). The Lord says, ‘ Stand in the gate of God’s house and proclaim his word, extol his word.’ The heavenly Eather speaks one Word and that he speaks eternally and in this Word expends he all his might : his entire God-nature he utters in this Word and the whole of creatures. This Word lies hidden in the soul unnoticed and beyond our ken, and were it not for rumours in the ground of hearing we should never heed it ; but all sounds and voices have to cease and silence, perfect stillness, reign. This is a meaning I will not pursue.
Stand in the gate. Who stands there, his limbs are orderly disposed. lie is about to speak ; the head of the soul is held stiffly up. The ordered is subject to an order which is higher than itself. Creatures are not of the order of God till the soul’s natural light, wherein they get their being, overshadows them, and the angelic light overshadows the light of the soul preparing and adapting it for divine light to work in ; for God works not in corporal things, he works in the eternal. That is why the soul must be recollected and integrated to the spirit. It is there God works and there all works are agreeable to God. Never a thing is to God’s liking unless it is wrought there.
Stand in the gate in the house of God, that is, his unity of essence. One is best kept by itself. So the unity stands by God and keeps God together, adding nothing. There he sits in his own presence, in his is -ness, all in himself, nowhere out of himself. But as he melts he runs out. He melts and runs out in his goodness which, as I have explained, consists of knowledge and love. Knowledge is the flux, for knowledge is hotter than love. But two are better than one. And this knowledge is laden with love. Love is fooled and caught by kindness ; in love I hang about the gate turning a blind eye to the authentic vision. Even stones have love, a love that seeks the ground. If I insist on goodness in the first effusion and seize this at the point where it is good, then I shall seize the gate, not God himself. Knowledge is the better, as being the head and front of love. Love is the will to, the intention. No single thought attaches to this knowledge : wholly detached and self-forsaken it runs all bare into the arms of God and grasps him in himself.
Lord it is meet that thy house be holy and a house of prayer. What is prayer ? It is the practice of pure being and glorying therein. What is the glory ? The arraying of man in the likeness of God in him. But while any image exists in the soul there is no glorifying God therein, as in a prayer-house, in the length of days. I do not mean days here : when I say length without length that means the length ; breadth without breadth means the breadth. When I speak of all time I mean above time and above it, as I have explained, there is no here or now.
The woman asked our Lord when we ought to pray. Our Lord replied, ‘ The hour cometh but not yet, when true worshippers shall worship in spirit and in truth.’ For God is a spirit and they must worship in spirit and in truth that which is truth itself. Which we are not ; true we may be, but there is false mixed with it. For ye do not exist in God in that first eruption where truth comes spouting from its source. In the gate of God’s house the soul has to stand and trumpet forth his Word- Everything which is in the soul has to utter praise, standing, deaf to all the world, in silence and in peace, as I described the angels as sitting there with God. In that choir of wisdom and of burning God on a sudden declares himself to the soul plighting her his troth for good and all. It is the Father begetting his Son and in his Word he takes such huge delight, so fond he is of it, that he never stops but goes on pledging his Word the whole time : timelessly, that is to say. And here we must observe that the house God plights his troth in is deserted : bare spirit, above time. Meet for thine house are holiness and praise, there must be nothing there that does not praise thee.
Our theologians ask, what praises God ? Likeness does. Any likeness to God that lives in the soul redounds to the glory of God. Things at all different from God do not glorify God. A portrait, for example, reflects credit on the painter who embodies in it his dearest conception of his art and makes it the image of himself. The likeness of the portrait praises the author without words. Of little worth is spoken praise or praying with the lips. Our Lord said on one occasion, ‘ Ye pray, not knowing what prayer is. There shall come again true prayers, praying to my Father not in words but in spirit and in tnith. What is prayer ? Dionysius says, ‘ The mind’s ascent to God, that is what prayer means.’ It is a heathen who observes that where spirit is and unity and eternity there God will be at work. Where flesh is warring against spirit ; where disruption is warring against union ; where time is warring with eternity, there God works not : he can do nothing with it. Further, any pleasure we may have, or contentment or comfort, has to go. To worship God she must be holy, summed up to a whole, one spirit naught beside : all wrought up at once into the eternal eternity on high, transcending all. Not all creatures which have been created, it is not them I mean, but all he could do an he would. This soul must transcend. While there is anything above the soul ; while there is anything in front of and in God, she can never enter his ground in the length of days.
Now, according to St Augustine, when the light of the soul eclipses creatures, it is dawn ; when the angelic light eclipses the light of the soul and devours it, then it is broad day. David says, ‘ The righteous man mounts up and up to the perfect day.’ His path is fair and smooth and pleasant and familiar. And when the psychic and angelic lights are swallowed up in the light divine, he calls that high noon. Now day is at its longest, in its prime, when the sun at its zenith pours its light into the stars and the stars pour it into the moon. These are members of the solar system. And even so the light of God embraces the angelic light and that of the soul, an orderly array, an ascending scale steadily rising in the day, all praising God in chorus. There is nothing over that is not praising God : they are all alike, the liker the fuller of God, all lauding God together. The Lord said, ‘ I will abide with thee in thine house.’ Dear God, we do beseech thee abide thou with us here, to the end that we abide with thee eternally. Amen.