Igitur perfecti stmt cceli et terra et ornnis ornatus eorurn (Gen. 2). ‘ Thus the heavens and the earth were linished and all the adornment of them.’ Even so the heavens of the innef man are finished and all the ornaments thereof. In the passage where Christ speaks of ‘ the powers,’ we construe these to mean the sovran powers of the soul. For the soul has got three powers ip her spiritual mind No. 07 (2) in Pfoifler’s text.
which are heavenly inasmuch as they are capable of doing heavenly work, for every heavenly power is of the breath of the mouth of our God.
The first power receives, the second sees, the third love s. What time the soul is occupied in entertaining God, in seTfrecollection and intellectual contemplation, the love of her will transports her right into God. Then occurs that movement of the heavens, in the act of fecundation, which is latent in eternity. For the end of all motion is rest. As saith Isaiah the prophet, ‘ The heavens are moved and the earth withal and after the motion comes rest.’ Now there is not perfect rest in intellectual vision, for in mental operations there is a certain motion of external things towards the soul, in virtue of which movement the forms of these same things are drawn into and pictured in the soul, starting a psychic motion in the isness of the soul and the real being of the things appearing in the picture ; and this motion extends to the will which is not at rest any more.
Hence we see that in the starry heavens, the revolving heavens, God is none other than the mover, the starter, the source of energy whence the heavens get their power and their spin. And so too in this life he is present in the soul as the mover of our free will towards himself and towards good works, he being the fount of grace, which, from his godly heart, flows down into the soul.
Beyond this heaven there is the motionless heaven, and this firmament is the abode of th( blest. In this heaven God is in all his felicity, engaged in the personal act of his eternal divinity. For the Father goes on begetting his Son in himself without ceasing, and Father and Son breathe forth with equal power their holy Breath, both Son and Holy Ghost abiding with the Father in the essence, and in the vision of this Trinity of Persons lies the whole happiness of creatures which are able to participate in his divine felicity. So the soul, having conquered the multiple heavens and possessed herself of their mysterious power, is plunged into the unity of the motionless heaven, called fire or the empyrean, not because it is burning but because it is enlightening, all who are in this heaven being ablaze with the cherubic light of divine love. The soul becomes the heavenly habitation of the eternal Deity, and he performs his godly work in her, whence she receives the nectar which is denied to such as have not reached this fiery celestial mind. For her heavenly Sire begets in her his Son whom she lures out of bis Father’s heart, and Father and Son breathe into her their holy Breath, the Son never leaving his Father’s heart but proceeding forth from his Father in such fashion that he ever abides in iis Father’s heart. Thus the Father dwells in the soul ; he clasps the soul to his breast, and in this embrace of the Father she conceives within her his Son as a proceeding Person and at the same time is aware of his presence with the Father in his essence. For thus saith the Father, ‘ I will lead her into the wilderness, into the solitude, and will speak into her heart.’ His leading her into the desert, into the solitude, means making her void, deserted of creatures ; he empties her of corruptible things and says all he can to her heart. He can speak but one word, and that Word is eternal : it is his only-begotten Son. That is the Word he speaks to the soul, giving birth to his Son in her, and in this birth the Father and Son inspire her with their Holy Ghost which teaches her all things.
Thus the soul gets all things from the Father and has gotten all things in the Son and knows all things in the Holy Ghost and so, possessed of all things, she is resting in God without end.