By Henry Aloysius Barry
Says St. John Damascene,—"We only know, as Holy Scripture teaches, that the Holy Ghost is not begotten but proceedeth, so that this mode of generation or procession cannot be comprehended." (lib. il, Cap. ix.) St. Augustine when asked why, since both are of the Father's substance, one comes to be a Son and the other is not, simply replies,
— "This is my answer, take it or leave it. The Son is of the Father, the Holy Ghost is of the Father, but the former is begotten, the latter proceedeth. The former is therefore of the Father, of Whom He is begotten, and the latter is of both because He proceedeth from both. What there is between being born and proceeding, apropos of the most high nature, who can explain? Every one proceeding is not born, though everyone that is born proceedeth. Just as not every biped is a man, though every man is a biped, I know as much as this, but I do not know how, I cannot, I am unable, to differentiate the generation in the former case from procession in the latter." (De Trin. Lib. xv. Cap. 7. et. 20. et. Tract, xcix. in. Joan.) St. Basil observes that, "The Son is by generation, the Holy Ghost by a manner hidden and unspeakable." (in. orat. Cont. Sabellian.)
Here we meet the christian test; here the pure-blooded Catholic alone treads; yes, here is the very center of mystery, here we are in the heart of holy dreamland where the faculties and senses stand credulous, unfalteringly so, secure, certain, child-like, yet, in the sacred shadow where the eyes of reason are, as it were, bandaged. What the Holy Ghost has to do with such a pure catholicity, such essence of faith, the great Newman has expressed:
"The safeguard of faith is a right state of heart. This it is which gives it breath, it also disciplines it.—It is love which forms it out of the rude chaos into the image of Christ—we believe because we love. How plain a truth."—Yes indeed the Holy Ghost is love. St. Thomas calls faith "that dawning vision." Bossuet teims it "the effort at vision." "Faith which is dim at first like the first inkling of a great light, but which becomes clear in proportion to the growth of the soul." (Gatry.) When in the beautiful conflagration of all the idols of the human heart Self-perishes, the supernatural faculty perceives high things in the clearer rays. The saints have been illumined in hidden things, "angels have talked with him, and showed him thrones. Ye knew him not; he was not one of ye." (Tennyson) The apostle says, "The holy man of God spoke inspired by the Holy Ghost." (II. Peter i, 21.)
Only in the light of glory can God be seen fully, that is, in the light of His own presence and as far of course as man can possibly see Him. At the same time there is a mystic knowledge wherein He is seen through a lessening mist by the purest hearts, by the lovers of God. What a luminance was shed on St. Peter in the vision at Joppe on the breadth of christian charity! In the depths of its glorious revealed ligh the saw the length and width of it in a clear sky. (Acts, ii.) What a satisfying effect, what a refreshment to the soul of St. Gregory were his Ecstasies! What a source of deep religious knowledge and refreshment and fragrance of love were the bewilderments, the holy trances, of St. Teresa! Mystery is love's fascinating language. It is the idiom of the ultra Godlike. Says Maurice Maetlerlinck, "I believe that the writings of the mystics are the purest diamonds of the prodigious treasures of humanity. Mystical truths have over ordinary truth a strange privilege, they can neither grow hard nor die.— It is not only in heaven but on earth, it is especially in ourselves that there are more things than all the philosophies contain and as soon as we are no longer obliged to formulate what there is mysterious in us, we are more profound than all that has been written and greater than all that exists." "It is unfortunate for us," said Carlyle, "if we have in us only what we can express and make visible." Mysticism is a perfection of faith, faith born of love, the love of the heart, "that linked woes of many a fiery change had purified, and chastened and made free." (Tennyson.) When one is smitten with a purely earthly love, who can understand his spirit except one who has known the fiery and subtle influence of its flame? This extravagant, passionate disposition does not highly transfigure the soul but misshapes it and, under the influence of its touch defects become beauty-points, contrarieties merge into sweet harmonies. Such an illusionary state has its peculiar ideas and therefore peculiar literature. Such a transformation occcurs in a true, pure and noble sense in faith on fire with love.
True, it does not canonize defects, nay, it betrays the ignominy of evil to the uplifted faculties, it reveals the whole truth in all its nakedness as it is in God, it brings out at the same time the hidden beauties of Godhead and laps the mind in light waves and bathes the heart in a sea of eternal refreshment, it clears the judgment whilst it invigorates the will and makes it prompt in its obedience to good. No, indeed, the mystic sense is no nightmarish phenomenon. The trend of the multitude has been, in recent years, in a direction contrary to the supernatural idea. Faith then had to be recessional. The fruit of it all has been an unhumanizing, matter-of-fact love of earthly things, money and the rest, that disfigures the world and a rampant sensuality that shrinks from no foe but flesh and blood, that is to say, one that can only kill and harm the body. The world needs baptism in the Holy Ghost, that is to say, the spiritual character, nourished and developed— not mere immersion so to speak in water but the spiritual understanding, the consecrated, sacramental idea —brought day by day upwards, and which is full and complete when it sees and knows God, the Spirit, with inward eye and touches Him with hidden hand, and senses His perfumed breath with the mystic nostrils, as the connoiseur recognizes the fragrance of the magnolia bloom. "Is there in human nature a faculty separate from the faculties by which we judge of the things of sense and the abstraction of pure intellect and a true and trustworthy faculty for knowing God— for knowing God in some such way as we know the spirits and souls, half disclosed and half concealed under the mask and garment of flesh, among whom we have been brought up, among whom we live? Can we know Him in such a true sense as we know those whom we love and those whom we dislike? Is there a faculty in the human soul for knowing its Maker and God—knowing Him though flesh and blood can never see Him—knowing Him though the questioning intellect loses itself in the thought of Him?—in the psalms is the evidence of that faculty. The proof that the living God can be known by man is that He can be loved and longed for with all the freedom and naturalness and hopes of human affection. The answer as to whether God has given to man the faculty to know Him might be sought in vain in the Vedas or the Zenda Vesta. It is found in the Book of Psalms." (Dean Church.)
Says St. John Damascene,—"We only know, as Holy Scripture teaches, that the Holy Ghost is not begotten but proceedeth, so that this mode of generation or procession cannot be comprehended." (lib. il, Cap. ix.) St. Augustine when asked why, since both are of the Father's substance, one comes to be a Son and the other is not, simply replies,
— "This is my answer, take it or leave it. The Son is of the Father, the Holy Ghost is of the Father, but the former is begotten, the latter proceedeth. The former is therefore of the Father, of Whom He is begotten, and the latter is of both because He proceedeth from both. What there is between being born and proceeding, apropos of the most high nature, who can explain? Every one proceeding is not born, though everyone that is born proceedeth. Just as not every biped is a man, though every man is a biped, I know as much as this, but I do not know how, I cannot, I am unable, to differentiate the generation in the former case from procession in the latter." (De Trin. Lib. xv. Cap. 7. et. 20. et. Tract, xcix. in. Joan.) St. Basil observes that, "The Son is by generation, the Holy Ghost by a manner hidden and unspeakable." (in. orat. Cont. Sabellian.)
Here we meet the christian test; here the pure-blooded Catholic alone treads; yes, here is the very center of mystery, here we are in the heart of holy dreamland where the faculties and senses stand credulous, unfalteringly so, secure, certain, child-like, yet, in the sacred shadow where the eyes of reason are, as it were, bandaged. What the Holy Ghost has to do with such a pure catholicity, such essence of faith, the great Newman has expressed:
"The safeguard of faith is a right state of heart. This it is which gives it breath, it also disciplines it.—It is love which forms it out of the rude chaos into the image of Christ—we believe because we love. How plain a truth."—Yes indeed the Holy Ghost is love. St. Thomas calls faith "that dawning vision." Bossuet teims it "the effort at vision." "Faith which is dim at first like the first inkling of a great light, but which becomes clear in proportion to the growth of the soul." (Gatry.) When in the beautiful conflagration of all the idols of the human heart Self-perishes, the supernatural faculty perceives high things in the clearer rays. The saints have been illumined in hidden things, "angels have talked with him, and showed him thrones. Ye knew him not; he was not one of ye." (Tennyson) The apostle says, "The holy man of God spoke inspired by the Holy Ghost." (II. Peter i, 21.)
Only in the light of glory can God be seen fully, that is, in the light of His own presence and as far of course as man can possibly see Him. At the same time there is a mystic knowledge wherein He is seen through a lessening mist by the purest hearts, by the lovers of God. What a luminance was shed on St. Peter in the vision at Joppe on the breadth of christian charity! In the depths of its glorious revealed ligh the saw the length and width of it in a clear sky. (Acts, ii.) What a satisfying effect, what a refreshment to the soul of St. Gregory were his Ecstasies! What a source of deep religious knowledge and refreshment and fragrance of love were the bewilderments, the holy trances, of St. Teresa! Mystery is love's fascinating language. It is the idiom of the ultra Godlike. Says Maurice Maetlerlinck, "I believe that the writings of the mystics are the purest diamonds of the prodigious treasures of humanity. Mystical truths have over ordinary truth a strange privilege, they can neither grow hard nor die.— It is not only in heaven but on earth, it is especially in ourselves that there are more things than all the philosophies contain and as soon as we are no longer obliged to formulate what there is mysterious in us, we are more profound than all that has been written and greater than all that exists." "It is unfortunate for us," said Carlyle, "if we have in us only what we can express and make visible." Mysticism is a perfection of faith, faith born of love, the love of the heart, "that linked woes of many a fiery change had purified, and chastened and made free." (Tennyson.) When one is smitten with a purely earthly love, who can understand his spirit except one who has known the fiery and subtle influence of its flame? This extravagant, passionate disposition does not highly transfigure the soul but misshapes it and, under the influence of its touch defects become beauty-points, contrarieties merge into sweet harmonies. Such an illusionary state has its peculiar ideas and therefore peculiar literature. Such a transformation occcurs in a true, pure and noble sense in faith on fire with love.
True, it does not canonize defects, nay, it betrays the ignominy of evil to the uplifted faculties, it reveals the whole truth in all its nakedness as it is in God, it brings out at the same time the hidden beauties of Godhead and laps the mind in light waves and bathes the heart in a sea of eternal refreshment, it clears the judgment whilst it invigorates the will and makes it prompt in its obedience to good. No, indeed, the mystic sense is no nightmarish phenomenon. The trend of the multitude has been, in recent years, in a direction contrary to the supernatural idea. Faith then had to be recessional. The fruit of it all has been an unhumanizing, matter-of-fact love of earthly things, money and the rest, that disfigures the world and a rampant sensuality that shrinks from no foe but flesh and blood, that is to say, one that can only kill and harm the body. The world needs baptism in the Holy Ghost, that is to say, the spiritual character, nourished and developed— not mere immersion so to speak in water but the spiritual understanding, the consecrated, sacramental idea —brought day by day upwards, and which is full and complete when it sees and knows God, the Spirit, with inward eye and touches Him with hidden hand, and senses His perfumed breath with the mystic nostrils, as the connoiseur recognizes the fragrance of the magnolia bloom. "Is there in human nature a faculty separate from the faculties by which we judge of the things of sense and the abstraction of pure intellect and a true and trustworthy faculty for knowing God— for knowing God in some such way as we know the spirits and souls, half disclosed and half concealed under the mask and garment of flesh, among whom we have been brought up, among whom we live? Can we know Him in such a true sense as we know those whom we love and those whom we dislike? Is there a faculty in the human soul for knowing its Maker and God—knowing Him though flesh and blood can never see Him—knowing Him though the questioning intellect loses itself in the thought of Him?—in the psalms is the evidence of that faculty. The proof that the living God can be known by man is that He can be loved and longed for with all the freedom and naturalness and hopes of human affection. The answer as to whether God has given to man the faculty to know Him might be sought in vain in the Vedas or the Zenda Vesta. It is found in the Book of Psalms." (Dean Church.)
