Maurice Maeterlinck

“ To die in God is to be blessed; and, for each one according to his own merits, it involves a great difference both in grace and glory. This blessedness is to understand God and to be understood by God, in the joyful unity of the divine persons, and to have flowed by this unity into the super-essence of God. Now this unity brings joy when we look inward, and bears fruit in our outward life, and so the fountain of unity flows; that is to say, the Father begets the Son, the eternal truth, who is the image of the Father, in which He sees Himself and all things. ”

“ This stone, according to the monk of the forest of Soignes, is the symbol of Christ, given to His loved ones only, and like a flame which images the love of the eternal Word. And then again we have glimpses of those dark shadows of love, from which break forth uninterrupted sobs of light, seen in awful flowers through the gradual expansions of contemplation and above the strange verdure of an unequalled gladness. ”

“ The Holy Spirit cries in us with a loud voice and without words, ‘Love the love which loves you everlastingly.’ His crying is an inward contact with our spirit. This voice is more terrifying than the storm. The flashes which it darts forth open the sky to us and show us the light of eternal truth. The heat of its contact and of its love is so great that it well-nigh consumes us altogether. ”

“ But the naked eye, above reason, and in the inmost depths of intelligence, is always open, and beholds and contemplates with naked vision that light by that light itself. There we have eye to eye, glass to glass, image to image. By these three things we are like unto God, and are united to Him. For this vision which strikes upon our naked eye is a living mirror which God has made in His image. His image is His divine brightness, and with it He has filled to overflowing the mirror of our soul, so that no other brightness and no other image can enter there. ”

“ And this brightness enwraps and envelops them, and at that moment they behold images, falsehoods, and many kinds of truths, and voices speak to them in different ways, and all this is seen and received with great joy. And here there fall at times the honey-drops of a false sweetness in which the man delights himself. He who values it highly receives a great quantity, and so the man is often injured, for if he holds for true such things as have no resemblance to truth, because they have been shown or taught him, he falls into error and the fruit of virtue is lost. ”

“ This simple unity can be felt and possessed by none save by those who stand before the immense brightness and before love, above reason and without restraint. In this presence the spirit feels itself perpetually inflamed with love; and in this glow of love it finds neither beginning nor end. And it feels itself one with that burning fire of love. The spirit remains always on fire in itself, for its love is eternal, and it feels itself always consumed away in love; for it is attracted towards the refreshment of union with God, in which the spirit burns with love. ”

“ It is a new birth and a new illumination which are without interruption; for the source from which the brightness streams, and which is itself the brightness, is living and fertile; and so the manifestation of the eternal light is renewed without interruption, in the secret depths of the spirit.... And the coming of the Bridegroom is so swift that He is always coming, and that He dwells within us with His unfathomable riches, and that He returns ever anew in person, with such new brightness that it seems as if He had never come before. ”

“ And so likewise all saints and just men are translucent by grace or by glory, and they are green by their holy life, and they gleam with the gold of divine love which shines through them. And these three adornments are common to all saints and to all just persons, for they are the treasure of the holy churches, here and in eternal life. And all who by penance have put away from them the colour of the Red Sea—that is, a sinful life—are like the chrysolite. ”

“ For when in love we die to all things, when in ignorance and obscurity we die to all the notice of the world, we are wrought and reformed by the eternal Word, who is an image of the Father. And in the repose of our spirit we receive the incomprehensible splendour which envelops and penetrates us, just as the air is penetrated by the brightness of [87] the sun. And this splendour is merely a boundless vision and a boundless beholding. What we are, that we behold; and what we behold, that we are ”

“ It is a most joyful thought that we have so great and good a God that we can never give Him sufficient homage and praise. Yes, not even if each single man could give every moment that which is given by all men and by all angels. But if we steep ourselves in humility, that is enough, and we please God by Himself, for in that immersion we are one life in Him, not according to nature, but by being bathed in humility, because by humility we have descended below our creation, and we have flowed into God, who is the source of humility. ”

“ Even so will we open our hearts by obedience towards the illumination of the grace of God, and humbly and eagerly will we follow that grace so long as we feel the [51] warmth of love. And when the light of grace ceases to awaken fresh emotions, and we feel the warmth of love but little, or feel it not at all, then it is night, when we shall close our heart to all that may tempt it; and so shall we shut up within ourselves the golden colour of love, awaiting a new dawn, with its new brightness and its fresh emotions; and thus shall we preserve innocence always in its pristine splendour. ”

“ By connecting ourselves closely to God through love, we choose the better part; but when we thus behold God in super-essence, we possess Him altogether. This contemplation is united with an untrammelled inward devotion, that is to say, with a life in which earthly things are destroyed; for when we go outside ourselves into darkness and into unlimited freedom, the pure ray of the brightness of God shines perpetually on us; we are fixed in the ray, and it draws [88] us out of ourselves into our super-essence till we are overwhelmed in love. ”

“ In the rays of the sun, the topaz surpasses in splendour all precious stones; and even so does the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ excel in glory and in majesty all the saints and all the angels because of His union with the eternal Father. And in this union the reflection of the Divine Sun is so clear and glorious that it attracts and reflects in its clearness all the eyes of saints and angels in immediate vision, and those also of just men to whom its splendour is revealed. ”

“ And you may thus understand that the attracting unity of God is nothing else save boundless love, which lovingly draws inwards, in eternal enjoyment, the Father, the Son, and all who live in love. And we desire to burn and be consumed in that love everlastingly, for in it the blessedness of all spirits is found. And so we ought all to found our lives on a fathomless abyss; we shall thus be able to descend evermore in love, and to plunge ourselves beyond ourselves into its unsounded depths ”

“ The clear water is Holy Scripture, the lives of saints, and the mercy of God. We shall reflect ourselves therein when we are tempted, and so none shall be able to hurt us. These doves have a loving nature, and young doves are often born of them, for whenever, to the glory of God and for our own felicity, we think of sin with scorn and hatred, and of virtue with love, we give birth to young doves—that is to say, to new virtues. ”

“ Further, that very image of God which we have received and which we carry in our souls is the Son of God, the eternal mirror of divine wisdom, in which we all dwell, and are continually reflected. Yet we are not the wisdom of God, otherwise we should have created ourselves, which is impossible and a suggestion savouring of heresy. For whatever we are and whatever we have, we have received all from God and not from ourselves. And although this sublimity is so great a thought for our soul, yet is it hidden from the sinner and from many righteous persons. ”

“ We shall enjoy God, and, united to Him, we shall rest in blessedness. And this measureless delight, in that super-essential rest, is the ultimate source of blessedness, for we are then swallowed up in satisfaction beyond all possibility of hunger. Hunger can have no place in it, for there is nothing here but unity; all loving spirits shall here fall asleep in super-essential darkness, and nevertheless they shall live and wake for ever in the light of glory. ”

“ We are spirits when we hold fast by love, but when He robs us of our spirit, and re-makes us by His own spirit, then we are enjoyment. The Spirit of God breathes us out towards love and good works, and it breathes us in to rest and enjoyment; and [97] that is eternal life, just as we breathe out the air which is in us and breathe in fresh air; and in that consists our mortal life and nature. And although our spirit should be ravished and its powers fail in enjoyment and in blessedness, it is always renewed in grace, in charity, and in virtues. ”

“ But the contemplative one, who has renounced his own being and all things else, does not experience an expulsive force, because he no longer possesses anything, but is emptied of all; and so he can always enter naked and imageless into the secret place of his spirit. There he sees the eternal light revealed, and in that light he feels an eternal craving for union with God. And he himself feels a constant fire of love which desires above all things to be one with God. ”

“ They will not choose death, but they will prefer God’s glory alone and the winning of fresh virtues. They will dwell in the community of their heart and of their powers, and will follow the invitation and the constraint of divine unity. They will live in rich and warm soils, or, in other words, in the passionate heat of love, and in great impatience. And they will work during the summer of this life, and will gather in for eternity the fruits of virtue. These they will divide in two—one part means that they will always desire the supreme joy of eternity ”

“ It is invisible things which appear from time to time, and some attention is obviously needed for their recognition. This book is not too far off from us; probably it is in the very centre of our humanity; it is we, on the contrary, who are too far from the book; and if it seems to us discouraging as the desert, if the desolation of divine love in it [28] appears terrible, and the thirst on its summits unendurable, it is not that the book is too ancient, but that we ourselves are perhaps old and sad and lacking in courage, like gray-haired men in presence of a child. ”

“ And this is the storm and the spiritual plague of which I have spoken; for no tongue can describe the many storms and agitations which arise from the two sides of love. For love makes a man now hot, now cold; now bold, now timid; now joyous, now sorrowful; it brings him fear, hope, despair, tears, complaints, songs, praises, and such things without number. Such are the sufferings of those who live in the passion of love ”

“ Lord, I am Thine, and I should be Thine as gladly in hell as in heaven, if in that way I could advance Thy glory. So then, O Lord, fulfil in me the good pleasure of Thy will.” Out of all sufferings and all renunciations the man will draw for himself an inward joy; he will resign himself into the hands of God, and will rejoice to suffer in promoting God’s glory. ”

“ By His own image God has made His creatures like unto Himself in their nature, [108] and in those who have turned to Him, He has made the likeness even greater—higher than nature in the light of grace or of glory, each one according to the capacity which he has by the state of his soul or by his merits. Now all those who feel this inward contact, who have an enlightened reason and the eagerness of love, and to whom love’s infinite freedom has been revealed, enter into joyful contemplation in the super-essence of God. ”

“ It is granted on the highest peak of introversion, and it penetrates the intelligence and the will according as they are turned towards the absolute. This savour is without source and without measure, and it flows from within outwards, and drinks in the body and the soul (in proportion to their respective capacity for its reception) even to the inmost sense—that is to say, even to a physical sensation. The other senses, like sight and hearing, take their pleasure outside, in the marvels which God has created for His own glory and for the needs of men. ”