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True virtue has no limits, it goes ever further; but especially holy charity, which is the virtue of virtues, and which, having an infinite object,
would be capable of becoming infinite if it could meet
with a heart capable of infinity.
*St. Francis de Sales. Treatise on the Love of God. Trans. Rev. Henry Benedict Mackey.
29Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
*Mark 12.29-31 (ESV)
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We each will cleave to something. We will worship something. We, as rational beings, have an inward, insatiable desire to attach and seek to transcend our limits through some form of oblation of our selves, poured out for something. We, being small, are prone to fulfillment in a Larger. We long to lose ourselves, to discover a Self much more than others have told us we are. We sense there is an "I" that is more grand than the "self" we have become identified with as our self.
St. Albert the Great (b. c. 1193-1289), or Albert Magnus, was the esteemed teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas. One of his great works is On Cleaving to God. He sets forth his goal in the first chapter:
I have had the idea of writing something for myself on and about the state of complete and full abstraction from everything and of cleaving freely, confidently, nakedly and firmly to God alone, so as to describe it fully (in so far as it is possible in this abode of exile and pilgrimage), especially since the goal of Christian perfection is the love by which we cleave to God.
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Now, place this in the context of our day. Today, we seem to assume that this loving-cleaving is an option in the Christian life. We might assume such is for a few persons called to this higher spiritual vocation, but the rest go about their nominal Christian lives. St. Albert, with whom I agree, counters:
In fact everyone is obligated, to this loving cleaving to God as necessary for salvation, in the form of observing the commandments and conforming to the divine will, and the observation of the commandments excludes everything that is contrary to the nature and habit of love, including mortal sin.
St. Albert appeals to Matthew 6.6 as exemplifying the denial and solitude required in this loving-cleaving.
But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.
*Matthew 6.6 (NLT)
What happens when we go into this inward Center, shutting out all creatures, to be alone within with Divine Spirit?
There, in the presence of Jesus Christ, with everything, in general and individually, excluded and wiped out, the mind alone turns in security confidently to the Lord its God with its desire. In this way it pours itself forth into him in full sincerity with its whole heart and the yearning of its love, in the most inward part of all its faculties, and is plunged, enlarged, set on fire and dissolved into him.
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St. Albert points beyond a calculated idea of love to a heart afire with loving. His depiction of mystical prayer signifies emotional passion - more like a lover and beloved in conjugal embrace than a subject adoring the king or a slave cringing before a master.
The heart of Christian mysticism, which is living in the Mystery of God, is desire. The Christian mystic, unlike some mystics from other traditions, believes in a Reality who desires each one of us, and we desire that One.
Through, then, a denial of all else, even briefly in mystical prayer, we cling only to the Divine. And we become, in this retreat practiced over time, more rooted in True Love. And what is the result? We become progressively more like that our desire leads us to retreat to spend time with, among others and alone:
16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
*Ephesians 3.16-19 (NLT)
We can experience a Love that we cannot understand. That Love arises, as any positive love in our lives, through our desire that opens us to receive. And by this opening again and again, your being, like roots moving deeper into the earth, grows more into the Ground of Being. The result: strength.
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Now, let us think a moment of that "keep you strong." What is the one thing we most want to do? Share love. But how do we share love with persons who are unlovely, hurtful, mean, and who mistreat us - or someone we love? How do we love - by trying harder? No, you and I have done that; it does not work. We cannot merely act or think ourselves into being loving persons? Sure, we might think so, when we are loving someone easy to love. But we get a different message when we feel our impotence to love the person who is really hard to be loving toward.
Mystical prayer entails retreating into our center, our inner sanctum, from a desire to join with Love, love Love, be loved by Love, grow in Love, and become Love. The roots of our life sink more deeply into the Fullness of Loving, and, thereby, we are strengthened to do and be what we cannot otherwise.
This is, as St. Albert taught, a call for every person. Each of us needs frequent closing of the door of the senses to the outer world. We need that inner sanctuary that is as important to visit as the outer sanctuaries we visit.
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One of the foundational assumptions of my work is this necessity of inner Prayer, mystical communion with the Divine. No church leader I know would think it optional for a Christian to serve others. Yet, most of them give no evidence of support for the affirmation that rightly to serve, the door of the self must be closed often to spend time alone with God in inner Prayer. The spiritual person is spiritualized by such practice. He or she may serve, but not serve and communicate through his or her being Spirit, without inward Prayer.
How ironic, when it stares clergy in the face from the Sermon on the Mount and the writings of eminent Christians. Could it be that many of our clerical leaders have become so outward focused that they have lost the patience, if they ever had it, to silence their noisy brains and clamoring hearts behind the closed door - closed to all their religious thoughts and duties?
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St. Albert, like Jesus, points us to an inward place where we practice releasing the ego. That ego struts around religiously, seeking to bolster self-esteem, prove our worth, and measure up. Yet, in that inner place we are alone with God. There is no one there to say, "Hey, good job." There, "good" is not. You simply are. And, ironically, by this self-abnegation, we profit in a mysterious way, according to the law Jesus points out: "Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you."
This is a way of saying, "There is a universal principle, or process here - if you do this, this is what happens. Do you want to be blessed outwardly in Love, then, do as I say, go inwardly and cleave to the Divine and often." The Divine does not play favorites: inward Prayer will always result in outward blessing. I have seen it repeatedly: a person gets involved in inward Prayer, and she or he begins seeing profound spiritual change, often in a short time. It works, if you work with the Divine.
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*This writing ministry is the offering of Rev. Dr. Brian K. Wilcox, of SW Florida, a Pastor in the United Methodist Church, and Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office, Punta Gorda, FL. To contact Brian, write to barukhattah@embarqmail.com .
*The quotes from St. Albert the Great are from the following attributed to him: On Cleaving to God. Trans. John Richards.
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