I- One or More Meanings?
Question:
You use the word "heart" in various moments in the Solid
Foundations Course. What exactly is "Heart"? I thought I remembered
you mentioning it as a synonym for "Spirit" very early on in the Course. I breathed a sigh of gratitude at the
time. You see, I'd never quite knew what
the theological meaning of "heart" was despite my attempts to learn.
It always seemed like an amorphous thing. But in today's video on the Prayer of
the Heart, where you are speaking in terms of romantic love, teenage love
especially, "Heart" sounds like the emotions. So is the heart: the
spirit… the emotions… the will…
something else? I'm confused.
Answer:
This is indeed a complex question
and difficult because we are constantly crossing between theory and practice,
where theory could be too abstract, far from how we perceive and understand the
reality of practice. We cross between what we do (will), what we feel
(emotions), and what really happens deeply buried in our depths (spirit). We
are crossing from the experiential style of St Teresa of Avila to the solidly
built Theology of St John of the Cross, and back to her.
But, it is a legitimate question. Moreover, it
is of the utmost importance to give a satisfactory, understandable and practical
answer to it because at the end of the day it is a practical question: the
reader, the student, the person being formed need to know exactly "what to
do" and what really is happening in his or her depths.
Yes, I have used "heart" in three
slightly different ways, in three different places of the Solid Foundations Course, covering slightly different meanings.
1- The first use I made of "heart",
is a more general and anthropological way of describing the human being in these
areas: body, soul and spirit. This description of what we are made of is met up
with in different parts of the Course. It can be found near the beginning of
the Course, in "Dogma and Spiritual Life" (you will have an extract
of this presentation in the second part of this article) and then later, while
explaining one of the diagrams of the Prayer of the Heart, the anthropological
diagram.
It is important to add that I used an
equivalent word to “heart”, i.e. ”spirit”, at the beginning of the second part
of the Course, right before the Theological virtues, underlining the fact that
this reality called “spirit” is key to all the structure of the Spiritual Life
and Spiritual Theology. The main aim of the graces we receive from God is to
rebuild our spirit, to make it be reborn from above. This is why I talk about
it just before the theological acts: they are meant to help in the growth of
the spirit.
2- The second use occurs when in the third part
of the Course (introductory lessons to the Prayer of the Heart) I explained
that the “heart” of the human being could be seen as having two areas: the
upper half and the lower half. And in this lesson I invite the student to love
Jesus not only with the higher part, but with the lower part as well, which is
probably new to the majority, because we usually keep this part of our heart
for a human being (husband, wife).
3- We may add a third way of using the word
"heart", which is where I explain the core movement of the Prayer of
the Heart: offering our heart to Mary or to Jesus.
Nevertheless, one can't separate the two first
uses of the word from the third - the
context of the movement of the Gift of ourselves that characterises the Prayer
of the Heart. The gift of ourselves, i.e. offering our heart to God, is
explained, as mentioned above in the introductory lessons, where I describe the
movement of the Prayer of the Heart, when I use the diagram of the sea.
Offering ourselves to God is the core simple
movement of the Prayer of the Heart that allows God, in response to the gift of
ourselves, to act in us (in our spirit or heart). When the invitation is to
offer oneself to God, I summarise the "oneself", i.e. our entire
being, by the word “heart.” In this case, "heart" covers everything,
and still, covers the deepest part (the spirit), because it is this part that
will be really taken directly by God and acted upon.
So yes, "heart" is "spirit"
absolutely, the highest part of the soul. In this case "heart" is
used in its Biblical sense. St Paul only once uses the triple division of the
human being "body, soul and spirit" in one of his letters (1Th 5:23)
and here one can easily put "heart" instead of spirit. It is the
deepest part of our being, the supra-conscious part.
St
John of the Cross’ Explanation
And here, I do define "spirit" as St
John of the Cross does: the deepest part of the soul, that is beyond the area
of our consciousness. "Consciousness" covers the following activities:
seeing with the mind, feeling with our emotions, sensing with our senses, and it
is closer to God than the soul. Furthermore, it is the only area in us capable
of dealing directly with the Uncreated very Nature of God.
One can use the following diagram in order to
visualise the four areas: body, emotions, rational soul, and spirit (or heart).
The
Composition of the Spirit
The spirit is composed, like the rational soul,
of the three faculties: mind, will and memory, but they are above consciousness
and rather passive in their dealing
with God, in the sense that it is God who acts in them and through them. They
participate in the very life (being) and operations of the Trinity.
In my drawing, above, I place the spirit/heart
beyond the clouds, as it deals directly with the "sun", i.e. God
Himself.
- Counter
Objection: Now, why, while being
the deepest part of ourselves, would we disentangle it from the deep emotions?
-
Answer: Emotions are not
always superficial. They can involve all our being. They are not superficial
for they do involve active decision-making: to love is an act of the will,
despite the fact that it can be described as an emotional act. As you can see
then, it is an act and not just only a passive emotion!
It is true that emotions technically belong to
a middle area between the "sense" (body) and the rational part in us
(rational soul) as the diagram above illustrates, but still they are deeply
connected with the spirit (or heart in the biblical sense). Aren't we called to
love God "with all our heart"? Unavoidably then we can see that,
to a certain extent deep emotions and the spirit overlap.
St
Teresa of Avila
If one is familiar with St Teresa of Avila's
writings, one will notice that she describes the "Prayer of Quiet" (which
is a supernatural intervention of God in us) as having our conscious "will" taken by God, and
the "mind" and "memory" being left
free. "Mind", "will" and "memory" are normally
the three main faculties of the rational Soul representing the upper part of
the soul, they are conscious.
I personally disagree, not with the contents of
what she says (who am I to do so!), but with her anthropological choice
of "will" here, describing what is taken by God during His
supernatural action in us (i.e. when we enter a state of contemplation). I choose "heart" instead.
Why? Because here, I rather think that the "part" that God takes from
us and introduces in Him (or absorbs) during contemplation is not only
our "will", but it is all
our being, the core of our being,
which cannot be characterized by "will" only, but involves the supra-conscious
part (the spirit), not the conscious part (the soul).
But one can't say – as St Teresa does – that
our "will" (i.e. the active conscious faculty of our soul) is
taken by God during the Prayer of Quiet. Why so? Because technically our will
is part of the conscious area in us, it is part of the rational conscious soul
and only the spirit (passive supra-conscious mind, will and memory) can be
touched directly by God says St John of the Cross.
Of course, even so, one can't deny the role our
will has in loving (or giving oneself), or in the loving attention we offer to
God during the Prayer of the Heart.
Since a part of our being is taken by God
during the "Prayer of Quiet" (the supernatural action of God inducing
contemplation), and since our conscious part is still really free.... (but if
it becomes too active, of course we will come out of the encounter, so I see
why she chose "will"), I prefer to follow here St John of the Cross
and say: God takes our spirit (supra-conscious part of our being, the summit of
the soul, the eye of the soul, or the bottom of the soul (depending how you
look at it)).
In conclusion: I can't call it the "Prayer
of the Spirit", so I slipped into the biblical use of "heart",
that can replace "spirit", I preferred, therefore, to call it the "Prayer of the Heart".
The
Romantic Heart
When, in the Solid Foundations Course, in the introduction to the Prayer of the
Heart, I speak about the necessity of loving God with the lower half of our
heart, the part that we usually give to a husband or a wife, I divide our heart
into two areas, the upper and the lower. Yes, I deal with Love, but love is not
only emotions as we saw! That would be deeply wrong. You see, does this use of
heart cover the one I use in the technical part explained above?
Let me answer by saying the following:
If I want to love Jesus totally, and open to
Him the "eros" part of myself that usually I would give to a human
being, while saying to Him: "Jesus I give you all my heart...." what
does “heart” here entail for you here for you? I would simply say: everything.
It can't be just emotions. Certainly, it covers emotions but goes far beyond
them: it involves the will, but, more especially, it involves the gift of
oneself! In the final analysis, to love is to give oneself to the one we love.
Again, as a response to our love, to our giving
Him our heart (our entire being), He takes my heart, and usually, with the
Prayer of Quiet there is a supernatural part of me that is acted upon and taken
and introduced in God, submitted to a supernatural action of nourishment! So,
now, how would you name it? If you gave all your being, symbolised by
"heart"...., what is heart? Everything, the core of our being, and
all together our very spirit because the soul and senses are still free, left
free!
To return to your question, I would conclude by
saying that you chose the word that better expresses the contents explained
above.
II- Heart/Spirit from Scripture &
Tradition
I would like to add two more uses of equivalent
words in the Greek of the New Testament and in the Byzantine tradition, and
finally in the Latin tradition.
Greek Philosophy uses the word Greek word
"noûs" in order to talk about this highest or deepest part of the
soul: the spirit. Amongst the use made by the Greek philosophers there is an
ambivalent use: sometimes it may mean mind or intuition, and sometimes the eye
of the mind, or better: the eye of the soul… which we also call
"spirit".
(see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous)
The Greek fathers will do the same. Later on, St
Augustine will use the Latin word "mens", to allude to the same part
of our being. Followed later by St Thomas Aquinas. As an example, when speaking
about Christ's Passion, St Thomas Aquinas will say that the Lord's
"mens" was seeing his own divinity.
This is also why the Greeks say after Communion:
"we have seen the true Light" (like in the Transfiguration). It means
that a deep area in us (the spirit or heart) is seeing God! This is what Job
says: "yet in my flesh I will see God" (Job 19:26) We have also:
"blessed the pure in heart, for they will see God" (Matthew 5:8). As
one can see, the Lord used "heart" here!
In two of his letters, St Paul speaks about our
spirit:
In one he invites us to keep our "mind"
where God is, where Jesus is, risen and seated at the right hand of the Father.
"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your [hearts] on
things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly
things." (Col 3:1-2). The Greek word "phroneite" is used in
verse 2. Although it means mind, it could be translated either by "spirit"
or "heart". Keep your minds all the time in God. It would be better to
use "hearts". It is from this advice that we have the dialogue in the
Anaphora: "lift up your hearts". The Byzantine Liturgy uses cardia (heart), while in Latin we have
"sursum corda" (heart).
(see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sursum_corda)
The second text is altogether more precise, but
could be misleading: "For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my
mind (noûs) is unfruitful." (1 Co 14:, the ambivalence of the meanings of
noûs as mentioned above). But, he rightly used "pneuma" which is
usually translated "spirit". What happens in the spirit is beyond
consciousness. This verse is magnificent for its precise distinction between
what is deep in us, beyond consciousness, the spirit, where the Holy Spirit
acts and prays and what is happening in the conscious part: the mind and will (soul):
"the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to
pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words. And
He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit
intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." (Rm 8:26-27), and
what is happening in the conscious part: the mind (the soul).
Let us remember as well one of the texts that
the majority of the New Testament writers had in mind, especially St Mathew,
namely, the following: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit
in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of
flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be
careful to keep my laws." (Ez 36:26-27) As one can see, the Holy Spirit is
poured into the new heart!
In addition there are similar verses on the
same theme: "Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked
any longer." (Dt 10:16) and "The LORD your God will circumcise your
hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all
your heart and with all your soul, and live." (Dt 30:6) We can readily see
the relationship between the circumcision (i.e. purification) of the heart and
loving God with all our heart! Baptism is the new circumcision (i.e.
purification), the circumcision of the heart! See: Col 2:4-12; Ph 3:3; Rm 2:28-29.
So too, St Luke, describing to us the depths of Our Lady's prayer and spiritual
activity uses the word “heart”: "But
Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." (Luke
2:19. See also 2:51.) Then we have the Rhino-Flemish mystics who used other
words to speak about the same area: “grunt.”
Of course, we need to be careful to observe, as
mentioned in the above explanation, that it is seen by some as the highest part
of our being, and by other mystics as the bottom, the deepest part. We should
never separate the two ways. They speak about the same thing, but it depends
how one sees the depth, and therefore the closeness to God: either "high
up", or in the “deepest part.” The spirit or heart, is the second deepest
part in us.
As I have indicated before, I personally follow
St John of the Cross who uses "spirit". St Teresa of Avila uses perhaps
once, the distinction between soul and spirit, when she writes (toward the end
of her life) the Seventh Mansion, in her book: Interior Castle. Here she warns us that the distinction between soul and spirit is very subtle and difficult to be noticed if one doesn't
have the experience (of being there). She gives two examples or images to
illustrate it. In the Seventh Mansion, then, one is united with Jesus, which
means that the spirit now is well formed and detached from its previous
condition of purification and preparation (see diagrams below).
Spirit
in Heaven and on Earth
Here I feel I should mention something of great
importance and rarely underlined by the commentators and the masters: it is the
spirit only that has the faculty to deal directly with the very nature of God, as
is illustrated at the end of the Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross. in
the end of the Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross. The soul can’t taste
substantially and properly the very nature of God, neither in this life or in
the life to come. St John of the Cross expresses it as follows:
“The cavalry dismounted at the sight of the
waters.”
7. It is to be observed that the cavalry did
not dismount to taste of the waters, but only at the sight of them, because the
sensual part of the soul, with its powers, is incapable of tasting substantially and properly the spiritual
blessings, not merely in this life, but
also in the life to come. Still, because of a certain overflowing of the
spirit, they are sensibly refreshed and delighted, and this delight attracts
them—that is, the senses with their bodily powers—towards that interior
recollection where the soul is drinking the waters of the spiritual
benedictions. This condition of the senses is rather a dismounting at the sight
of the waters than a dismounting for the purpose of seeing or tasting them. The
soul says of them that they dismounted, not that they went, or did anything
else, and the meaning is that in the communication of the sensual with the
spiritual part of the soul, when the spiritual waters become its drink, the
natural operations subside and merge into spiritual recollection.” (St John of
the Cross, Spiritual Canticle Stanza
40, 7)
Image
and Likeness
And last but not least, many fathers of the
Church said that the noûs, the spirit, is the very image and likeness of God,
adding that with the Adam's Fall, we lose the likeness but the image remains,
even if damaged. This is why I do personally use a simple image to explain the
form of the spirit in the beginning of the spiritual journey: plasticine. The
"Image" of God in us is the matter of the plasticine and the "likeness"
of God is the form the plasticine takes on. It should have God's form! We are
like the half dead man on the side of the road in the parable of the Good
Samaritan - our spirit is half dead! This can be symbolised by a squashed potato,
far from God, deformed, waiting to be reformed, born again.
III- The Creation of the Spirit
God is overflowing with love and creates a
being capable of entering into communion with Him, capable of participating in
his intimate life, in his two operations (1- the Father generates the Son from
all eternity, and 2- the Father and the Son, as from one principle, spirates
the Holy Spirit). The act of this creation is unprecedented. By creating a
being "in his own image and likeness", God renders man capable of
participation into his life. This happens essentially in the spirit (or heart)
of the human being.
He has created man with three spheres or
levels: the spirit, the soul and the body.
The
spirit is the specific part of
man which is capable of receiving God as
He is, depending on his receptivity, capable of living his life and of participating
in his operations.
The
soul, on the other hand cannot
participate directly in the intimate life of God (in his Uncreated being). The
soul only receives a faint echo of the very being of God. What distinguishes
the spirit from the soul is that the spirit is rather passive in its
interaction with the being of God. It is God who impresses his being on it.
This region of our being, the spirit, does not come down into the conscious
part of our being, it is supra-conscious, that is to say, that it is not felt
by the conscious part (the soul), being superior to the soul. This is why we
frequently speak about the supra-conscious and not the unconscious[1],
when we are in a state of attentiveness.
[1] Jacques Maritain uses this expression: cf. "De la grâce et de l'humanité de Jésus", Paris, 1967, p.51-52. He also uses the term ‘supra-conscious’. The notion exists in the mystical Tradition of the Church, Cf. for instance: John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, III,26,4. St. Teresa of Jesus uses the same terminology (Cf. 7Mansions 1,11). There are also expressions such as: ‘the soul’s interior’, the ‘most intimate interior of the soul’, ‘something very profound’ (Cf. 7M 1,7). This term is already to be found in the Bible. St. Paul, in I Thessalonians 5:13, uses it; Osty French Bible notes that: the ‘spirit’ designates the higher part of the soul, where the ‘Spirit of God’ acts. Other authors have called it mens (St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas), the summit, apex, or the depth (Grunt) (Rhino-Flemish mystics).
Mind, memory and will reside in the spirit and
in the soul. But mind, memory and will, passive in the spirit, are taken up by
God (acted on by God), whereas in the soul these three faculties are active and
conscious. The soul only receives crumbs, an echo of that which is received by
the spirit. Quite simply the soul does not have the capacity to receive God’s
divine being, as He is. Even in heaven, the soul cannot receive God as He is[2];
certainly, she will receive fullness but fullness according to her measure.
[2] Cf. The teaching of St. John of the Cross and the passage in Spiritual Canticle A 39,6 where he states that neither on earth nor in heaven can the soul receive God as He is: ‘As this part is so sensitive and does not have the real power to taste the spiritual gifts itself, not being endowed with the capacity for it, neither in this life, nor in the next; but by means of a redundancy of the spirit, it receives the recreation and delectation by means of which these corporal powers and senses are drawn to interior recollection, in which the soul drinks from the spiritual good, which has rather descended to its level rather than the soul being able to savour them in essence. Thus it savours the redundancy which is communicated to it’.
In order to have a better understanding or
rather have a glimpse of this region of the spirit, we can take the example of
Holy Communion. We take communion and there we encounter the created body,
blood, soul and spirit of the Lord. At the same time, we also receive his
divinity which is uncreated, but we do not feel this divinity, this fire, God
who is thrice Holy. Nonetheless, we know that there is contact, if not there
would be no communion. That is to say, that there is an area in us, which is
more profound than the conscious part of ourselves and which is capable of
participating in the life of God, of touching and entering into contact with
Him. This is the spirit.
This could be shown in a table:
Spirit
|
Soul
|
Body
|
Mind and will,
both passive &
supra-conscious
|
Mind and will, both active
& conscious
|
Brain
|
In the diagram below,
man’s structure as he was meant to be from his inception (Adam):
Let us observe that the spirit (not the (Holy)
Spirit) is whole, contrary to what happened after the Fall. The spirit is
wholly dependent on God; it participates in his divine life according to God’s
own modality. The soul is in harmony with the spirit and obeys the movements of
the Holy Spirit, who guides and directs it in daily life. The body, in turn, is
dependent on the soul.
We can say therefore that the human being, as
God desired, was thus formed.
Let us acknowledge the order and harmony which reigned in Adam’s being: each
region of his being was subject to the one above and the spirit was transformed
in God (being completely docile to Him).
In conclusion, we can say that Adam, having
been created in the image and likeness of God, is in communion with Him,
praying constantly and that God is his respiration. God is present to him at
every level of his being (spirit, soul and body). He participates in the
Knowledge and Love which God himself has. We can perceive more clearly here,
the first type of prayer, its spontaneity or its almost "natural" and
constant character. It is a respiration, a communion between two beings: God
and Adam; face to face in Light and love.
The Spirit and the Fall
What happened at the Fall, when Adam was
disobedient to God? The three levels in Adam’s being: spirit, soul and body,
each in its own way, underwent changes. Adam disobeyed in his spirit the order
given by God, who wished him to surrender to Him. It was an act of the gravest
significance, because that part of his being was in full contact with God. As a
result, both his soul and body were attracted to created objects, turning now
towards creatures. The order and harmony, which had reigned previously between
the three levels of Adam’s being are now broken. The spirit dies and descends
towards the soul. It is from now onwards deprived of divine life and seeks
divine life in vain amongst the creatures. Divine life alone can satisfy him.
He is like a lifeless tree: he is there, but without life and without sap.
The Fall can be shown as follows:
We should note that the spirit is now within
the soul, at its summit. The spirit is from now on separated from God. It is
like a point situated at the centre of the human being, but man is no longer
united to God. His spirit no longer participates in God’s life. He has been
banished from intimate communion with God. Furthermore, he has gone out from
himself seeking his happiness in creatures and only finds the division of his
own being, since love transforms the lover into the beloved. As the creatures
have become the beloved, man is transformed into them. He is divided and
dispersed, deadening himself in the process. He who was made for God: he, whom
God alone can assuage, makes his way towards those who are crippled and
impaired beings and who in turn maim others, which is calamitous.
Some
Scriptural Observations:
it is very interesting to examine the dialogue
following the Fall: "But Yahweh God
called to the man. ‘Where are you?’ He asked. ‘I heard the sound of you in the
garden;’ he replied ‘I was afraid because I
was naked, so I hid.’ ‘Who told you that you were naked?’ he asked ‘Have you been eating of the tree I
forbade you to eat?’" (Gen 3:9-11). Yahweh deliberately asks the
question: ‘Where are you?’ In fact,
He asks the question of the spirit as to where it is! The spirit has left the
Kingdom for the kingdom of the mind. The spirit is in fact dead! Here in the
text the word used is "naked":
‘I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.’ Why is he
afraid? It is because he can no
longer meet God face to face. He no longer has the means! He no longer has the
capacity to bear the intensity of the presence of God: he is now stripped and
naked. He no longer has the likeness of God to be able to bear the intensity of
the divine light. He has been stripped of his glory (God).
Remember that in the parable of the Prodigal Son
and in other passages in the Gospels, reference is made to a garment (wedding)
which is given to man! This means that without it, he is naked and that he is
only re-clothed through transformation! "Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him" (Lk 15:22).
"When the king came in to look at
the guests he noticed one man who was not wearing a wedding garment, and said
to him, ‘How did you get in here, my friend, without a wedding garment?’ And
the man was silent" (Mt 22:11-12). The garment or tunic can be
interpreted as the new man, forged
from faithful, daily, synergic acts. New man, who at the beginning was like a
grain, the smallest grain, becomes like a tree! Therefore, to be naked, is
tantamount to losing the wedding garment, to losing the divine form, the divine
beauty which God impresses on the man united to himself. The spirit has left
God, wanting to taste the lure presented to him in his soul, in his mind. He
went out of himself, he was stripped, losing his glory. Before, man had access
to glory, to God, he lived in Him. Man used to eat effortlessly of the tree of
life! He drew from the depths of Life and his glory. He was in a state of
spiritual childhood. He became an "adult", he has bitten into the
mind. Spiritual childhood means using the mind in God. But leaving this state
of friendship with God is to seek to know by one’s own means, wanting to be
independent from God, wanting to walk without God. This passage outlines for us
the distance which exists between the two, God and man from now on. God posted
angels to bar the way between Life and man (Gen 3:24). Man can no longer
arrive, gather and eat there.
From now on he must decide to allow himself to
be saved; he must work out his freedom in every act he makes. He must want to
secure his health step by step, until one day he again has permission to draw from
the Tree of Life in abundance, without restriction or prohibition.
IV- More on the Spirit
Spirit
between Theory and Experience
Regarding the question
of the spirit, there is something one can grasp intellectually and
experientially and something that one can’t.
Do we experience the "spirit", for
instance? The answer can be yes and no. Thus in the context of the Prayer of
the Heart, if we offer ourselves to God, what we offer is all our being,
unconditionally, without conditions; this we can grasp. Say here we have a
certain grasp over whether we are giving our being or not. In this sense, the
core of our being is offered. As we have mentioned, St Teresa of Avila calls
the part that is taken by God (and therefore what was offered) as the will. See
the Way of Perfection Chapters 30 and
31 when St. Teresa describes what God does during the Prayer of Recollection.
The same applies with St. Therese of the Child
Jesus in the act of oblation: she says that she offers herself totally, and in
order to say that she uses the biblical expression “victim of holocaust.” The
specificity of the victim of holocaust in the Old Testament Temple liturgy was
that it was totally given to God, and totally burnt (see Ex 29:38-42). Thus the
core of our being, that is given to God is the heart or spirit.
In this sense we have an implicit experience of
our spirit. However, by contrast and in order to grasp what is offered, let us
say that we put conditions to our offering. In this case, some of our being is
not trusting God totally and is reserving to itself a part of its being, regarding,
for example, time or something we prefer to keep for ourselves (we are attached
to). In this case our spirit is not given.
On the other hand, our conscious part doesn't
have direct access to the spirit and therefore can't perceive this and, in
addition, can't perceive directly and with immediacy what is happening in it. An
example is when we receive Communion, where we do receive the Lord's Divine
Nature, but we don't feel anything or sense or see with our mind. But we know
that there is an area of our being that has entered into direct contact with
the very essence of His Divine Nature. It is our spirit. This, therefore, is an
example of the interaction of our spirit with the very Nature of God and the
impossibility of experiencing it of it. Any experience we have is a second
created grace that falls either into our mind, or emotions or senses. The core
grace doesn't bear any direct possible experience. We can truly say after
Communion: we have seen the True Light, meaning: our spirit/heart has seen the
True Light i.e. Jesus' Divinity.
When the author of the Letter to the Hebrews
says that the word of God reaches the junction between the soul and the spirit,
the frontier between them, he is talking about something deep, and is rather
talking about a possible experience. “For the word of God is alive and active.
Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and
spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
(He 4:12)
Speaking about being able to discern the
difference between the spirit and the soul, St Teresa of Avila seems to say
that before the union with Christ (Spiritual Marriage) it is rather very
difficult to "see" the difference (see Interior Castle, Seventh Mansions). Why so? Because in fact till that
moment the spirit is not fully formed yet, not "born from the soul"
yet, and is rather with the upper part of the soul. When before Union the grace
of God works in us, it elevates not only the spirit but the upper part of the
soul as well (the rational soul), this is why one might be in ecstasy or
something similar. The spirit not being separated from the Soul, when the grace
of God acts in the human being strongly, all the upper part (rational soul and
spirit) is moved and absorbed in God.
Spiritual Marriage means that the spirit is now
fully formed and transformed, and ready to be united continuously with the
Lord. Therefore, the spirit leaves the upper part of the soul and remains
constantly united with the Lord. Nothing extraordinary is felt such as being in
ecstasy and the pain caused by it (dislocation between upper and lower part of
the person). There is simply constant union and at the same time the rational
soul can function normally, which is not the case before union.
As we can deduce therefore, one can only become
capable of seeing the difference between spirit and soul after the liberation
of the spirit from the soul and having it united with the Lord. Of course, it
is the soul that sees here, and it sees the difference between spirit and soul
as if through a veil, in "refraction", never directly seeing the very
Nature of God.
Clarification
Regarding the Spirit
Let us remember that in the liturgy we
constantly use the word “spirit”. We consider that this is mostly the area that
deals directly with God. It is place beyond perception, but this is where God
dwells in us and touches us. Thus during the Mass, we have the following
dialogue between the Priest and the Assembly of the Faithful:
- The Lord be with you
(r spirit)
- And with your spirit.
This is the reason why we often speak about
“faith”. It is because the organs in us capable of seeing (sensing/perceiving with
the senses, feeling with the emotions, understanding with the mind (mind))
cannot “see” the most essential part of the Liturgy: the action of God and His
touching us, dwelling in us, acting in us and through us. This action occurs in
the spirit. This is why, from time to time, during the liturgy, and mainly at key
moments, the Priest reminds us of the invisible essential reality. All the
visible elements of Liturgy (and the Eastern Churches have kept a lot of these
signs) are here like signposts to remind us to look in greater depth. Not only
this, but in all Liturgies (and the Mass is the most complete one), we are
supposed to receive the special grace of recollection to help us “focus” on
God, on the invisible God, to help our senses, emotions, mind go from the
visible part to the invisible contemplation with the spirit. The dialogue with
the Priest right before the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer is meant to
remind us of this Grace of Recollection that God wants to give us:
- The Lord is with you(r
spirit)
- And with your spirit
- Lift up your heart
(spirit)
- We lift them up to the
Lord (with the general help of His grace)
….. He comes, takes our
heart, and takes it into Himself … this is the Grace!
- (The Priest invites us
to acknowledge the immense Grace of His taking us to Himself, and to thank God
for it by saying) Let us give thanks to the Lord (because He took us to
Himself.)
- It is right and just.
It is this heart or spirit that is at the heart
of “Contemplation”. It is by this immersion in God that the second part of the
Mass, the Liturgy of the Eucharist, commences. It is the entrance into the
divine circulation of the Trinity (Latin Circumincession,
Greek Perichoresis) where Heaven
opens in a very particular powerful way, where we join the Angels and the
Saints in their unending hymn of Praise, Adoration and Liturgy.
Our spirit and the spirit of the Priest are
immersed in this profound contemplation, immersed in God, in awe and beatitude
filled by this Loving-Light that takes them into itself.
This happens throughout the Mass, even in the
Liturgy of the Word. In the Armenian rite, for example,… (in the Armenian rite
there is a similar dialogue before the Proclamation of the Gospel), but this
mostly occurs during the second part of the Mass. The Armenian Liturgy hides
the Altar completely by a large veil (more even than the mere iconostases of
the Byzantine and Coptic), to tell us where our spirit resides, united with God
in divine liturgy, as we deal “mouth to mouth” with God’s Spirit (See Numbers
12:8). We need to awake our inner attention during the Mass to what is really
happening, directing our inner eye toward the real action of the Mass, the core
of the Worship. The Priest and the faithful offer themselves to God so they
(their spirit) can become immersed in Him.
Significantly it is worth noting that the training
of the Monk helps him focus during the entire day on this invisible reality.
Hence the need to learn how to pray incessantly, the need to learn the Prayer of the Heart or Jesus’ Prayer.
As one can see, the spirit is the main and
primary area where the Holy Spirit, the Uncreated Grace, comes to our
encounter. It is the spirit first and foremost who has to be purified,
transformed, acquiring anew the lost likeness with God, being born again.
A spiritual life without learning to pray incessantly,
a prayer life without learning how to lift our heart are a loss of time and
could result in our going astray toward the outer reality forgetting that the
outer reality expresses the inner reality. One doesn’t choose however to become
an angel neglecting the outer reality; no, on the contrary, we still have a
body, senses, emotions and a mind that need to receive the Grace of God to
become recollected and focused on the inner Altar as well, where God himself
dwells.
The real and deep liturgy in fact is happening
on the Altar of our spirit, the corner stone of any liturgy, where the Triune
God dwells, where we use our Baptismal Priesthood that enables us to offer the
Son to the Father in the Spirit. This is true worship, taking place in the
spirit, “in Spirit and in Truth”, in the Holy Spirit and in Christ the Truth.
Faith is not the absence of the invisible
reality. Faith is the eye of our spirit, enabled by the Grace of the Holy
Spirit to “see” God himself acting in our life, in our prayer life and especially
during the Liturgy and most importantly the Liturgy of the Mass. This is why in
the Byzantine rite of the Mass we sing after Communion: “we have seen the true
Light”, i.e. Chris himself, Light from Light, True God from True God. Who has
witnessed Christ when he receives Communion? How does he see it? Only through
the spirit.
By definition, the soul cannot see, the emotion
and the senses cannot see. Our spirit on the other hand is higher, above the
clouds and has this mysterious capacity of being able to deal directly with the
very Uncreated nature of God.
Which
Author is the Most Reliable?
Question: Who do
you consider most reliable in determining the distinction between
body/soul/spirit (as opposed? to limiting the understanding of the human nature
to just body/soul)?
Answer: The perspective and requirements of whoever
asks this question is key. The question could be a general question, as dealing
with Anthropological Philosophy (like Aristotle or St Thomas Aquinas a
Philosopher); or it could be in general on Theological Anthropology (like for
instance what St Augustine covers in his De
Trinitate), or more specifically Spiritual
Anthropology (St John of the Cross, St Teresa of Avila, etc).
My answer is specifically for the latter. Primarily
because the reality of the spirit (and therefore a triune anthropology) is
mainly essential for spiritual life. Without a spiritual life, the reality of
the spirit (as Kant would say) is noumenal, namely, it belongs to an unknown
area in us, unknown to the space and time dimension (the conscious world).
Descartes himself is by contrast the “founder”
of “bi-polar” anthropology: body and soul. No spirit. Many philosophers follow
Kant or Descartes, and in a way indicating they are not really interested to
this meta-physical reality (beyond physical reality).
(Note
for the more specialised: One might consider that Carl Jung’s effort to
study the Archetypes and the deepest layers of the unconscious is one of the
rarest human efforts to reach this reality that is beyond our grasp. He just
worked by deduction, going from the manifestations of the Archetypes, to the
assumption that they exist deeply hidden in us.)
When it comes to Theology, and if we go to St
Thomas Aquinas, he certainly acknowledges its existence, and it helps him
resolve difficult theological questions around Christ Himself, and His Passion.
While St Augustine and St Thomas do acknowledge it, in the specific field of
anthropology, or the Secunda Pars, we
can’t really say that is has a huge place.
The main author in my view who focused on the
spirit and talked about it is St John of
the Cross. It is an undertaking that can only take place with a specific
grace from God to help him “see” what is beyond the “visible” world of the body
and the soul. One can almost say that all his work, and here we are talking
about his four books, are in fact a description of the purification of the
human spirit, illumination and the powerful reality the spirit is called upon
to deal with at higher levels of union with God. In a way, all his work could
be revisited by gathering all the information one can find about the human
spirit.
What St Teresa of Avila mentions on very rare occasions
is a constant concern which St John of the Cross considers and studies in
greater depth. studies, deepens. It is true that it can take years before one
can start to really understand and follow what St John of the Cross says, but
it is worth the effort. When it comes to St John of the Cross, I wouldn’t
easily trust commentators. There is often a tendency among the commentators to
bring him down to their level and and into what they are interested. He is
rarely read for himself and understood in himself! This remains a real
challenge in the Church.
Importance
and Beauty of the Spirit
It is noteworthy to remember that the Cartesian
dual division (body-soul), a duality that we often find in Plato’s Philosophy,
and that of his followers, is very damaging for a correct understanding of
Spiritual Life. The absence of the triune division removes the most important
piece of anthropology that can explain spiritual life! Spiritual Life is called
“Spiritual” because of the Holy Spirit who gives life to our being but also
because of our spirit which receives the very life of God.
Only our spirit is capable of receiving a
direct participation of God’s being.
Being
the indwelling place of the Trinity, created initially in God’s image and
likeness, it is of such divine beauty… that some authors say that God hides our
spirit from us, otherwise we risk, out of weakness, worshiping it.
In the order of Creation and in the order of
Redemption, our spirit is the most beautiful creation. Who can fathom God’s
beauty? We received the image and likeness of God’s beauty!
Without any hesitation the main master who
talks the best about the spirit is St John of the Cross. He describes its
purification (Ascent book II and III, and Dark Night books 1 and 2), what is
needed from our part to achieve it and what God does realise from His side in
order to purify it and transform it in Himself, to give it His own beauty (or
form).
He also describes the participation of our
spirit in the very nature of God and how he/He participates in His two
operations: 1- the Father begets the Son from all eternity 2- the Father and the
Son actually spirate the Holy Spirit (last five Stanzas of the Spiritual Canticle). We may add, also,
the participation in the exterior invisible operations of the Trinity : sending
the Son and sending the Holy Spirit (he says in the Living Flame that the Soul gives God to whoever she wants). He
describes the reflections in our deep caverns of the Flames of the attributes
of God (in Living Flame of Love). It
is noteworthy to state that Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity also talks a lot
about the Fortress of Recollection…
Spirit
and New Man
Question: is the spirit
equivalent to the expression St Paul uses: the New man (New self)? Examples:
Romans 6:6: “For we know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might
be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin”
Ephesians:
4:22-24: “You were
taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old man, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to
be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new man, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Colossians
3:9-10: “Do not lie to
each other, since you have taken off your old
man with its practices and have put on the new man, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its
Creator.”
Answer: the New man or New self as is often translated covers
the new behaviour of our soul and spirit, mainly led by the new three acts of
Faith, Hope and Love, and all the virtues that blossom from them. In this sense
the new man covers our spirit and our upper soul, but in their new mode of behaviour.
V- A Text from St Teresa of Avila
In her book The Interior Castle St Teresa of Avila
talks about the beauty of the human soul, because it is nothing less than the
dwelling place of God Himself. It is fairer to say that in fact she is talking
about the spirit, more than anything else.
“WHILE I was beseeching Our Lord to-day that He would speak through me,
since I could find nothing to say and had no idea how to begin to carry out the
obligation laid upon me by obedience, a thought occurred to me which I will now
set down, in order to have some foundation on which to build. I began to think
of the soul as if it were a castle made of a single diamond or of very clear
crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many
mansions. Now if we think carefully over this, sisters, the soul of the
righteous man is nothing but a paradise, in which, as God tells us, He takes
His delight. For what do you think a room will be like which is the delight of
a King so mighty, so wise, so pure and so full of all that is good?
I can find nothing with which to
compare the great beauty of a soul and its great capacity.
In fact, however acute our intellects may be, They will no more be able
to attain to a comprehension of this than to an understanding of God; for, as
He Himself says, He created us in His image and likeness.
Now if this is so - and it is - there is no point in our fatiguing
ourselves by attempting to comprehend
the beauty of this castle; for, though it is His creature, and there is
therefore as much difference between it and God as between creature and
Creator, the very fact that His Majesty says it is made in His image means that
we can hardly form any conception of the
soul's great dignity and beauty.
It is no small pity, and should cause us no little shame, that, through
our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are.
Would it not be a sign of great ignorance, my daughters, if a person
were asked who he was, and could not say, and had no idea who his father or his
mother was, or from what country he came?
Though that is great stupidity, our own is incomparably greater if we
make no attempt to discover what we are, and only know that we are living in
these bodies, and have a vague idea, because we have heard it and because our Faith tells us so, that we possess souls.
As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or Who dwells
within them, or how precious they are - those are things which we seldom
consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty.
All our interest is centred in the rough setting of the diamond, and in the outer wall of the castle - that
is to say, in these bodies of ours.
Let us now imagine that this castle, as I have said, contains many
mansions, 22 some above, others below, others at each side; and in the centre and midst of them all is the
chiefest mansion where the most secret things pass between God and the soul.
You must think over this comparison very carefully; perhaps God will be
pleased to use it to show you something
of the favours which He is pleased to grant to souls, and of the differences
between them, so far as I have understood this to be possible, for there are so
many of them that nobody can possibly understand them all, much less anyone as
stupid as I.
If the Lord grants you these favours, it will be a great consolation to
you to know that such things are possible; and, if you never receive any, you
can still praise His great goodness.
For, as it does us no harm to think of the things laid up for us in Heaven,
and of the joys of the blessed, but rather makes us rejoice and strive to
attain those joys ourselves, just so it will do us no harm to find that it is
possible in this our exile for so great a God to commune with such malodorous
worms, and to love Him for His great goodness and boundless mercy.
I am sure that anyone who finds it harmful to realize that it is
possible for God to grant such favours during this our exile must be greatly
lacking in humility and in love of his neighbour; for otherwise how could we
help rejoicing that God should grant these favours to one of our brethren when
this in no way hinders Him from granting them to ourselves, and that His
Majesty should bestow an understanding of His greatness upon anyone soever?
Sometimes He will do this only to manifest His power, as He said of the
blind man to whom He gave his sight, when the Apostles asked Him if he were
suffering for his own sins or for the sins of his parents.
He grants these favours, then, not because those who receive them are
holier than those who do not, but in order that His greatness may be made
known, as we see in the case of Saint Paul and the Magdalen, and in order that
we may praise Him in His creatures.
It may be said that these things seem impossible and that it is better
not to scandalize the weak.
But less harm is done by their disbelieving us than by our failing to
edify those to whom God grants these favours, and who will rejoice and will
awaken others to a fresh love of Him Who grants such mercies, according to the
greatness of His power and majesty.
In any case I know that none to whom I am speaking will run into this
danger, because they all know and believe that God grants still greater proofs
of His love.
I am sure that, if any one of you does not believe this, she will never
learn it by experience.
For God's will is that no bounds should be set to His works.
Never do such a thing, then, sisters, if the Lord does not lead you by
this road.”
(St Teresa of
Avila, Interior Castle, Mansions 1, Chapter
1)
Jean Khoury
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