Light, Life, and Love: Selections from the German Mystics...

WE must needs walk in the light if we wish not to lose our way, and we must observe Jesus Christ, who has taught us these four modes, and has preceded us in them. Christ, the bright sun, rises in the heaven of the sublime Trinity and in the dawn of His glorious mother the virgin Mary, who was and is the dawn of all the graces. Now observe. Christ had and still has the first mode, for He was unique and united. In Him were and are collected and united all the virtues which have ever been practised, and which ever will be, and besides this, all the creatures who will cultivate these virtues. He was thus in an unique sense the Son of the Father, and united to human nature. And He was equally full of inwardness, for it was He who brought upon earth the fire which has consumed all the saints and all good men. And He had a sensible and faithful love for His Father, and for all who will have joy in Him eternally, and His pitiful and loving heart sighed and glowed with love for all men, before His Father. All His life and all His actions, within and without, and all His words, were praises of His Father. This is the first mode.

Christ, the sun of love, blazed and shone yet more brightly and warmly, for in Him was and is the fullness of all gifts. This is why the heart of Christ, and His character, and His habits and His service, overflowed with pity, sweetness, humility, and generosity. So gracious was He and so loving, that His manners and His personality attracted all whose nature was good. He was the pure lily in the midst of the flowers of the field, from which the good were to draw the honey of eternal sweetness and eternal consolations. According to His humanity He thanked His eternal Father for all the gifts which were ever granted to humanity, and praised Him, for His Father is the Father of all gifts, and He rested on Him, according to the highest faculties of His soul, above all gifts, in the sublime unity of God from which all the gifts flow; thus He had the second mode.

Christ, the glorious sun, blazed and shone yet higher, and more brightly and warmly; for during all His days on earth, all His bodily faculties were invited and pressed to the sublime glory and bliss which He now experiences in His senses and body. And He was inclined thereto Himself, according to His desires; and nevertheless He willed to remain in this exile, till the time which the Father had foreseen and fixed from all eternity. Thus He had the third mode. When the time came at which Christ was to reap and carry away to the eternal kingdom the fruits of all the virtues which ever have been and ever will be practised, the eternal sun began to descend; for Christ humbled Himself, and gave up His bodily life into the hands of His enemies. And he was misunderstood and deserted by His friends in so great a distress; and all consolation, within and without, was withdrawn from His nature; and it was overwhelmed with misery, pain, and contempt, and paid all the debt which our sins justly incurred. All this He suffered in humble patience, and He accomplished the greatest works of love in this resignation, whereby He received and purchased our eternal inheritance. It is thus that the lower part of His noble humanity was adorned, for it was in it that He suffered this pain for our sins. It is on this account that He is called the Saviour of the world, and that He is glorified and raised up and seated on the right hand of His Father, and that He reigns in power. And every creature, on the earth, above the earth, and under the earth, bends the knee for ever before His glorious name.