You will find the Lord at all times near your heart, when you seek Him by a simple and sincere desire to do and suffer His will. He will be your support and consolation in this time of trouble, if you go to Him, not with fear and agitation of spirit, but with calm, confiding love.
Jesus said to the blind man, whose eyes He anointed with clay, "Go wash in the waters of Siloam" — waters soft and tranquil. O, that you might experience the abiding peace which Christ gives. O, that you might become reduced to the simplicity of the little child!
It is the child who approaches the nearest to Jesus Christ. It is the child whom He takes in His arms and carries in His bosom.
✦ Near Your Heart — Already There
After twenty-nine days of mapping the interior life — the vacuum, the bird, the sand, the silence, the current, the ocean — Guyon comes back to the simplest thing: He is near your heart. Not far. Not hidden behind a complicated process. Near. Already there. Found by a simple and sincere desire — not by effort, not by management, not by the self-returns she warned about yesterday. By calm, confiding love.
Go wash in the waters of Siloam — waters soft and tranquil. Jesus did not send the blind man to a raging river. He sent him to still water. The healing happened in quietness — in waters that did not demand anything of the one who came to them. Soft. Tranquil. The same silence Guyon has been teaching. The same gentle authority. The same still, small voice. 🙏
✦ The Child — Held
It is the child whom He takes in His arms and carries in His bosom. Not the theologian. Not the mighty man of renown. Not the soul with the most impressive spiritual history. The child. Thirty days with Guyon — and her final image of the interior life is the same as her first: the child, held. The state of infancy. The helpless one who lets another care for it. Taken in His arms. Carried in His bosom. That is where the journey ends — and where it has always been. 🙏
"It is the child whom He takes in His arms and carries in His bosom."
Madame Guyon · Thirty days · The first image and the lastGod has united my soul to yours in the oneness of His own nature, and when all the obstructions on your part are removed, you will realize this same divine union.
This Father unites Himself to us by the impartation of His own nature, and from this communication of Himself to the soul proceeds our spiritual paternity — the power by which we communicate to others what we receive from Him.
During all eternity, the communication of God the Father and the Son, to angels and saints, and their reciprocal communication to each other, will be a well-spring of blessedness. The design of God, in the creation of men, has been to associate to Himself living beings, to whom He could communicate Himself.
All the splendor of angels and saints is but light reflected from God.
✦ The Design of Creation
Guyon names what she has been circling for thirty days: the reason anything exists at all. God created living beings so that He could communicate Himself to them. Not so they could admire Him from a distance. Not so they could study Him in books. So that He could give Himself to them — and they could give themselves back. Reciprocal communication. The stream flowing from and back to its origin. The eternal well-spring of blessedness.
All the splendor of angels and saints is but light reflected from God. Psalm 36:9 — in Your light we see light. The light is always reflected. Always borrowed. Always received. The glory is never ours. It is His — seen in us. The moon does not generate light. It receives and reflects. And the soul that knows this — that has been stripped, silenced, reduced to infancy — reflects most purely. 🙏
Jesus Christ is the Father of souls; His generation, or the souls that are begotten of Him, are eternal in their nature as He is. The figure, "giving us His flesh to eat," is the nourishment He gives the soul in communication with Himself — Himself reproduced, or begotten in us.
The eternal Word is the essential, undying life of the soul.
✦ The Life Itself
The Word reproduced from day twenty-eight — now named as the very life that sustains everything. Not an accessory. Not a supplement. Not a teaching received from the outside. The life itself. The eternal Word dwelling in the soul as its essential, undying life. The seed that Le received — that grew with much testing and pruning — is this Word. And this Word is not a book on a shelf. It is the living Christ, begotten in the soul, nourishing it with Himself. 🙏
The Child — Held
Near your heart. Already there. Found by calm, confiding love. Waters soft and tranquil. The child taken in His arms and carried in His bosom. The first image and the last.
Light Reflected
All the splendor of angels and saints is light reflected from God. The glory is never ours. It is His — seen in us. The moon receives. The soul reflects. The design of creation fulfilled.
The Eternal Word
Himself reproduced, begotten in us. Not a teaching from outside but the essential, undying life of the soul. The seed received. The Word alive. The living Christ nourishing the soul with Himself.
Guyon's thirtieth day. A milestone. And today she gives both the beginning and the end — the child held, and the eternal Word alive.
Day one — the religion of the heart: Enter the closet. Retire within the heart. And today: you will find the Lord at all times near your heart. Thirty days later, the closet is not a discipline. It is a discovery. He was already there. He has always been there. The whole journey has been the journey of finding what was never lost.
Day nineteen — the bruised reed and the child: "How happy are we in the presence of a little child — how much at ease!" And today: it is the child whom He takes in His arms. The child from day nineteen relaxed everyone around her. The child of day thirty is held by God Himself. The same child. The same ease. Now in His arms.
Day twenty-five — streams lost in the river: "These streams have no independent life, but proceed from, and flow back into their origin." And today: reciprocal communication — a well-spring of blessedness for all eternity. The streams flow back. The communication reciprocates. The design of creation is the eternal exchange of love — God giving Himself, the soul giving itself back.
Day twenty-eight — the Word reproduced: "When Jesus Christ is formed in the soul, He is Himself the Word, reproduced in the soul." And today: the eternal Word is the essential, undying life of the soul. The reproduction is complete. The Word is not visiting. It is living. It is the life itself.
Thirty days with Guyon: From the religion of the heart to the eternal Word as the life of the soul. From Eymet to Caldas da Rainha. From the religion of the heart to the child held in His bosom. Le has walked every day of this series — through France, through Normandy, through Sword Beach, through Mont Saint-Michel, through Brittany, back to Caldas. Packing boxes surround her. September is the horizon. France is the water. And the Lord is near her heart — as He has always been. Found by a simple and sincere desire. Held in calm, confiding love. 🙏