"The freshness
of a living hope in God fills the soul with such energy and resolution, with
such aspirations after the things of eternal life, that all this world seems
to it—as indeed it is—in comparison with that which it hopes for, dry,
withered, dead, and worthless. The soul now denudes itself of the garments
and trappings of the world, by setting the heart upon nothing that is in it,
and hoping for nothing that is, or may be, in it, living only in the hope of
everlasting life. And, therefore, when the heart is thus lifted up above the
world, the world cannot touch it or lay hold of it, nor even see it. The soul
then, thus disguised and clad in the vesture of hope, is secure from its
second foe, the world, for St. Paul calls hope the helmet of salvation. Now a
helmet is armor which protects and covers the whole head, and has no opening
except in one place, where the eyes may look through. Hope is such a helmet,
for it covers all the senses of the head of the soul in such a way that they
cannot be lost in worldly things, and leaves no part of them exposed to the
arrows of the world."
— St. John of the
Cross, Dark Night of the Soul p.175
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Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Hope is a covering
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