Читать книгу Jeanne Guyon’s Interior Faith - Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon - Страница 9

In France in 1664, the parents of the fifteen-year-old Jeanne Guyon forced her into an arranged and unhappy marriage with an older man. In 1668 when pregnant with her second child, Jeanne, tempted by thoughts of despair and suicide, sought spiritual counsel from a wise monk. He told her that she could find God within her heart and immediately she felt Christ filling her with love. She wrote about this saying, “O my Lord, you were in my heart and you asked from me only a simple turning inward to make me feel your presence. O infinite Goodness, you were so near.”10

This began Guyon’s adventure into the interior life and her great passion to know Jesus Christ within. She wanted to know and love Jesus Christ as her intimate Lord and Master. She wrote about Jesus Christ with adoration. “I loved Him and I burnt with love, because I loved Him I loved Him in such a way that I could only love Him; but in loving Him I had no motive but himself.”11

While researching Guyon at the University of Virginia, I became fascinated by her ideas and have tried to live her ideas of abandonment to God which creates an interior life of encounter with God. I have found what she says is trustworthy and deserving of our attention. Her radical theology frees us from pedestrian and petty concerns and substitutes in their place the ultimate concern, to use a phrase from Paul Tillich. Instead of focusing on self, we focus on God. Instead of concern only about material reality, we ponder the mysteries of the spiritual universe. We see all people as made in the image of God and because of this, we live in this world in a way that gradually unites us with loving power of Jesus Christ. The Christian faith proclaims the possibility of spiritual life within while living in the world of the flesh. Guyon understood this truth beyond others and her life of afflictions allowed a testing and proving ground for her radical ideas. I have been blessed, and continue to be filled with wonder, at the trustworthiness of her thinking and theology.

Guyon lived in abandonment to Jesus Christ. She said that the Kingdom of God is within our being, yet the way to the kingdom is a long and arduous journey. She believes that all scripture is given to aid and guide on this long yet crucial path.

Her commentary on Luke reveals to us the profound and satisfying relationship with Jesus Christ. She said that she found happiness and joy, even in the midst of her experience in violent prisons and conflicted courtroom battles. Because of her profound encounter with the living Lord, she expressed the gospel faith in ways that no one else has. Guyon testifies to us that as we trust Jesus Christ, he dwells within our very being in the foundation of our soul.

Guyon’s Theology of Interior Faith

In her commentary on Luke, Guyon passionately describes the life of interior faith. Guyon says that Luke as an eyewitness wrote this gospel for us to see what the apostles saw and witnesses that we too can see Jesus Christ and know the joy and fulfillment of being an apostle. Through this apostolic spiritual disposition, we have interior eyes to see what the apostles saw. This complete and satisfying interior vision of Jesus Christ and his kingdom brings us contentment and happiness.

Time and time again Guyon pours out her own interior being as she sweetly proclaims her love for Jesus Christ and the grace he has poured out upon her and all sinners. She writes with wonder about those to whom the kingdom is revealed and the sudden impact the kingdom may have on the faithful. For example, she describes the dying thief on the cross who sees and believes in Jesus Christ. Guyon proclaims, “A crucified sinner becomes in one moment a convert who confesses his crime and sees the goodness of God. He instantly becomes an apostle, a Preacher, and a Martyr!”(158)

With the glory of these sudden insights, our interior life brings an indestructible union with God that floods and storms may attack but cannot break (Luke 6:47–48). In our spiritual foundation we receive and live in God’s will. Then the sweet, small breeze of God blows through our dusty soul and, in love with Jesus Christ, we receive his Word. He calls to us and our hearts leap with joy. Guyon writes, “When we remain in God, he fills our emptiness easily, but if we do not remain in God, he empties our fullness.” She adds, “When we understand this secret, that in remaining we are filled and in leaving we are empty, there is no more difficulty in the interior life.” (19) The Word lives inside of us. Guyon says, “Let God rule and command his kingship in us.” (50)

God’s interior kingdom is always powerful and efficacious. To create this interior kingdom, the Holy Spirit falls upon us and shelters us as the kingdom grows within. The Holy Spirit acts as a shadow that holds us in obscurity until the right time. Guyon describes Mary Magdalene’s soul growing within, describing this as a valuable alabaster vase. “After Jesus Christ regards us favorably, our dirty earthen vessel, as hers was, becomes an alabaster vase, ready to hold the most excellent perfume of grace.” (63) Guyon writes, “Collect yourself in your love for Jesus Christ, who will fill you with superabundance.” (64) Guyon describes Magdalene as having found this. “Magdalene’s heart is abandoned and is no longer only her heart. Her heart is in Jesus. He does not need to search for the heart of Magdalene in Magdalene. Jesus searches for her heart in him. So she finds in him an advocate, a defender, a doctor, and a lover. Jesus does all these services for Magdalene, and he does this for all souls who forget themselves for him.” (67) Mary Magdalene received this interior kingdom with abandon and passion.

Interpretation of Symbols in the Bible

Guyon interprets the symbolic meaning of the biblical stories. She takes the literal words of the scriptures and interpret them symbolically as a guide into the kingdom of interior faith. She says that we live these events and stories in spiritual dispositions or states of being and they lead us into the glories of the apostolic state. Guyon offers maybe examples of how we live these biblical symbols and puts them in a consecutive order of human spiritual growth. At the beginning of the journey, Guyon uses the ideas of John the Baptist who preaches to us about needed tears of repentance that introduce us to into interior heart and mind. Other examples of her symbolic interpretation abound. Like Jesus, we rest in spiritual swaddling clothing similar to a repose in a disciplined circumstance so that we experience the sweetness of God within. After the disposition of swaddling, the Holy Spirit circumcises our interior lusts and indulgences of the flesh. In a consecutive stage, the Holy Spirit drives out the money-changers from our soul within that could lead us into corruption. In times of interior solitude, our interior life becomes strong. Later in our interior journey, we may live in a conflicted circumstance such as in the Garden of Gethsemane and we pray, “Not my will but your will be done.”

Guyon interprets the Mary and Martha story as preeminent for the interior faith. Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, has chosen the better part. Guyon writes, “All that has been said in the Old and New Testament is almost all contained in these words: leave multiplicity, care, worry, and distractions and enter into simplicity, unity, abandon, surrender, peace, tranquility, and silence. . . . Jesus Christ, the perfect model that we follow, had to spend thirty years hidden before he was given an exterior life. Like him, we must be entirely established in the interior, before we are given an exterior.” (84) Like Mary, we must listen to God and repose in him within our heart, mind, and soul.

Guyon’s symbolic interpretation adds an entire level of biblical meaning never written before. Guyon’s brilliant connection between the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospels creates a consistent and powerful vision of God reaching out to suffering humanity through the mediation and reconciliation of his Son Jesus Christ. As an example, Guyon writes about the prophet Anna in Luke 2:36–38 saying, “A woman who is a prophet and an apostle speaks so that we see that the Lord’s hand is not too short to save (Isaiah 59:1).” (36) In this example, Guyon connects Isaiah’s prophecy with the fulfillment of this prophecy spoken through Anna. Guyon’s connections between differing scriptures creates a unified meaning from the biblical message.

Guyon also reveals the biblical symbols of sin and degradation. She says this dwells in inauthentic people, such as the Pharisees, and calls this propriety. In this sin, we consider ourselves as are our own property and a thing to be manipulated to bring ourselves fleshly pleasures. We believe in our self-ownership and do not abandon our lives to Jesus Christ. Indeed, propriety is to live in the original sin of Adam and Eve. For Guyon, propriety is the opposite of grace. She writes, “But if we are attached to the exterior and the exterior rules us, while the interior is full of propriety, (signified by greed and wickedness), we are claiming for ourselves the righteousness of God. To not attribute to God justice in all things is propriety.” (90) The biblical person who personifies propriety is the critical elder son looking disdainfully upon the conversion of the sinning prodigal son. Yet even here Guyon proclaims hope. Our awareness of our self-adulation and propriety may lead us to repentance and the fresh air of grace.

Stages in Interior Growth

What is Guyon’s journey into interior faith? Through the fall of human beings, the life of Adam has become our interior life and destroyed the divine life within. Our conversion begins the annihilation of this life of Adam and brings the resurrection of Jesus Christ within. Guyon describes this interior life in three stages.

In the first stage of conversion, the person lives in the graces of God. Jesus Christ begins to be formed within us and brings the peace and joy of intimacy with the Holy Trinity. The interior life brings a profound communion with Jesus Christ’s generous grace. Guyon writes, “The Holy Spirit communicates these ineffable communications. Those that experience them have a germ of life given to them that they cannot fully distinguish.” (14)

In the second stage, the person is annihilated through the power of overwhelming and abundant grace. Jesus Christ retraces the image of God within us and heals the wounds of the Fall. This is a stage of radical transformation. Guyon writes, “O souls who are happy to be the stigma of people, the abjection of all people, the subject of their contradiction, rejoice to be treated like your Master!” (155) We are happy to be treated like this because Jesus Christ lives in the depths of our souls. She describes this annihilation as the face of Jesus Christ within. “This face is no other than the Divinity of Jesus Christ, which is imprinted in all human beings. But they wiped away the face by their sins, and the image cannot be repaired except by Jesus Christ.” (151) In annihilation, the believer receives the abundant grace that retraces the image of God within our soul. Jesus Christ says, “You are those who have stood by me in my trials” (Luke 22:28). As believers stand by Jesus Christ in his trials, they are honored to be there with him, even though despised and rejected by others.

In the third stage, the annihilated soul no longer lives alone but Jesus Christ lives within us and works through us. As Paul proclaims, “It is no longer I who live, but Jesus Christ within me” (Galatians 2:20). Jesus Christ is then perfectly formed within us. Guyon declares that Jesus Christ infuses abundant grace within us and when we receive and treasure this, we have an interior home formed within. This place is a place of the holy resurrection of Jesus Christ. This grace makes us cry out that we have a powerful Savior who promises to be with us always. Guyon writes, “O secret of the interior! It is in weakness that we find your power. It is in captivity that we find your freedom. It is in the exterior of an infant that we find the hidden truth of God. There we may find the truth of the mystery and discover how Jesus Christ begins to be formed in the interior. We find an infant in simplicity and innocence where we may be formed in the will of God.” She writes, “O divine infant! You are born within hearts that do not oppose you.” (27) In the most profound center of our soul, our savior Jesus Christ is born. The believer dwells in the midst of the fiery love of the Trinity.

The Invitation to the Interior Banquet

Guyon invites everyone to this interior banquet in her symbolic interpretations of Luke. One example of this comes from the bent-over woman in Luke 13:13. She describe this healing operation of God in the following quote.

First, Jesus Christ calls her. Then he delivers the soul from the ties and ropes that attached her to things of the earth and to herself, that kept her bent over and turned away from God. Following this, he lays his hands on her that is an application of power and she turns toward him, taking a posture entirely different that the one she had. This great good only comes to this soul because she is exposed and open before God. (100)

As the soul finds love transporting her out of her propriety and self-ownership, she stands upright, and leaving behind the things of the earth, she finds her gaze staying on Jesus Christ. As her soul keeps him in sight, Jesus Christ works and operates in her life, removing self-destructions and addictions, adding strong passions and dreams, and finally uniting completely with her. She lives in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ lives within her. This tender union will carry her to fulfillment and consummation in God.

In her commentary on Luke, Guyon invites us to a place of blessing, wonder, and love. Jesus Christ creates the fountain of divine grace within our interior being of heart, mind, and soul. This fountain sweetly and gently caresses us with living water in our interior being where the Trinity of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwells and makes a home with us. In this place of interior faith, we see Jesus Christ within and then live his actions without. The Holy Spirit flows within and without us and makes us living apostles, even though separated in earthly time from him by many centuries. Still, through the interior fountain of living grace, we see, live, and know Jesus Christ and become united to him through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Guyon yearns to share her spiritual revelations with others, especially the afflicted and suffering. She describes how God operates on the human being and creates an interior life where Jesus Christ becomes our Savior. Our interior being seeks union with God, the greatest of all possible gifts.

Nancy Carol James

July 22, 2018

10. James, Pure Love, 27.

11. Guyon, Autobiography, Vol. 1, 96.