UNION
WITH GOD

Every soul no matter how burdened in sin, no matter how far away from God it has gone, no matter how close it is to damnation and despair, can find hope for pardon, mercy, and even perfect union in the mystical marriage with God. The soul created in the image of God was made for this union. Mystical union in this life is only transient and foretastes of the glory to come in the next. True mysticism is a gift granted to those who are extremely poor in themselves and who have learned to live for others, not themselves. This love is taught only supernaturally through the Holy Spirit. Every man should then aspire to perfect union with God. Nothing can give God greater honor than our love. Love alone makes the creature created by God capable of union with God.

Bernard of Clairvaux

Disciple. But being as I am in Nature, and thus bound, as with my own Chains, and by my own natural Will; pray be so kind, Sir, as to tell me, how I may come through Nature into the supersensual and supernatural Ground, without the destroying of Nature ?

Master. Three Things are requisite in order to this.

The First is, Thou must resign up thy Will to God; and must sink thyself down to the Dust in His Mercy.

The Second is, Thou must hate thy own Will, and forbear from doing that to which thy own Will doth drive thee.

The Third is, Thou must bow thy soul under the Cross, heartily submitting thyself to it, that thou mayest be able to bear the Temptations of Nature and Creature.

Jacob Boehme

The soul which is reduced to the Nothing, ought to dwell therein; without wishing, since she is now but dust, to issue from this state, nor, as before, desiring to live again. She must remain as something which no longer exists: and this, in order that the Torrent may drown itself and lose itself in the Sea, never to find itself in its selfhood again: that it may become one and the same thing with the Sea.

Madame Guyon

As soon as the two houses of the soul [the sensual and the spiritual] are tranquil and confirmed and merged in one by this peace, and their servants the powers, appetites and passions are sunk in deep tranquillity, neither troubled by things above nor things below, the Divine Wisdom immediately unites itself to the soul in a new bond of loving possession.

John of the Cross

True religion is a union of God with the soul, a real participation of the divine nature, the very image of God drawn upon the soul, or in the apostle’s phrase, it is Christ formed in us.

Henry Scougal