The groaning of the creation and our own groaning is naught but the impress and seal of the Spirit: our cry, Abba, Father, is naught but the echo of the divine Word. The action of the Spirit is independent: He goeth as He listeth. We do not possess Him: He possess us. He anticipates us, and forestalleth our infirmities. He is Creator Spiritus. For our groanings are infirmities: they are flesh, not Spirit: human, not divine: sinful, not righteous. If they are heard and accepted by God, it is in His presence and only there. Our awaiting, however patient and faithful it be, is also infirmity: for there is an awaiting in Hell — a purposeless, undefined, ineffective, worthless expectation, a waiting for nothing, a waiting which is therefore incapable of fulfilment. And no one can assure us that our awaiting is not of such a kind — no one, that is, except God. That the Spirit forestalls us, that the Truth is in itself true, is the power in our infirmity. We must also recognize that we cannot lay hold on this power, even by the strictest abnegation. The mystic’s ‘Way of Denial’ is a blind alley, as are all ‘ways’. The only way is the Way, and that Way is Christ.

Posted on January 14, 2010