Continuing with Hugh of Balma: The Sixth Petition in the Lord's Prayer

In the prayer that Jesus taught us, the sixth petition is: “And lead us not into temptation.”

ET NE NOS INDUCAS IN TENTATIONEM
Hugh of Balma continues with his mystical reflections on the Lord’s Prayer by teaching that “the human spirit is led into temptation” by getting caught up in the enticements that partially agree “to the wicked work that the crafty seducer has insistently urged on” the human spirit. We, therefore, ask “to be spared of this danger.” This prayer is brought before the Throne of God because we are “aware of the weakness of human flesh” and not because we lack “confidence in the Beloved’s constant aid.” The human spirit “intently strains upward” with the hope of deservedly attaining “Him and to call Him forth by… affected clamorings.” With confidence in “His mercy,” the human spirit “can contemptuously face down the enemy’s pressing and powerful temptations,” confident in the Beloved Who promised deliverance through the psalmist: “Because he hoped in Me, I will deliver him; I will protect him because he has known My Name” (Psalm 90 [91]:14).

Another reason to pray, “And lead us not into temptation” is because of “the enemy’s insolent deceits.” To the limits which are permitted, these deceits rage against the human spirit, but the more we are “directly subject to the Creator’s control, the farther” we are removed from the enemy’s dominion. When “temptation fails to prevail,” the human spirit is then pursued “with raging fury.”

Thus we beg our Lord to set us free, “longingly challenging Him, asking Him not to fail to see that” His love is gained now by trampling “down earthly joys and the kingdom of the devil; and the Beloved, through the prophet has promised such a yearning one that He will not only hear” the “request, but, like a welcome leader and companion in battle, will liberate… completely through His joyous Presence in the midst of… temptation, and reward” the yearning one “with the crown of glory… as He says: ‘He shall cry to Me and I will hear him; I am with him in tribulation’” (Psalm 90 [91]:15).

Another reason why we ask “to be set free from temptation’s danger is that,” being “united to God,” we don’t pursue our own affairs but follow the “Master ‘Who makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and rains upon the just and the unjust’ (Matthew 5:45), that is, He sends the rays of His goodness to good people and uses those rays to draw them to Himself; even while His rays also shine expectantly outside evil people, like the sun’s rays shining expectantly on a shuttered window. He retracts not a bit of His goodly nature, but keeps on knocking on the door, lest any rational spirit… should lack divine love because God stopped sending it forth.” When “united to God in friendship,” we “can beg great favors for sinners from the Beloved because as His friends we are faithful and true to Him, “agreeing completely with what He wants to do and wants not to do.” This will, of course, incur “the raging indignation of the enemy and thus… asks on behalf of everyone for liberation from the enemy’s snares.”

And now, the final reason for this petition: “Having already experienced how sweet it is to love such a kind Beloved,” we must consider “it a most bitter death, something” we “can scarcely come to terms with, to be separated from” our “happy consort now and forever.” Certainly “it is an unbearable disgrace that someone who in godly fashion knows the great joy of loving the Beloved should listen to the enemy’s conversation, should think worldly joys or earthly riches of any worth – as if… never really” knowing “whether something is truly good.” A “happily trained” human spirit “will warn sinful souls who have miserably withdrawn from such a fount of goodness.”

Our Lord tells us through the prophet: “Know and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for you to have left the Lord your God” (Jeremiah 2:19). “By God’s just judgment,” the one filled “of creaturely delights is filled with endless bitterness. For the more deeply worldly delight penetrates the recesses of the human spirit, the more the soul, sad to say, is filled with noxious poisons.” The Beloved “imparts the streams of His happiness to human spirits… When a soul is separated from that wellspring without Whom there can be no joy… it is not surprising that such a soul separated from Him becomes depressed, for the aqueduct of love from which the soul joyfully experiences and obtains gladness from the Creator has been obstructed and broken off.”

“Yet, through affections and yearnings for the Beloved, the spirit is completely disentangled and triumphantly set free.”

The Lord's Prayer: The Fifth Petition

In Hugh of Balma’s mystical explanation of the “Our Father,” next is the fifth petition which is, “And forgive us our debts” in which we ask “to be freed from three pressing things.”

1. “The evil of venial guilt.”
2. “The danger of temptation, which has to do with both guilt and its punishment.”
3. “The evil of the punishment incurred by frequently falling into sin.”

ET DIMITTE NOBIS DEBITA NOSTRA
Being “liberated from the evil of venial sins” is “fully attainable only by the gift of love.” For “when disordered inner forces or unsuitable delights of the senses lead” one to a desire to “seek repose somewhere other than in the fount of beatifying blessedness,” then one’s glance turns away “from Him and becomes unfocused.” Venial sins, perhaps somewhat underestimated, do, however, “darken the soul.” When one seeks delights from another source and turns away from the Beloved as if He “were insufficient,” the yearning of such a person would be deservedly slowed down. “The Book of Wisdom employs the figure of a lamenting person to describe someone unable to eradicate his deeply rooted earthly thoughts: ‘For the corruptible body is a load upon the soul, and the earthly habitation pressed down the mind that muses upon many things’” (Wisdom 9:15). The more one ponders the “lower things,” the more “one becomes… distant from heavenly help.” When this occurs, the body weighs down the soul and “thus a constant struggle burdens the spirit.”

When “stained by venial sins,” the tendency is to cower “from the graceful light found in the Bridegroom’s Presence.” To the Beloved, one “would seem to be less attractive because His gaze focuses specifically and solely on the inner beauty.” It is when we conform “through inner beauty of spirit to supercelestial beauty are” our “words acceptable to Him.” Our Lord tells us this when He says: “Your voice is sweet and your face is charming” (Canticle of Canticles 2:14). That is to say, “your voice tastes nothing but heavenly things, and your face is not deformed by a multitude of venial sins or fleshly affections.” And so, “in surging up to that union which is acquired directly by love’s movement, the human spirit’s tendency to avert her glance must first be straightened out.” When this happens, “venial guilt is in no way able to inflict rude harm to the soul, since it is like a drop of water and falls into the fire and instantly congeals and is absorbed by the fire.”

“It is quite reasonable, then, that we should be made to owe a certain penalty when the spirit is less directly oriented toward Him in Whom true happiness is found.” He says to us: “Come to Me you that labor and are burdened down” (Matthew 11:28). Since “you have lived so long in wretchedness and because glory is delayed, you can consider yourselves burdened and slowed down by lugging around the weight of the body’s burden.” It is our Lord Who will refresh us, Who imparts to us “the divine consolations that quiet” our “yearnings.” He tells us: “I am meek and humble of Heart” (Matthew 11:29), “and therefore I stoop down to those who call forth My riches through constant yearning.”

“You shall find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29). This is when love’s “yoke will be sweet and the burden light” (Matthew 11:30). “For by its worthiness and joyful attractiveness the yoke of the soul binds the will inwardly.”

With this yoke, “the burden is truly said to be light, because it lifts the spirit from lower things,” and establishes the spirit on a higher level. “The yoke is described as sweet because the one bearing it lives the angelic rather than human life – imperfectly for now, yet fully and felicitously when body and soul separate.”

“Again, the yoke is said to be sweet because it makes the human spirit lead this bitter life with such interior joy and rejoicing that the life of glory begins already in this life, so that the superabundance of the soul’s joy can totally overwhelm and absorb the body’s punishments.” And again, “the burden is also described as light because the richness of the inner soul… keeps winter’s icy hunger or summer’s insistent heat from causing any harm.”

The Fourth Petition in the Lord's Prayer

In the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” Hugh of Balma teaches, “one asks that, as a result of the favors flowing from Him,” we “might unflinchingly persevere in all things, sustained by His own guidance.”

PANEM NOSTRUM QUOTIDIANUM DA NOBIS HODIE
It is our desire “to be raised on High by an increase of love.” In this way we would be “existing closer to the Source of all happiness,” and eat our “fill of the invigorating Word” which will strengthen us so that we no longer beg “for the wretched delights of lesser things.” It would be easy to once again turn towards things of “fleshly consolation unless” our craving is satisfied “with supercelestial refreshment,” id est, “the Food of love and the Bread of angels, constantly drawing deep draughts from the fountain of eternal beatitude.” Thus, “our daily bread” means we are asking for “increased love, which alone can strengthen the sick, fortify the weak, and satisfy the starving.”

This bread is asked for “daily” for the reason that “the human spirit cannot live a true life for a day, for an hour, not even for an instant, unless constantly bathed by the life-giving drop of dew.” We know that “the soul is the life of bodies,” likewise “love is the life of spirits.”

“Unless an animate body is fed once a day with physical food, it loses its bodily strength and vigor. Likewise, unless a human spirit underway in unitive love reaches out once a day, aspiring to the kiss, … will soon become lukewarm.” The meaning of “aspiring to the kiss” is reaching out to the Beloved. For He calls us as Scripture attests: “Arise, make haste, My love, and come” (Canticle of Canticles 2:10). Hugh of Balma advises us to not keep Him waiting lest we end up saying: “By night I sought Him Whom my soul loves; I sought Him and I found Him not” (ibid. 3:1). Hugh next explains “night” by saying: “To seek by night can mean to ascend through the creatures, or to seek the Beloved in them.” However, “in the anagogic movement, one should cling to the very Fount of goodness without any indirect mirror, affect, or uplifting love.” When we ask for our bread “this day,” this “reference to presentness expresses a single principle of continuity.” We ask “in this present life” for “in the light of eternity the ‘present’ is simple and undivided, and the eternal present begins for those living in love in this present life.” For the love in which the Beloved “is loved in this life is the same love in number as that love with which, in glory’s eternity, one will be united to the One Who makes all things blessed.” Hugh continues, “For the soul who clings to God in love is more truly and more directly fed with living bread than one body is linked to other physical bodies by shared corporality, which acts as a sort of glue or material bonding.” Saint Paul expresses this when he wrote: “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:17).

“The fact that eternity, the Beloved’s Presence, and light begin to shine inwardly already here in this life is confirmed by what the great hierarch, the Apostle Paul, says: “Our dwelling place is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). And so, the Beloved already “spreads over… the loving spirit.” The “body’s inclinations” of “worldly delights” are indeed still a hindrance but “the guiding breath of divine inspiration, wafts divinely transmitted rays which open up the body to receive divine things from on High.” The spirit can turn away from that which is unwelcome and “aspire upward toward divine things.” The spirit then becomes a garden open only to the Beloved, “a garden enclosed,” as told of in Scripture (Canticle of Canticles 4:12). “The Most High” dwells in “the poverty-stricken human spirit,” and He feeds the spirit “with living bread,” id est, “with the consolation of divine joy.”

The Lord's Prayer: The Third Petition

Next is Hugh of Balma's explanation of the third petition in which he says that it “asks the most Blessed One not to limit” what has now been “perceived of Him, but that He mercifully make it known to all other sinners.”

FIAT VOLUNTAS TUA
“Thy will be done” is the third petition. The soul “does not truly love unless” it desires that everyone honors the Beloved, the soul’s great love. The soul asks that what it “experiences mercifully, be made known to other sinners.” In this way, He Who alone should “be worshipped and adored insatiably can, by revealing to sinners their sins… imparting to their spirits the spark of truth and the drop of reason that are found only by attaining Him.” Thus, “every tongue burning with that inner affection… makes it possible for a created spirit to converse with” the “Uncreated Spirit.” These souls will learn that the Beloved “confers on those who love Him and abandon earthly joys gifts far more precious than any they have given up.”

When one confesses that Jesus is in the glory of the Father, “the Father might by yearning love lift up in mercy the one who truly loves Him.” God will establish the loving soul “in the solitude of His Bosom” as He said through the prophet: “I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore have I drawn you, taking pity on you” (Jeremiah 31:3).

To say that “Thy will be done” as it is done in heaven mystically means “let Thy will be done firmly, steadily in motion, adorned with various lights,” so that on earth “Thy will be done in sinners… who are fixed in a region far from the fire whose cleansing burning lightens the soul” that it may “gain a heavenly dwelling-place.” Hugh continues by saying that “just as love is the cause by which the human spirit attains all good things in love, so the absence of love is the cause of all sin.” And so, “the sinner… is farther removed from the lightening presence of ignited love.” The anagogical meaning of guilt and sin can be explained “as an absence of love’s urgency… love’s absence is the occasion for every evil.” This doesn’t mean that it is lacking in the soul but that one’s lack of desire to have the Beloved’s Presence in their life will have them running “aimlessly down false paths” and “into all kinds of misery… It is not wrong to say that the soul deprived of love lacks every good thing, for… evil deeds separate” the soul from God.

Hugh of Balma: The Second Petition in the Lord's Prayer

Continuing with Hugh of Balma’s mystical reflection on the “Our Father,” next is the second petition which according to Hugh is made so that we “might not turn aside to leap over the boundaries of the rules of truth.”

ADVENIAT REGNUM TUUM
“The Kingdom of God is established on its lasting Throne in the soul.” In order for this to be so, however, “an ardent force of love” must prevail “in the spirit.” There has to be a dismissal of “the rebellion” of the excessive “inner senses” and by the power of this force of love, “all actions” are to be subjected to “the judgment of reason.” This is necessary in order that there is a striving “by every action to do what” has been “discerned to be more pleasing to the Beloved,” being subjected “entirely to the Beloved, through the light He radiates, recognizing in advance what pleases Him,” and then “carrying it out with discernment.” We “ought not seek” our “own interests,” but rather seek the interests of God. This is how God alone will reign in the soul. “In the end” it is fitting and right that the Creator alone should reside in His creation, the soul, by resting there. Thus, the soul “should be preserved intact under His rule,” and “find sweet refreshment in Him.” The prayer, “Thy Kingdom come” truly occurs when the soul “is seated under the shadow of the Most High.” The soul, “as far as human weakness permits”… “is completely consecrated to God and not at all subject to any creature.” When this is the will of the soul, the Kingdom is truly attained.

Hugh of Balma: The First Petition in the Lord's Prayer

This is the second post on Hugh of Balma’s anagogical or mystical explanation of the Lord’s Prayer. Let us take a look at the First Petition in this prayer given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.

SANCTIFICETUR NOMEN TUUM
“Hallowed be Thy Name” is the first petition after “having gained good will” with the three commendations of God which begin this prayer. There are seven petitions total in this prayer: “the first four are requests to obtain something good, while the other three are requests for the removal of something bad.” The first petition of “hallowed be Thy Name” is for the purpose of “possessing the Beloved without contrary delay.” In the mystical sense “holy” means “apart from earth.” Thus “hallowed be Thy Name” means, “let Your wonderful Name be made apart from earth in me.” It’s quite beautiful to want the mystery, the wonder, the awe, the beauty and the love of Almighty God and His heaven to be evident within you – to exercise in this world the beauty of other worldliness.

Hugh of Balma adds: “The soul who lives wickedly, imbued with earthly desires and disfiguring worldly delights, is unable to see in love the serene tranquility of a heart full of joy or to sense anything else.” Such a soul is “being pulled by earthly horses” and is “carnal and not divine,” being compared scripturally to Egypt and what is written by the prophet: “Egypt is man, and not God” (Isaiah 31:3).

“On the other hand, the spirit of a lover can attain something of experiential, divine rejoicing when, fired up… reaches out” quite aware that disentanglement “from earthly affections” has yet to occur but knows that without God the strength to disentangle will be insufficient. Since a soul cannot “firmly possess two opposite things at once, being pulled down lower by the weight of corruptible flesh,” the soul must beg “the Beloved more insistently that He remove it.” Once the Beloved has fulfilled this pleading, “spiritual joy” will lay “bare the bitterness of former joys, and the inner ray of light, even if not revealed in perfect fullness, clearly exposes the… fraud and ugliness” of fleshly or worldly desires. What follows is that the soul will be “lightened by love’s fire and” will be “raised on High on the wings of affection.” Eventually, in astonishment the soul will be able to echo what is written in Sacred Scripture: “Truly You are a hidden God” (Isaiah 45:15). May God’s Name always be deemed as holy. “When the soul’s petition is heard and removed” from carnal desires, “marvelously the bride is presented to the Bridegroom, leaving them alone with each other.”

Hugh of Balma: The Lord's Prayer

It is prayed at every Mass; it is prayed in the Divine Office; it is prayed in the Rosary. It is prayed countless times privately and/or for personal intentions. It is the Lord’s Prayer. But how often do we attempt to raise our souls to understand the meaning of this prayer given to us by Him Who is Risen? Hugh of Balma, a thirteenth century Carthusian, invites us to examine this prayer through an anagogical lens, id est, a mystical interpretation of this prayer. And certainly our Lord Jesus Christ, the Giver of this prayer, would like nothing more than to elevate our souls and draw us to a more intimate union with Him. This first post looks at what Hugh of Balma refers to as the “three main commendations of the Beloved.”

PATER
Most minds when thinking of the word “Father,” as Hugh of Balma conveys, turn to the “literal sense” when a man “engenders a son” biologically. Turning towards “the anagogic sense,” however, means engendering “many sons adoptively, rather than naturally, from the seed of deifying love He has emitted.” He goes on to say that “this seed of deifying love gives perfect nativity to the human spirit.” In other words, this adoptive love is called deifying love because it says to the recipients: I choose you. And coming from Almighty God makes it a perfect choice. As chosen sons and daughters of God, Who “richly radiates life from on High” we can and should offer ourselves to Him because to those Who accept His love, He “mercifully shapes and forms… out of His Fatherly affection – until in the end” when we shall see “Him face to Face.” Hugh closes out this portion of his reflection by saying that “this is the hidden or mystical significance of saying ‘Father’ – for He is the Fountainhead of all life.”

NOSTER
“Next comes ‘Our’ which praises the outward sharing of… enclosed Goodness, as if one were to say, ‘By reason of Your widespread goodness, not only do You pay attention to individuals but You also do all You can to let Your radiance draw all rational spirits to Yourself.’” Thus God does not reach out only to a chosen few who have climbed to elevated levels on the spiritual ladder, for He loves us all equally and desires that even the willfully disobedient will come to know Him, love Him and experience His love. Those who have are the “rational spirits.” Hugh then continues with something we all know by calling God “the Fountain and Source of goodness.” This “is the thrust of ‘Our’ taken in an anagogic … uplifting sense.”

QUI ES IN CŒLIS
“Who art in heaven” is the next section. Hugh of Balma writes that “here goodwill is gained by reason of a surpassing and lofty dwelling-place.” He continues by sharing that “there are three ways that heaven excels other things: It is continually in motion, it remains steadfast and it is adorned with a variety of constellations shining brightly within it.” Looking at this mystically he says that “the bride,” or the Church, “should adorn herself with this threefold characteristic in the hidden storeroom of her heart as she converses with the Bridegroom in her chamber.” We as the Church are “steadfast” by acknowledging that God, “Who art in heaven,” dwells in us “in the present, potential and essential way” but also He inhabits “the inward bed-chamber of some human spirits,” meaning that He is “truly in Himself.” Id est, the Most Holy Trinity is “a guest Who brings rejoicing and comfort, making” Himself “at home with those who have given other vices and delights” the heave-ho “for the sake of gaining” His “love more effectively.” These human spirits “live in love, set free from hindrances by sighs and bonded to” our Lord “by the adhesive of gentlest love.” The love of these exceptional souls is “as strong in them as death.” These blessed souls are sustained “with affections that cannot be beaten back” because the Source of these affections is “the Beloved.”

Recap:
In the Lord's Prayer “Our Father Who art in heaven” are the “three main commendations of the Beloved.” First, as “Father” He is praised “as the Origin of complete and spiritual life.” Secondly, in “Our” God “widely diffuses His goodness.” And third, “Who art in heaven” is “the worth of His dwelling-place” and is commended “for so excellent a King would not deign to dwell except where there is a firm abode, or tabernacle, variously and suitably furnished on the inside.

Future posts, God willing, will look at Hugh of Balma’s mystical explanations of the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.