599 chapter 7: the incense of the mystical temple CHAPTER 7 The Incense of the Mystical Temple At Jerusalem in that most splendid work of Solomon there was an altar which served specifically for burning incense. We have demonstrated a little earlier that the Heart of man is the altar; should not then the most fragrant incense continually come forth from it into the sight of the Lord? I mean prayer. The apostle spurs us to it when he says: “Pray without ceasing” (1Thess 5:17). Assuredly this Mystical Temple of God may be considered most desolate when the incense of constant prayer is not burnt in it. One must then pray with the mind, voice, sighs and tears; and through the fragrance of such prayer we must put to flight whatever we have within us that stinks. Bernard very well advises: “Wherever you are, pray within yourself. If you were to be far from an oratory, do not seek a place, since you [yourself ] are the place. If you were to be in bed or in another place, pray, and there is a temple.”73 One who persists in prayer in this way and continually exercises himself in it, will not only wash away all his sins, although most serious, but will make his way into such an intimacy with God, that he will no longer be a servant but a friend, yes indeed a son, so in fact united with God that he can do all things in God, with Him and through Him. And so, the Venerable Bede74 having in mind the mentioned Altar of Incense said: This “altar was next to the ‘Mercy Seat,’ that is, the Holy of Holies;” this is “in the outer building, but near the door of the interior.” This altar “is the type of perfect men, who still kept in the world by the flesh, but suspended close to the things of heaven by their every desire, send forth smoke that mounts to the Holy of Holies as if with burning incense; for burning with a 73 Bernard, in: Meditations... 6, n. 2, in: Meditations of Saint Aurelius Augustine, Lyon-Paris, 1861, 279-280. [Latin Divi Aurelii Augustini Meditationes]. 74 Venerable Bede, Doctor of the Church (d. 735), cf. Ferrua, Antonio, Bede, the Venerable, Saint, ECat II, 1132-1137, where we read that his exegetical works, containing commentaries on almost all of the books of the Bible, form the greater part of his life’s work.
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