601 chapter 8: the lamp of the mystical temple The love of God will burn this incense, although not without the help of humility. For if you are humble, as one of the saints used to say, the Holy Spirit will teach you to pray. He will supply you with incense, He will kindle it, He will increase the flames and He Himself will accept the most sweet aroma. CHAPTER 8 The Lamp of the Mystical Temple “The bidding” (says the Wise Man) “is a lamp, and the teaching is a light” (Prov 6:23). It will never cease burning in the Mystical Temple before the very altar of the heart. Why so? For “the command of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eye” (Ps 19:9), yes indeed the feet, as the same said elsewhere, “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path” (Ps 119:105). For just as we know by which way to go when a torch is borne before us, and do not slip off the beaten tracks, in like manner when the precepts of God are fixed in the heart and shine in the soul, we best see how to order our present life, and by conforming it to these, we shall by no means turn aside from the path to the eternity of happiness. In the beginning indeed the human race followed the guidance of nature and light of reason in its life by his actions; but when nature was corrupted by vices, and reason was darkened by the habits of sin, God established the law for us, as the way of acting according to His justice, so that we may search for it always. When finally this law collapsed again, partly by the absurd interpretations of the Jews, and partly by strange superstitions, the legislator himself assisted us, that is Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, who “came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it” (Mt 5:17), and strengthened it with his deeds and words in such a way that he is deservedly considered the Light, “which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” (Jn 1:9). Finally, the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no light, and no truth, added also its own precepts to the divine com-
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