Revelations of Divine Love · 58 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack
Chapter XLIIIa
"Prayer uniteth the soul to God" Prayer oneth the soul to God.
For though the soul be ever like to God in kind and substance, restored by grace, it is often unlike in condition, by sin on man's part.
Then is prayer a witness that the soul willeth as God willeth; and it comforteth the conscience and enableth man to grace.
And thus He teacheth us to pray, and mightily to trust that we shall have it.
For He beholdeth us in love and would make us partners of His good deed, and therefore He stirreth us to pray for that which it pleaseth him to do.
For which prayer and good will, that we have of His gift, He will reward us and give us endless meed.
And this was shewed in this word: And thou beseechest it .
In this word God shewed so great pleasance and so great content, as though He were much beholden to us for every good deed that we do (and yet it is He that doeth it) because that we beseech Him mightily to do all things that seem to Him good: as if He said: What might then please me more than to beseech me, mightily, wisely, and earnestly, to do that thing that I shall do?
And thus the soul by prayer accordeth to God.
But when our courteous Lord of His grace sheweth Himself to our soul, we have that [which] we desire.
And then we see not, for the time, what we should more pray, but all our intent with all our might is set wholly to the beholding of Him.
And this is an high unperceivable prayer, as to my sight: for all the cause wherefor we pray it, is oned into the sight and beholding of Him to whom we pray; marvellously enjoying with reverent dread, and with so great sweetness and delight in Him that we can pray right nought but as He stirreth us, for the time.
And well I wot, the more the soul seeth of God, the more it desireth Him by His grace.
But when we see Him not so, then feel we need and cause to pray, because of failing, for enabling of our self, to Jesus.
For when the soul is tempested, troubled, and left to itself by unrest, then it is time to pray, for to make itself pliable and obedient to God.
(But the soul by no manner of prayer maketh God pliant to it: for He is ever alike in love.) And this I saw: that what time we see needs wherefor we pray, then our good Lord followeth us , helping our desire; and when we of His special grace plainly behold Him, seeing none other needs, then we follow Him and He draweth us unto Him by love.
For I saw and felt that His marvellous and plentiful Goodness fulfilleth all our powers; and therewith I saw that His continuant working in all manner of things is done so goodly, so wisely, and so mightily, that it overpasseth all our imagining, and all that we can ween and think; and then we can do no more but behold Him, enjoying, with an high, mighty desire to be all oned unto Him,—centred to His dwelling,—and enjoy in His loving and delight in His goodness.
And then shall we, with His sweet grace, in our own meek continuant prayer come unto Him now in this life by many privy touchings of sweet spiritual sights and feeling, measured to us as our simpleness may bear it.
And this is wrought, and shall be, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, so long till we shall die in longing, for love.
The path of loving devotion and self-surrender to a personal deity as itself sufficient means of liberation — the Gita's 'to those constantly devoted, I come forward as their deliverer,' Kabir's and the Sant poets' love-religion, the devotional stream that parallels Sufi love-mysticism. Distinct from mystical_union (the resulting state), fana_annihilation (the ego's unmaking at the path's end), ladder_of_love (eros staged toward Beauty), and prayer (the practice of address): bhakti names devotion as the soteriological road itself.
The passage highlights 'loving devotion' and 'self-surrender' as the primary means of connection, describing a relationship driven by love and trust rather than mere ritual or intellect.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The text emphasizes God's 'continuant working in all manner of things' and His active role in fulfilling human powers and guiding desires.
The practice of stilling the mind and speech to open receptivity to divine knowledge or presence.
The description of the 'high unperceivable prayer' where one can 'pray right nought but as He stirreth us' indicates a state of receptive stillness and silence before God.
The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.
The text repeatedly describes the soul becoming 'oned' to God, centered in His dwelling, and enjoying a state where the cause of prayer merges with the sight of God.
Direct address to the divine, whether petitionary, contemplative, or liturgical; speech and silence offered upward.
The passage is entirely dedicated to defining prayer as the mechanism that unites the soul to God, distinguishing between petitionary prayer and the 'high unperceivable prayer' of beholding.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The passage acknowledges the soul's current state of being 'unlike in condition' due to sin and the feeling of 'need' when God is not plainly beheld.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The passage explicitly states that God makes humans 'partners of His good deed' and that the soul is 'restored by grace,' aligning with the concept of partaking in the divine nature.