In her commentary on Luke, Guyon passionately describes the life of interior faith. Guyon says that Luke as an eyewitness wrote this gospel for us to see what the apostles saw and witnesses that we too can see Jesus Christ and know the joy and fulfillment of being an apostle. Through this apostolic spiritual disposition, we have interior eyes to see what the apostles saw. This complete and satisfying interior vision of Jesus Christ and his kingdom brings us contentment and happiness.
Time and time again Guyon pours out her own interior being as she sweetly proclaims her love for Jesus Christ and the grace he has poured out upon her and all sinners. She writes with wonder about those to whom the kingdom is revealed and the sudden impact the kingdom may have on the faithful. For example, she describes the dying thief on the cross who sees and believes in Jesus Christ. Guyon proclaims, “A crucified sinner becomes in one moment a convert who confesses his crime and sees the goodness of God. He instantly becomes an apostle, a Preacher, and a Martyr!”(158)
With the glory of these sudden insights, our interior life brings an indestructible union with God that floods and storms may attack but cannot break (Luke 6:47–48). In our spiritual foundation we receive and live in God’s will. Then the sweet, small breeze of God blows through our dusty soul and, in love with Jesus Christ, we receive his Word. He calls to us and our hearts leap with joy. Guyon writes, “When we remain in God, he fills our emptiness easily, but if we do not remain in God, he empties our fullness.” She adds, “When we understand this secret, that in remaining we are filled and in leaving we are empty, there is no more difficulty in the interior life.” (19) The Word lives inside of us. Guyon says, “Let God rule and command his kingship in us.” (50)
God’s interior kingdom is always powerful and efficacious. To create this interior kingdom, the Holy Spirit falls upon us and shelters us as the kingdom grows within. The Holy Spirit acts as a shadow that holds us in obscurity until the right time. Guyon describes Mary Magdalene’s soul growing within, describing this as a valuable alabaster vase. “After Jesus Christ regards us favorably, our dirty earthen vessel, as hers was, becomes an alabaster vase, ready to hold the most excellent perfume of grace.” (63) Guyon writes, “Collect yourself in your love for Jesus Christ, who will fill you with superabundance.” (64) Guyon describes Magdalene as having found this. “Magdalene’s heart is abandoned and is no longer only her heart. Her heart is in Jesus. He does not need to search for the heart of Magdalene in Magdalene. Jesus searches for her heart in him. So she finds in him an advocate, a defender, a doctor, and a lover. Jesus does all these services for Magdalene, and he does this for all souls who forget themselves for him.” (67) Mary Magdalene received this interior kingdom with abandon and passion.
Interpretation of Symbols in the Bible
Guyon interprets the symbolic meaning of the biblical stories. She takes the literal words of the scriptures and interpret them symbolically as a guide into the kingdom of interior faith. She says that we live these events and stories in spiritual dispositions or states of being and they lead us into the glories of the apostolic state. Guyon offers maybe examples of how we live these biblical symbols and puts them in a consecutive order of human spiritual growth. At the beginning of the journey, Guyon uses the ideas of John the Baptist who preaches to us about needed tears of repentance that introduce us to into interior heart and mind. Other examples of her symbolic interpretation abound. Like Jesus, we rest in spiritual swaddling clothing similar to a repose in a disciplined circumstance so that we experience the sweetness of God within. After the disposition of swaddling, the Holy Spirit circumcises our interior lusts and indulgences of the flesh. In a consecutive stage, the Holy Spirit drives out the money-changers from our soul within that could lead us into corruption. In times of interior solitude, our interior life becomes strong. Later in our interior journey, we may live in a conflicted circumstance such as in the Garden of Gethsemane and we pray, “Not my will but your will be done.”
Guyon interprets the Mary and Martha story as preeminent for the interior faith. Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, has chosen the better part. Guyon writes, “All that has been said in the Old and New Testament is almost all contained in these words: leave multiplicity, care, worry, and distractions and enter into simplicity, unity, abandon, surrender, peace, tranquility, and silence. . . . Jesus Christ, the perfect model that we follow, had to spend thirty years hidden before he was given an exterior life. Like him, we must be entirely established in the interior, before we are given an exterior.” (84) Like Mary, we must listen to God and repose in him within our heart, mind, and soul.
Guyon’s symbolic interpretation adds an entire level of biblical meaning never written before. Guyon’s brilliant connection between the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospels creates a consistent and powerful vision of God reaching out to suffering humanity through the mediation and reconciliation of his Son Jesus Christ. As an example, Guyon writes about the prophet Anna in Luke 2:36–38 saying, “A woman who is a prophet and an apostle speaks so that we see that the Lord’s hand is not too short to save (Isaiah 59:1).” (36) In this example, Guyon connects Isaiah’s prophecy with the fulfillment of this prophecy spoken through Anna. Guyon’s connections between differing scriptures creates a unified meaning from the biblical message.
Guyon also reveals the biblical symbols of sin and degradation. She says this dwells in inauthentic people, such as the Pharisees, and calls this propriety. In this sin, we consider ourselves as are our own property and a thing to be manipulated to bring ourselves fleshly pleasures. We believe in our self-ownership and do not abandon our lives to Jesus Christ. Indeed, propriety is to live in the original sin of Adam and Eve. For Guyon, propriety is the opposite of grace. She writes, “But if we are attached to the exterior and the exterior rules us, while the interior is full of propriety, (signified by greed and wickedness), we are claiming for ourselves the righteousness of God. To not attribute to God justice in all things is propriety.” (90) The biblical person who personifies propriety is the critical elder son looking disdainfully upon the conversion of the sinning prodigal son. Yet even here Guyon proclaims hope. Our awareness of our self-adulation and propriety may lead us to repentance and the fresh air of grace.
Stages in Interior Growth
What is Guyon’s journey into interior faith? Through the fall of human beings, the life of Adam has become our interior life and destroyed the divine life within. Our conversion begins the annihilation of this life of Adam and brings the resurrection of Jesus Christ within. Guyon describes this interior life in three stages.
In the first stage of conversion, the person lives in the graces of God. Jesus Christ begins to be formed within us and brings the peace and joy of intimacy with the Holy Trinity. The interior life brings a profound communion with Jesus Christ’s generous grace. Guyon writes, “The Holy Spirit communicates these ineffable communications. Those that experience them have a germ of life given to them that they cannot fully distinguish.” (14)
In the second stage, the person is annihilated through the power of overwhelming and abundant grace. Jesus Christ retraces the image of God within us and heals the wounds of the Fall. This is a stage of radical transformation. Guyon writes, “O souls who are happy to be the stigma of people, the abjection of all people, the subject of their contradiction, rejoice to be treated like your Master!” (155) We are happy to be treated like this because Jesus Christ lives in the depths of our souls. She describes this annihilation as the face of Jesus Christ within. “This face is no other than the Divinity of Jesus Christ, which is imprinted in all human beings. But they wiped away the face by their sins, and the image cannot be repaired except by Jesus Christ.” (151) In annihilation, the believer receives the abundant grace that retraces the image of God within our soul. Jesus Christ says, “You are those who have stood by me in my trials” (Luke 22:28). As believers stand by Jesus Christ in his trials, they are honored to be there with him, even though despised and rejected by others.
In the third stage, the annihilated soul no longer lives alone but Jesus Christ lives within us and works through us. As Paul proclaims, “It is no longer I who live, but Jesus Christ within me” (Galatians 2:20). Jesus Christ is then perfectly formed within us. Guyon declares that Jesus Christ infuses abundant grace within us and when we receive and treasure this, we have an interior home formed within. This place is a place