AUTHOR’S PREFACE

neighbor original: "rem proximi"; completing "Amo-rem" (Love) from the previous page, as the Apostle witnesses in 1 John 4), he is not only in a state of grace and salvation, but also in a certain special degree of Love by which he is loved by the Father and by Christ; from this it happens that Christ offers himself to him in a special way—to his inner being, his mind and his will—to be seen, known, felt, and enjoyed luminously; so that the Father and Christ come to him in a special way, uniquely affecting him, inhabiting and possessing his very depth fundum: a technical term in mysticism referring to the "ground" or the deepest, most essential core of the human soul, his intellect, and his heart, so that they might thus become perpetual contemplators of the Father and of Christ, and unfailing, most singular, and purest Lovers of the God possessed within. This, moreover, is nothing other than MYSTICAL THEOLOGY itself, that is, the Essence of the Christian Religion observed, and crowned by a special union, light, and love of God and Christ; the Christian Religion, I say, possessed in an inward and divine splendor, a state of continuous Contemplation and Love, or Union with God, insofar as it pleases the Father to communicate himself in this life.