A wish for the new life. The nearness of the wellspring of life. How it is to be found.

What this letter is. A single dense paragraph to a brother — a blessing that is also a whole spirituality in miniature. It opens as a prayer: that "the Spirit of life, which is in Christ Jesus" would so pervade "our spirit and all the powers of the soul" that, "having died to all that is created, and to ourselves," we might "enter into his divine, hidden life," where Christ "will be all in all in us." Its consoling centre is nearness: "the wellspring is, indeed, nearer to us than we believe." And its counsel is the way to reach it — to keep one's desire "thoroughly weaned away from all things," and to "sink, in deepest self-abandonment, from all one's own will"; then, "in his time," the soul will "become aware of its cheering and life-giving out-flowings in the ground of the soul." It ends on watchful hope: "Let us wait, hope, and not grow weary! At midnight the Bridegroom comes."

A few words and echoes.

• The Spirit of life. His opening prayer draws on Paul: "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" that frees and quickens — pervading not just the mind but "all the powers of the soul."
• Your life is hid with Christ. The "divine, hidden life" we are to "enter into" echoes Paul's "your life is hid with Christ in God" — and his hope that God will be "all in all."
• The wellspring, nearer than we think. His great consolation: the fountain of living water is not far off but already in "the ground of the soul," waiting to well up — an echo of Jesus' promise of a spring of water within.
• Weaned and sinking. The way to the wellspring is renunciation: desire "weaned away from all things," the will let go "in deepest self-abandonment" — not striving toward God but sinking out of self.
• At midnight the Bridegroom. His closing watchword, from the parable of the ten virgins: to "wait, hope, and not grow weary," for the Bridegroom comes when least expected.