V. Our whole business, then, brethren, in this life is to heal this eye of the heart whereby God may be seen.  To this end are celebrated the Holy Mysteries; to this end is preached the Word of God; to this end are the moral exhortations of the Church, those, that is, that relate to the corrections of manners, to the amendment of carnal lusts, to the renouncing the world, not in word only, but in a change of life:  to this end is directed the whole aim of the Divine and Holy Scriptures, that that inner man may be purged of that which hinders us from the sight of God.  For as the eye which is formed to see this temporal light, a light tho heavenly yet corporeal, and manifest, not to men only, but even to the meanest animals (for this the eye is formed to this light); if anything be thrown or falls into it, whereby it is disordered, is shut out from this light; and tho it encompasses the eye with its presence, yet the eye turns itself away from, and is absent from it; and tho its disordered condition is not only rendered absent from the light which is present, but the light to see which it was formed is even painful to it, so the eye of the heart too, when it is disordered and wounded, turns away from the light of righteousness, and dares not and can not contemplate it.

VI.  And what is it that disorders the eye of the heart?  Evil desire, covetousness, injustice, worldly concupiscence; these disorder, close, blind the eye of the heart.  And yet, when the eye of the body is out of order, how is the physician sought out, what an absence of all delay to open and cleanse it, that they may be healed whereby this outward light is seen!  There is running to and fro, no one is still, no one loiters, if even the smallest straw fall into the eye.  And God, it must be allowed, made the sun which we desire to see with sound eyes.  Much brighter, assuredly, is He who made it; nor is the light with which the eye of the mind is concerned of this kind at all.  That light is eternal wisdom.  God made thee, O man, after His own image.  Would He give thee wherewithal to see the sun which He made, and not give thee wherewithal to see Him who made thee, when He made thee after His own image?  He hath given thee this also; both hath He given thee.  But much thou dost love these outward eyes, and despisest much that interior eye; it thou dost carry about bruised and wounded.  Yea, it would be a punishment to, if thy Maker should wish to manifest Himself unto thee, it would be a punishment to thine eye, before that it is cured and healed.  For so Adam in Paradise sinned, and hid himself from the face of God.  As long, then, as he had the sound heart of a pure conscience, he rejoiced at the presence of God; when that eye was wounded by sin, he began to dread the divine light, he fled back into the darkness, and the thick covert of trees, flying from the truth, and anxious for the shade.