Liminal Grace: Chapter 1
St. Joan and St. Thérèse and the sanctification of creation
Liminal Grace: A Catechesis of the Sky-Veil is a contemplative guide through the sacred threshold where creation is sanctified and revealed in divine light. Rooted in the hearts of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, this catechesis unfolds as a series of poetic essays and metaphysical reflections, tracing the journey of a pilgrim called to the Kingdom through the shimmering heraldry of redeemed Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera. Here, mythopoesis meets mystical theology, and grace emerges not in abstraction or syncretism, but in the sanctification of the pagan world allotted to each soul.
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Across the Sky-Veil,1 you will find poetic essays describing how God showed me that He loves me and how He gave me the grace to fall in love with Him. His love expressed itself as a call to His Kingdom through the combined hearts of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. He chose me as a broken vagabond, an exiled missionary, who sought the Kingdom through the liminal landscape that revealed the Being of God’s creation—the Sky-Veil. My work of salvation by grace—attaining the Kingdom on the far side of the Veil—required the sanctification of the part of creation the Holy Spirit allotted to me alone.2
“Let the sea be moved and the fullness thereof: the world and they that dwell therein. The rivers shall clap their hands, the mountains shall rejoice together at the presence of the Lord…” Psalm 97:7–9. Douay-Rheims.
Joan and Thérèse inspired me to fulfill my mission through a mythopoetic unveiling of the heralds of creation shimmering throughout the Veil, making it near to my Being.3 In the Sky-Veil through which I had to pass, creation as the moving seas, clapping rivers, and rejoicing mountains came alive as enchantment through the poetic remembrance4 of Aphrodite as the gleam of divine beauty and love, Athena as the sparkle of wisdom and courage, and Hera as the shimmer of silent majesty.5 The Being of the Kingdom through the Sky-Veil presented the three as hypostatic heralds6 —alethic emergences of what was hidden—not in the distorted shadows of goddesses of the Greek temples but in the light of a colorful, dynamic world redeemed in Christ, bursting with depth, height, and resonance. To the ancients, they had been corrupted harbingers of the incarnation but then, on my journey, enchanting lamp posts in the dark night of faith marking the pathway through the Veil.