The icon as an 'interior castle'

In reading St. Teresa’s Interior Castle  (READ HERE ) with its idea of the soul as a crystal globe in the form of a castle which contains many rooms – seven mansions-  at the centre of which is the King of Glory illuminating the castle from its very core,  I now find myself looking at the icon rather differently.  It aims, of course,  to show Christ as King of the Universe- the Omega point we find in St. Paul – drawing all things towards Him and becoming all in all.  But St Teresa shows me another way to look at this Cosmic Christ: the Christ who lives and radiates his light in the centre of my soul, my interior castle – in my heart.   The journey to the Sacred Heart is a journey to our centre: the center and heart of our  ‘interior castle’.  We know ourselves when we know Christ.  That is, when my heart becomes like His: pure,  meek and humble.   I now can see the icon in this ‘interior’ as well as in a ‘cosmic way’: and I realize that they are just two ways of seeing the same thing.   God is not just up and ahead, he is within, and when we journey to find the Sacred Heart we undertake a journey to explore all the rooms of our life – our interior castle  - which we have been building day by day since we came into this world.   I have come to see the walls of the New Jerusalem that the angel is measuring in the icon as the walls of my interior castle, and there, deep in the centre  of centres, is Christ’s heart  illuminating my soul and calling to me to give my heart: calling me to be united with the divine energy that glows throughout the cosmos and also deep within my crystal globe.  I cannot travel the vast expanse of the universe: but, as St Teresa shows, the journey to the centre of  our interior castle is truly a cosmic journey.