word is all you have lost. The word is Jesus. This does not mean the
word Jesus painted on a wall, written with letters in a book, or formed
by the lips with sound from the mouth. I mean Jesus: all goodness,
wisdom, love, and sweetness--your joy, your worship, your Lord, and
your salvation.
This name Jesus in English is nothing other than healer and
health. Everyone who lives this life is spiritually sick. There is no one
alive without sin, which is sickness of the soul. John says of himself
and others, If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us. We can never approach the joys of heaven
without first being made well from this spiritual illness.
This healing is available only to those who desire it, love it, take
delight in it. No one can be made whole in the spirit unless that person
loves and desires spiritual health. It is the same way with physical
illness. If you offered a sick person riches and honors without making
that person well (if you could), your offer would mean nothing. So it is
for one who is sick in spirit. Nothing is more desirable than spiritual
health--and that is Jesus.
If you feel a strong desire in your heart for Jesus, either by
remembering his name or by a prayer, or anything else you may do,
then you are doing well in your search. You have found something
of Jesus, not yet himself as him, but a shadow of him. The closer you
come to him the more you will desire him.
If the question comes into your mind asking what you have lost
and what you seek, lift up the desire of your heart to Jesus--even
though you are blind and can see nothing of him--and say that your
have lost him and he is what you want. Nothing else.
Walter Hilton, Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection 
Who is Walter Hilton? Walter Hilton died and 1396. He was an
English augustinian mystic. Little is known of his life. His writings
were widely read in England in the 15th century. To learn more
about Walter Hilton read here.
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