Just as if standing just beyond a partition

"to suffer divine things and to have experiential knowledge of God [(Pati . . . divina, et experimentalem cognitionem de Deo habere)], does not only pertain to the state of glory, where God is seen intuitively, but also to the state of pilgrimage; where Hierotheus was, there also was God, even if perceived obscurely and by faith, nevertheless, so to speak, known experientially by a kind of touch, although not by sight.  Just as we do not perceive our soul, we, nevertheless, through the very experience of being animated by it, sense it like an object at hand, for the soul really forms us and presents to us the signs of us being thus formed.  Likewise, in a special way by grace, God shows to us his innermost presence (which he himself possesses as the agent and principle of all esse in his immensity) like an object that can be intimately and experientially known [(sic Deus suae intimae presentiae . . . nobis specialiter per gratiam demonstrat tamquam objectum intime et experimentaliter cognoscibile)], on earth obscurely and by way of signs, in the fatherland by way of vision; but even now God is present to us in a particular way, just as if standing behind a partition wall [(sed tamen jam nobis specialiter et realiter praesens, et quasi stans post parietem)]."

     John of St. Thomas on St. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II.45.2.Resp., on Pseudo-Dionysius, De divinis nom. cap. 2).  Cursus theologicus I.43.17.3, ed. monks of Solesmes, vol. 4, p. 370, as trans. Reinhard Hütter, "Theological faith enlightening sacred theology:  renewing theology by recovering its unity as sacra doctrina," The Thomist 74 (2010):  399-400n47 (369-405).