From a discourse "On the Contemplation of God"
Truly you alone are the Lord. Your dominion is our
salvation, for to serve you is nothing else but to be saved by you!
O Lord, salvation is your gift and your blessing is upon
your people; what else is your salvation but receiving from you the gift of
loving you or being loved by you?
That, Lord, is why you willed that the Son at your right
hand, the man whom you made strong for yourself, should be called Jesus, that
is to say, Saviour, for he will
save his people from their sins, and there is no other in whom there is
salvation. He taught us to love
him by first loving us, even to death on the cross. By loving us and holding us
so dear, he stirred us to love him who had first loved us to the end.
And this is clearly the reason: you first loved us so that
we might love you – not because you needed our love, but because we could
not be what you created us to be, except by loving you.
In many ways and on various occasions you spoke to our
fathers through the prophets. Now in these last days you have spoken to us in
the Son, your Word; by him the heavens were established
and all their powers came to be by the breath of his mouth.
For you to speak thus in your Son was to bring out in the
light of day how much and in what way you loved us, for you did not spare your own Son but
delivered him up for us all. He
also loved us and gave himself up
for us.
This, Lord, is your Word to us, this is your all-powerful message: while all things
were in midnight silence (that
is, were in the depths of error), he
came from his royal throne, the stern conqueror of error and the gentle apostle
of love.
Everything he did and everything he said on earth, even
enduring the insults, the spitting, the buffetting – the cross and the
grave – all of this was actually you speaking to us in your Son, appealing
to us by your love and stirring up our love for you.
You know that this disposition could not be forced on men’s
hearts, my God, since you created them; it must rather be elicited. And this,
for the further reason that there is no freedom where there is compulsion, and
where freedom is lacking, so too is righteousness.
You wanted us to love you, then, we who could not with
justice have been saved had we not loved you, nor could we have loved you
except by your gift. So, Lord, as the apostle of your love tells us, and as we
have already said, you first loved us: you are first to love all those who love
you.
Thus we hold you dear by the affection you have implanted in
us. You are the one supremely good and ultimate goodness. Your love is your
goodness, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son! From the
beginning of creation it was he who hovered over the waters – that is,
over the wavering minds of men – offering himself to all, drawing all
things to himself. By his inspiration and holy breath, by keeping us from harm
and providing for our needs, he unites God to us and us to God.
Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
From a discourse "On the Contemplation of God" by
William of Saint-Thierry
Image taken from Waiting for the Word
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your interest in our blog! Your comment will be viewed shortly to be added to our blog. :)