glorycloud's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the fount of life "For the truth is: it is Love who is loved. He, out of the abundance and the nature of his goodness, fills with the same grace those who love and love together, those who rejoice and rejoice together, but he does not give to all in the same measure. And the more plentifully he pours himself into the faculties of those who love him, the more able does he make them to receive himself. He satisfies, but never surfeits them; and the satisfaction itself does not lessen their desire, but rather increases it, although it takes it away from it the worry and distress. For, as I said, Love is he who is loved. It is he who, by the flood of his delights, relieves the man who loves him from all his distress, whether it be that of surfeits which comes of satisfaction, of the anxiety that desires breed, or of the envy that grows out of zeal. As the Apostle says, he enlightens them "from glory to glory" (2 Cor 3:18), so that in the Light they see light, and they understand love in Love. For here is the fount of life that flows without cease and never runs dry. Here is the glory, here are the riches in the house of your blessed Lover, for here he who desires finds what he wants forthwith, and he who loves finds what he loves. He, moreover, who desires loves always desires, and he who love desires to love always. And for him who desires and loves, O Lord, you make what he desires so to abound that the desirer is vexed by no anxiety, nor does he who has plenty ever have too much. And, O Lord, I ask you: is not this the eternal way of which the Psalmist sings: "See if there be a way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way eternal" (Psa 138:24)? This relationship, this is perfection. To travel always thus is to arrive. So your Apostle first said: "It is not that I have already attained, or am already perfect, but I press on, hoping to take hold of that for which Christ has taken hold of me. One thing alone I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal, to the prize which is God's call to life supernal in Christ Jesus" (Phil 3:12ff). He said that first, I say. And after that he added: "Let all of us who are mature be of this mind" (Phil 3:15)." pg. 46,47 William of St Thierry "On Contemplating God" 11:21 a.m. - 2014-09-09 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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