Vigils Reading

PREPARING A THRONE

FOR THE MOST HIGH

From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny1

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[Christ the Lord] is to be not merely invited but drawn into the guest

chamber of our heart by the violence of our prayers and the vehemence of our

fervor. [But] sometimes he makes as though he would go farther on; he does so

for no other reason than that he may prove the zeal of your love.

But what does it mean, you say, that Jesus makes as though he would go

further? What else than what Ecclesiastes tells us of himself: “I have said, I will

be wise, and [wisdom] departed farther from me.” The Spouse speaks more

explicitly when, giving voice to our daily complaint, she says: “I rose up to open

to my beloved, but he had turned aside and was gone. I sought him, and found

him not, I called, and he did not answer me,” just as he did not answer the

Canaanite woman either. You too are wont to call on the Spirit of wisdom, you

are accustomed to seek the Spirit of grace in prayer. If it seems that he draws

farther away from you, do not despair but be more importunate in your pleading

until you hear him answer you: “Great is your faith, be it done to you as you

will.”

But when you invite Jesus take care that you do not invite the God of

majesty into an unclean and unworthy dwelling where a wrangling [spouse] or

clouds of smoke or a dripping roof would not allow even yourself to dwell in

peace. For his place is in peace and nowhere else. Right and justice are the

pillars of his throne. “Now they seek me,” he says, “from day to day, and desire

to know my ways as a nation that has done justice and has not forsaken the will

of their God.” “Right,” he says, “and justice are the pillars of his throne.” Do not

plead that it is a lavish dwelling you have to prepare for so great and so powerful11

a guest and that it is beyond the limits of your poverty. You have the means at

hand. I speak in human terms because of the infirmity of your flesh, or rather

because of the narrowness of your mind. Make a perfect confession of your past

life, have a good will in respect to all else (for there is peace to men of good will),

and in this way you will have prepared with right and justice a throne for the

Most High.