Vigils Reading – St Gertrude the Great

TO BE ONE WITH GOD

From “The Spiritual Exercises” by St Gertrude the Great7

◊◊◊

O love, the fruition of you is that worthiest coupling of your Word and the

soul which is brought about by perfect union with God. To use you is to become

intertwined in God. To enjoy you is to be one with God. You are that peace which

surpasses all understanding and you are the road by which one comes to the

inner chamber.

Oh, if only it happened to me, too, miserable as I am, to repose for a

moment under your dearest cloak of cherishing-love so that my heart might be

emboldened by one consolatory utterance of your living Word, or that my soul

might hear this good and pleasant word from your mouth: ‘I am your salvation;

behold, now the bedchamber of my heart is open to you.’

Why, then, O love so unwavering, have you deeply loved someone so foul,

so ugly, if not to make her beautiful in you? Your loving-kind charity attracts

and allures me…

Let me not be confounded in my expectation but grant me to find rest for

my soul in you. I have found nothing more desirable, I have judged nothing

more lovable, I have wished for nothing more dear than to be held tight, O love,

in your embraces, to rest under the wings of my Jesus, and to dwell in the

tabernacle of divine charity.

O love, O radiant noonday, I would die a thousand times to be at rest in

you. If only you would bend to me your face of such beautiful cherishing-love…

Oh, if I were granted to come exceedingly close to you so that I might now

find myself not only next to you but within you. Then, through you, sun of

justice, flowers of all the virtues might arise in me, who am dust and ashes. With

you as a husband, my Lord, such fecundity might enter my soul that the

renowned offspring of total perfection would be born in me. Then, having been

snatched from the valley of this misery, I might be able to glory in you forever in

the presence of your desirable face; for you, mirror without spot, have not

scorned to be, in truth, coupled with a sinner like me.