Vigils Reading

GLORIFY THE LORD

From the Catechetical Lectures of St Cyril of Jerusalem

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“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”; for in the

thought of God, let the thought of Father be included, so that the glory we

ascribe to the Father and the Son with the Holy Spirit may be perfectly free from

difference. For the Father has one glory and the Son another, but their glory is

one and the same; since the Son is the Father’s sole-begotten, and when the

Father is glorified the Son shares in enjoyment of His glory… And whenever the

Son is glorified the Father of so excellent a Son is greatly honored.

Now the mind thinks with great rapidity, but the tongue needs

expressions and a long outpouring of words before it reaches a conclusion. For

in one instant, the eye takes in a vast multitude of stars, but if anyone should

want to discourse on any particular stars…he will need to say a good deal. Again

in like manner the mind comprehends earth and sea and all the bounds of the

world in a flash, but it takes many words to express what it understands in an

instant…

What we say about God is not what should be said (for that is known only

to Him) but only what human nature takes in, and only what our infirmity can

bear. For what we expound is not what God is… We have no sure knowledge

about Him… Our chief theological knowledge is confessing that we have none.

Therefore, “magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His Name together”…

Now if the heavens and all they contain cannot worthily sing the praises of

God, how possibly can earth and ashes, the least and slightest of existing things,

raise a worthy hymn to God, “who holds in His hand the circle of the earth, and

considers the inhabitants of it as grasshoppers.” If anyone would attempt to

discourse on God, let them first expound what are the bounds of the earth. The

earth is your dwelling, and yet you do not know the extent of your dwellingplace,

earth! How then can you have any adequate thoughts of its Creator?

But someone will ask: If the divine Being is incomprehensible, what is the

good of the things you have been saying? Come now, am I not to take a

reasonable drink because I cannot drink the river dry? Or supposing I were to go

into a huge garden where I could not possibly eat all the fruit on the trees, would

you have me leave it still hungry? I praise and glorify our Maker, seeing that “Let

everything that breathes praise the Lord” is a divine command. I am now trying

to glorify the Master, not to expound His Nature, for I know quite well that I

shall fall far short even of glorifying Him as He deserves. Nevertheless I hold it

to be a religious duty at least to make the attempt. For the Lord Jesus comforts

me for my insufficiency by saying “No one has seen God at any time.”