Vigils Reading

A reading from

WILLIAM OF ST THIERRY

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Now we on our part hold you dear by the affection of Love which you have

implanted in us. But how is it with you? Do you, the Creator of all things, both of

the good dispositions and of souls that are to be affected by them, do you love

those whom you do love by some extraneous, incidental activity? And are you,

the Maker of all people and all things, in some way, in some respect, affected in

so doing? It is unthinkable! It would be ridiculous and contrary to faith to

impute such a thing to the Creator of all!

Well, then, how do you love us, if you do not love us with love? But, O you

who are the One supremely good and the ultimate Goodness, your love is your

goodness, the Holy spirit proceeding from the father and the Son! From the

beginning of creation he has been borne upon the waters – on the tossing souls

of mortals, that is – offering himself to all, drawing all to himself. And by

breathing into and upon them, by warding off things harmful and supplying

things useful, he unites God to us and us to God. Your Holy Spirit, who is called

the Love, and the Unity, and the Will of the Father and the Son, dwells in us by

his grace and implants in us the charity of God; and through that charity he

reconciles God to us. And thus he unites us to God through the good will that he

breathes into us. And with us this vehement good will goes by the name of love,

by which we love what we ought to love, namely you. For love is nothing other

than a vehement, well-ordered will…

We first hoped, because we knew your name, O Lord; we gloried in you as

Lord and loved the name of the Lord in you. But now, through the grace

inbreathed into us by the Spirit of your adoption, we have confidence that all

that the father has is ours also. So, through the grace of adoption, we invoke you

now under the same name as your only Son invokes you by right of nature. But

because all this derives exclusively from you, O sovereign Father of lights, for

whom to love is to do good and from whom comes every good endowment and

every perfect gift, you, I say, love yourself in us, and us in yourself, when we love

you through you.

We are…God’s offspring, we, all of us, are gods and children of the Most

High through a kind of spiritual kinship. We claim for ourselves a closer

relationship with you, because through the Spirit of adoption your Son does not

scorn to be known by the same name as we, and because with and by him, taught

by saving precepts and schooled by God’s ordinance, we are bold to say: “Our

Father, who art in heaven.”