Vigils Reading

HOW JESUS IS THE CONSUMMATION

From the writings of Nicholas of Cusa5

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We experience, O Lord, that your… Spirit, infinite in its power, is received in many ways. For it is received in one way in one in whom it produces a prophetic spirit, in another in one who is given skill to interpret, and in another by one to whom it teaches knowledge, and it is received still otherwise in others. For its gifts are diverse …just as the same heat of the sun produces different fruit of different trees. I see, Lord, that your Spirit cannot be lacking to any… because it is the Spirit of spirits and the movement of movements and fills the whole world…

O Lord, who work all things for yourself, you have created this entire world… as if you were a painter who mixes different colors in order finally to be able to paint oneself and to have an image of oneself wherein one may be delighted and one’s art find rest… For each… sees in you, my God, something which must be revealed to the others if they would attain to you… The spirits, full of love, therefore, reveal their secrets to one another, and thereby the knowledge of the beloved is increased as well as the desire for the beloved, and the sweetness of joy grows ardent… All come to rest in this Spirit as in the final perfection of the image of God, of whose image they have attained likeness and some degree of perfection…

All things rouse me to turn toward you; all Scripture strives to do nothing else but to disclose you… Above all, you have given me Jesus as Master, as ‘the Way, the Life, and the Truth’, so that nothing at all can be lacking to me. You strengthen me by your Holy Spirit, through whom you inspire choices of life and holy desires.

You draw me by a foretaste of the sweetness of the life of glory to love you, the infinite Good. You enrapture me in order to be above myself and to foresee the place of glory to which you invite me. You show me many most delectable dishes which draw me by their excellent savor. You permit me to see the treasury of riches, of life, of joy, and of beauty. In nature as well as in art, you uncover the fountain from which flows all that is desirable. You keep nothing secret. You do not hide the channel of love, nor of peace, nor of rest. You offer all things to me, wretched as I am, whom you have created from nothing.

Why then do I delay? Why do I not hasten to the aroma of the ointments of my Christ? Why do I not enter into the joy of my Lord? What holds me back? If ignorance of you, Lord, has restrained me, and the vain delight of the sensible world, they will hold me back no longer. For because you grant me to will, I will to forsake the things of this world, for the world wills to forsake me. I hasten toward the goal; I have almost finished my course; I look forward to its end, for I strive after the crown. Draw me, Lord, for no one may come to you unless drawn by you, so that drawn to you, I may be made absolute from this world and may be joined to you, the absolute God, in the eternity of the glorious life