Vigils Reading

IF YOU KNEW THE GIFT OF GOD

From the writing of St Elizabeth of the Trinity

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What is the gift of God if not Himself?… The beloved disciple tells us: “He

came to His own and His own did not accept Him.” St. John the Baptist could

still say to many souls these words of reproach: “There is one in the midst of

you, ‘in you,’ whom you do not know… If you knew the gift of God…”

There is one who knew this gift of God, one who did not lose one particle

of it, one who was so pure, so luminous that she seemed to be Light itself. One

whose life was so simple, so lost in God that there is hardly anything we can say

about it.

Faithful Virgin, “who kept all these things in her heart.” She remained so

little, so recollected in God’s presence, in the seclusion of the temple, that she

drew down upon herself the delight of the Holy Trinity: “Because He has looked

upon the lowliness of His servant, henceforth all generations shall call me

blessed!” The Father bending down to this beautiful creature, who was so

unaware of her own beauty, willed that she be the Mother in time of Him whose

Father He is in eternity. Then the Spirit of love who presides over all of God’s

works came upon her; the Virgin said her fiat: “Behold the servant of the Lord,

be it done to me according to Your word,” and the greatest of mysteries was

accomplished. By the descent of the Word in her, Mary became forever God’s

prey.

It seems to me that the attitude of the Virgin during the months that

elapsed between the Annunciation and the Nativity is the model for interior

souls, those whom God has chosen to live within, in the depths of the bottomless

abyss. In what peace, in what recollection Mary lent herself to everything she

did! How even the most trivial things were divinized by her! For through it all

the Virgin remained the adorer of the gift of God! This did not prevent her from

spending herself outwardly when it was a matter of charity; the Gospel tells us

that Mary went in haste to the mountains of Judea to visit her cousin Elizabeth.

Never did the ineffable vision that she contemplated within herself in any way

diminish her outward charity. For… if contemplation “continues toward praise

and towards the eternity of its Lord, it possesses unity and will not lose it.

If an order from Heaven arrives, contemplation turns towards men,

sympathizes with their needs, is inclined towards all their miseries; it must cry

and be fruitful. It illuminates like fire, and like it, it burns, absorbs and devours,

lifting up to Heaven what it has devoured. And when it has finished its work

here below, it rises, burning with its fire, and takes up again the road on high.

Elizabeth of the Trinity. I Have Found God, The Complete Works: Volume One. Trans. Sister Aletheia Kane, O.C.D. ICS

Publications, 1984. 110-111.15