Vigils Reading

THE ETERNAL SON

From the writing of St Mechthild of Magdeburg

◊◊◊

I saw and still see three Persons in the eternal heights before God’s Son

was conceived in the body of St. Mary. They were then known and seen by all

the holy angels in their distinctness, in their completeness, in their name, and

in how the Three were one God. No matter how good the angels’ eyes were, they

saw neither bone nor flesh nor color nor the glorious name Jesus. This was

miraculously hidden from them in the breast of the eternal Father. They called

the Father the uncreated eternal God, the Son wisdom with no beginning, the

Spirit of them both they called right knowledge of truth.

The fiery angels of the highest order, who are suspended opposite the

loving Godhead in the breath of the whole Trinity, served and were witness to

the blissful decision when God became man. Gabriel brought only the name

down at the Annunciation. He was entrusted with neither bone nor flesh nor

blood. The Second Person — that was always the eternal Son. Although he had

not yet assumed human nature, he had always been ours but had not been given

to us before Gabriel brought the message… Although Adam’s nature was broken

and changed and his inheritance lost forever, God never gave up on him. Hence

we were and still are able to return. God has kept his noble loving nature intact…

He cannot withhold himself. God immediately cast Lucifer from himself into

the eternal prison, but he pursued Adam, asked him where he was, and brought

him back to the path. Lucifer had only a single nature in God. When he

destroyed it, he could not return.

Man has a complete nature in the Holy Trinity, and God saw fit to fashion

it with his own divine hands. When his holy efforts on our behalf went for

naught, he was forced back within himself by a threefold delight. For this reason

he wanted to restore us with his own feet and his own hands so that we would

have great oneness with him. If man had remained in paradise, God would have

been immediately visible to him, would have greeted his soul and refreshed his

body. Thus did I see God come from heaven to paradise, like a great angel.

Also, this same nature forces God to greet us with knowledge and with

holy intimacy to the extent that we are prepared through holy virtues and true

innocence. When I reflect that divine nature now includes bone and flesh, body

and soul, then I become elated in great joy, far beyond what I am worth. But

angels are to some degree formed according to the Holy Trinity, but they are

pure spirits. The soul alone with its flesh is mistress of the house in heaven, sits

next to the eternal Master of the house, and is most like him. There eye reflects

in eye, there spirit flows in spirit, there hand touches hand, there mouth speaks

to mouth, and there heart greets heart. Thus does the Lord and Master honor

the mistress at his side. But the princes and the vassals — these are the holy

angels — these the Master keeps in full view. All service and all praise the angels

engage in are offered totally to the mistress as well as to the Master.

3 Mechthild of Magdeburg. The Flowing Light of the Godhead. Trans. Frank Tobin. New York: Paulist Press, 1998. 156-

158.9