Vigils Reading – 17th Sunday

A reading from

ORIGEN

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To the seeker after the fine pearls may be applied the words: Seek and you

shall find, and Everyone who seeks will find. If you ask what is to be sought, and

what will be found by everyone who seeks for it, I say with confidence: pearls –

especially that pearl which will be acquired for those who give their all, who

sacrifice everything for it, the pearl Paul meant when he said: I have accepted

the loss of everything in order to gain Christ. Everything means beautiful

pearls; to gain Christ refers to the one pearl of great price.

Admittedly, a lamp is precious to people in darkness, and they need it

until sunrise. Precious too was the radiance on the face of Moses – and I believe

on the faces of the other prophets also. It was a sight of beauty leading to the

point of being able to see the glory of Christ, to whom the Father bore witness in

the words: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. But compared

with this surpassing glory, what formerly was glory now seems to have no

glory at all. We need at first a glory destined to be outshone by an all surpassing

glory, just as we need the partial knowledge which will be superseded when that

which is perfect has come.

Thus everyone beginning to live a spiritual life and growing toward

maturity needs tutors, guardians, and trustees until the fullness of time arrives

for him, so that after all this, he who at first was no different from a slave

although he owned the whole estate, may on his emancipation receive his

patrimony from his tutor, guardians and trustees.

This patrimony is the pearl of great price, and the coming of what is

perfect to supersede what is imperfect when, after acquiring the forms of

knowledge, if we may call them so, which are inferior to knowledge of Christ,

one becomes able to understand the supreme value of knowing Christ. The law

and the prophets fully comprehended are the preparation for the full

comprehension of the gospel and the complete understanding of the acts and

words of Christ Jesus.