Vigils Reading

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Vigils Reading

October 27, 2022

 

TO COMPREHEND WITH THE SAINTS THE DEPTH OF GOD, from the Works of St Bernard[1]

 

[“That you may have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth..”(Eph 3:18) St Paul says] “comprehend” not “know” so that we should not be content to be curious for knowledge, but seek with all our power to comprehend. The reward lies not in knowing but in comprehending. To put it another way, as someone says, it is a sin for someone to know what is good and not to do it(Jas 4:17). And Paul himself says in another place, “So run that you may comprehend (1Cor 9:24).

What then is God? He is “length,” I say. What is that? Eternity. Eternity is so long that it has no end of place or time. He is also breadth. And what is that? Love. And who shall draw boundaries to God’s love, for he hates nothing that he has made? Indeed, he causes his sun to rise upon the good and the wicked and rain falls upon the just and the unjust. Therefore his bosom enfolds even his enemies. And not satisfied with that, it stretches to infinity. He goes beyond every bound not only of love but of knowledge, as the Apostle goes on to say, “And to know the love of Christ, which passes all understanding”(Eph 3:19). What more can I say? He is eternal, or perhaps even greater, eternity itself. Do you see that the width is as great as the length? Would that you could see not only what it is like but what it actually is! To be breadth is to be depth. The one no less than two; the two no more than one. God is eternity; “God is love” (1Jn 4:16). He is length without extension, breadth without distension. In both equally he exceeds local and temporal limits, but by the freedom of his nature, not by the vastness of his substance. He who made everything according to measure is immense in this way, and although he is immense, this is the measure of his immensity.

Again, what is God? “The height and the depth.” In one he is above all, in the other, he is within all. It is clear that nowhere in the Godhead is equality limited. It stands square on all sides and is utterly consistent. Consider his power as the height and his wisdom as the depth. They correspond to one another symmetrically, and while the height is beyond reach the depth is equally beyond seeing into. Paul wonders at it and exclaims, “O height of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God; how inscrutable are his judgments, and his ways are beyond searching out”(Rom 11:33). Let us exclaim with Paul, gazing upon the most simple unity of those attributes with God and in God. O powerful wisdom, reaching everywhere in strength. O wise power, disposing all things sweetly! One reality, many effects, different acts; And this one reality is length because it is eternity, breadth because it is love, height because it is majesty, depth because it is wisdom.

     [1]BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX (Classics of Western Spirituality) Trans. by G R Evans (Paulist Press  NY  1987) pp. 169-170.

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October 27, 2022
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