Vigils Reading

O WISDOM

A letter from an anonymous author to Diognetus

◊◊◊

No one has ever seen God or known him, but God has revealed himself to

us through faith, by which alone it is possible to see him. God, the Lord and

maker of all things, who created the world and set it in order, not only loved us

but was also patient with us. So he has always been, and is, and will be: kind,

good, free from anger, truthful; indeed, he and he alone is good.

He devised a plan, a great and wonderful plan, and shared it only with his

Son. As long as he preserved his secrecy and kept his own wise counsel he

seemed to be neglecting us, to have no concern for us. But when – through his

beloved Son – he revealed and made public what he had prepared from the

beginning, he gave us all at once gifts such as we could never have dreamt of,

even sight and knowledge of himself.

After making all his plans in consultation with his Son, God still allowed

us for a time to go our own way, to be swept along by unruly passion, enslaved by

sensuality. This does not mean that he took pleasure in our sins, but only that he

tolerated them. When we had shown ourselves to be unworthy of life, his

goodness would make us worthy of it. When we had shown our inability to enter

the kingdom of God by our own power, we would be enabled to do so by God’s

power.

How immeasurable is God’s generosity and love! He did not show hatred

for us or reject us or take vengeance. He gave his own Son as the price of our

redemption, the holy One to redeem the wicked, the sinless One to redeem

sinners, the just One to redeem the unjust, the incorruptible One to redeem the

corruptible, the immortal One to redeem mortals. For what else could have7

covered our sins but his sinlessness? In whom could we have been sanctified but

in the Son of God alone?

How wonderful a transformation, how mysterious a design, how

inconceivable a blessing! The wickedness of the many is hidden in the One who

is holy, and the holiness of One sanctifies the many.