Vigils Reading
GLORIFY THE LORD
From the Catechetical Lectures of St Cyril of Jerusalem
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“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”; for in the
thought of God, let the thought of Father be included, so that the glory we
ascribe to the Father and the Son with the Holy Spirit may be perfectly free from
difference. For the Father has one glory and the Son another, but their glory is
one and the same; since the Son is the Father’s sole-begotten, and when the
Father is glorified the Son shares in enjoyment of His glory… And whenever the
Son is glorified the Father of so excellent a Son is greatly honored.
Now the mind thinks with great rapidity, but the tongue needs
expressions and a long outpouring of words before it reaches a conclusion. For
in one instant, the eye takes in a vast multitude of stars, but if anyone should
want to discourse on any particular stars…he will need to say a good deal. Again
in like manner the mind comprehends earth and sea and all the bounds of the
world in a flash, but it takes many words to express what it understands in an
instant…
What we say about God is not what should be said (for that is known only
to Him) but only what human nature takes in, and only what our infirmity can
bear. For what we expound is not what God is… We have no sure knowledge
about Him… Our chief theological knowledge is confessing that we have none.
Therefore, “magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His Name together”…
Now if the heavens and all they contain cannot worthily sing the praises of
God, how possibly can earth and ashes, the least and slightest of existing things,
raise a worthy hymn to God, “who holds in His hand the circle of the earth, and
considers the inhabitants of it as grasshoppers.” If anyone would attempt to
discourse on God, let them first expound what are the bounds of the earth. The
earth is your dwelling, and yet you do not know the extent of your dwellingplace,
earth! How then can you have any adequate thoughts of its Creator?
But someone will ask: If the divine Being is incomprehensible, what is the
good of the things you have been saying? Come now, am I not to take a
reasonable drink because I cannot drink the river dry? Or supposing I were to go
into a huge garden where I could not possibly eat all the fruit on the trees, would
you have me leave it still hungry? I praise and glorify our Maker, seeing that “Let
everything that breathes praise the Lord” is a divine command. I am now trying
to glorify the Master, not to expound His Nature, for I know quite well that I
shall fall far short even of glorifying Him as He deserves. Nevertheless I hold it
to be a religious duty at least to make the attempt. For the Lord Jesus comforts
me for my insufficiency by saying “No one has seen God at any time.”