Vigils reading

MY HEART IS READY

From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny

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Do you want to hear more explicitly about the confession you should

make in preparation for the coming of the Lord? “A just man is the first to accuse

himself,” says the Scripture. And what follows? His Friend comes, who before

the accusation was withdrawing farther away, estranged. For when he said: “I

will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord,” the Lord forgave him. “He

comes and shall search him.” Indeed he shall search him like a strong draft

searching the heart and the reins, reaching into the division of the soul and the

spirit, drawing out all impurity from the recesses of the soul and the deep

caverns of the mind, purging love that it may bring forth more fruit. God the

Father, the husbandman, rejoices already over the first-fruits of that confession.

However, he who – after such confession – is present sometimes even

before he is called on, at other times waits for you to invite him. And in order to

increase your merits he often dissimulates for a long time so that by being more

attentive at the psalmody and more instant in prayer you may in your gentle

violence compel him to enter. If you do not, the prophet laments that the cities

of the south are shut up, with none to enter them.

When therefore you can say: “My heart is ready, O God,” because it is

emptied of evil, “my heart is ready,” because it is full of holy desires, then busy

yourself with what follows: “I will sing and recite a psalm.” And whatever may

be your voice, singing or reciting, let this intention be in your mind: “Arise, my

Glory, arise at my coming, for as far as it is in me [to go,] I have gone to meet

you.”

O good Jesus, how swift and prompt, how full of joy and gladness are you

in running to greet such devotion as this. How cheerful do you show yourself in

these ways. As Isaiah says: “You have met him that rejoices and does justice: in

your ways they shall remember you.” For if you sing wisely in the way of

integrity, coming he will come and will bring to light what is hidden from you so

that you may understand the mysteries of the Scriptures you do not at present

know. Then it will be as you say: “I will sing and I will understand in the

unspotted way when you shall come to me.” Stir up, Lord, your power, which at

your coming stirs up our sluggishness, and come to save us, O Savior of the

world, who live and reign, God for ever and ever.