Vigils Reading

A reading from “On Contemplating God” by

WILLIAM OF ST THIERRY

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May all unrighteousness take its departure from my soul, that I may love

the Lord my God with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my

strength! Let all jealousy depart from me, lest I should love anything along with

you that I do not love for your sake, true Lord and only Love! For when I love

anything for your sake, I love not it, but you for whose sake I love that which I

love. For you truly only are the Lord. To be ruled by you is for us salvation. For

us to serve you is nothing else but to be saved by you!

Now how is it we are saved by you, O Lord, from whom salvation comes

and whose blessing is upon your people, if it is not in receiving from you the gift

of loving you and being loved by you? That, Lord, is why you willed that the Son

of your right hand, the Man whom you made strong for your own self, should be

called Jesus, that is to say, Savior, for he will save his people from their sins.

There is no other in whom is salvation except him who taught us to love himself

when he first loved us, even to death on the cross. By loving and holding us so

dear he stirred us up to love himself, who first had loved us to the end. This is the

righteousness of the sons of men: “Love me, for I love you.”

One seldom meets a person who can say: “I love you, in order that you

may love me!” But, as the servant of your love proclaims and preaches, you who

first loved us did this, precisely this. You first loved us so that we might love you.

And that was not because you needed to be loved by us, but because we could

not be what you created us to be, except by loving you.

Having then in many ways and on various occasions spoken to the fathers

by the prophets, now in these last days you have spoken to us in the Son, your

Word, by whom the heavens were established, and all the power of them by the

breath of his mouth. For you to speak thus in your Son was an open declaration,

a “setting in the sun” as it were, of how much and in what sort of way you loved

us, in that you spared not your own Son, but delivered him up for us all. Yes, and

he himself loved us and gave himself for us.

This, Lord, is your word to us, this is your all-powerful message: he who,

while all things kept silence (that is, were in the depths of error), came from the

royal throne, the stern opponent of error and the gentle apostle of love. And

everything he did and everything he said on earth, even the insults, the spitting,

the buffeting, the cross and the grave, all that was nothing but yourself speaking

in the Son, appealing to us by your love and stirring up our love for you…

Sitting upon your throne and judging righteous judgment, you judge the

righteousness that you yourself have made. Thus will every mouth be shut, and

the whole world be made subject to God, when you have pity on him on whom

you will have pity, and extend mercy to him to whom you will be merciful. We

could not with justice have been saved, had we not loved you, nor could we have

loved you, save by your gift. You willed, therefore, that we should love you. So,

Lord, as the Apostle of your love tells us, and as we ourselves have said before,

you “first loved us”; and you love all your lovers first.