Vigils Reading – Memorial of B.V.M.

THE LIFE OF CHRIST, HIDDEN IN YOUR HEARTS

From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny7

◊◊◊

What can so stir up man to the love of God as the love which God first bestows on man, a love for man so ardent that he wills to become man for the sake of man?… Or what exhibits more plainly the power and merit of faith as that the Virgin conceived God by faith, by faith deserved to have all that God had promised her fulfilled? “Blessed,” we read, “is she who believed, for what was told her by the Lord shall be brought to fulfillment.”

Now that you may know more fully that the Virgin’s conception has not only a mystical but also a moral sense, what is a mystery for your redemption is also an example for your imitation, so that you clearly frustrate the grace of the mystery in you if you do not imitate the virtue of the example. For she who conceived God by faith promises you the same if you have faith; if you will faithfully receive the Word from the mouth of the heavenly messenger you too may conceive the God whom the whole world cannot contain, conceive him however in your heart, not in your body…

Pay careful attention then to your hearing as it is written, for “faith comes from hearing, while hearing comes through the word of God,” which without any doubt the angel of God proclaims to you when a faithful preacher treats with you of the fear or the love of God… How blessed are they who can say: “For fear of you, Lord, we have conceived and given birth to the Spirit of Salvation,” which indeed is no other than the Spirit of the Savior, the Truth of Jesus Christ. Behold the unspeakable condescension of God and at the same time the power of the mystery which passes all understanding. He who created you is created in you, and as if it were too little that you should possess the Father, he wishes also that you should become a mother to himself. “Whoever,” he says, “does the will of my Father he is my brother and sister and mother.” O faithful soul, open wide your bosom, expand your affections, admit no constraint in your heart, conceive him whom creation cannot contain. Open to the Word of God an ear that will listen. This is the way to the womb of your heart for the Spirit who brings about conception; in such fashion are the bones of Christ, that is the virtues, built up in the pregnant womb.

Thanks be to you, Spirit, who breathe where you will. By your gift I see not one but countless faithful souls pregnant with that noble offspring. Preserve your works, lest anyone should suffer miscarriage and expel, shapeless and dead, the progeny he has conceived of God.

You also, blessed mothers of so glorious an issue, attend to yourselves until Christ is formed in you. Be careful lest any violent blow coming from without should… extinguish the spirit you have conceived. Spare, if not yourselves, at least the Son of God in you; spare him not only from evil deeds and utterances but also from harmful thoughts and deadly pleasures which obviously stifle the seed of God. Guard your heart with all vigilance, for from it life will come forth, that is, when the offspring is ready for birth and the life of Christ which is now hidden in your hearts will be made manifest in your mortal flesh. You have conceived the spirit of salvation, but you are still in labor, you have not yet given birth. If there is labor in giving birth, great consolation comes from the hope of offspring… For he who is now conceived as God in our spirits, conforming them to the Spirit of his charity, will then be born as man in our bodies, conforming them to his glorified body, in which he lives in majesty, God, for ever and ever