Vigils Reading
2025-01-11
TODAY HE MANIFESTED
HIS GLORY
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny
◊◊◊
“Arise, be enlightened, Jerusalem, for your Light has come.” This present
day of lights has been enlightened for us and consecrated by the Light of Light.
He had lain hidden and unknown, but today he has vouchsafed to reveal himself
to the world for the enlightenment of all nations. For today he revealed himself
to the Chaldeans by the sign of a new star, dedicating in them as in first fruits the
faith of all nations. Today he revealed himself to the Jews, by the witness not
only of John but also of the Father and of the Holy Spirit, when, baptized in the
Jordan, he consecrated the baptism of all. Today he manifested his glory before
his disciples when by changing water into wine he prefigured that ineffable
mystery in which by his word the substance of things are changed…
The Lord indeed had come; he was in the world, and the world was made
through him, but the world did not know him. He was born, but he was not
known, until the day of light began to manifest him. So the Prophet says: “O new
Jerusalem, great city of the new king, arise, be enlightened, for your light has
come.” Arise, you who sit in darkness; look at the light which has risen up in the
darkness but is not mastered by the darkness. Draw near to him and be
enlightened, in his light you shall see the light, and it will be said to you: “You
were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” Look upon the Eternal
Light which has tempered itself to your gaze, so that he who dwells in
inaccessible light affords access even to weak and bleary eyes. See the Light in a
lamp of earthenware, the Sun in a cloud, God in man, the Splendor of Glory and
Brightness of Eternal Light in the clay vessel of your flesh.
Majesty indeed lies hid in human nature, power in lowliness; but signs
and prodigies break through the covering and leave no doubt as to their origin.
“The works which I do,” he says, “bear witness to me.” Great indeed is the
witness of John, who came to bear witness as a lamp to the light. But much
greater is that heavenly witness which the Father and the Holy Spirit bore to the
Son, the Father by his voice, the spirit in the form of a dove; since on the
evidence of two witnesses every claim is established… A new-born child cries on
earth while in the heavens he creates a new star, so that light may witness to
Light, a star to the Sun, and so that kings in the splendor of its rising may be led
to the Eternal Splendor which has also risen up…
Thanks be to you who bade light shine out of darkness and have kindled a
light in our hearts whose shining is to make known your glory as you have
revealed it in the features of Jesus Christ… We know indeed through faith,
holding on to it as to a trustworthy pledge so that we shall know by sight too. In
the meantime increase our faith, leading us on from faith to faith, from
brightness to brightness, by your Spirit, so that from day to day we may enter
more deeply into the treasures of light…until, through faith, we are led to the
vision of your face, as if led by a leading star to our Leader at Bethlehem.
