I RENDER unto Thee thanks unspeakable, O God, light and life of my soul. For I now perceive the faith which, by the teaching of the Apostles, the Catholic Church holdeth, to wit, how Thou, a loving God, dost beget of Thyself a loveable God, and how Thou, the loveable God begotten, art the absolute mediator. For *tis through Thee that all existeth which doth exist or can exist, since Thou, the loving or willing God, enfoldest them all in Thee, the loveable God. For all that Thou, O God, willest or conceivest is enfolded in Thee, the loveable God. Naught can exist except Thou will it to be. Wherefore all things have their - cause or reason for being in Thy loveable concept, and the sole cause of them all is that it so pleaseth Thee; naught pleaseth a lover, as a lover, save the loveable. Thou, O loveable God, art the Son of God the loving Father, since in Thee is all the Father’s delight. Thus all creatable being is enfolded in Thee, the loveable God.
1 complacentia. Cf. St. Mark, i. 11. Vulg. in quo complacui.
Te ee ee ee ee ee EN Le oS eens
Thou too, O loving God—since from Thee cometh the loveable God, as a son from a father—art the Father of all beings by reason that Thou art God, the loving Father of the loveable God Thy Son. For Thy concept is a Son, in whom are all things, and Thine union and Thy concept is act and operation arising therefrom —the act and operation wherein existeth the actuality and unfolding of all things. As therefore of Thee, the loving God, there is begotten the loveable God, and this generation is a concept, even so there proceedeth from Thee, the loving God, and from Thy concept, the loveable God begotten of Thee, Thine act and concept, to wit, the bond knitting together and the God uniting Thee and Thy concept, even as the act of loving uniteth _ in love the lover and the beloved. And this bond is called Spirit; for spirit is like motion, proceeding from that which moveth and that which is moved. Thus motion is the unfolding of the concept of him that moveth. Wherefore in Thee, God the Holy Spirit, all things are unfolded, even as they are conceived in Thee, God the Son.
I perceive, then—Thou, God, enlightening me—how all things of God the Father are in Thee, God the Son, as in His reason, concept,
cause, or exemplar, and how the Son mediateth all things because He is the reason. For ’tis by means of reason and wisdom that Thou, God the Father, workest all things, and the spirit or motion giveth effect unto the concept of reason, as we learn from the craftsman who, by the motive power in his hands, giveth effect unto the coffer which he hath in his mind. Thus, my God, I perceive how Thy Son mediateth the union of all things, that all may find rest in Thee by the mediation of Thy Son. And I see that blessed Jesus, Son of Man, is most closely united unto Thy Son, and that the son of man could not be united unto Thee, God the Father, save by mediation of Thy Son, the absolute mediator.
Who would not be ravished to the highest in the attentive consideration of these things? Thou, my God, disclosest unto me, a poor wretch, this.so great secret that I may perceive that man cannot apprehend Thee, the Father, save in Thy Son, who may be apprehended and who is the mediator, and that to apprehend Thee is to be united unto Thee. Man, then, can be united unto Thee through Thy Son, who is the means of union; and human nature most closely knit unto Thee, in whatsoever man it be, cannot be more united unto
the intermediary than it is, for without an intermediary it cannot be united unto Thee. Thus it is united in the closest degree unto the — intermediary, yet it doth not become the intermediary: wherefore, albeit it cannot become the intermediary (since it cannot be united unto Thee without an intermediary), ’tis yet so joined unto the absolute intermediary that naught can mediate between it and Thy Son, the absolute mediator. For if aught could mediate between human nature and the absolute mediator, human nature would not then be united unto Thee in the closest degree.
O good Jesu, I perceive that in Thee human nature is linked most closely unto God the Father, by that most exalted union through . which it is linked unto God the Son, the absolute mediator. Since Thou art Son of Man, human sonship is in the highest degree united in Thee, Jesu, unto the divine sonship, so that Thou art rightly called Son of God and Son of Man, for in Thee naught mediateth between those twain. In that absolute sonship, which is the Son of God, is enfolded all sonship, and thereunto Thy human sonship, Jesu, 1s supremely united. Accordingly, Thy human sonship subsisteth in the divine, not only as enfolded therein, but as that which is attracted
in that which attracteth, and that which is united in that which uniteth, and that which is substantiated in that which giveth substance. Thus in Thee, Jesu, there can be no possible separation between Son of Man and Son of God. Possibility of separation ariseth from the fact that an union is not of the closest, but, where an union is of the closest possible, there no intermediary can exist. Separation, then, can have no place where naught can mediate between the things united. But where that which is united subsisteth not in that which uniteth, the union is not the closest possible; for *tis a closer union where the united subsisteth in the uniter than where it subsisteth separately, separation being a withdrawal from perfect union.
Thus in Thee, my Jesu, I see how the human sonship whereby Thou art Son of Man subsisteth in the divine sonship whereby Thou art Son of God, as in the most perfect union that which is united subsisteth in that which uniteth. Glory be to Thee, O God, throughout all ages!
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