|
Now understand and mark this: Christ says, at the beginning of
this precept, Behold; and this is done through charity and a pure
conscience, as you have heard before. Then He has shown us what we
shall see, that is, the threefold coming.
Now He commands us what we shall do next, and says: Go ye out. If
you possess the first point, that is, if you are able to see,
through grace and through charity; and if, further, you have gazed
well upon your pattern Christ and His going out; then, there
arises within you, out of charity, and out of the loving
observation of your Bridegroom, a righteousness,[40] namely, that
thereafter you long to follow Him in the virtues. Then Christ is
saying within you: Go ye out. This going out must be done in three
ways: we must go out towards God, towards ourselves, and towards
our neighbours, and this we must do by means of charity and
righteousness. For charity ever strives towards the height,
towards the kingdom of God, which is God Himself; for He is the
source from which unmediated charity flows forth, and wherein it
abides in the Unity. And righteousness, which is born of charity,
wills the perfection of all the moral and all the other virtues
which are honourable and proper to the kingdom of God, that is the
soul.
Charity and Righteousness: these two lay the foundation of the
kingdom of the soul where God would dwell. And this foundation is
humility.
These three virtues prop and bear the whole weight and the whole
edifice of all the other virtues and of all transcendence. For
charity always confronts man with the unfathomable goodness of
God, from which it has flowed forth, that thereby he may live
worthily and remain steadfast before God, and grow in true
humility and all other virtues. And righteousness places man face
to face with the eternal truth of God, that he may know truth, and
become enlightened, and may fulfil all virtue without erring. But
humility brings man face to face with the most high mightiness of
God, that he may always remain little and lowly, and may surrender
himself to God, and may not stand upon his selfhood. This is the
way in which a man should hold himself before God, that thereby he
may grow continually in new virtues.
|