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O Holy and Divine Spirit, eternal Love of the Father
and the Son, be propitious to mine infancy. Our
understanding then shall see God, Theotimus; yes, it
shall see God Himself face to face, contemplating
with a view of true and real presence the divine
essence Itself, and in It, the infinite beauties
thereof, all-power, all-goodness, all-wisdom,
all-justice, and the rest of this abyss of
perfections.
It shall see clearly then, shall this
understanding, the infinite knowledge which God the
Father had from all eternity of His own beauty, for
the expression of which in Himself, He pronounced and
said eternally the Word, the Verbum, or the most
singular and most infinite speech and diction, which,
comprising and representing all the perfection of the
Father, can be but one same God, entirely one with
Him, without division or separation.
We shall thus then see that eternal and admirable
generation of the Divine Word and Son, by which He
was eternally born to the image and likeness of the
Father, a lively and natural image and likeness, not
representing any accidents or external thing; since
in God all is substance, nor can there be any
accident, all is interior, nor can there be any
exterior; but an image representing the proper
substance of the Father so perfectly, so naturally,
so essentially and substantially, that therefore it
can be no other thing than the same God with Him,
without distinction or difference at all either in
essence or substance, and with only the distinction
of Persons.
For how could this Divine Son be the true, truly
perfect and truly natural image, resemblance and
figure of the infinite beauty and substance of the
Father, if this image did not represent absolutely to
the life and according to nature, the infinite
perfections of the Father? And how could it
infinitely represent infinite perfections if it were
not itself infinitely perfect? And how could it be
infinitely perfect if it were not God, and how could
it be God if it were not one same God with the
Father?
This Son then, the infinite image and figure of
His infinite Father, is with His Father one sole,
most unique, and infinite God, there being no
difference of substance between Them, but only the
distinction of persons. This distinction of persons,
as it is certainly required, so also it is absolutely
sufficient, to effect that the Father pronounces, and
the Son is the Word pronounced; that the Father
speaks, and the Son is the Word, or the diction; that
the Father expresses, and the Son is the image,
likeness or figure expressed, and, in short, that the
Father is Father, and the Son, Son - two distinct
persons, but one only Essence or Divinity; so that
God Who is sole is not solitary, for He is sole in
His most singular and simple Deity, yet is not
solitary, because He is Father and Son in two
persons.
O Theotimus, what joy, what jubilee to celebrate
this eternal birth, kept in the brightness of the
Saints,(1) to celebrate it in seeing it, and to see
it in celebrating it!
The most sweet S. Bernard, as yet a little boy at
Chastillon-sur-Seine, was waiting in Church on
Christmas night for the divine office to begin, and
whilst waiting the poor child fell into a light
slumber, during which (O God what sweetness!) he saw
in spirit, yet in a vision very distinct and clear,
how the Son of God, having espoused human nature, and
becoming a little child in His Mother's most pure
womb, was with a humble sweetness mingled with a
celestial majesty, virginally born of her: - As a
bridegroom coming out of his bride-chamber:(2) - a
vision, Theotimus, which so replenished the loving
heart of the little Bernard with gladness, jubilation
and spiritual delights, that he had all his life an
extreme sense of it, and therefore, though afterwards
as a sacred bee he ever culled out of all the divine
mysteries the honey of a thousand sweet and heavenly
consolations, yet had he a more particular sweetness
in the solemnity of the Nativity, and spoke. with a
singular relish of this birth of his Master.
But Ah! I beseech thee, Theotimus, if a mystical
and imaginary vision of the temporal and human birth
of the Son of God, by which he proceeded man from a
woman, virgin from a virgin, ravishes and so highly
delights a child's heart, what shall it be when our
spirits, gloriously illuminated with the light of
glory, shall see this eternal birth by which the Son
proceeds, God from God, Light from Light, true God
from true God, divinely and eternally!
Then shall our spirit be joined by an
incomprehensible complacency to this object of
delight, and by an unchangeable attention remain
united to it for ever.
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