Blessed are the clean of heart, 

for they will see God

From the book addressed to Autolycus by Saint Theophilus of Antioch, bishop

If you say, “Show me our God,” I will say to you, “Show me what kind of person are you are, and I will show you my God.”  Show me then whether the eyes of your mind can see, and the ears of your heart hear.

Spiritually blind 

It is like this.  Those who can see with the eyes of their bodies are aware of what is happening in this life on earth.  They get to know things that are different from each other.  They distinguish light and darkness, black and white, ugliness and beauty, elegance and inelegance, proportion and lack of proportion, excess and defect.  The same is true of the sounds we hear: high or low or pleasant.  So it is with the ears of our heart and the eyes of our mind in their capacity to hear or see God.

God is seen by those who have the capacity to see him, provided that they keep the eyes of their mind open.  All have eyes, but some have eyes that are shrouded in darkness, unable to see the light of the sun.  Because the blind cannot see it, it does not follow that the sun does not shine.  The blind must trace the cause back to themselves and their eyes.  In the same way, you have eyes in your mind that are shrouded in darkness because of your sins and evil deeds.

A person’s soul should be clean, like 

a mirror reflecting light.  

If there is rust on the mirror his face 

cannot be seen in it.  

In the same way, no one who has sin 

within him can see God.

But if you will you can be healed.  Hand yourself over to the doctor, and he will open the eyes of your mind and heart.  Who is to be the doctor? Is it God, who heals and gives life through his Word and wisdom.  

Through his Word and wisdom He created the universe, for by his Word the heavens were established, and by his Spirit all their array.  His wisdom is supreme.  God by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding he arranged the heavens, by his knowledge the depths broke forth and the clouds poured out the dew.

Saint Theophilus of Antioch, bishop

If you understand this, 

and live in purity and holiness and justice, 

you may see God.  

But, before all, 

faith and the fear of God 

must take the first place in your heart, 

and then you will understand all this.  

When you have laid aside mortality and been clothed in immortality, then you will see God according to your merits.  God and then, once made immortal, you will see the immortal One, if you believe in Him now.




Taken from The Liturgy of the Hours

Incarnation by St. Gregory Nazianzen

Saint Gregory Nazianzen

The Marvel of the Incarnation

St. Gregory Nazianzen the Theologian

The very Son of God, older than the ages, the invisible, the incomprehensible, the incorporeal, the beginning of beginning, the light of light, the fountain of life and immortality, the image of the archetype, the immovable seal, the perfect likeness, the definition and word of the Father: he it is who comes to his own image and takes our nature for the good of our nature, and unites himself to an intelligent soul for the good of my soul, to purify like by like.  He takes to himself all that is human, except for sin.  He was conceived by the Virgin Mary, who had been first prepared in soul and body by the Spirit: his coming to birth had to be treated with honor, virginity had to receive new honor.  He comes forth as God, in the human nature he has taken, one being, made of two contrary elements, flesh and spirit.  Spirit gave divinity, flesh received it.

He who makes rich is made poor; he takes on the poverty of my flesh, that I may gain the riches of his divinity.  He who is full is made empty; he is emptied for a brief space of his glory, that I may share in his fullness.

What is the wealth of goodness?  What is this mystery that surrounds me?  I received the likeness of God, but failed to keep it.  He takes on my flesh, to bring salvation to the image, immortality to the flesh.  He enters into a second union with us, a union far more wonderful than the first.

Holiness had to be brought to man by the humanity assumed by one who was God, so that God might overcome the tyrant by force and so deliver us and lead us back to himself through the mediation of his Son.  The Son arranged this for the honor of the Father, to whom the Son is clearly obedient in all things.

The Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep, came in search of the straying sheep to the mountains and hills on which you used to offer sacrifice.  When he found it, he took it on the shoulders that bore the wood of the cross, and led it back to the life of heaven.

Christ, the light of all lights, follows John, the lamp that goes before him.  The Word of God follows the voice in the wilderness; the bridegroom follows the bridegroom’s friend, who prepares a worthy people for the Lord by cleansing them by water in preparation for the Spirit.

We need God to take our flesh and die,  that we might live.  We have died with him, that we may be purified.  We have risen again with him, because we have died with him.  We have been glorified with him, because we have risen again with him.

taken from the Liturgy of the Hours, Book 1 Advent Season