St. Anselm A Prayer of all souls longing for God

Let me know You and love You, 

so that I may find my joy in You

From the Proslogion by Saint Anselm, bishop

My soul, have you found what you are looking for?  

You were looking for God, and you discovered that He is the supreme being, and that you could not possibly imagine anything more perfect.  You have discovered that His supreme being is life itself, light, wisdom, goodness, eternal blessedness and blessed eternity.  He is everywhere, and He is timeless.

Lord my God, You gave me life and restored it when I lost it.  Tell my soul that so longs for You what else You are besides what it has already understood, so that it may see You clearly.  

It stands on tiptoe to see more, but apart from what it has seen already, it sees nothing but darkness.  Of course it does not really see darkness, because there is not darkness in You, but it sees that it can see no further because of the darkness in itself.

Surely, Lord, inaccessible light is Your dwelling place, for no one apart from Yourself can enter into it and fully comprehend You.  

If I fail to see this light it is simply because it is too bright for me.  Still, it is by the light that I do see all that I can, even as weak eyes, unable to look straight at the sun, see all they can by the sun’s light.

Light of God

The light in which You dwell, Lord, 

is beyond my understanding.  

It is so brilliant that I cannot bear it, I cannot turn my mind’s eye toward it for any length of time.  I am dazzle by its brightness, amazed by its grandeur, overwhelmed by its immensity, bewildered by its abundance.

O supreme and inaccessible light, O complete and blessed truth, how far You are from me, even though I am so near to You!  How remote You are from my sight, even though I am present in Yours! You are everywhere in Your entirety, and yet I do not see You; in You I move and have my being, and yet I cannot approach You; You are within me and around me, and yet I do not perceive You.

O God, let me know You and love You so that I may find my joy in You; 

and if I cannot do so fully in this life, let me at least make some progress every day, until at last that knowledge, love and joy come to me in all their plenitude.  

While I am here on earth let me learn to know You better, so that in heaven I may know You fully; let my love for You grow deeper here, so that there I may love You fully.  On earth then I shall have great joy in hope, and in heaven complete joy in the fulfillment of my hope.

O Lord, through Your Son You command me, no, You counsel us to ask, and You promise that You will hear us so that our joy may be complete.  Lord, I am making the request that You urge us to make through Your Wonder-Counselor.  Give me then what you promise to give through Your Truth.  You, O God, are faithful; grant that I may receive my request, so that my joy may be complete.

St. Anselm, Bishop of Canterbury

Meanwhile, let this hope of mine be in my thoughts and on my tongue; let my heart be filled with it, my voice speak of it; let my soul hunger for it, my body thirst for it, my whole being yearn for it, until I enter into the joy of the Lord, who is Three in One, blessed forever. 

Amen.

Taken from the Liturgy of the Hours, April 21 St. Anselm, bishop and doctor

Writings from Saint Hilary On the Trinity

St. Hilary, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Saint Hilary, Bishop and Doctor

From a sermon On the Trinity by Saint Hilary, bishop

May I serve you by making you known

               I am aware, almighty God and Father, that in my life I owe you a most particular duty.  It is to make my every thought and word speak of you.

                In fact, you have conferred on me this gift of speech, and it can yield no greater retrun than to be at your service.  It is for making you known as Father, the Father of the only-begotten God, and preaching this to the world that knows you not and to the heretics who refuse to believe in you.

                In this matter of declaration of my intention is only of limited value.  For the rest, I need to pray for the gift of your help and your mercy.  As we spread our sails of trusing faith and public avowal before you, fill them with the breath of your Spirit, to drive us on as we begin this course of proclaiming your truth.  We have been promised, and he who made the promise is trustworthy:  Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

                Yes, in our poverty we will pray for our needs.  We will study the sayings of your prophets and apostles with unflagging attention, and knock for admittance wherever the gift of understanding is safely kept.  But yours it is, Lord, to grant our petitions, to be present when we seek you and to open when we knock.

                There is an inertia in our nature that makes us dull; and in our attempt to penetrate your truth we are held within the bounds of ignorance by the weakness of our minds.  Yet we do comprehend divine ideas by earnest attention to your teaching and by obedience to the faith which carries us beyond mere human apprehension.

                So we trust in you to inspire the beginnings of this ambitious venture, to strengthen its progress, and to call us into a partnership in the spirit with the prophets and the apostles.  To that end, may we grasp precisely what they meant to say, taking each word in its real and authentic  sense.  For we are about to say what they already have declared as part of the mystery of revelation: that you are the eternal God, the Father of the eternal, only-begotten God; that you are one and not born from another; and that the Lord Jesus is also one, born of you from all eternity.  We must not proclaim a change in truth regarding the number of gods.  We must not deny that he is begotten of you who are the one God; nor must we assert that he is other than the true God, born of you who are truly God the Father.

                Impart to us, then, the meaning of the words of Scripture and the light to understand it, with reverence for the doctrine and confidence in its truth.  Grant that we may express what we believe.  Through the prophets and apostles we know about you, the one God the Father, and the one Lord Jesus Christ.  May we have the grace, in the face of heretics who deny you, to honor you as God, who is not alone, and to proclaim this as truth.

Taken from the Liturgy of the Hours, According to the Roman Rite, Ordinary Time, Catholic Book Publishing Corp.  New York, 1975

Reject a Culture where Truth does not matter

Pope Benedict XVI at the Cathedral Basilica of St. John Lateran 2012

Pope: Reject a culture where truth does not matter

Pope Benedict XVI on Monday night met with the people of his Diocese in the Cathedral Basilica of Saint John Lateran. The annual ecclesial conference of the Diocese of Rome is discussing the Sacrament of Baptism in the Church

“Renouncing the glamour of Satan in today’s age means rejecting a culture where truth does not matter,” the Pope said, referring to a part of the Baptismal Rite.

The Holy Father began his remarks by reflecting on the fact the Baptismal formula is “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” as opposed to “on the behalf of.”

He said with Baptism, we are now in the life of the Trinity: “uniquely united to God, with a new life that belongs to God, we are immersed in God Himself.”

This being true, the Pope said this means God is not some distant reality, but “we are in God, and God is in us.”

He said we also must keep in mind that this relationship begins with God.

“Yes, my decision is necessary, but ultimately, it is an act of God within me,” he explained. “I do not decide to become a Christian. I am … chosen by God, and by saying “yes” to this action of God, I become a Christian.”

In the Baptismal Rite, the catechuman must reject Satan and all his works. Pope Benedict said this means rejecting a “culture that does not seek goodness, whose morality is only a mask, which covers confusion and destruction...that seeks only material wealth and denies God”

He said the decision of Baptism lasts for the all our lives, with its rejection of evil, even if it means sacrifices.

The Pope then pointed out that becoming a Christian is not just saying ‘no’, but also saying ‘yes’ to the truths about Christ expressed in the Creed.

Because of this, Christians are “in communion with the truth.”

“We are grateful to God who gave us this gift [of Baptism], and our challenge is to live out our post-baptismal renunciations and affirmations and always live in the great cause of God, and so live well,” he concluded.

News from Vatican Radio http://www.radiovaticana.org/EN1/Articolo.asp?c=595768