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

You cannot make Evil good and Good evil

Conscience & God's Scrutiny

Whoever I may be Lord, 

I lie exposed to your scrutiny

From the Confessions of Saint Augustine, Bishop

Lord, you know me.  Let me know you.  Let me come to know you even as I am known. You are the strength of  my soul; enter it and make it a place suitable for your dwelling, a possession without spot or blemish.  This is my hope and the reason I speak.  I this hope I rejoice, when I rejoice rightly.  As for the other things of this life, the less they deserve tears, the more likely will they be lamented; and the more they deserve tears, the less likely will men sorrow for them.  For behold, you have loved the truth, because the one who does what is true enters into the light.  I wish to do this truth before you alone by praising you, and before a multitude of witnesses by writing of you.

O Lord, the depths of a man’s conscience lie exposed before your eyes.  Could anything remain hidden in me, even though I did not want to confess it to you?  In that case I would only be hiding you from myself, not myself from you.  But now my sighs are sufficient evidence that I am displeased with myself; that you are my light and source of my joy; that you are loved and desired.  I am thoroughly ashamed of myself; I have renounced myself and chosen you, recognizing that I can please neither you nor myself unless you enable me to do so.

Whoever I may be, Lord, I lie exposed to your scrutiny.  I have already told of the profit I gain when I confess to you.  And I do not make my confession with bodily words, bodily speech, but with the words of my soul and the cry of my mind which you hear and understand.  When I am wicked, my confession to you is an expression of displeasure with myself.  But when I do good, it consists in not attributing this goodness to myself.  For you, O lord, bless the just man, but first you justify the wicked.  And so I make my confession before you in silence, and yet not in silence.  My voice is silent, but my heart cries out.

Your, O Lord, are my judge.  For though no one knows a man’s innermost self except the man’s own spirit within him, yet there is something in a man which even his own spirit does not know.  But you know all of him, for you have made him.  As for me, I despise myself in your sight, knowing that I am but dust and ashes; yet I know something of you that I do not know of myself.

True, we see now indistinctly as in a mirror, but not yet face to face.  Therefore, so long as I am in exile from you, I am more present  to myself than to you.  Yet do I know that you cannot be overcome, while I am uncertain which temptations I can resist and which I cannot.  Nevertheless, I have hope, because you are faithful and do not allow us to be tempted beyond our endurance, but along with the temptation you give us the means to withstand it.

I will confess, therefore, what I know of myself, and also what I do not know.  The knowledge that I have of myself, I possess because you have enlightened me; while the knowledge of myself that I do not yet possess will not be mine until my darkness shall be made as the noonday sun before you face.

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