Oh highest and most clement God, King of kings and Lord of lords! Oh eternal Wisdom of the Father, who, seated above the seraphim, penetrate with the clarity of your sight the abysses, and there is nothing that is not open and naked before your eyes! You, Lord, so wise, so powerful, so pious and so great a lover of all that you created, and much more of man, whom you redeemed, whom you made lord of all, incline now those most clement eyes, and open those divine ears, to hear the cries of this poor and most vile sinner.
My Lord God, my soul desires nothing more than to love you, because there is nothing more owed to you, nor more necessary to me, than this love. You created me so that I might love you, you placed my blessedness in this love, you commanded me to love you, you taught me that here was merit, and honesty, and virtue, and sweetness, and liberty, and peace, and happiness, and finally all goods. For this love is a brief summary, in which is enclosed all the good that there is on earth, and a great part of what is hoped for in heaven. You also taught me, my Savior, that I could not love you if I did not know you. We naturally love goodness and beauty, we love our parents and benefactors, we love our friends and those with whom we have likeness, and finally every goodness and perfection is the mark of our love. This knowledge is presupposed so that from it love may be born. Therefore who will grant me that I may so know you and understand how in you alone are all the reasons and causes of love? Who is more good
than you? Who more beautiful? Who more perfect? Who more father, and more friend, and more liberal benefactor? Finally, who is the spouse of our souls, the port of our desires, the center of our hearts, the last end of our life, and our last happiness, except you?
Therefore what shall I do, my God, to attain this knowledge? How shall I know you, since I cannot see you? How shall I be able to look at you with eyes so weak, you being an inaccessible light? Most high you are, Lord, and very high must he be who is to attain you. Who will give me wings as of a dove, so that I may fly to you? Therefore what shall he do who cannot live without loving you, and cannot love you without knowing you, since you are so high to know? All our knowledge is born from our senses, which are the doors by which the images of things enter into our souls, by means of which we know them. You, Lord, are infinite; you cannot enter through these so narrow wickets, nor can I form an image that represents so high a thing. Therefore how shall I know you? Oh highest substance, oh most noble essence, oh incomprehensible majesty! Who will know you? All creatures have their natures and powers finite and limited, because you created all of them in number, weight, and measure, and you made their lines for them, and marked the limits of their jurisdiction. Very active is fire in heating, and the sun in giving light, and much does its power extend, but nevertheless these creatures recognize their ends, and have terms that they cannot pass. For this cause the sight of our soul can reach from end to end and comprehend them, because all of them are enclosed, each one within its jurisdiction. But you, Lord, are infinite; there is no circle that comprehends you, there is no understanding that can reach to the last terms of your substance, because you do not have them. You are above every genus, and above every species, and above every created nature, because just as you recognize no superior, so you have no determined jurisdiction. Around all the world, which you created in so great a size, a mortal man can make a turn by the Ocean sea, because although it is very great, nevertheless its greatness is finite and limited. But around you, great Ocean sea, who will be able to go? Eternal you are in duration, infinite in power, and supreme in jurisdiction. Neither did your being begin in time, nor is it ended in the world. You are before all time, and you command in the world and outside the world, because you call the things that are not as those that are.
Therefore, since you are as you are, so great, who will know you? Who will know the loftiness of your nature, since he cannot know the lowliness of his own? This very soul with which we live, whose offices and power we experience at every hour, there has been no philosopher up to today who has been able to know the manner of its essence, because it is made to your image and likeness. Our rudeness being such, therefore, how will it be able to come to know that sovereign and incomprehensible substance?
But with all this, my Savior, I cannot nor ought I desist from this undertaking, although it be so high, because I cannot nor do I wish to live without this knowledge, which is the principle of our love. Blind I am, and very short of sight, for knowing you, but for that reason grace will help where nature fails. There is no other wisdom except to know you, there is no other rest except in you, there are no other delights except those that are received in looking at your beauty, although it be through the glass of your creatures.
And although it be little that we shall know of you, yet it is worth much more to know a little of the highest things, although it be with obscurity, than much of low things, although it be with much clarity. If we shall not know you wholly, we shall know all that we can, and we shall love all that we shall know, and with this alone our soul will remain content, since the little bird remains content with what it carries in its beak, although it cannot exhaust all the water of the fountain.
How much more, Lord, that your grace will help our weakness, and if we shall begin to love you a little, you will give us for this small love another greater one, with greater knowledge of your glory, just as you have promised it to us through your Evangelist, saying: “If anyone shall love me, my Father will love him, and I also will love him, and I will disclose myself to him,” which is to give him a more perfect knowledge, so that thus he may grow more in that love.
The holy catholic faith also helps us for this, and the sacred Scriptures, in which you, Lord, had it for good to make yourself known, and to reveal to us the marvels of your greatness, so that this so high knowledge might cause in our will love and reverence of your holy name. The university of the creatures also helps us, which give us voices that we should love you, and teach us why we must love you. For in their perfection your beauty shines forth, and in their use and service the love that you have for us. And thus on all sides they incite us to love you, both for what you are in yourself and for what you are for us. What is, Lord, all this visible world except a mirror that you placed before our eyes so that in it we might contemplate your beauty? For it is certain that, just as in heaven you will be a mirror in which we see the creatures, so in this exile they are for us a mirror so that we may know you. Therefore according to this, what is all this visible world except a great and marvelous book that you, Lord, wrote and offered to the eyes of all the nations of the world, both Greeks and barbarians, both wise and ignorant, so that all might study in it, and might know who you were? What then will all the creatures of this world be, so beautiful and so finished, except as it were broken and illuminated letters, which well declare the skill and the wisdom of their author? What will all those creatures be except preachers of their Maker, witnesses of his nobility, mirrors of his beauty, announcers of his glory, awakeners of our sloth, spurs of our love, and condemners of our ingratitude? And because your perfections, Lord, were infinite, and there could not be a single creature that represented them all, it was necessary that many be created, so that thus in pieces, each one for its part, it might declare something of them to us. In this manner beautiful creatures preach your beauty, strong ones your strength, great ones your greatness, artful ones your wisdom, resplendent ones your clarity, sweet ones your sweetness, those well ordered and provided your marvelous providence. Oh one testified by so many and so faithful witnesses! Oh one vouched for by so many vouchers! Oh one approved by the University, not of Paris nor of Athens, but of all creatures! Who, Lord, will not trust you with so many vouchers? Who will not believe so many witnesses? Who will not delight in the music so concordant of so many and so sweet voices, which by so many differences of tones preach to us the greatness of your glory?
Certainly, Lord, he who does not hear such voices is deaf, and he who with such marvelous splendors does not see you is blind, and he who, having seen all these things, does not praise you is mute, and he who with so many arguments and testimonies of all the creatures does not know the nobility of his Creator is mad. It seems to me, Lord, that all these faults fit in us, since among so many testimonies of your greatness we do not know you. What leaf of a tree, what flower of the field, what little worm is there so small, that if we considered well the fabric of its little body, we would not see in it great marvels? What creature is there in this world, however low it may be, that is not a great marvel? Therefore how, going on all sides surrounded by so many marvels, do we not know you? How do we not praise and preach you? How do we not have a heart understood for knowing the master by his works, nor clear eyes for seeing his perfection in his works, nor open ears for hearing what he says to us through them? The splendor of your creatures strikes our eyes, the artifice and beauty of them delights our understandings, and our understanding is so short that it does not climb one degree higher, to see there the Maker of that beauty and the giver of that delight.
We are like children, who when a book is placed before them with some illuminated and gilded letters, take pleasure in looking at them and playing with them, and do not read what they say, nor take account of what they signify. Thus we, much more childish than children, you having placed before us this so marvelous book of the whole universe so that by its creatures, as by living letters, we might read and know the excellence of the Creator who made such things, and the love that he has for us who made them for us; and we, like children, do no more than delight ourselves in the sight of things so beautiful, without wishing to notice what it is that the Lord wishes to signify to us through them. Oh perverters of the divine works! Oh children and more than children in the senses! Oh prevaricators and overturners of all the purposes and counsels of God! Woe to those (says Saint Augustine) who delight, Lord, in looking at your signs, and forget to look at what by them you wish to signify and teach them, which is the knowledge of their Creator!
Therefore do not permit, most clement Savior, such ingratitude and blindness, by your infinite goodness, but enlighten my eyes so that I may see you, open my mouth so that I may praise you, awaken my heart so that in all the creatures I may know you, and love you, and adore you, and give you the thanks that I owe you for the benefit of all of them, so that I may not fall into the fault of being ungrateful and unknowing, because against such persons it is written in the Book of Wisdom that on the day of judgment “all the creatures of the world will fight against those who had no sense.” For it is just that the same creatures, which were given for our service, should come to be our punishment, since we did not wish to know God by them, nor take their warning. You, Lord, who are “way, truth, and life,” guide me in this way with your providence, teach my understanding with your truth, and give life to my soul with your love. A great journey it is to climb by the creatures to the Creator, and a great business it is to know how to look at the works of so great a master, and to understand the artifice with which they are made, and to know by them the counsel and wisdom of the Maker. He who does not know how to note the artifice of a small drawing made by the hand of some great craftsman, how will he know how to note the artifice of so great a painting as is this whole visible world?
To all of us, Lord, it happens, when we put ourselves to considering the marvels of this work, as to a rustic villager who enters anew into some great city, or into some royal house that has many and diverse rooms, and absorbed in looking at the beauty of the building, forgets the door by which he entered, and comes to lose himself in the middle of the house, and neither knows where to go, nor where to turn back, if there is not someone who may direct and guide him. Therefore what are all cities, Lord, and all royal palaces, except some nests of swallows, if we compare them with this royal house that you created? Therefore if in that so small hole a creature of reason loses himself, what will he do in a house of so much variety and greatness of things? How will he swim in a so profound gulf of marvels who drowns in a so small brook? Therefore guide me, Lord, in this journey, guide this rustic villager by the hand, and show him with the finger of your spirit the marvels and mysteries of your works, so that in them he may adore and recognize your wisdom, your omnipotence, your beauty, your goodness, your providence, so that thus he may bless and praise and glorify you unto ages of ages. Amen.