XXX — THE DIVINE ESSENCE

Presence of God. — My God, purify and enlighten my gaze so that I may contemplate You.

Meditation

1 — To the question, who is God? the catechism answers: “God is the most perfect Being, creator and lord of heaven and earth.” First of all, it says that God is Being: this is his first perfection, which radically distinguishes Him from creatures. “I am He who is,” God Himself said to Moses, and added: “This is my name forever, and by this I shall be remembered from generation to generation” (Ex. 3:14-15). This name that God Himself willed to give Himself expresses his intimate essence to us, tells us that He is Being par excellence, eternally subsistent Being, who never had beginning and will never have end, and who subsists in Himself, finding in Himself the cause of his being. “God,” states St. John Damascene, “possesses being itself as a kind of infinite and shoreless ocean of substance.” Under this aspect God revealed Himself to St. Catherine of Siena saying: “I am He who is, and you are she who is not.” All created beings are a nothing. “O Lord, my life is as nothing before You,” sings the Psalmist; “I wither like grass. You, instead, endure forever” (38:6; 101:12-13). The creature has in God the cause of its being, while God has it in Himself. The creature exists only insofar as God maintains it in existence. God, on the contrary, subsists by his own power, since He possesses being by his own nature, without having received it from anyone. The creature is always a limited being from every point of view: in vitality, in strength, in capacity. God, instead, is infinite Being, who knows no limit, who has every power and every virtue. The creature bears in itself the seeds of death and destruction. In God, instead, all is life: He is life. “I am the life,” Jesus said (Jn. 14:6). Only God, infinite Being, eternal Life, could communicate life to you, could give you being. Does it seem too demanding, then, to engage your whole life and your whole being in his service, for his glory? If you live for God, you live for Life; if you live for yourself, you live for nothingness, for death.

2 — God is Being: infinite, most perfect Being, who possesses every perfection without defects and without limits. God is infinitely good, beautiful, wise, just, merciful, omnipotent Being. All these perfections are not in Him accidental qualities - as human qualities are, by which man can be more or less beautiful, more or less good and wise, and so on, without ceasing to be man - but essential perfections, that is, they belong to the very nature of divine Being, indeed they are one thing with it. To speak of God’s perfections we are compelled to enumerate them one after another, but in reality they are all one: goodness identifies with beauty, and goodness and beauty with wisdom, and these with justice, justice with mercy, and so forth. In God there is not multiplicity, but absolute unity. We need many words to speak about God, but God is not many things: He is the One Being par excellence - one in the Trinity of his Persons, one in the myriad of his perfections, one in the variety of his works, one in his thought, in his will, in his love.

You too, created in the image and likeness of God, must tend toward unity. Your spiritual life is weak because it lacks unity. Examine your heart and see how much multiplicity of affections and concerns invades it: yes, you love God, but together with Him you still love your self-love, your comfort, your interest; you love God, but together with Him you also love some creature with disordered affection, that is, in a way, in a measure that does not please God; you are attached to those persons, those things - objects, money, occupations - that give you satisfaction... and all these affections, these attachments press upon you, pushing you in a thousand contrary directions, thus dispersing your strength and preventing you from attaining the one thing necessary: “to love God and serve Him alone” (Imitation I, 1, 3). The more deep unity is lacking in you - unity of affections, desires, intentions - the weaker you are, and your interior life is in danger because, as Jesus said: “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste” (Lk. 11:17). Look then at God, supreme Unity, and beg Him to help you make unity in yourself.

Colloquy

“O eternal God, I rejoice that You alone are He who is and that nothing can be except from You. Enlighten, I beseech You, the eyes of my soul so that they may know the being You have by your essence and the non-being I have by my nature, so that upon these two truths, as upon two firm and immutable poles, the wheel of my life may move. O eternal God, who willed to call Yourself He who is, I rejoice in the eminence of this name, so yours that it is impossible that it belong to anyone but You. O venerable name, O ineffable name, hidden from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and manifested to Moses as a sign of love! Reveal to me, my God, the inestimable riches of this name, so that I may revere You, adore You, love You, and serve You as You deserve. O my soul, if God alone is He who is, embracing all the perfection of Being, why do you not unite yourself to Him, so that your being may have from Him nobility and firmness? Why do you spread yourself among creatures, empty of substance, empty of being, since they cannot give you what you desire, not having it even for themselves? From this day on, my God, I will hold all things as refuse, as loss and detriment, as nothing and vanity, in order to unite myself with You to love and serve You for all eternity” (Venerable L. Da Ponte).

“O Lord, my days are like a shadow and I wither like grass. You, instead, endure forever and your Name from age to age... My God, You founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. Yet they wear out and You remain; they wear out like a cloth, You change them like a garment and they are changed; but You remain and your years will have no end... All creatures have life from You, but if You hide your face from them, they fail; as soon as You withdraw your spirit from them, they perish and return to their dust. You, instead, remain forever.

“I want to exalt You, O my divine King, and bless your name forever and ever! For You are great, O Lord, and supremely worthy of praise, and your greatness is never fathomed” (cf. Ps. 101, 103, 144).