The Epiphany of Our Lord

Extract

Of how one should seek and find the spiritual nativity in the light of grace, by self-effacement and the suppression of all natural light.

Of the price of sufferings and afflictions, and in particular of the three offerings of the Magi.

Ubi est qui natus est rex Judaeorum ?

'Where is he that is born King of the Jews?'

(Matt: 2, 2.)

We are come indeed to adore him and to offer him our mystical gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. The reasonable soul, by its natural light alone, comes to the knowledge of the existence of God. But what is he? Who is he? Where is he? So many questions to which she gives no answer and of which she ignores the solution. Hence, for the holy and religious soul, arises a loving desire to seek God with ardent solicitude. She wants to know what he is, who is this hidden and unknown Being.

Then, in this laborious searching, suddenly there appears a star, and this is nothing but a ray of heavenly grace, a divine light which seems to say interiorly to the soul: he is born! At the same time this light leads the soul to the place of his birth which no natural light could have pointed out to her. And so we see that all who seek for this nativity by the light of reason alone do not arrive there: they stray and lose their way, they make no progress in virtue.