Monday, April 19, 2010

God Is Known By His Works

"Concerning the question: What is God? not one of the masters who have ever been has succeeded in giving an explanation, for it is beyond all thought and intelligence. And yet someone who zealously and diligently seeks for some kind of knowledge of God will attain it, although in a very remote way... This is how some virtuous pagan masters sought him in former times, especially the wise man, Aristotle. He examined the course of nature..., sought passionately and thus found. From nature he deduced that that there must necessarily be a unique monarch, lord over all creatures, and this is what we call God...God's being is such a spiritual substance that mortal eye is unable to contemplate it as it is, but it can be seen in its works. As Saint Paul says: creatures are a mirror reflecting God (Rom 1:20). Let us stop here for a moment...: look above and around you, how immense and lofty is the heaven in its swift course, with what nobility has its Lord adorned it with its seven planets and how decorative it is by reason of its innumerable host of stars! When the sun shines gaily in a cloudless sky during the summer, what fruit, what good things it brings to the earth! How beautifully green are the meadows, how smiling the flowers, how the sweet song of little birds resounds in forest and field, and all the animals that went into hiding during the hard winter now hasten happily outside. How both young and old among men express their joy with the joy that brings such happiness to them. O loving God, if you are so worthy of being loved in your creatures, how beautiful and worthy of being loved you must be in yourself!"

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Blessed Henry Suso, Dominican Life, ch. 50

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