Prayer IX- St. Nikolai Velimirovic
20 Μαρτίου 2009
O Lord, my soul’s most cherished mystery, how light this world is, when I weigh it on a scale with You!
On one side of the scale is a lake of molten gold, and on the other a cloud of smoke.
All my cares, along with my body and its foolish convulsions of sweetness and bitterness-what are they except smoke, beneath which my soul is swimming in a golden lake?
How can I confess to people the mystery that I see through the rings of Your archangels? How can I tell particles about totality? How can fingernails understand the circulation of blood in the body? It is truly painful for one struck dumb with wonder to speak to those deafened by noise.
First comes begetting and then creating. Just as a miraculous thought is quietly and mysteriously begotten in a man, and the begotten thought thereafter creates, so also did the Ultimate Man, the Only-Begotten, appear in You, and thereafter created everything that God can create.
In Your inviolate chastity, through the activity of the All-Holy Spirit, the Son was begotten. This is the begetting of God from above.
As above, so below-the ancients used to say. What happened in heaven happened also on earth. What happened in eternity happened also in time.
You are dear to me, my love, because You are a mystery to me. Every love burns without burning out as long as the mystery lasts. Mystery revealed is love burned out. I promise myself to You with eternal love even as You pledge Yourself to me with eternal mystery.
You have clothed Yourself with seven heavens; You have hidden Yourself too deep for any eyes. If all the suns were to merge into a single eye, they would be unable to burn through all Your veils. You have not concealed Yourself intentionally, O Great Lord, but because of our imperfection. A divided and dissected creature does not see You. You are unhidden only to one who has become one with You. You are unhidden only to one for whom the wall between “I” and “You” has been razed.
O Lord, my soul’s most cherished mystery, how light this world is, when I weigh it on a scale with You!
On one side of the scale is a lake of molten gold, and on the other a cloud of smoke.
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1. “You are My son, today I have begotten You” (Ps.2:7). Cf. Heb. 1:5 and 5:5.
