from the Preface of Eucharistic Prayer D
Fountain of life and source of all goodness, you made all things and filled them with your blessing; you created them to rejoice in the splendor of your radiance. Countless thongs of angels stand before you to serve you night and day; and, beholding the glory of your presence, they offer you unceasing praise. Joining with them, and giving voice to every creature under heaven, we acclaim you, and glorify your Name as we .... BCP, page 373
The Latin verb reducere .... means to bring - or to take - a certain thing back to God. The world has been created as an image of, and a witness to, the glory of its Creator; but the material world itself does not know it; man alone has been created with a knowing mind and a loving heart, in order that, by knowing and loving all things in God, he might refer them to their origin, which is at the same time their end. when man is thus conceived as a high priest in the lofty temple of nature, his essential function is to lend his own voice to an otherwise speechless creation, to help each thing in publicly confessing its deepest and most secret meaning, or rather its essence, for each of them is a word, while man alone can say it.
Fountain of life and source of all goodness, you made all things and filled them with your blessing; you created them to rejoice in the splendor of your radiance. Countless thongs of angels stand before you to serve you night and day; and, beholding the glory of your presence, they offer you unceasing praise. Joining with them, and giving voice to every creature under heaven, we acclaim you, and glorify your Name as we .... BCP, page 373
The Latin verb reducere .... means to bring - or to take - a certain thing back to God. The world has been created as an image of, and a witness to, the glory of its Creator; but the material world itself does not know it; man alone has been created with a knowing mind and a loving heart, in order that, by knowing and loving all things in God, he might refer them to their origin, which is at the same time their end. when man is thus conceived as a high priest in the lofty temple of nature, his essential function is to lend his own voice to an otherwise speechless creation, to help each thing in publicly confessing its deepest and most secret meaning, or rather its essence, for each of them is a word, while man alone can say it.
Saint Bonaventura, On Reducing the Arts To Theology
in Jacques Maritain, The Unity of Philosophical Experience
No comments:
Post a Comment