Spiritual Thought: January 9th

O Lord our God, you did create us to your image and likeness (Gen 1:26), it is plain, that we might contemplate you and have fruition of you.  No one who contemplates you reaches fruition of you save insofar as he becomes like you (cf. 1 Jn 3:2).  O splendor of the highest Good, you ravish with desire of you every rational soul; the more a soul burns for you, the purer it is in itself; the purer it is, the freer it is from bodily things to turn rather to spiritual things.  Free then from the servitude of corruption that inner force of ours which ought to serve you alone: I mean by this our love.  For it is love that, when it is free, makes us like to you, to the degree in which we are drawn to you by the sense of life.  And through this whoever lives by the Spirit of Life experiences you.  Such a one, as the Apostle says, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, is transformed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord (cf. 2 Cor 3:18).~Willian of St Thierry, from the Preface to his Exposition Of The Song Of Songs.

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 Jn 3:1-3)