Angels, living light most glorious!

Beneath the Godhead in burning desire

in the darkness and mystery of creation

you look on the eye of your God

never taking your fill:

What glorious pleasures take shape within you!

Love, which, in concert with Abstinence, established Faith, and which, along with Patience, builds up Chastity, is like the columns that sustain the four corners of a house. For it was that same Love which planted a glorious garden redolent with precious herbs and noble flowers--roses and lilies--which breathed forth a wondrous fragrance, that garden on which the true Solomon was accustomed to feast his eyes.

A human being is a vessel that God has built for himself and filled with his inspiration so that his works are perfected in it.

Just as a mirror, which reflects all things, is set in its own container, so too the rational soul is placed in the fragile container of the body. In this way, the body is governed in its earthly life by the soul, and the soul contemplates heavenly things through faith.

O Eternal God, now may it please you

to burn in love

so that we become the limbs

fashioned in the love you felt

when you begot your Son

at the first dawn

before all creation.

And consider this need which falls upon us,

take it from us for the sake of your Son,

and lead us to the joy of your salvation.

Like hairs on the head, mortal man is joined to Jesus Christ, the head of all, but they are full of transgressions and sins because of man's delight in the flesh. But the Church regenerates and purifies these from the unclean stench and filth of sin by penitence and confession, just as hair is cleansed from dew and drops, and as dust is shaken out and cleansed from wool.

May the Holy Spirit enkindle you with the fire of His Love so that you may persevere, unfailingly, in the love of His service. Thus you may merit to become, at last, a living stone in the celestial Jerusalem.

Because a woman brought death

a bright Maiden overcame it,

and so the highest blessing

in all of creation

lies in the form of a woman,

since God has become man

in a sweet and blessed Virgin.

The soul is kissed by God in its innermost regions.

With interior yearning, grace and blessing are bestowed.

It is a yearning to take on God's gentle yoke,

It is a yearning to give one's self to God's Way.

Now, O son of God, set in the valley of true humility, walk in peace without pride of spirit, which, like a precipitous mountain, offers a difficult, or near-impossible, ascent or descent to those who attempt to scale it, and on its summit no building can be built. For a person who tries to climb higher than he can achieve possesses the name of sanctity without substance, because, in name alone without a structure of good works, he glories in a kind of vain joy of the mind.

The marvels of God are not brought forth from one's self.

Rather, it is more like a chord, a sound that is played.

The tone does not come out of the chord itself, but rather,

through the touch of the Musician.

I am, of course, the lyre and harp of God's kindness.

For when God gave great knowledge to the human being, the human being elevated himself in his soul and turned away from God. God so regarded the human being that he would perfect all his works in him. But the old deceiver tricked human beings and infected them with the crime of disobedience, by the delight of an unseasonable wind, so that they sought for more than they should have.

Love abounds in all things,

excels from the depths to beyond the stars,

is lovingly disposed to all things.

She has given the king on high

the kiss of peace.

The devil keeps man from good with a thousand machinations spewed from his belly, so that when a person sighs to do good, he pierces him with his shafts; and when he desires to embrace God with his whole heart in love, he subjects him to poisonous tribulations, seeking to pervert good work before God. And when a person seeks the viridity of virtue, the devil tells him that he does not know what he is doing, and he teaches him that he can set his own law for himself.