Annunciation, detail, Virgin Mary
“This final, satisfying knowledge of reality – this understanding of Truth by Truth – is, at bottom, that which all men desire. The saint’s thirst for God, the philosopher’s passion for the absolute; these are nothing else than the crying need of the spirit, variously expressed by the intellect and by the heart. The guesses of science, the diagrams of metaphysics, the intuitions of artists; all are pressing toward this. “
Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism
"Scattered Leaves … Bound Into One Book By Love"
February 3, 2009
Annunciation, also known as Our Lady of Ustug
“O grace abounding! wherein I presumed to fix my gaze on the eternal light, so long that I consumed my sight thereon!
In its depths I saw ingathered the scattered leaves of the universe, bound into one book by love.
Substance and accidents, and their relations: as if fused together in such a manner that what I tell of is a simple light.
And I believe that I saw the universal form of this complexity; because as I say this, I feel that I rejoice more deeply….
Oh, but how scant the speech and how faint to my concept! and that to what I saw is such, that it suffices not to call it ‘little.’
O Light Eternal, Who only in Thyself abidest, only Thyself dost comrehend, and, of Thyself comprehended and Thyself comprehending, dost love and smile!”
Dante, Divine Comedy.
“Scattered Leaves … Bound Into One Book By Love”
February 3, 2009
Annunciation, also known as Our Lady of Ustug
“O grace abounding! wherein I presumed to fix my gaze on the eternal light, so long that I consumed my sight thereon!
In its depths I saw ingathered the scattered leaves of the universe, bound into one book by love.
Substance and accidents, and their relations: as if fused together in such a manner that what I tell of is a simple light.
And I believe that I saw the universal form of this complexity; because as I say this, I feel that I rejoice more deeply….
Oh, but how scant the speech and how faint to my concept! and that to what I saw is such, that it suffices not to call it ‘little.’
O Light Eternal, Who only in Thyself abidest, only Thyself dost comrehend, and, of Thyself comprehended and Thyself comprehending, dost love and smile!”
Dante, Divine Comedy.
