I, too, have lost grace and call with Adam: ‘Be merciful unto me, O Lord! Bestow on me the spirit of humility and love.’ O Love of the Lord! He who has known You, seeks You, tireless, day and night, crying with a loud voice: ‘I pine for You, O Lord, and seek You in tears. How should I not seek You? You did give me to know You by the Holy Spirit, and in her knowing of God, my soul is drawn to see You in tears.’ Adam wept: ‘The desert cannot pleasure me; nor the high mountains, nor meadow nor forest, nor the singing of birds. I have no pleasure in any thing. My soul sorrows with a great sorrow: I have grieved God. And were the Lord to set me down in paradise again, there, too, would I sorrow and weep - “O, why did I grieve my beloved God?” The soul of Adam fell sick when he was exiled from paradise, and many were the tears he shed in his distress. Likewise every soul that has known the Lord yearns for Him, and cries: ‘Where are You, O Lord? Where Are You, my light? Why have You hidden Your face from me? Long is it since my soul behalf You, and she wearies after You and seeks You in tears. Where is my Lord? Why is it that my soul see Him not? What hinders Him from dwelling in me?’ This hinders Him: Christ-like humility and love for my enemies are not in me. All day, all night, my soul is taken up with You, O Lord, and I seek You. Your Spirit draws me to You, and the remembrance of You makes glass my mind. My soul came to love You, and rejoices that You are my God and my Lord, and I yearn after You till my heart is filled with tears. And thought all the world be beautiful, no earthly thing can occupy my thoughts - my soul desires only the Lord. There is nothing on earth that can satisfy the soul that has come to know God. She longs continually for the Lord, and, like a child that has lost its mother, cries: ‘My soul yearns after You and I seek You in tears.’ The soul from love of God has lost her wits, as it were. She sits in silence, with no wish to speak, and looks upon the world with crazed eyes, having no desire for it and seeing it not. And people do not know that she is contemplating her beloved Lord, that the world has been left behind and is forgotten, and the soul does not care to her thoughts rest on it, for there is no sweetness therein. So it is with the soul that has come to know the Holy Spirit. The Lord says, ‘I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?’ All we sons of Adam must go through this heavenly flame that consumes our deathly passion. Otherwise we shall not see the fire transformed into the light of new life, for it is not light that comes first, and then fire: in our fallen state burning must precede enlightenment. Let us, therefore, bless the Lord for the consuming action of His love. — Adam’s Lament
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 12:30:03 +0000
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