Honouring the Father and finding light in the dark

Haec dicit dominus: honora patrem tuum etc. (Matt. 15:4), this the Lord says: honour your father etc. This Latin quotation is taken from the gospel. The words were spoken by our Lord, and the translation runs, 'Honour your father and mother.' And another commandment is given by God our Lord,

'You shall not covet your neighbor's goods nor his house nor anything that is his.' The third point is that the people went to Moses and said, 'You speak to us, for we cannot hear God.' The fourth is that God said to Moses, 'An altar of earth, and in earth you shall make for me, and all that is offered on it you shall burn away.' The fifth is that Moses went into the cloud and, climbing the mountain, found God there: it was in the darkness that he found the true light.

There is a saying of St Augustine's: 'Where the lamb can wade, there the ox and the cow swim, and where the cow swims, the elephant runs on ahead.' This is a fine parable to draw a lesson from. The scriptures are the deep sea, St Augustine says, and the little lamb is the humble, simple soul who can wade into Holy Writ. By the ox that swims we understand people with little learning, each taking from it what suits him. But in the elephant that goes ahead we recognize wise souls who search the scriptures and make progress in them. I am amazed how full the scriptures are, and yet the masters say they are not to be taken simply as they stand: the material things in them, they say, must be carried up to a higher level, and for that we need symbols. First it reached to the ankles, next it rose to the knee, third it came up to the waist, and fourth it covered his head and he was submerged entirely.

Now what does this mean? St Augustine says that at first the scriptures amuse and attract the child, and in the end, when someone tries to understand them, they make fools of the wise, for no one is so simple that he cannot find his level there, and no one is so wise that when he tries to fathom them he does not find they go beyond his depth and discover more in them. All the stories and sayings taken from them carry another, hidden meaning. Our understanding of them is as unlike the thing as it is in itself, and as it is in God, as if it did not exist at all.

To return to our text. 'Honour your father and mother' does mean, in the plain sense, that we ought to honour our father and mother, and that all who hold spiritual authority are to be honoured and valued, as well as those responsible for our worldly well-being. Here we are wading, here our feet touch bottom, but we get precious little out of it.

It is a woman who says, 'If we ought to honour the authors of our outward good, how much more are we bound to praise the author of it all.' What we have here outwardly in multiplicity is, within, all one. It is for you to make this likeness like the Father. I was thinking this evening that all likeness ends in sameness with the Father. In the second place, you ought to honour your father, meaning your heavenly Father, the source of your being. Who honours the Father? None but the Son: he alone honours him. And none honours the Son but the Father alone. The Father's whole love, his fondness, his favour, is for the Son and him only. The Father knows nothing at all but the Son. He takes such delight in his Son that he wants nothing else but to go on begetting his Son, for the Son is his exact likeness, the perfect image of his Father.

The teaching of our school is that anything known or born is an image. They say that in begetting his only-begotten Son, the Father produces his own image, abiding in himself, in the ground of the image, as it has always been in him, formae illius, that is, his immanent form. It seems to me contrary to nature and unreasonable, this teaching that God is known by likeness, by this thing or by that. For he, after all, is neither this nor that, and the father is not satisfied until he returns to his first nature, to the innermost, to the ground and core of fatherhood, where he has been forever in himself, in his father-nature, where he enjoys himself in the Father as the Father enjoys himself in the one alone. Here wood, stone, blades of grass, all things are the same. This is the best of all, and I have lost myself in wonder at it. All the natural powers, gathered to a point, are plunged into the Father-nature, so that they become one, one Son, rising above everything else and existing alone in the paternal nature, or if not the one itself, then at least the image of the one. This nature, being of God, does not seek what lies outside itself; no, this nature, existing in itself, has nothing to do with ornament: the nature that is of God seeks nothing other than God's own likeness.

I was thinking this evening that a likeness is an outwork, a preamble. I cannot see a thing unless it has some likeness, some relation to me, nor can I know a thing unless it is like me. God holds all things hidden in himself, not this and that as distinct things, but one in the same nature. The eye is coloured and also takes in colour, the ear is not. The ear senses tone and the tongue has taste. It is a case of like to like. The form of the soul and the image of God share the same nature: we are sons. If I had neither eyes nor ears I might still have being. Whoever takes away my eyes does not therefore take away my being, nor even my life, for my life is seated in the heart. A blow aimed at my eye I parry by lifting my hand. A blow at my heart I would block with any part of my body. But if someone tried to cut off my head, I would strike out straight from the shoulder to keep my life and my being.

I am fond of saying: you must break the outside to let out the inside, to get at the kernel you must break the shell. In the same way, to find nature herself, all her likenesses have to be broken, and the further in you go the nearer you come to the thing itself. When you arrive at the one, where everything is one, nature is the same throughout. Who honours God? The one who is always seeking God's glory.

Many years ago I did not exist; not long after, through my father and my mother eating bread and meat and the vegetables growing in the garden, I became a man. In this my father and my mother could not help; God made my body without any aid and created my soul after the highest. So I came to possess life, possedi me. This grain of rye has it in its nature to develop into wheat, and it never rests until it has that nature. This grain of corn has it in its nature to become all things, and it pays the price of death in order to become all things. And this metal, copper, has it in its nature to become gold, and it will never rest until it has gotten that same nature. Indeed, this wood has in its nature the power to turn into stone; I will say more: it may become all things if it is put into the fire and allowed to burn away and be changed into the nature of fire; then like comes to like and has one being forever. I believe that wood and stone and bone and all the grasses together have one being in the first nature. And if this is true of that nature, what then of the nature which is so purely itself that it seeks neither this nor that, but rising above all the rest, simply makes for its own first perfection?

I was thinking this evening that there are many heavens. There are some who do not believe that this bread on the altar can be changed, that God is capable of it. How unworthy it is to deny that God can do this. If God has given nature the power to become all things, how much easier it must be for him to change this altar bread into his body. If this frail nature can shape a man from a drop of blood, how much more possible it is for God to make his body from a piece of bread. Who honours God? The one who is always seeking God's glory. This meaning is the more obvious one, though the earlier one is the better.

The fourth point is that they stood far off and said to Moses, 'Moses, you speak to us, for we cannot hear God.' They were standing at a distance, and that is why they could not hear God. 'Moses went into the cloud and climbed the mountain, and there he saw the divine light.' We see this light best in the dark: in suffering and hardship this light is nearest to us. Whatever God does, for good or for ill, he is bound to give himself to us, whether in hardship or in distress.

There was once a devout woman with many sons, and they tried to kill her sons. Smiling, she said, 'Do not grieve, be of good cheer, and remember your heavenly Father, for from me you have gotten nothing at all.' As if to say, 'You have your being straight from God.' This applies to us. Our Lord said, 'Your darkness,' that is, your suffering, 'shall be turned into bright light.' But I must not love it or desire it for its own sake. It was said by a master in another place: 'The hidden darkness of the invisible light of the eternal Godhead is unknown and never shall be known.' And the light of the eternal Father has always been shining in this darkness, and the darkness does not grasp the light. May we arrive at this eternal light. So help us God. Amen.