The feast of the Virgin and the birth of God that never stops

Aemulor enim vos Dei aemulatione (2 Cor. 11:2): "For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy." In the name of our Lord. On the Feast of the Virgin we read the words of St Paul: "I have espoused you to one husband, Christ, who is ever renewed in youth." The masters ask: has the Son been born? We say no. The masters ask: is the Son going to be born? We say no. The answer to the masters is this: the Son is fully born, and he is being born anew without ceasing. St Paul says: "Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God." His power is his wisdom and his wisdom is his power. Christ is the one whose youth is renewed forever.

Now St Paul says: "To this man I have espoused you." For as the marriage between man and wife is binding, so there is an eternal marriage between your souls and God. A young woman is given to a man in the hope that she will bear his child. And God made the soul so that she might bear in her his only-begotten Son. This birth happening in Mary's spirit pleased God more than his being born of her in the flesh. And this same birth today in the soul that loves God delights God more than his creation of the heavens and earth.

The philosophers say the soul is greater than the heavens. St John says: "He who sat upon the throne declared, 'Behold, I make all things new.'" Now according to St Augustine, God's speaking is his bearing of a child, and his child-birth is his Word. God has spoken only one word, ever, and he holds it so dear that he will never speak another. If God stopped speaking his Word even for an instant, heaven and earth would disappear. Augustine says: "As the marriage of man and woman is for good and all, so is the marriage of the soul." The highest power of the soul, the one that always strains upward toward God, is called the man. The lower power, the one condemned to wander among mortal things, is the maid. The higher power, the man, goes entirely uncovered. But the lower power, the maid, is closely veiled, and this lower power is taken up into the higher. It belongs to this nature to be always active. It tries all the time, like a father, to beget, and if it were not hindered, a son would always be being born, as happens with the heavenly Father. But what God gives freely, nature (man's nature) hinders, and a girl is born instead. Yet if there were neither time nor place nor matter, man would renew his youth as the Son does the Father, forever.

God said: "Behold, I make all things fruitful." Then why am I myself not fruitful? God first bears his image in the soul that loves him, and only afterward bears himself. If God gave himself to the soul here in time, she would be troubled by it. So he gives himself to her in eternity, in the ever-present now, springing up fresh without ceasing. She is too curious to rest until she finds her source. This is plain from Philip's words: "Show us the Father and we shall be satisfied." As the eternal Son of God comes welling up in the Father's heart, so he wells up in the soul that loves God. Mortal things work outwardly, spiritual things work inwardly. The soul in whom this birth happens once is drawn very near into God. If it happens twice, she is drawn still further into God. The more often this birth happens, the deeper she is in God and the closer she is bound to the Father's heart. This birth goes beyond here and now. Here means place, now means time. It happens in eternity. May we, being born in him, make it possible for him to bear himself in us. So help us Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.