God creates the world now, in the ground of the soul

Praedica verbum (2 Tim. 4:2), 'Preach the word.' St Dominic says, translating the words of St Paul, 'Publish, proclaim, bring forth, and spread the Word.' It is remarkable that anything should come forth and at the same time remain within. That the Word should come forth and still remain within is a great wonder. That all creatures should come forth and remain within is a great wonder. What God gives, and promises to give, is the greatest wonder of all. It is beyond understanding, beyond belief. That is how it should be. If it could be understood and believed, it would not be fitting for him. God is in all things. The more he is in things, the more he is outside things. The more he is within, the more he is without. I have often said that God is creating the whole world right now, this instant. Everything God made six thousand years ago and more, when he made the world, God makes now, all at once. God is in all things. But because God is divine and intelligible, God is nowhere so fully present as in the soul, and, if you like, in the angels, in the innermost soul, at the summit of the soul. When I say the innermost, I mean the highest, and when I say the highest, I mean the innermost. In the depths, at the summit of the soul, these are one and the same. There, where time has never entered and no form was ever seen, at the center, the summit of the soul, God is creating the whole world. All of God's creation from six thousand years ago, and all his creation for a thousand years to come, if the world should last that long, is worked by God in the innermost depths, at the peak of the soul. All the past and all the future is brought about by God at the summit of the soul. The Father bears his Son in the innermost depths of the soul, and begets you with his only Son, no less. But if I am Son, I must be Son in the same way he is Son, and in no other way. If I am a man, I am a man in the manner of a man. If I am the Man, I am the Man in the manner of the Man. As St John says, 'You are God's sons.'

'Speak the Word, tell it abroad, pronounce it, bring forth and spread the Word.' Tell it forth! What is spoken in from outside is a gross, external thing. Tell it forth! This implies that you already have it within you. The prophet says, 'God spoke once, and I heard two things.' True, God spoke only once. His utterance is but one. In his Word he speaks his Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the whole of creation, all of which are but a single utterance in God. But 'I heard two things,' the prophet says, meaning he understood it as both God and creature. There, where God speaks it, it is God. But here, it is creature. People like to think that God became man only there. No. God was made man here just as much as there, and he was made man for one purpose only: to beget in you his only-begotten Son.

Yesterday I quoted from the Lord's Prayer the words, 'Thy will be done.' Better his will than mine. That I should do it is what the Lord's Prayer means. First, by being asleep, as it were, to things, paying no attention to time, images, and creatures. Philosophers will tell you that a man in deep sleep might pass a hundred years unaware of creatures, time, and images, and yet still be aware of God at work within him. As the soul says in the Song of Songs, 'I sleep, but my heart wakes.' So when all creatures are asleep in you, you may dare to be awake to God's work in you.

'Labour in all things,' says our text, and this can be taken three ways. It means, turn everything to good account, or, see God in everything, for God is everywhere. St Augustine says, God created all things not in order to leave them and go his own way. No, he remains in them still. People imagine they have more if they have 'things plus God' than if they had God without the things. They are wrong. All things plus God amount to no more than God alone. And whoever imagines that if he has the Son and the Father with him he has more than if he had the Son without the Father is wrong as well. The Father plus the Son is no more than the Son alone, and the Son plus the Father is no more than the Father alone. To find God in all things is a sign that he has begotten you his only Son, no less.

Again, 'turn everything to good account' means: love God the same in poverty as in wealth, hold him as dear in sickness as in health, as dear in trials and sufferings as when free from suffering. The heavier the one load to bear, the lighter the other becomes, like two buckets, the heavier the one, the lighter the other, and so the more one lets go, the easier the letting go becomes. The lover of God parts with the world as cheerfully as with an egg. The more he gives up, the easier it grows.

Thirdly, 'labour in all things' means: where you find yourself caught up in many things, at odds with pure and simple being, let that be your work. 'Work in all things, and fulfill your destiny.' It also means, lift up your head, and this has two meanings. The first meaning is: give up all that is yours, and take God as your own. Then God will be yours as he is his own, he will be God to you as he is God to himself, no less. What is mine, I get from no one. If I got it from another, it would not be mine but his, the one I got it from. The other meaning is, give all your actions over to God. Many people cannot understand this, and I am not surprised. To grasp its meaning, the soul must be in great detachment, lifted above all these things. May we come to this perfection. So help us God. Amen.