Catholic Radio Dramas

Desire for the Vision of God

From the Proslogion by Saint Anselm, Bishop (1033-1109)

Desire for the Vision of God

Insignificant man, escape from your everyday business for a short while, hide for a moment from your restless thoughts. Break off from your cares and troubles and be less concerned about your tasks and labors. Make a little time for God and rest a while in him.

Enter into your mind’s inner chamber. Shut out everything but God and whatever helps you to seek him; and when you have shut the door, look for him. Speak now to God and say with your whole heart: I seek your face; your face, Lord, I desire.

Lord, my God, teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you. Lord, if you are not here where shall I look for you in your absence? Yet if you are everywhere, why do I not see you when you are present? But surely you dwell in “light inaccessible.” And where is light inaccessible? How shall I approach light inaccessible? Or who will lead me and bring me into it that I may see you there? And then, by what signs and under what forms shall I seek you? I have never seen you, Lord my God; I do not know your face.

Lord most high, what shall this exile do, so far from you? What shall your servant do, tormented by love of you and cast so far from your face? He yearns to see you, and your face is too far from him. He desires to approach you, and your dwelling is unapproachable. he longs to find you, and does not know your dwelling place. He strives to look for you, and does not know your face.

Lord, you are my God and you are my Lord, and I have never seen you. You have made me and remade me, and you have given me all the good things I possess and still I do not know you. I was made in order to see you, and I have not yet done that for which I was made.

Lord, how long will it be? How long, Lord, will you forget us? How long will you turn your face away from us? When will you look upon us and hear us? When will you enlighten our eyes and show us your face? When will you give yourself back to us?

Look upon us, Lord, hear us and enlighten us, show us your very self. Restore yourself to us that it may go well with us whose life is so evil without you. Take pity on our efforts and our striving toward you, for we have no strength apart form you.

Teach me to seek you, and when I seek you show yourself to me, for I cannot seek you unless you teach me, nor can I find you unless you show yourself to me. Let me seek you in desiring you and desire you in seeking you, find you in loving you and love you in finding you.

Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings

About Saint Anselm:

Saint Anselm (1033-1109) was born at Acosta, Italy in 1033 and had an early longing to follow the monastic life. At 16, he left home to study in Burgundy, France and became a disciple and friend of Lanfranc at the monastery of Bec in Normandy. He became a monk in 1060 at the age of 27 and for the next eighteen years studied Sacred Scripture, theology and philosophy and developed a profound spiritual and ascetic life. In 1078, at 45, he was named abbot of the monastery, a position which required him to visit England to inspect abbey property there.

In 1092, the English clergy elected Anselm archbishop of Canterbury but Anselm refused to compromise the spiritual independence of the archdiocese. Thus King William II of England refused his approval. On his arrival to England in 1093 he immediately came into bitter dispute with King William. The king refused to permit the calling of needed synods and demanded an exorbitant payment from Anselm as the price of his nomination to the see. Anselm refused to pay it. In 1097, he went to Rome, where Pope Urban I refused William II’s demand that he depose Anselm, and so William threatened to exile Anselm and confiscate diocesan properties. The pope supported Anselm and ordered the king to permit him to return to England and that he return all confiscated property to him.

In 1098 Anselm attended the Council of Vari and defended the Filioque of the Creed in the controversy over the procession of the Holy Spirit.

Anselm returned to England in 1100, on the death of William II, (who was killed in a hunting accident receiving an arrow through his eye) but also encountered difficulties with William’s successor, Henry II, who laid on new demands over lay investiture. (It was Henry II who would later order the death of the Catholic bishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket in 1170). Again Anselm returned to Rome and Pope Paschal II supported his refusal of lay investiture of bishops to Henry. Anselm prevailed but agreed bishops and abbots could pay homage to the King for their temporal possessions. This brought about a certain reconciliation.

While Anselm vigorously defended the Church rights against English kings, he was also a pre-eminent theologian and was called “the Father of Scholasticism.” He denounced the slave trade and believed that revelation and reason could beharmonized. He was the first to incorporate the rationalism of Aristotle into theology. He authored the “Monologium,” on the existence of God, and Proslogium, which deduces God’s existence from man’s notion of a perfect being. This influenced the great thinkers of later ages, among them Duns Scotus, Descarte and Hegel. His “Cur Deus homo?” was the outstanding theological treatise on the Incarnation in the Middle Ages. He died at Canterbury in 1109 and was named a Doctor of the Church in 1720.