September 22 

I prayed, and understanding was given me;

I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. 

I preferred her to sceptres and thrones,

and I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her. 

Neither did I liken to her any priceless gem,

because all gold is but a little sand in her sight,

and silver will be accounted as clay before her. 

I loved her more than health and beauty,

and I chose to have her rather than light,

because her radiance never ceases.  

All good things came to me along with her,

and in her hands uncounted wealth. 

I rejoiced in them all, because wisdom leads them;

but I did not know that she was their mother. 

I learned without guile and I impart without grudging;

I do not hide her wealth, 

for it is an unfailing treasure for mortals;

those who get it obtain friendship with God,

commended for the gifts that come from instruction. (Wisdom 7:7-14)

Meditation

I am the helper, for all living things burn through me; and I am steady life in eternity, without beginning or end, the same life which is God in motion and activity; and yet this one life has three powers: eternity is the Father, the word the Son, and the breath connecting the two the Holy Spirit, and similarly God signified the same in human beings in whom there is body, soul and rationality. The fact that I ‘blaze above the beauty of the fields’ means this: the earth is the matter from which God makes man and woman. The fact that ‘I shine in the waters’ signifies the soul, for – just as water flows through all the earth – the soul permeates all of the body. ‘I burn in sun and moon’; this refers to rationality, and the ‘stars’ are the innumerable words of rationality. ‘And I awaken all to life with every wind of the air, as with invisible life that sustains everything.’ This signifies that whatever grows and matures is animated and preserved through air and wind, and it deviates in no way from the power within.   (The Book of Divine Works I, 2)

Chant Prayer

 

Fiery Spirit, praise be to you
whose music sounds in tambourines and lutes!

Human minds are ablaze through you,
and the tents of their souls
enclose their powers.

From these will mounts
and brings a taste to the soul,
and its torch is desire.

With gentlest voice the intellect calls to you
and prepares dwellings for you,
together with rationality,
which toils in golden tasks.

Yet you always have a sword
to cut away
what the noxious apple
brings forth through blackest slaughter,

when a mist covers
will and desires
in which the soul flies
and circles aimlessly.

But the mind is the ligature
of will and desire. 

Yet when our spirit rouses itself
so that it seeks to see the pupil of evil’s eye
and the jaws of villainy,
swiftly you consume it in your flame,
when you will.

But when rationality too
through evil deeds
prostrates itself,
when you will, you
make it taut and batter it,
then bring it back by pouring in experience.

Again, when evil
draws its sword against you,
you plunge it back into evil’s heart,
as you did with the first lost angel,
when you flung the tower
of his pride into hell.

Instead you built another tower
in publicans and sinners,
who confess their sins to you
together with their deeds.

So all creatures
that have life from you praise you,
for you are the most precious ointment
for broken and fetid wounds,
which you transmute into most precious gems.

Now consent to gather us
all to yourself
and guide us to the ways of right. Amen. (Trans. Peter Dronke) 

September 23

Does not wisdom call, 

Does not understanding raise her voice?

On the heights beside the way,

    in the paths she takes her stand; 

beside the gates in front of the town,

    at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud:

“To you, O people, I call,

    and my cry is to all that live.

O simple ones, learn prudence;

    O foolish ones, pay attention.

Hear, for I will speak noble things,

    and from my lips will come what is right;

for my mouth will utter truth;

    wickedness is an abomination to my lips.

All the words of my mouth are righteous;

    there is nothing twisted or crooked in them.

They are all straight to the one who understands

    and right to those who find knowledge.

Take my instruction instead of silver,

    and knowledge rather than choice gold;

for wisdom is better than jewels,

    and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.

I, wisdom, dwell in prudence,

    and I find knowledge and discretion. (Proverbs 8:1-12)

Meditation

Again I heard a voice from heaven, which spoke to me: God, who created all, made humanity in his own image and likeness, and in them he marked out both the higher and lower creatures. He had such love for humanity that he destined them to take the place from which the falling angel had been ejected, and he ordained them for the glory and honour which the angel in his bliss had lost. This is shown by the vision you see. For when you see ‘as amid the airs of the South in the mystery of God a beautiful and marvellous image of a human figure’, this signifies the Love of the heavenly Father in the strength of his unceasing divinity, beautiful in its selectivity, and marvellous in its gifts of mysteries, appearing in the human figure because, when the son of God assumed human flesh, he redeemed lost humanity through the service of Love. This is why the face was ‘of such beauty and brightness’ that you ‘could more easily have stared at the sun’, because the abundance of Love emanates in such brightness of gifts that it far surpasses all exercise of human understanding (by which it can discern diverse ideas in the soul) – so far, in fact, that no person can grasp such abundance with their senses. This signifies symbolically that things may be perceived through faith that cannot be seen visibly with the eyes. (The Book of Divine Works I, 3)

Chant Prayer

Holy Spirit, making life alive,
moving in all things, root of all created being,
cleansing the cosmos of every impurity, effacing guilt,
anointing wounds.
You are lustrous and praiseworthy life,
You waken and re-awaken everything that is. (trans. Jerry Dybdal and Matthew Fox) 

September 24

 I love those who love me,

    and those who seek me diligently find me. 

Riches and honor are with me,

    enduring wealth and prosperity.

My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold,

    and my yield than choice silver.

I walk in the way of righteousness,

    in the paths of justice,

endowing with wealth those who love me,

    and filling their treasuries.

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,

    the first of his acts of old. 

Ages ago I was set up,

    at the first, before the beginning of the earth.

When there were no depths I was brought forth,

    when there were no springs abounding with water.

Before the mountains had been shaped,

    before the hills, I was brought forth;

before he had made the earth with its fields,

    or the first of the dust of the world.

When he established the heavens, I was there,

    when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,

when he made firm the skies above,

    when he established the fountains of the deep,

when he assigned to the sea its limit,

    so that the waters might not transgress his command,

when he marked out the foundations of the earth,

    then I was beside him, like a master worker;

and I was daily his delight,

    rejoicing before him always,

rejoicing in his inhabited world

    and delighting in the human race.

And now, my children, listen to me:

    happy are those who keep my ways.

Hear instruction and be wise,

    and do not neglect it.

Happy is the one who listens to me,

    watching daily at my gates,

    waiting beside my doors.

For whoever finds me finds life

    and obtains favor from the Lord;

but those who miss me injure themselves;

    all who hate me love death.” (Proverbs 8:17-36)

Meditation

‘On her head the human figure had a broad band of gold’, because only universal faith, diffused round the whole ambit of the earth and originating in the bright splendour of the first dawn, can encompass in all devotion the great abundance of true Love, namely that God in the humanity of his son redeemed human beings and confirmed them with the downpouring of the Holy Spirit, so that one God is acknowledged in the Trinity who without temporal beginning before eternity was God in the Godhead. ‘And in that golden band above her head there appeared a second face, like an old man’; this signifies the all-surpassing goodness of the deity, without beginning or end, who succours the faithful, because his ‘chin and beard touched the top of the first head’, and so by his disposition and protection of all, God touches the height of utmost Charity, in which the Son through his humanity leads lost men and women back to the heavens.

‘Wings protruded from behind the neck of the figure on either side, and rising up clear of the golden band their tips met and joined overhead.’ This means that the love of God cannot be separated from the love of neighbour, since they proceed from the virtue of Charity in the unity of faith, and through great longing they encompass that faith. And the holy Godhead covers the immeasurable splendour of his glory from human beings for as long as they remain in the shadow of death, deprived of the heavenly tunic which they lost with Adam. (The Book of Divine Works I, 4,5)

Chant Prayer

 

1a. O branch and diadem in royal purple clad,
who like a shield stand in your cloister strong.

1b. You burst forth blooming but with buds quite different
than Adam’s progeny—th’ entire human race.

2a. Hail, o hail! For from your womb came forth another life,
that had been stripped by Adam from his sons.

2b. O bloom, you did not spring from dew
          nor from the drops of rain,
nor has the windy air flown over you; but radiance divine
has brought you forth upon that noblest bough.

3a. O branch, your blossoming God had foreseen
within the first day of his own creation.

3b. And by his Word he made of you a golden matrix,
O Virgin, worthy of our praise.

4a. O, how great in power is that side of man,
from which God brought the form of woman forth,
          a mirror made
of all his ornament, and an embrace
of all his own creation.

4b. The heavens’ symphony resounds, in wonder stands
all earth, O Mary, worthy of our praise,
for God has loved you more than all.

5a. O cry and weep! How deep the woe!
What sorrow seeped with guilt
in womanhood because the serpent hissed his wicked plan!

5b. That woman, whom God made to be the mother of the world,
had pricked her womb
with wounds of ignorance—the full inheritance of grief
she offered to her offspring.

6a. But from your womb, O dawn, has come the sun anew;
the guilt of Eve he’s washed away
and through you offered humankind a blessing
even greater than the harm that Eve bestowed.

6b. O Lady Savior, who has offered to the human race
a new and brighter light: together join the members of your Son
into the heavens’ harmony.