‘Those who want to see into the depths must first consider the natural world, for knowledge of the Trinity is rightly compared to knowledge of the depths of the sea.’
Saint Columbanus (c. 543–615) was an Irish missionary, monk, and writer, best known for founding monasteries across modern-day France, Switzerland, and Italy. Born in Leinster, Ireland, he became a monk at Bangor Abbey under Saint Comgall. Around 590, Columbanus and twelve companions set out as missionaries to continental Europe, where he established influential monasteries, including Luxeuil in France and Bobbio in Italy. His strict monastic rule emphasized asceticism, prayer, and manual labor.
A strong advocate for Irish monastic traditions, Columbanus sometimes clashed with local bishops and rulers. He was also a prolific writer, producing sermons, letters, and monastic rules. He spent his final years in Bobbio, where he died in 615. Today, he is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, particularly as a patron of motorcyclists and against floods!
A Reading From The Instruction Of Saint Columbanus
God is everywhere. He is immeasurably vast and yet everywhere he is close at hand, as he himself bears witness: I am a God close at hand, and not a God who is distant. It is not a God who is far away that we are seeking, since (if we deserve it) he is within us. For he lives in us as the soul lives in the body – if only we are healthy limbs of his, if we are dead to sin. Then indeed he lives within us, he who has said: And I will live in them and walk among them. If we are worthy for him to be in us then in truth he gives us life, makes us his living limbs. As Saint Paul says, In him we live and move and have our being.
Given his indescribable and incomprehensible essence, who will explore the Most High? Who can examine the depths of God? Who will take pride in knowing the infinite God who fills all things and surrounds all things, who pervades all things and transcends all things, who takes possession of all things but is not himself possessed by anything? The infinite God whom no-one has seen as he is? Therefore let no-one try to penetrate the secrets of God, what he was, how he was, who he was. These things cannot be described, examined, explored. Simply – simply but strongly – believe that God is as God was, that God will be as God has always been, for God cannot be changed.
So who is God? God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God. Do not demand to know more of God. Those who want to see into the depths must first consider the natural world, for knowledge of the Trinity is rightly compared to knowledge of the depths of the sea: as Ecclesiastes says, And the great depths, who shall fathom them? Just as the depths of the sea are invisible to human sight, so the godhead of the Trinity is beyond human sense and understanding. Thus, I say, if anyone wants to know what he should believe, let him not think that he will understand better through speech than through belief: if he does that, the wisdom of God will be further from him than before.
Therefore, seek the highest knowledge not by words and arguments but by perfect and right action. Not with the tongue, gathering arguments from God-free theories, but by faith, which proceeds from purity and simplicity of heart. If you seek the ineffable by means of argument, it will be further from you than it was before; if you seek it by faith, wisdom will be in her proper place at the gateway to knowledge, and you will see her there, at least in part. Wisdom is in a certain sense attained when you believe in the invisible without first demanding to understand it. God must be believed in as he is, that is, as being invisible; even though he can be partly seen by a pure heart.
Throughout the psalm, the psalmist’s emotions are evident. He’s troubled and tired, wondering how long his suffering will continue. There is, crucially, an entire emotional as intellectual self-revelation in prayer and openness to God. There is honesty – honesty in prayer absolute [ … ]
The paralyzed man would not have been able to come to Jesus without the help of his friends. It is his friends’ faith, and their initiative and bravery, as well as his own that work together to find a way to come to Jesus. Jesus is touched by their faith and their friendship. We may think now as well about the help we give others and the help which we receive from others, in matters of faith and as we confess our sins and seek spiritual healing. Our sins can be like a form of spiritual paralysis, in which condition we may rely a great deal on our friends to bring us back to Jesus [ … ]
Today, Jesus has decided to walk to Galilee. There is a wonderful sense of lively movement as Jesus moves from place to place during his ministry, as one rounding up the sheep of Israel. Jesus finds Philip and he gives Philip his vocation, saying to him: Follow me. Through Jesus’ lifetime, we read in the Bible of great crowds flocking to Jesus, and of great processional events, as well as the constant travelling with Jesus of his closest companions. There is movement, direction, purposiveness, through which the disciples grow closer and closer to Jesus, their living faith always developing as Jesus fits them to become shepherds of men [ … ]
