Verbum Dei Deo natum

The Word of God, who was born of God, and was not made nor created, and who came down from heaven—this Word was seen, and handled, and revealed to men, by John the Evangelist.

John sprang up amidst those true rivulets, which, from the commencement, flowed from the True Fountain; he has made the whole world drink of that life-giving nectar, that flows from the throne of God.

He soared above the heavens, and gazed, with the fixedness of his soul's eye, on the brightness of the true Sun; this spiritual contemplator saw, as it were from under the wings of the Seraphim, the Face of God.

He hears what songs are sung round the Throne by the Four and Twenty Elders and the heavenly Harpers. He has stamped upon the coin of our terrestrial city the impress and seal of the Holy Trinity.

He, the guardian of the Virgin, wrote his Gospel, that he might show to the world the profound mystery of the Divine Generation: and Jesus, after allowing him to recline on his Sacred Heart, commended his own pure Lily, Mary, to this his and her much loved one, the Son of Thunder.

He drinks a deadly poison! but the virtue of his faith preserves his virginal body from death. Nay, the very creature that was prepared to torture him—the boiling oil—stood wondering at his feeling not its cruel power to pain.

Nature is obedient to him. He bids the stones be gems, and they obey: he bids the branch of a tree turn its pliant fibres into the precious metal of gold, and it obeys.

He bids the sepulchre and death yield back them whom poison had made their victims; they obey. He stops the blasphemous bowlings of Ebion, Cerinthus, and Marcion.

He is the Eagle, soaring to the infinite; nor Seer, nor Prophet, passed him in his flight. No pure mind ever saw more clearly than he so many mysteries, already past or yet to come.

Jesus, the Bridegroom, clothed in his scarlet robe, after being seen by men, but not understood, returned to his palace above: he sent to his Bride the Eagle of Ezechiel, that he might relate to her the mystery seen in heaven.

O Beloved Disciple! speak to us of thy Beloved: tell the Church the beauty of this thy Jesus, who is her chosen Spouse : tell her, who is the Bread of the Angels: tell her, what feasts her Spouse's presence causes to the citizens of heaven.

Speak to her of that Bread which feeds the soul with truth; reveal to her that Supper of thy Lord taken on the Breast of thy Lord: we will sing to the Lamb, we will sing round the Throne, we will praise him above the heavens, for his having given us such a Patron as thee.