The Lowly Most High

Geertgen tot Sint Jans, c. 1490

The Most High is coming in lowliness | to save what had been amounting to nothing.

"excelsus venit humilis | salvare quod perierat."

     Verbum salutis omnium (11th cent.?), Hymn at Vespers, 17-24 December, Liturgia horarum, stanza 5.

"le Cœur des cœurs, le centre brûlant de tout amour"

      "Even the elect do not learn to love all by themselves.  To get beyond the absurdities, the failings, and above all the stupidity of people, one must possess a secret of love which the world has forgotten.  So long as this secret is not rediscovered, you will change human conditions [(les conditions humaines)] in vain.
     "I thought that it was selfishness which made me aloof from everything that concerns the economic and the social; and it is true that I was a monster of seclusion and indifference; but there was also in me a feeling, an obscure certitude, that all this serves for nothing to revolutionise the face of the world.  The world must be touched at its heart.  I seek Him Who alone can achieve that victory; and He must Himself be the Heart of hearts, the burning centre of all love."

     Louis, in François Mauriac, Vipers' tangle, trans. Warre B. Wells, II.xviii (Garden City, NY:  Image Books, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1957 [1932]), 177) =Le nœud de vipères:  roman (Paris:  Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1932), 274-275.

Nurture

       "Those who have the habit of being loved instinctively do all the things, and say all of the words, that attract people.  And I—I am so used to being hated and making people afraid that my pupils, my eyebrows, my voice, my laugh make themselves the obedient accomplices of this awful gift of mine and act in advance of my will."

     "Ceux qui ont l'habitude d'être aimés accomplissent, d'instinct, tous les gestes et disent toutes le paroles qui attirent les cœurs.  Et moi, je suis tellement coutumé à être haï et à faire peur, que mes prunelles, mes sourcils, ma voix, mon rire se font docilement les complices de ce don redoutable et préviennent ma volonté."

     Louis, in François Mauriac, Vipers' tangle, trans. Warre B. Wells, II.xvi (Garden City, NY:  Image Books, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1957 [1932]), 147) =Le nœud de vipères:  roman (Paris:  Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1932), 227.

No nature-lover

"[Luc] never troubled himself to go and see the moonlight on the terrace.  He had no 'feeling' for Nature because he was Nature itself, merged in it, one of its forces, one of its living springs among other springs."

"Il ne se dèrangeait jamais pour voir le clair du lune sur la terrasse.  Il n'avait pas le sentiment de la nature parce qu'il était la nature même, confoundu en elle, une de ses forces, une source vive entre les sources."

     Louis, in François Mauriac, Vipers' tangle, trans. Warre B. Wells, I.x (Garden City, NY:  Image Books, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1957 [1932]), 97) =Le nœud de vipères:  roman (Paris:  Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1932), 152.

"This man in his forties is my son; I know it, but I don't feel it. It is impossible to look a truth like that in the face."

"Ce quadragénaire est mon fils, je le sais, mais je ne le sens pas.  Impossible de regarder cette vérité en face."

This quadragenarian. . . .

     Louis, in François Mauriac, Vipers' tangle, trans. Warre B. Wells, I.iv (Garden City, NY:  Image Books, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1957 [1932]), 39) =Le nœud de vipères:  roman (Paris:  Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1932), 58.

Baptism

Source unknown

"Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon; behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia—'This one was born there,' they say.  And of Zion it shall be said, 'This one and that one were born in her'; for the Most High himself will establish her.  The Lord records as he registers the peoples, 'This one was born there.'"

     Ps 87:4-6 RSV.

""Que reste-t-il de toi, ce soir, Marinette, morte en 1900?"

      "What remains of you this evening, Marinette, dead in 1900?  What remains of a body buried these thirty years?  I remember the scent of you that night.  To believe in the resurrection of the flesh, perhaps one must have conquered the flesh.  The punishment of those who abuse it is that they cannot even imagine that it will rise again."

     "Que reste-t-il de toi, ce soir, Marinette, morte en 1900 ?  Que reste-t-il d’un corps enseveli depuis trente années ?  Je me souviens de ton odeur nocturne.  Pour croire à la résurrection de la chair, peut-être faut-il avoir vaincu la chair.  La punition de ceux qui en ont abusé est de ne pouvoir plus même imaginer  qu’elle ressuscitera."

     Louis, in François Mauriac, Vipers' tangle, trans. Warre B. Wells, I.viii (Garden City, NY:  Image Books, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1957 [1932]), 85) =Le nœud de vipères:  roman (Paris:  Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1932), 133-134.