seeing God

Abba Moses the Black, an Ethiopian of the 4th century who was formerly a notorious criminal, was brought to Jesus by the piety, peace, and contentment of some monks of the Egyptian desert.  He joined them and became a well-known teacher through the Conferences of John Cassian, an Israeli monk who interviewed Abba Moses and others.  In this Conference, Abba Moses teaches how to "see" God with the faithful eyes of the heart.

We certainly discover God by admiring His incomprehensible Essence, which still lies hidden in the Hope of the Promise.  We see Him in the vastness of His Knowledge and of that Eye of His from which no secrets of the heart can lie hidden.  We see Him when, with pure minds, we contemplate what He has done with His saints in every generation.  

But we also see Him through the greatness of His Creation, the consideration of His Justice, and the Help of His daily Providence.  We see Him when, with trembling heart, we admire His Power, with which He governs, directs, and rules all things.  We see Him when we consider the sand of the sea and the number of the waves measured by Him and known to Him; when in our wonder we think that the drops of rain, the days and hours of the ages, and all things past and future are present to His Knowledge.

We see Him when we gaze in unbounded admiration on that ineffable Mercy of His, which, with unwearied patience, endures countless sins that are every moment being committed under His very Eyes.  We see God in the numberless opportunities of salvation He grants to those whom He is going to adopt.  We see Him in the way He made us be born so that from our very cradles His Grace and the knowledge of His Law might be given to us.  Finally, we see Him in the way He undertook the dispensation of His Incarnation for our salvation and extended the marvels of His Sacraments to all nations.  

And there are numberless other considerations of this sort, which arise in our minds according to the character of our life and the purity of our heart, by which God is either seen by pure eyes or is embraced.