The more I meditate on the mind of the saints, the more I am reminded of something that is high and hard and beyond the powers of human nature. Call to mind what the same psalmist [David] has said: If I shall go up into the bed wherein I lie; if I shall give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids or rest to my temples; until I find out a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. Who would not be amazed at such a love of God, such dedication of soul, that a king and prophet should deny himself all sleep—the very essential of bodily vigor—until he should find a place to build a temple to the Lord? This fact should be a strong admonishment to us who long to be a dwelling place of the Lord and to be considered his tabernacle and temple forever. You are, as Paul reminds us, the temple of the living God.^[1] Let us, then, be moved by the example of the saints to love vigils to the utmost of our power. And let it not be said of us what is said in the psalm: They have slept their sleep and . . . found nothing.^[2] Rather, let each of us be glad to say, In the day of my trouble I have sought God and with my hands lifted up to him in the night and was not deceived.^[3] The reason is that it is good to give praise to the Lord and to sing to your name, O most High; to show forth your mercy in the morning and your truth in the night.^[4] These and many other such thoughts the saints have left us in song and other writings, so that we who are their heirs may be moved by such examples to celebrate at night the vigils of our salvation.

Girded with such things to serve as invincible armor, let us take our stand against the evil one, being wakeful and well prepared, as though it was day. Let us pierce him with the mighty arrows of the Spirit’s words and cut off all his hopes, joining David, the son of Jesse, in adjuring him by the covenant that does not fail: Depart from us and go to your ill fate, you mad dog^[1] that audaciously barks against its master, for we have sworn to the Lord and make our vow to the God of Jacob that we shall not allow sleep to touch our eyes, or drowsiness our eyelids, until we have found a place for the Lord to rest in our souls, a tent for the God of Jacob to dwell in our hearts. We will certainly not cease from vigil, prayer, toil and labor until the Lord is pleased at our soul and chooses it as a place in which to live, saying, This is my resting place for eternal ages; here shall I reside, for I have desired it.

But lest we linger too long on the forms of individual virtues, we can briefly say that they indicate those things by which the church is adorned. Its faith can be compared with gold; the word of preaching with silver; bronze with patience; incorruptible wood with the knowledge that comes through the wood or to the incorruptibility of purity that never grows old; virginity with linen; the glory of suffering with scarlet; the splendor of love with purple; the hope of the kingdom of heaven with the blue. Let those, however, be the materials from which the whole tabernacle is constructed, the priests are clothed and the high priest is adorned. The prophet speaks in another passage about the nature and quality of their clothing: Let your priests be clothed with justice. All those garments, therefore, are garments of justice. And again the apostle Paul says, Put on heartfelt mercy.^[1] They are also, therefore, garments of mercy. But the same apostle no less also designates other more noble garments when he says, Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and give no attention to the flesh for lusting.^[2] Those, therefore, are the garments with which the church is adorned.

That the Lord was to be born of a virgin we know clearly; now we must show of what stock the virgin was. The Lord swore to David a firm promise from which he will not withdraw: ‘Your own offspring I will set on your throne.’ Again, I will make his posterity endure forever and his throne as the days of heaven.^[1] Then, Once by my holiness I have sworn; I will not be false to David: his posterity shall continue forever, and his throne shall be like the sun before me; like the moon, which remains forever.^[2] You see that the words concern Christ, not Solomon, for Solomon’s throne did not endure as the sun. But if anyone should object that Christ did not sit on the wooden throne of David, let us produce that saying: The scribes and Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses.^[3] For this signifies not the chair of wood but the authority of his teaching.

What is the woman?^[1] The flesh of Christ. What is the lamp? I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. Therefore we were sought in order that we might be found; having been found, we speak. Let us not be proud because, before we were found, if we were not sought for, we would have been lost. Therefore let not those whom we love and whom we wish to win over to the peace of the catholic church say to us, Why do you want us? Why do you seek us if we are sinners?^[2] We seek you precisely that you may not be lost; we seek you because we were sought; we wish to find you because we were found.

Let me talk to your graces^[1] in the house of God about what this psalm here has reminded us of; who it is who says, I have prepared a lamp for my Christ; his enemies I will clothe with confusion, but on him my sanctification shall flower; and what that lamp may be, which he prepared for his Christ; and who the enemies of his Christ may be, whom he has clothed with confusion by means of that lamp; and what the sanctification is of the one who prepared a lamp for his Christ, which will flower on his Christ. In all these words, after all, the only thing that seems plain and open is what he says here, my Christ; none other, I mean, is to be understood, but Christ our Lord and Savior.

And, because they^[1] had shut themselves up against him, by asserting that they did not know what they knew, the Lord did not open up to them because they did not knock. For it has been said, Knock, and it will be opened to you.^[2] But they not only had not knocked that it might be opened, but by their denial they barricaded the door itself against themselves. And the Lord said to them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.^[3] And they were confounded through John, and in them was fulfilled the prophecy, I have prepared a lamp for my Christ; his enemies I will clothe with confusion.

So a lamp was prepared for Christ our Lord in the person of John the Baptist. His enemies, trying to trap him with their questions, withdrew in confusion when this lamp was brought out. Thus was fulfilled [the prophecy] I will clothe his enemies with confusion. Let us, though, brothers and sisters, acknowledge the Lord by means of John the Baptist his forerunner. Indeed by the Lord’s own witness, of which he said, I have a greater witness than John,^[1] let us believe in Christ and in this way be formed into the body of him the head, so that head and body may be the one Christ. And so in all of us, having been made one, shall be fulfilled, but on him my sanctification shall flower.