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From the Instructions of St Columban
You, God, are everything to us
My brethren, let us follow
this call. We are called to the source and fountain of life, by the Life
who is not just the fountain of living water but also the fountain of
eternal life, the fountain of light, the fountain and source of glory.
From this Life comes everything: wisdom, life, eternal light. The
Creator of life is the fountain from which life springs; the Creator of
light is the fountain of light. So let us leave this world of visible
things. Let us leave this world of time and head for the heavens. Like
fish seeking water, like wise and rational fish let us seek the fountain
of light, the fountain of life, the fountain of living water. Let us
swim in, let us drink from the water of the spring welling up into eternal life.
Merciful God, righteous Lord, grant that I may reach that fountain.
There let me join the others who thirst for you, drinking living water
from the living stream that flows from the fountain of life. Overwhelmed
by its sweetness let me cling close to it and say “How sweet is the
spring of living water that never runs dry, the spring that wells up
into eternal life!.”
O Lord, you yourself are that spring,
always and for ever to be desired, always and for ever to be drunk from.
Christ our Lord, give us this water as the Samarian woman once asked you, so that in us also it can be a spring of living water welling up into eternal life.
It is an enormous gift I am asking – everyone knows that – but you,
King of glory, have given great gifts in the past and made great
promises. Nothing, after all, is greater than you; and yet you have
given yourself to us and given yourself for us.
Therefore we
beg you that we should come to full knowledge of the thing that we love;
for we pray to be given nothing other than you yourself. You are
everything to us, our life, our light, our health and strength, our
food, our drink, our God. Jesus, our Jesus, I beg you to fill our hearts
with the breath of your Spirit. Pierce our souls with the sword of your
love so that each of us can say truthfully in his heart, “Show me the
one with whom my soul is in love, for by love I am wounded.”
Lord, let me bear such wounds in my soul. Blessed is the soul that is
wounded by such love and, thus wounded, seeks the fountain and drinks,
thirsts even while it drinks: it seeks by loving, and the very wound of
love brings it healing. May Jesus Christ, our righteous God and Lord,
our true and healing doctor, deign to wound our innermost hearts with
that healing wound. With the Father and the Holy Spirit he is one, for
ever and for ever.
Amen.
Saint Columban—the dove ( The name means dove or little dove in Latin. )of Christ The Irish missionary monk St. Columban (ca. 543-615) who traveled throughout Europe. He founded influential monasteries in France, Switzerland, and Italy.
graphics: top left Bibbio Italy
bottom right. statue of St Columbanus in Bibbio
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