Quote of the day, 30 October: Hermann Cohen

Only things that are subject to change belong in time: God is unchanging.

God was from the beginning. God can produce from himself another self and doesn’t need to associate with anyone else in doing so. “From the womb before the dawn I have begotten you” (Ps 110:3). That unique child exhausted the total divine fruitfulness.

The Father has given us that same Son of God, and likewise God, in whom he is well pleased; this is also why God has loved the world so much. Yes, indeed, he who is the unspeakable happiness of the angels comes down from heaven smitten with love for humankind and becomes man.

And God makes himself like us in order to love us. He has descended from the heavens because of his immense love and for our salvation.

It was for the sake of humanity alone that he took up a life of privation and suffering; for them, he endured humiliation, outrage, calumny; to them, he announced the Good News and suffered the most frightful tortures; for them, he died amid the most degrading and terrible torments; it was for them that he rose again. He gave himself up for us, the Gospel tells us.

Come you, come you how hunger and thirst for happiness and love, come all of you after Jesus Christ. He will give you the whole of his heart.

Love him, identify with him, he is all, all the rest is nothing but emptiness and play-acting, compared with the tenderness of his greatness.

Let us love Jesus, never let me cease from turning people to his love. Let us love Jesus.

There is only one happiness—to love Jesus Christ and to be loved by him.

Servant of God Hermann Cohen

Sermon in Bordeaux Cathedral, 1582 (excerpts)

Tierney, T  2017,  A Life of Hermann Cohen: From Franz Liszt to John of the Cross,  Balboa Press,  Bloomington, IN

Featured image: This detailed image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is just a small section of an immense oil on canvas mural in the Oratorio de San Felipe Neri, which is located in the colonial-era city of San Miguel de Allende (Guanajuato), Mexico. The mural is found in the sacristy of the west transept’s Santa Casa de Loreto chapel; the chapel is a replica of the Holy House of Loreto in Italy. Andres López completed this mural in 1795, which depicts the Sacred Heart of Jesus adored by the angels.