On the Creation of the Universe: Acts of Faith and Love on All Things

Acting again to post Bossuet’s Elevations on the Mysteries, III, 6:

You are all powerful, of God of glory!  I adore your immense and voluntary generosity.  I pass all the centuries, and all the evolutions and revolutions of nature; I see you as you would be before all beginning and all eternity; that is to say that I see you as you would be; the creature has changed, but you, Lord, are always what you are.  So I leave behind all creature and I see you being alone, before all the ages.  O the beautiful and rich gift which you made in creating the world! The earth was poor under the waters and was void in her dryness, before you made the plants germinate, with all their different fruits and faculties; before the birth of the forest, before you made like a painting grass and flowers, and before you covered the earth with animals! That the earth was poor in the vastness of its womb, before she made the retreat with so many fish! And what was less living and more void than the air, before you filled it with flying things? But how much was the sky itself poor, before you sowed it with stars, and before you lit the sun to preside during the day, and the moon to preside in the night? All the mass of the universe was unformed and the chaos was frightful and poor, when light was missing! Before all that, that the nothingness was poor, as it was a pure nothing! But you, Lord, who would be and who carries everything in your all powerfulness, you only have to open your hand and you have filled with blessing the heavens and the earth.

O God, that my soul is poor! It’s a true nothing from which you pull little by little the good which you want to spread: it is only a chaos before you began to sort out all thoughts.  When you began by faith to begin the light, it was imperfect, until you formed it with charity; and that you are the true sun of justice, as intense as bright, you embraced me with your love! O God! Be always praised for your own works.  It is not enough to enlighten me one time; without your help I fall in my first darkness, because the sun is always necessary to the air it brightens so that it can stay bright.  How much more do I need that you do not stop enlightening me and that you always say: That the light be made?