St. John Cassian: The contemplation of God

The contemplation of God is arrived at in numerous ways. For God is not known only through wondering at His incomprehensible substance, because that is still concealed in the hope of the promise, but He is also clearly perceived in the grandeur of the things that He has created, in reflecting upon His justice and in the assistance provided by His daily providence - namely, when we consider with most pure minds the things that He has accomplished with His holy ones over the course of generations; when with trembling heart we admire that power of His by which He governs, directs, and rules all things, as well as the vastness of His knowledge and the eye from which the secrets of hearts cannot be hidden; when we think that He knows the sands of the sea and that He has measured the number of the waves; when we contemplate with amazement the raindrops, the days and hours of the ages, how all things past and future are present to His knowledge; when we look with a kind of overwhelming wonder at His ineffable gentleness, by which He tolerates with unwearying patience the numberless crimes committed in His sight at each and every moment, and at the call through which He has received us, thanks to His mercy and not to our own already existing deserts, and finally at the many occasions of salvation that He has bestowed on those who are to be adopted - because He commanded that we should be born in such a way that grace and the knowledge of His law might be given us from our very cradles, and because He Himself, conquering the adversary in us, bestows on us eternal blessedness and everlasting rewards for the sole pleasure of His good will; and when, lastly, He accepted the dispensation of His incarnation for our salvation and extended the marvels of His mysteries to all peoples. There are also other innumerable things of this sort to contemplate, which come to our minds (where God is seen and grasped by a pure vision) in accordance with the character of our life and the purity of our heart. Certainly no one in whom there still dwells something of carnal desire will lay hold of these things eternally, because, as the Lord says: "You shall not be able to see my face, for no one shall see me and live" (Ex 33:20) - namely, to this world and to earthly desires.
+ St. John Cassian, from The Conferences, First Conference, XV.