•Many signs and wonders were done among the people at the hands of the apostles. (Acts 5:12)
• I was hard pressed and was falling, but the LORD helped me. (Psalm 118:13)
• I am the first and the last, the one who lives. Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever. (Revelations 1:17b,18)
• Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19).

 

•When were you “hard pressed and falling,” who helped you?
•Who is “the first and the last?”

…the most pure and absolute Being, which is being without qualification
is the first and the last, it is, therefore, the origin and consummating end of all things.
Because it is eternal and most present, it therefore encompasses and enters all duration
as if it were at one and the same time its center and circumference.
Because it is utterly simple and the greatest, it is, therefore,
totally within all things and totally outside them and thus “is an intelligible sphere
whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”
Because it is most perfect and immense, it is, therefore,
within all things, but not enclosed; outside all things, but not excluded;
above all things, but not aloof; below all things, but not debased.
Finally, because it is supremely one and all-inclusive
it is, therefore, all in all,
although all things are many and it is itself only one
and this is so because, through its most simple unity,
most serene truth and most sincere goodness,
there is in it all power, all exemplarity and all communicability.
Consequently,
from him, through him and in him are all things
for he is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good,
and to see him perfectly is to be blessed,
as was said to Moses:
I will show you all good¹.



¹St. Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey Into God, translated by Ewert Cousins, Paulist Press, 1978, p. 100.