Son:
My Father, my Beloved, I behold you
radiant in beauty and loveliness,
my whole Being vibrating at this encounter,
ever renewed, and yet already present,
in a wondering contemplation and reverence,
that is simultaneously acceptance of you
and the gift of all that I am in return.
I come from you, eternally-begotten,
flowing from the abundance of your Love
—as Love from Love springing unceasingly.
For Love is precisely this Self-communication,
the Gift given totally to the Other, and yet, too,
the reception of the Other into the inner Self.
For me, indeed, my acceptance is primary,
as my love is only a response to you, who,
first, have eternally and ceaselessly loved me.
I love, dear Father, only because you first love,
and I give myself because, myself, I first receive.
My active surrender is but the expression
of my passive receptivity to your Gift,
and yet my passive receptivity, indeed,
is a form of ardent and active surrender,
by which the Gift that I am from you
is both received and given back in love.
Father:
My dear Son, my Beloved, I delight in you,
whose beauty touches and beckons me,
in the fullness of my Being,
to communicate myself to you.
You see, dearly Beloved One,
that my own Self-communication
—even while being the Origin of All—
is also, mysteriously, a receptive contemplation:
the active surrender that is born from receptivity.
The active movement of our mutual surrender
—the donation of Self to Self, and both Selves received—
is but the expression of our shared beholding,
the contemplative love that simply delights in the Other,
and in the union that such beholding already effects in Us.
Yes, in us Beauty, Goodness, and Truth are one,
as our contemplation is always fully active:
the generous bestowal of One to the Other
that springs from the Beauty that draws Each
to the Goodness of the Other who is beheld,
and the Truth which is simply the bond of intimacy,
the undying and eternal communion between Us.
Son:
Yes, Father, in us the beholding of the Other
is simultaneous with the beholding of our Union,
for our union is both the fruit of our Self-giving
and also the very context in which Self-giving unfolds.
In other words, we can give ourselves
only because we are already One, united in beholding,
bound together in a Gift that both precedes and follows.
Yet we are also One only through our mutual Self-giving,
since we live in One another only because we are open,
in vulnerable acceptance and total gift of Self,
in an Ecstasy that allows you to live in me, and I in you,
both of us indwelling one another, a single heart beating.
Spirit:
The Breath between you both, passing across the space
of your mutual encounter, your beholding:
this is who I am, the Spirit, from you and for you both.
And yet I am not only the space between you
but also the very surmounting of this space in deeper Union,
as a Kiss allows two breaths to become one, intermingled,
and an embrace makes two no longer two but One.
And yet this very union is a Union-in-Distinction,
and a Distinction-in-Unity, affirmed and loved,
sheltered in the embrace that binds Us as One.
For while the Three of Us are utterly One
in a single Being which is nothing but Love
—that is, the Mystery of total Communication
which both is and becomes perfect Communion—
we Each remain distinct as a unique Person,
in relation with the Others as only Each is.
Father, you remain the Father of the Son,
and the Origin of the Spirit through the Son,
who bestow yourself in love, and shelter us in you,
being Love precisely in this relationship.
Son, you remain always the Son of the Father,
who is begotten in and through me, the Spirit,
and whose union with the Father
also brings me forth as your Shared-Gift.
You are the only-begotten, the Beloved One,
in relationship with the Father and with me,
in the Union of Love undying and eternal.
Son:
Dear Spirit, you are the Bond of the Love
that my Father and I eternally share.
And we both love you as our Fruit and our Union,
—Ah!—as the unique Person whom you are,
precious, radiant, and ineffably beautiful
as the fragrance and the luminosity of our Life.
Father:
Beloved Son, precious Spirit,
I live in you, my All, and you live in me, forever…
in a beholding which is a Union,
and in a Union which allows beholding.
In a contemplative repose which is fully active,
and an activity which is simply the expression of repose.
Three Together:
In us this Love is simply one, indivisible,
as the eternal Playfulness that we share:
as the ceaseless Dance of both Rest and Movement,
as the union of both Reception and Self-gift,
as the coexistence of active receptivity and receptive action
—that finds its beginning, its middle, and its end
simply in the Union that we eternally share,
in our Communion, Father, Son, and Spirit,
Each of us and All of us as One.