The Household of God
Volume 1
The early history of mankind
- Chapter 178 -
KISEHEL'S PRAYER OF CONTRITION
And so they went to where the seven were lying on their faces. There, bid by Abedam, they waited for a while and listened to Kisehel who, lying on the ground, prayed and held the following soliloquy:
2
"Oh, I extremely poor and low sinner! What have I done? I have boasted before God with my endlessly great folly, which I regarded as consistent wisdom, downright adoring it in myself!
3
"In His mercy He showed me only a tiny spark of His boundless wisdom which once has arranged heaven and earth and has given me miserable worm full of ingratitude this so wonderful existence, - and I am already lying helplessly in the dust.
4
"What would have happened to me if He had shown me more than just a little spark of His boundless, eternal, unfathomable wisdom?
5
"O how I would have been so suddenly annihilated as if I had never existed!
6
"But His immeasurable goodness, His boundless love, His unlimited mercy spared my unspeakable insolence. Instead of promptly punishing me only too deservedly with eternal destruction, which throughout my life at every moment of my most unworthy existence I have deserved a hundredfold, He forgave me my unspeakable guilt and sent me to this place that I might seek and recognize Him within me and then return to Him!
7
"I, the greatest and most unworthy sinner, am to return to Him! O earth, better open up and swallow me completely! For even though I feel that I have become all love towards Him, could eternities ever wipe out my sacrilege as if I had never sinned before Him?
8
"O You holy Father of better children! No, no, ·- this cannot and must not happen, for You, good Father, You are holy, super-holy. How could I sin before You once more, and even worse?
9
"It is enough, forever enough that I have sinned before You once when I was blind and unable to recognize You. But what could this sin be called if I, having now as a dusty worm before You recognized You, still went before Your holy countenance knowing to be a sinner?
10
"Oh what a terrible thought! I, a sinner before God, - no, no. O holy Father, You are so exceedingly good and will not wish to punish me poorest sinner so very hard?
11
"I certainly would have deserved the most severe punishment, but when I think how unspeakably I now love Him, feeling this love even in every one of my hairs as if it contained a thousand hearts full of burning love, this would then counteract the punishment I deserve for I would only want to follow the mighty promptings of my heart Therefore I will here weep over my great folly. And though I have never, as far as I know, been of any use to the earth, now my tears shall moisten its ground. Maybe some thirsty little grassroots will be refreshed by them, or maybe die from the hard tears of a great sinner?
12
"Yes, yes, you much nobler little root, my sinfully hot tears of remorse do not hold any blessing, for they are flowing from the sea of my wickedness and might well choke and kill you. And so I will let my tears run into the sand, the dry, hot sand and not rise before I have either spent all my tears or the just, holy God and Father may send me a messenger advising me of a well-deserved sentence.
13
"Yes, if punished with eternal banishment I would feel better, in the farthest corner of the earth more at peace than here at this hallowed place where to be I feel so unworthy.
14
"O quiet solitude, where are you that I may find you and there, without a witness to my great misery watching and mourning for me, die for my sin, yes die completely forever?
15
"Only now have I found the right solution. Nothing can expiate my sin before God, except death, the ceasing to exist. For once the wrongdoer has come to nothing then with him the sin has come to nothing too. And so for him who no longer exists everything else has also ceased.
16
"But what if possibly there does not exist any annihilation before God? Could God ever forget anything?
17
"And what continues to exist in God's indestructible, eternal memory, can that ever pass away?
18
"Are we now something different from free representations out of God's everlasting memory before God Himself?
19
"Who will ever be able to eradicate himself from this forever mighty memory of God?
20
"O God, You great, holy Father! Only now do I understand that all men and all beings are nothing before You. You alone are All in all!
21
"I also see that all men, sinners and righteous, are incapable of anything before Y au. You alone are All in all!
22
"If someone is righteous before You, holy Father, what is his merit? Nothing, - for it is all only Your great mercy.
23
"He who is a sinner before You, what is he? A miserable nothing, since he wanted to be something and did not first bear in mind that he is nothing before You.
24
"So what is the difference between a sinner and a righteous one? Now I see it clearly: The sinner is a great fool because he imagines and acts as if he were something before God out of himself, whereas the righteous one realizes his nothingness and that whatever he has is purely God's, the holy Father's, mercy.
25
"This is the light of the righteous, but the sinner's night is his great delusion.
26
"O great, holy Father, I now see only too clearly that I cannot hide from You ever, as You are everywhere All in all. But I also see that Your mercy is infinite. O do not be angry with me, but in Your endless fatherly compassion have mercy upon me, a poor, blind sinner. And whenever it pleases You, let Your holy will allow me, if at all possible, to be the very least among those on whom You have bestowed Your mercy. O holy Father, Your holy will be done! Amen."
27
Then he fell silent and wept aloud into the earth, and his brothers wept with him.
28
But also Sethlahem and all the others including Enoch were so deeply moved that they began to weep with them; for Kisehel's speech had ignited an unexpected great light for them.
29
And Abedam pointed out to them that here there were more than ten thousand sacrificial altars fully ignited.
30
But Sethlahem said to himself in his heart: "O you poor brothers, your great misery is all my fault. If I had only known all this in advance I would have you tear me to pieces rather than cause this suffering to you.
31
"O Abedam, You glorious, most loving Father! Do have mercy upon him!"
32
But Abedam answered him: "Have no concern about your brother, but see that you become like him. For truly I tell you: A person who does not become like him will one day in the realm of everlasting life remain inferior before him.
33
"Do understand this and be no longer concerned for the one living. Amen."