So long as I enjoy that breath of life granted to me by you, Holy Father, Almighty God, I will proclaim you as God eternal, but also as Father eternal. Never will I set myself up as judge of your almighty power and mysteries; never will I set my limited understanding before the true appreciation of your infinity; never will I claim you to have existed beforehand without your Wisdom, Power and Word, God the Only-Begotten, my Lord Jesus Christ. For even though human language is weak and imperfect when it speaks of you, this will not inhibit my mind to the point of reducing my faith to silence for lack of words able to express the mystery of your being... Already, among the realities of nature, there are many things of whose cause we have no knowledge without, nevertheless, being ignorant of their effects. And when, where our nature is concerned, we have no idea what to say about them, our faith is embued with adoration. If I behold the movement of the stars..., the ebb and flow of the sea..., the life-force hidden in the tiniest seed..., my ignorance helps me to contemplate you. For if I do not understand the nature placed at my service, I discern your goodness from the mere fact that it is there to serve me. I perceive that I do not even understand myself, but I wonder at you all the more... You have given me intellect, life and human feeling, the source of so many joys, yet I do not begin to understand how I began to be... So it is through failing to understand what surrounds me that I grasp what you are, and it is through perceiving what you are that I come to adore you. That is why, in what concerns your mysteries, my incomprehension lessens not a bit my faith in your omnipotence... Your eternal Son's birth exceeds even the idea of eternity; it is prior to the times everlasting. Before any other thing that exists, he was Son proceeding from you, O God and Father. He is true God... You have never existed without him... Before ever time was, you are the eternal Father of your Sole Begotten One.