Seeing And Telling

Pone cor tuum in omnia quae ego ostendam tibi, quia ut ostendantur tibi adductus es huc. Annuntia omnia quae tu vides domui Israel. Pone cor tuum. Ac si dicatur: Considera. Quia ut ostendantur tibi adductus es huc, et annuntia omnia quae vides. Id est, ideo adductus es ut videas, et ideo vides ut annunties, quia quisquis spiritalia videndo proficit, oportet ut haec loquendo etiam aliis propinet. Videt quippe ut annuntiet, qui in eo quod in se proficit etiam de profectu proximi praedicando curam gerit. Unde et alibi scriptum est: Qui audit dicat: Veni. Cui enim jam vox vocantis Dei efficitur in corde, necesse est ut proximis per praedicationis officium erumpat in voce; et idcirco alium vocet, quia jam ipse vocatus est. Unde et sponsus quoque in Canticis canticorum loquitur, dicens: Quae habitas in hortis, amici auscultant, fac me audire vocem tuam. In hortis enim sancta Ecclesia, in hortis unaquaeque anima habitat, quae jam viriditate spei est et bonorum operum charitate repleta. Sicca quippe spes est hujus saeculi, quia omnia quae hic amantur cum festinatione marcescunt; et Petrus nos Apostolus festinare admonet, dicens: In haereditatem incorruptibilem, incontaminatam, immarcescibilem. Quae ergo jam in hortis habitat, oportet ut sponsum suum vocem suam audire faciat, id est canticum bonae praedicationis emittat, in qua ille delectetur quem desiderat, quia amici auscultant, videlicet omnes electi, qui, ut ad coelestem patriam reviviscant, verba vitae audire desiderant. Sanctus Gregorius Magnus, In Ezechielem Prophetam, Liber Secundus, Homilia II  Source: Migne PL 76 950b-951b

Set your heart on everything which I shall show to you, because that they may be shown to you is why you have been brought here. 1 'Set your heart,' as if to say: 'Consider'. 'Because that they may be shown to you is why you have been brought here.' That is, you have been brought here that you might see, and that seeing you might announce it, because whoever profits by the seeing of spiritual things, should hurry to tell such things to others. He sees, then, that he might announce it, so that by that which has profited himself he may have care to bring it in preaching for the profit of his neighbor. Whence it is written in another place, 'He who hears, let him say, Come' 2 For to him whom the speaking voice of God is already wrought in the heart, it is necessary that he proclaim it to his neighbours in the office of preaching, and thus he may call another, because he has been called. Whence the spouse in the Song of Songs speaks, saying, 'She who dwells in the gardens, friends are listening, make me hear your voice.' 3 For in the gardens is the Holy Church, in the gardens dwells whatever soul is full with green and fresh hope and the charity of good works. Certainly the hope of this world is arid, because everything which is loved here withers with great swiftness, and so Peter the Apostle admonishes us to hurry, saying, 'Into an incorruptible, immaculate, immortal inheritance.' 4 So she who already dwells in the garden should make her voice heard to her spouse, that is, she should send forth the song of good preaching, in which he may taste what he desires, because friends are listening, which obviously are the elect, who have been enlivened to the celestial fatherland, desiring to hear the word of life. Saint Gregory the Great, On the Prophet Ezekiel, Book 2, from Homily 2 1 Ez 40. 4 2 Apoc 22.17 3 Song 8.13 4 1 Pet 1.4