It is delightful to contemplate the manner of His visible coming

"It is delightful to contemplate the manner of His visible coming, for His "ways are beautiful, and all his paths are peace/ 2 "Behold," says the Spouse of the Canticles, "he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." 3 You see Him coming, O beautiful one, but His previous lying down you could not see, for you said : " Shew me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou liest/ 4 He lay feeding His angels in His endless eternity with the vision of His glorious, unchanging beauty. But know, O beautiful one, that that vision is become wonderful to thee ; it is high, and thou canst not reach it. Nevertheless, behold He hath gone forth from His holy place, and He that had lain feeding His angels hath undertaken to heal us. We shall see Him coming as our food, Whom we were not able to behold while He was feeding His angels in His repose. " Behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." The mountains and hills we may consider to be the Patriarchs and the Prophets, and we may see His leaping and skipping in the book of His genealogy. " Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob," etc. From the mountains came forth the root of Jesse, as you will find from the Prophet Isaias : "There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him." The same prophet speaks yet more plainly : "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us." He Who is first styled a flower is afterwards called Emmanuel, and in the rod is named the virgin.""
 
-- From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux