One thing alone I crave / Unum sit mihi totum

by Dame Catherine Gascoigne

English version by Stanbrook Abbey
Original Language Latin

One thing alone I crave
namely
All in everything

This One
I seek
the only One
do I desire

Rooted in One
is all
from the One
flows all

This is the very One
I seek
will have
only then
be filled

Unless I drink
this Spring
I thirst
for nowhere else sup I to be fulfilled

What or Who this One is
I may not say
can never feel
Nothing
more or less
is there to say

For the One is not simply in all
the One Being is over all

YOU are my GOD
holding me
within my very SELF


* Reprinted by permission, Copyright Stanbrook Abbey 1999

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Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

Such striking, evocative phrases of the mystic's quest for the unified One...

One thing alone I crave
namely
All in everything

... and ...

Rooted in One
is all
from the One
flows all


I particularly like the lines:

What or Who this One is
I may not say
can never feel
Nothing
more or less
is there to say

For the One is not simply in all
the One Being is over all

This touches on a dilemma mystics all over the world encounter. Why is it that Dame Catherine asserts that, "Nothing more or less is there to say"? The problem is that there is no language for the all-encompassing Reality ("the One") encountered by mystics.

The reasoning mind understands reality by dissecting it. The intellect slices reality into manageable pieces that it can comprehend and manipulate. We use a limited language to describe a limited, fragmented notion of reality. But the Divine Presence witnessed by mystics in deep communion is the Wholeness of reality.

But the One permeates everything and has no boundaries. "For the One is not simply in all / the One Being is over all." How then can the poor intellect hope to describe that which is "All in everything"?

This doesn't mean the intellect can't try, by resorting to metaphor (and poetry), but the communication of this divine Truth ultimately comes not through words but through participation. We silently take people by the hand and lead them to the fountain, inviting them to drink for themselves.

And, another secret-- the encounter with the Divine is inexplicably linked with the discovery of one's true self...

YOU are my GOD
holding me
within my very SELF






One thing alone I