St. Ambrose says that to say God is greater than the heavens, than all kings, all Saints, all Angels, is to do an injury to God; just as it would be an injury to a prince to say that he was greater than a blade of grass, or a small fly. God is greatness itself, and all greatness together is but the smallest atom of the greatness of God. David, contemplating the Divine greatness, and seeing that he could not and never would be able to comprehend it, could only say, O Lord, who is like to Thee? [ps. 34:10] O Lord, what greatness shall ever be found like to Thine? And how in truth should David ever be able to comprehend it, since his understanding was but finite, and God's greatness infinite? Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and of His greatness there is no end. [Ps. 144:3] Do I not fill Heaven and earth, saith the Lord. [Jer. 23:24] Thus all of us, according to our mode of understanding, are nothing but so many miserable little fishes, living in this immense ocean of the essence of God: In Him we live, move, and be. [Acts 17:28] What are we, then, in respect to God? And what are all men, all monarchs of earth, and even all Saints and all Angels of Heaven, confronted with the infinite greatness of God? We are all like or even smaller than a grain of sand in comparison with the rest of the earth: Behold, says the prophet Isaias, the Gentiles are as a drop a bucket, and are counted as the smallest grain of a balance; behold, the islands are as little dust. ... All nations are before Him as if they had no being at all. [40:15-17]
Now this God, so great, has become a little Infant; and
