Gregory the Great

The paths of life lead to the Creator. Through visible things we have departed from God; through the same things we ought to return to God. For the paths to the Creator are the works of creation considered. When we observe what has been made, we marvel at the power of the Maker. In these paths, all wisdom meets us with providence, because the power of the Maker is set before us to be sought in everything that appears to be wonderfully made; and wherever the soul turns, if it pays careful attention, in these very things it finds God, through which it had departed; and it recognizes His power again from the consideration of those things, for the love of which it had abandoned Him; and through those things by which it fell perversely, by these things turned rightly it is recalled. For where we have fallen, there we must strive to rise; and as if by rising there, we fix the hand of consideration where, by the foot of careless love, we had fallen and lay neglected. For since we have fallen from the invisible through the visible, it is fitting that we should lean again on the visible to return to the invisible, so that by the same way by which the soul descended to the lowest, by that same step it may return to the highest; and by the same steps by which it fell, it may rise, while, as has been said, those things well considered call us back to God, which, badly chosen, separated us from Him.