How We May Further Extend This Exercise

WE may also familiarize ourselves with this exercise and extend it further by exercising this love on the sacred humanity of Christ our Lord, considering its dignity and great perfection, and taking complacency and delight in it, being glad and rejoicing within ourselves that this most blessed humanity is so elevated and united with the Divine Person, so full of grace and glory, as to be the instrument of the Divinity in working such excellent works as are the sanctification and glorification of all the elect, and all supernatural gifts and graces that are communicated to men; and finally being glad and rejoicing at all that belongs to the perfection and glory of that most glorious soul and that most holy body of Christ our Redeemer, dwelling thereon with affectionate love and gladness in the way that saints consider the most holy Queen of Angels rejoiced on the day of the Resurrection, when she saw her most blessed Son so triumphant and glorious; and as Holy Writ tells us of the patriarch Joseph when he heard tell that his son was alive and was lord of all the land of Egypt. So great was his joy that his spirit revived, and he said: Enough for me that my son Joseph liveth: I want no more than to see him, and with that I shall die content (Gen. xlv. 28).

We may make this same exercise on the glory of our Lady and of other saints. It will be an excellent devotion on their feast days to spend some part of our meditation on this exercise. It will be one of the best homages that we can pay them, since the greatest love of which we are capable is to desire for them the greatest good of which they are capable, rejoicing and being glad at their so great glory and offering them our congratulations on the same. The Church assigns this exercise for the Feast of the Assumption of our Lady: “Today the Virgin Mary ascends to heaven: let us rejoice because she reigns with Christ forever.” And at the commencement of Mass on this feast and many others she invites us to this exercise, animating us by the example of the angels who take part tite Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating this feast in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at whose Assumption the angels rejoice and unite in praising the Son of God.” There is another gain and advantage in this exercise regarding the saints, and particularly regarding the most holy humanity of Christ our Lord, and it is that hence we come little by little to rise in our exercises and gain access to the Divinity; for, as Christ Himself says, He is the way and gate whereby to enter in to the Father (John x. 7; xiv. 6).

In this exercise also, which concerns itself with God as God, there are degrees, and we may familiarize ourselves more with it by coming down to things of earth. For though it is true that God cannot be augmented in Himself, seeing that He is infinite, and so we cannot wish Him in Himself any good that He has not got; yet God may be augmented externally in His creatures; that is, He may be more known and loved and glorified by them. When our soul considers at meditation how worthy God is to be loved and served by His creatures, we may occupy ourselves in wishing and desiring that all souls, created and to be created, should know Him, love Him, praise and glorify Him in all things. Would, O Lord, that we could convert all the infidels and sinners that there are in the world, and bring it about that none should offend Thee and all should obey and employ themselves in Thy service now and for ever and ever! Hallowed be thy name: let all the earth adore thee, and celebrate thee, and sing canticles to thy name (Matt. vi. 9; Psalm lxv. 4). And thus we may go on to think of a thousand sorts of service that creatures might pay God, and desire them to be so paid.

Hence each one should descend to desiring and endeavoring to do the will of God and work for His greater giory in what relates to himself, contriving ever to do that which he takes to be the will of God and His greater glory, ascending to what Christ our Redeemer says of Himself in the Gospel: I ever do what is pleasing to my Father (John viii. 29). For, as the Evangelist St. John says: He who sayeth that he knoweth him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar: but whoever keepeth his word, in him the charity of God is perfect (I John ii. 4-5). He who says that he knows and loves God, but does not do His will, is not telling the truth; he lies. But he who keeps the commandments and does the will of God, he has perfect charity and love of God. Hence, to love God and live in entire conformity to His will, it is not enough for a man to take complacency in the perfections of God and to wish all the rest of creation to love and glorify God, but the man himself must offer and dedicate himself entirely to fulfilling the will of God. For how can anyone say with truth that he desires the greater glory of God when in what he can, and in what lies in his power, he does not seek to procure it? This is the love that the soul exercises herself in when at meditation she forms resolutions and true desires to accomplish the will of God in this thing and in that thing and in all the rest that offers. This is the exercise which we are ordinarily wont to go through at meditation.

Hereby we have opened out a great field where we can occupy ourselves for a long time at meditation in this exercise, and we have set forth the great profit and perfection there is in it. It only remains now for us to set to work and begin to make trial here upon earth of that which we are to practise afterwards to such good effect in heaven. The fire of God burneth in Sion, and the furnace thereof is forever kindled in Jerusalem (Isaias xxxi. 9). Here there must begin to be enkindled in our hearts this fire of the love of God; but the flames, the height and perfection, shall be in the heavenly Jerusalem, which is glory.

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