Chapter V: God, by means of the Sacraments, makes His Designs still more evident

BY coming into this world our Lord Jesus Christ wished to bring holiness within the reach of all men. For this end He provided certain means to fill up all their deficiencies, and supply all their needs in the supernatural order.

Those wonderful means of sanctification are the Sacraments. Their outward signs harmonize admirably with the grace which they contain, and with the effects which they produce. By their means, in a truly divine order of things, creatures, which have so often captivated man and drawn him away from God, become instruments for bringing him back. Themselves rehabilitated and ennobled by the use now made of them, these lower creatures will no longer appear hurtful, but rather good and wholesome, just as when they first came from the hand of the same Creator that made all things, both those that are visible and those that are invisible. The economy of the Sacraments is the power of God exerted in behalf of man's sanctification. The principal mission of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which is itself constituted by the sacrament of Holy Orders, is, first of all, to render glory directly to God by the sacrifice, and then to confer the Sacraments upon all men. It is in these Sacraments that God has concentrated the certain and authentic help of His grace; it is there that, without fettering in any way the liberty of His divine munificence, He has guaranteed to us the complement indispensable to our nature, in order to perfect us and unite us to Himself.

The superiority of the Sacraments over all other forms by which grace comes to us is evident, since, in the language of the schools, they give grace ex opere operato, and not simply ex opere operantis. Grace is produced in the soul of man in this latter way, when God gives it through the dispositions of the individual, in consequence of his personal acts; whereas when grace is produced ex opere operato, as in the Sacraments, it is bestowed by virtue of the divine ordinance, independently of the virtues or the merit of the agent. Certain dispositions are indeed needed, but only as conditions, as removing an obstacle, but not as intrinsically modifying the grace inherent in the sacramental form, nor as determining the bestowal of that grace.

We maintain, then, that the Sacraments, with the power proper to them, are the means instituted by God for enabling man to attain to holiness, without there being any need to look for extraordinary means. To desire these latter is not to desire perfect sanctification, but rather to aspire after a less sure mode of sanctification, one which is open to delusion. It is to enter that way by an act of self-will, whereas here, more than anywhere else, the law imperatively requires an absolute renouncing of what is one's own.

The Sacraments being the regular, normal, certain and authentic means of our sanctification, our principal concern should be, rightly to receive them, and to make good use of the forces which they have laid up within us. They contain God, whilst at the same time they veil His splendour; they communicate God to man, and hence they all tend to divine union; they are provided with the energy necessary to bring it about, and they enable us fully to attain our end.

God forbid that we should seek to confine His liberality within the limits of the Sacraments. If a right esteem of these powerful and ever-ready sources of grace is of the utmost importance for the attainment of that holiness to which all Christians should aspire, we know that God has left Himself perfectly free to bring about man's sanctification by special and different ways according to His good pleasure. God determines these things in His sovereign wisdom, which can have no law but itself; and we see by the results that His gifts surpass His promises. We cannot read the lives of the saints, or the records of God's graces to men, in this land of our exile, without experiencing much consolation, and being drawn to admire God's admirable condescension and the prodigious variety of the artifices of His love. This admiration will be all the more pure, as it is free from any secret and dangerous envy, regret, or falling back upon self, seeing that God has elsewhere guaranteed to all souls the means of reaching divine union; for we know by our faith and by experience that God has abundantly provided for all men's sanctification.

If visions, ecstasies and raptures, with their external phenomena, had been the necessary accompaniment of our sanctification, God would not have failed to make this known to us; but, on the contrary, He has passed over in silence the accidental things of the supernatural life, leaving them quite in the shade; whereas He has brought forward HIS SACRAMENTS, and imposed them upon all men as the law.

In Baptism spiritual life is given to us. Therefore this sacrament cannot be repeated; for as we are not born twice over into our natural life, so we are born once only to grace. The character of a child of God, once stamped upon us in Baptism, is ineffaceable, even were we to lose our grace, so deeply does it penetrate the very substance of our being. Together with this character God bestows upon us all the virtues and the energies necessary for our full spiritual life. As a son of our Father's family, we receive the patrimony which will enable us to live up to our rank without ever derogating from our dignity.

To live in the thought of our Baptism, of the nobility which it has conferred upon us, of the energies with which it has endowed us, of the obligations which it has imposed upon us, and to be ever striving more perfectly to fulfil these obligations—all this constitutes in itself a very extensive and important outline of perfection. The apostle St. Paul, who has said all that can be said on these matters, places no other before the Christians of his time. “Call to mind,” he says, “the former days, wherein being illuminated,”¹ etc. He gives the same advice with reference to all the Sacraments which impress a character upon the soul, because by thus living in the thought of the grace which we have received, and desiring to be ever in the good dispositions which we had when we received it, the energy of the sacrament is kept up and increased within us. “Neglect not the grace that is in thee,” wrote St. Paul to his beloved Timothy, reminding him of his ordination, “which was given thee by prophecy, with the imposition of the hands of the priesthood.”²

Just as our dispositions prepare the way for the reception of sacramental grace, and give to it its field of action, so, when we remove all obstacles, we encourage the working and expansion of this grace, which should take possession of our being, and transform it into God. We may safely assert that any soul, relying on the grace of baptism, would speedily reach a high degree of sanctity if she made it her business to shun habitually all that she renounced at her baptism, to advance in this renunciation according to her light and, in spite of all obstacles, to identify herself daily more and more with her noble titles, child of God, coheir of Jesus Christ, and temple of the Holy Ghost.

A tree, however high its branches may grow, proceeds from its first germ, and not from any increase of energy from without; the power of that full development which delights all who sit under the shade of the noble tree is in the seed. It fell upon good ground, and it was carefully cultivated. Even if the ground were not of the best, this careful culture supplied what was wanting. By its side fell an equally good seed; but the ground was stony and covered with briars, so the tree grew up poor and ill shaped, suggesting only an idea of barrenness. Thus Baptism has always its own intrinsic power; but if generous cooperation is wanting on the part of the Christian, his growth is hindered and retarded, and his supernatural energies are weakened. If spiritual death does not follow, the hour of natural death will come, and the fire of purgatory will have to do the work which, through want of courage and energy, or perhaps through levity, indifference or slothful ignorance, he has left undone. To gain that fulness of life which is consummate perfection we must carefully cultivate the grace of Baptism without growing weary, or taking any rest until all that is natural in us is brought into perfect subjection to grace and to all God's leadings.

This radical transformation, this fulness of the life of Christ within us, this perfect development of the grace of Baptism manifests itself in the soul of man by a sure sign; that sign is when there is accomplished in her that mystery which St. Paul thus beautifully expresses: "For the Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God."³ When the Holy Spirit makes the soul see clearly that she is in very deed the child of God, that vision implies that, within her, order is well nigh restored, and that nothing now abides there detrimental to her character as a child of God. We will borrow from the Jesuit, Pere Surin, a passage which admirably describes how this precious and almost certain indication of the fulness of supernatural life existing in the soul is given. "Grace works in the soul,” he says, “in such a way that she experiences a certain elevating confidence and peace proper to the good and faithful friends of God; and the Holy Ghost, who, as our faith tells us, dwells within us, by a further working of His grace makes His presence manifest—‘Because of His Spirit that dwelleth in you.’⁴ This is brought about in a way so high and free that the faithful heart is persuaded, not in the ordinary way by faith only, but by a sentiment so filial, so sweet that, without any fear of delusion, she recognizes and knows that in all probability she is God’s own. I do not say that this is an express revelation, such as God has sometimes given to saints, but a probability, which gives rise to a surpassing peace and confidence, causing the soul to rest in perfect tranquillity.”⁵

St. John in his epistle teaches the same truth; “He that believeth in the Son of God hath the testimony of God in himself.”⁶ To experience this it is not sufficient to be merely in a state of grace, we must moreover unreservedly serve God, sincerely seek Him, and we must have entered resolutely on the way of perfection. Then the spirit of adoption teaches the soul to say: “Abba, Father.”⁷ This is the unceasing cry of the inmost being, the filial persevering self-surrender of those who have become the brethren and the coheirs of our Lord Jesus Christ.

All that we have said of the sacrament of regeneration holds good of the sacrament of Confirmation, which, though distinct from the first of the sacraments, is as it were its completion. According to the principle laid down by our divine Master,

"Without Me you can do nothing,"⁸ our growth as well as our birth is the result of a divine work. But this growth must be fostered by our own care; that which is given to the soul in power must be brought into action. The soul is bound to make use of the grace which she has received in the Sacrament; for just as our physical organs lose their power for want of exercise, and our muscles refuse to work if we do not use them, so is it with the supernatural powers if they remain idle within us. Now the sacrament of Confirmation enables us to act manfully in the supernatural order and to manifest, while seeking after virtue and confessing the faith of our Baptism, that vigour, energy and calm confidence which are the signs of true strength. This supernatural vigour is moreover the stamp of a perfect Christian who finds himself at ease amidst strong works, and who is not withdrawn from contemplation by the labours and toils accompanying the acquisition of virtue.

But did God consider that man thus exalted could always maintain his high position and walk on without fainting, if no food were given to him to restore his strength? Our Lord, when on earth, was tenderly solicitous for those who followed Him. "I have compassion," He said, "on the multitude; for, behold, they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat. And if I shall send them away fasting to their homes, they will faint in the way, for some of them come from afar."⁹ This was like a prelude to the fulfilment of that pressing invitation made by eternal wisdom in the Old Testament: "Whosoever is a little one, let him come to Me. And to the unwise she said: Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you.”¹⁰ Such was the loving heart of our God; and such it is now that the mysteries of our redemption are accomplished. He has provided with divine liberality for all our supernatural needs. As the end which He had in view was to unite us to Himself, He would give us no other food to repair our strength but Himself. For if in the natural order our bodily strength is renewed by the food which we assimilate and which becomes part of ourselves, our supernatural food, having superior energy by reason of its dignity, communicates to us a life all divine: “I am the living Bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever.”¹¹ And not only shall we live “in the strength of that food,”¹² but we shall have the same life as this Bread: “As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me.”¹³ And, lest any one should misunderstand the nature of this divine food, our Lord showed the effects of receiving it when He said: “He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him.”¹⁴ What union was ever so close as this?

But as the Jews loudly protested against these words, our Lord answered: “Amen, Amen, I say unto you; except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you.”¹⁵ In this passage our adorable Master is certainly not speaking of a condition necessary for salvation, as Catholic theologians freely admit that certain circumstances may lawfully hinder the Christian from receiving the Body of the Lord. However we should like to ask with reference to these words, whether this eternal life which they pledge to us in the Eucharist, while being the blessed life of eternity, is not also that life of union with God which is an anticipation of the life of eternity, the germ of which is deposited for us in the divine Eucharist.

But are we right in saying that we possess only the germ of heavenly life by holy Communion? Does not God initiate us fully into this life? Does He not, in His ineffable and divine impatience, anticipate our eternal state? Yes, union is complete in this mystery; our contact with God, through the sacred Body of the Incarnate Word, is immediate and substantial; no divine operation in the soul of man can give more than we receive by this Sacrament. The union is complete if he who receives the Eucharist already has within him the life of grace. The child of God, being made a perfect Christian by means of Confirmation, approaches, and in him the words of St. Paul are realized: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.”¹⁶ He is then already purified, already illuminated, and possessing divine charity he is made capable of consummating and perfecting his union with God.

The blessed in heaven possess God by the beatific vision, which establishes them for ever in the essential good, truth and beauty. They are irrevocably fixed in it; and without changing their nature they acquire constancy, power and nobility from the divine Object of their contemplation. Feeding upon God, filled with God by the beatific vision, they are, in a sense, transformed into Him.

Here upon earth, under the veils of the "Mystery of faith," the Christian feeds upon God; God gives Himself to him, just as in heaven He gives Himself to the elect—not by vision, but by the Sacrament. He does this in order that we may not be deprived of union with Himself, even while we are still in the condition of mere wayfarers. The blessed in heaven love God, and possess Him in vision; Christians on earth love God and possess Him in faith, without medium or hindrance. If our faith were so living and so deep that its voluntary action gave God the place in us, by faith and the Eucharist, which the sight of Him in eternity gives, the effects produced would bear comparison. How could such food not have the power really to transform and unite us with God?

At the time when our fathers in the faith had to observe the "discipline of the secret," they had an admirable way of expressing this teaching. In their paintings and in their writings they represented the divine Eucharist under the symbol of milk. Milk is the child's food, given by God in a mysterious way to the mother. It is the mother's food, adapted to the child's tender age. Thus, as long as we are in this life, we are but children, and our mother the Church has received for us the milk of the Eucharist, that is, divine food suited to our weakness—the food of the angels themselves and of the elect, which is to last until we have attained the age of perfect men, "unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ."¹⁷ It is in this sense that certain passages of the Canticle of Canticles are interpreted when applied to the Church. For instance: "We will be glad and rejoice in thee, remembering thy breasts more than wine.”¹⁸ The milk here spoken of is indeed richer than wine, but still it is milk, and the food of our childhood here below.

After this who will care to say that in this life union with God is a privilege reserved for the few only, when our Lord Jesus Christ, eager to give us the full possession of God, has in His incomparable love prepared for all the means of union with Himself—“With desire have I desired to eat this Pasch with you before I suffer”?¹⁹ And lest the Christian should hesitate in presence of this ineffable mystery, our Lord says again: “Do this for a commemoration of Me.”²⁰

The state to which our divine Lord reduces Himself in the Eucharist in order to satisfy the requirements of His tender love, brings Him before us exactly in that form of holiness which our own spiritual life should assume. According to His own teaching, abnegation and perfect mortification are indispensable if we would learn to live by the Spirit. Poverty and total riddance of self are essential if we would become disciples of Jesus Christ and attain perfection. The obedience, dependence and detachment from creatures in which we ought to be rooted, whatever our vocation may be, makes us use the world as though we used it not, as the law of Christ requires. Now our Lord’s Eucharistic life is one of total abnegation, silence, poverty, obedience, absolute isolation and tranquil self-surrender which seems the ideal of what the soul’s life will be when it has become perfectly united with God. Provided we surrender ourselves wholly and entirely to Him, He will fashion us according to His sacramental life; He will form us to the highest holiness that we can attain while yet we live in the land of faith. By modelling our souls to the likeness of His sacramental life, He leads them to adoration in its most perfect form, the property of adoration being to annihilate him who adores before Him who is adored.

This is not yet all. By reason of the higher life that our divine Lord brings to us, it is not He that is changed into us, but we that are changed into Him. His divine life assimilates to itself our life, and in assimilating elevates it. As in the Consecration our divine Lord transforms the bread and wine, so by the Sacrament He takes possession of us in order to transform and make us godlike.

In presence of these wonders and of the prodigality of God's love, we involuntarily ask ourselves how it comes to pass that holiness is so rare upon earth? Is it that we forget how rich we are? Or is it perhaps that we do not know how to use our riches as we ought? Most certainly preparation is needed for fruitfully receiving the Sacrament, but in what precisely does this preparation consist? To receive worthily the divine Food prepared for him, the baptized Christian need abstain from only those things which he renounced in Baptism, and behave himself as a loyal child of God, full of health and strength.

To assimilate our natural food nothing more is needed than to be in good health and to have an appetite. Then food supports, strengthens, gladdens and restores us. And so the Living Bread when it finds the soul healthy and vigorous gives an increase of health and of life. Health of soul, not holiness, is required for fruitfully receiving the divine Food. However health-giving a repast may be, it is never prepared for a dead man; it might even aggravate the malady of a sick man, and cause his death; but there exist many infirmities, especially those resulting from weakness, which can be cured by good food. Hence the Eucharist is not prepared for those who are not in the state of grace, and souls that are still weak must use it according to the discreet laws of the Church; but this divine food heals certain accidental infirmities, weaknesses of soul to which we do not cling; by its own divine energy, it gives and preserves health, increasing it even to the perfection of holiness.

St. Paul witnessed all this in the Church of Corinth, where spiritual gifts were seen in marvellous profusion; and yet because some of its children did not discern, as they should have done, the Body of the Lord, the Sacrament exercised not in them its supernatural efficacy, but inflicted even death: "Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep. But if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged."²¹

But the apostle at the same time indicates the means of securing the life-giving effect of the Sacrament: "Let a man prove himself; and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice."²² We shall not speak of those who have no life in them and who therefore cannot obtain an increase of supernatural life by receiving the Holy Eucharist, because they have within them a positive obstacle to the grace proper to the Sacrament. The words of the apostle, "Not discerning the Body of the Lord," imply most clearly the necessity for such a discernment and for such an appreciation in order that the soul may not liken the Body of the Lord to common food, nor loving its death and wilfully abiding in it, may not advance to receive this sacred Body like a galvanized corpse. Whereas the Sacrament was instituted not to give supernatural life, but to unite to God souls already possessing this life.

Who then are the spiritually "infirm and weak," of whom the apostle here speaks? It was not his intention to include under these two heads all who fall into venial sins. Without a special grace venial sins cannot for any length of time be avoided; moreover, one of the effects proper to the Sacrament, is to efface these light faults and to prevent a relapse into them.

The "infirm" then, are those who, while receiving holy Communion, still retain an attachment to self, a certain clinging to their faults and imperfections, though they weep over the sinful acts themselves. This error or contradiction is frequent in persons professing a spiritual life; they disown the fruits, but they do not destroy the tree that produces them. They are like the Hebrew people who, on entering the Promised Land, did not destroy its inhabitants as God had commanded; and so, through the neglect of this first precaution they could never enjoy perfect peace in that chosen land flowing with milk and honey. The Holy Eucharist, finding in these infirm souls a sluggish remissness to which the will clings, does not obtain its full effect, which is to strengthen the spiritual life and elevate it to the perfection of union with God in faith, according to that promise made by Him to the prophet: "And I will espouse thee to me in faith; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord."²³

It is not the number of our Communions that sanctifies us; it is the fervour with which we approach that gives the Sacrament its full power of action. It is in the highest degree profitable to the soul to communicate with suitable attention and fervour. This holy Sacrament is a powerful lever of progress in the spiritual life. God stretches out His hand to us, He makes Himself our way, our life, our strength, the milk of the weak, the bread of the strong.

Let us then strenuously reject all systems that would reduce Holy Communion to a mere means useful only to the imperfect; but at the same time let us beware of that odious parsimony which would grant this Bread of Life to souls of only consummate holiness. As is often the case, truth lies between these two extremes. For the Sacrament to have its full efficacy, our Lord does indeed require actual fervour of soul and habitual generosity in the labour of the spiritual life; but it is no less certain that the only indispensable disposition for holy Communion and for gaining by it an increase of charity is renunciation of mortal sin and a firm purpose of perseverance in this renunciation. With these dispositions the Christian may approach that God who, even in this world, deigns to offer him the fullest possession of Himself in the "Mystery of Faith," who thus bends down to His creature to raise him to Himself.

In the post communions of the Mass, which form quite a treatise on the Holy Eucharist, the Church teaches us all these truths. St. Denis also expresses them in the following words: "The Lord coming forth from the hiddenness of His divinity, lovingly became like unto us, assuming yet not absorbing our entire human nature. He clothes Himself in our compound nature, without altering His essential unity; and by an effect of this same charity He invites the human race to a participation of His essence and of His own riches, provided that we actively unite ourselves to Him by the imitation of His divine life; for thus we shall be truly associated to the Divinity, and shall share its riches."²⁴

If we desire to know whether we are with fitting dispositions receiving this supernatural Food, we must judge by its effects. We cannot of course have any sensible perception of the divine life infused by it into us, but we are made aware of the presence of that life by the evident change wrought by it in the habits of the soul. We do not receive the Holy Eucharist for the purpose of being sensibly moved, of experiencing great consolation in sweet colloquies with our Lord, or of being made aware of the presence of our divine Guest by a kind of physical emotion; but we approach the Holy Table because the Sacraments work what they signify, and signify what they work, and since the Living Bread is the Mystery of faith, it enables us to live by God, with a life which is not directly perceived nor grasped in itself, but which manifests its presence by the growth of holiness and of the theological and moral virtues, by the gradual removal of all obstacles, and the cessation of all search after anything but God.

From all this we must conclude that Holy Communion cannot, without irreverence, be likened to other practices of piety. The Holy Eucharist is not given even as a means of intercessory prayer, although our intercession may be more efficacious when we are more united with our Lord; for it is in His name that we obtain every perfect gift from our heavenly Father. But as, in order to benefit fully by a divine ordinance, it is especially requisite to enter into the views of Him who institutes it, we must understand that the Eucharist was created to feed our souls. Before pouring ourselves out in intercession and the prayer of petition, charity will inspire us to think first of God and of ourselves—of God more than of ourselves. We shall place ourselves before God in the attitude and the dispositions which are befitting, and which will then secure the efficacy of our intercession and of our petitions.

Certain utilitarian tendencies of our times are a serious danger for the sanctification of souls, even in the religious state. All the energy of their mind is turned to the interests of their neighbour; and this ill-regulated charity causes them to neglect their own sanctification, or at least to be turned aside from that capital work, which, after all, is the Will of God in their regard. We cannot invert this essential order without loss. Now our duties to God precede our duties to our neighbour. God has a right to our service, a right to our perfect sanctification since He has given us all the means to secure it; His Will is that we should use these same means for the end He proposes to Himself.

During Holy Communion our prayer for certain persons and for certain intentions will be fruitful, according as that Communion gives glory to God and brings profit to ourselves. To multiply Communions with no other object than that of making intercession for our neighbour, or even simply out of custom, is a dangerous proceeding often animadverted upon by the directors of souls, who are well aware of the disorders which this practice may produce. When the Church prescribes Confession and Communion as conditions for gaining a plenary indulgence, is not her immediate aim to place the soul in the state which will enable her to profit by the favours promised? Are not these very favours a clever allurement, an invitation to bring about within ourselves the conditions which must necessarily prepare the way for their reception. In receiving the Holy Eucharist, it is then all important to remember, in the first place, those divine words, "He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood abideth in Me, and I in him."²⁵ And again, "Amen, amen, I say unto you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you."²⁶

For those who cannot frequently receive Holy Communion, the practice of the Church assigns feast days in preference to others for receiving the Holy Eucharist; because the celebration of the holy mysteries prepares the soul, by suggesting supernatural thoughts and by predisposing it for divine favours.

We have not ended our enumeration of the helps prepared by our Lord for enabling us to attain more securely the end which He proposes to Himself. As long as we are not confirmed in grace by the beatific vision we are liable to fall, and our loving Lord wills to provide for these falls. Adam had been created in original justice and established in union with God; we are sinners prone to evil, our falls are frequent. Is there then no hope of pardon? Is our loss irreparable? We can die a spiritual death, can we not rise again? Is our eternal life at the mercy of one weak moment? Alas, if it were so! and it might have been! But God would not be so severe with His frail creature. He bids His children forgive one another seventy times seven times, and then He Himself forgives them times without number, never allowing today's pardon to be affected by the foreseen faults of tomorrow. The psalmist points to this work of infinite mercy when he says: "With the Lord shall the steps of a man be directed, and he shall like well his ways. When he shall fall, he shall not be bruised, for the Lord putteth His hand under him."²⁷

The Sacrament of Penance is an exceptional kind of tribunal. Far from condemning the culprit who acknowledges his guilt, it acquits him. If the accusation is sincere and contrite, the sentence is always favourable; and by a prodigy of divine Omnipotence innocence is restored, and the sinner is justified, provided he resolves to correct his faults and break with the occasions of sin. The virtue of the sentence is such that the soul regains the holiness of its Baptism and the merits that it may have acquired before its sin, it may also by reason of the fervour of its sorrow and repentant love leave the tribunal not only discharged from all guilt, but moreover free from all penalty. We may truly say that our Lord, in His anxiety for the progress of His loved ones, has broken down all barriers, and has put within our reach every means of cleansing and adorning ourselves and of removing from our path all hindrances to our perfect union with Himself.

In order to enjoy this gracious and unreserved pardon we have only to make up our minds to satisfy the claims of our Baptism, to reject what it condemns and to resolve to live by the laws of our regeneration. Then the work of sanctification takes up its course with renewed forces. But we must own that sometimes our Lord is thought to ask too much; what He so lovingly requires in the Sacrament of Penance is considered too severe, or is partially misunderstood; hence the soul that only half fulfils the conditions lessens within itself the strengthening effect of the Sacrament.

We must also beware of making the whole Sacrament of Penance to consist in a paltry and minute examination of conscience. Scrupulous people, under the empire of servile fear, without sorrow, without firm purpose of amendment, without trust in the sentence pronounced, with a childish fear of forgetting the most trivial circumstances and smallest details, go to receive absolution as a judicial discharge. They go to God, not as a prodigal son to his father, but as a debtor to his exacting creditor, if not as a trembling victim to the executioner. And yet the first words that our Lord taught us to say in our prayer are, "Our Father." Others overlook the divine element in the Sacrament, and occupy themselves too much with the human element, thinking more of the advice which their confessor may give them than of the Sacrament they are receiving. To benefit fully by the grace of the Sacrament it is necessary to enter into God's views and the ends for which the sacred tribunal was instituted.

Finally, in His ardent desire to receive us at once into His arms when we leave this world, God has instituted the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, which is the soul's last means of purification. The Christian may sometimes have committed faults through his senses, whereas he ought to have resolutely broken with the life of the senses. God wills now that all should be perfectly pure, that harmony and beauty should everywhere be restored. For this purpose He gives us the anointing with Holy Oil, the effects of which is to restore, and even to adorn man's whole being, and efface the last traces of sin.

Thus does the divine liberality appear in the world of the Sacraments, where everything is prepared beforehand for man's perfect sanctification. We purposely omit speaking of other less powerful means of grace. What we have said suffices to show that God has arranged all things with a view to man's sanctification; the Sacraments are the most certain, authentic and easy means for bringing it about; God's providence works by them, and His desires call for the perfection of our life.

In beholding this widespread love on the part of God, these ingenious efforts of His inconceivable tenderness, we are reminded of those words of the Prophet Isaias, "And now, O ye inhabitants of Jerusalem and ye men of Juda, judge between me and my vineyard. What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard that I have not done to it?"²⁸ On the great day of supreme revelations, when God Himself will place before our eyes this summary of means so tender, so strong, so secure, we shall have no difficulty in understanding the severe reprisals of His justice and of His disregarded love.

Rememoramini pristinos dies, in quibus illuminati (Heb., x, 32). ↩
Noli negligere gratiam quæ in te est, quæ data est tibi per prophetiam, cum impositione manuum presbyterii (1 Tim., iv, 14). ↩
Ipse enim Spiritus testimonium reddit spiritui nostro sumus filii Dei (Rom., viii, 16). ↩
Propter inhabitantem Spiritum ejus in nobis (Rom., viii, 11). ↩
Surin, Traité de l'Amour de Dieu (I, 1, cap., ii). ↩
Qui credit in Filium Dei habet testimonium Dei in se (1 Joann., v, 10). ↩
Abba, Pater (Rom., viii, 15). ↩
Sine me nihil potestis facere (Joann., xv, 5). ↩
Misereor super turbam; quia ecce jam triduo sustinent me, nec habent quod manducent; et si dimisero eos jejunos in domum suam, deficient in via; quidam enim ex eis de longe venerunt (Mar., viii, 2, 3). ↩
Si quis est parvulus veniat ad me; et insipientibus locuta est: Venite, comedite panem meum, et bibite vinum quod miscui vobis (Prov., ix, 4-5). ↩
Ego sum panis vivus, qui de cœlo descendi. Si quis manducaverit ex hoc pane, vivet in æternum (Joann., vi, 51, 52). ↩
In fortitudine cibi illius (3 Reg., xix, 8). ↩
Sicut misit me vivens Pater, et ego vivo propter Patrem: et qui manducat me, et ipse vivet propter me (Joann., vi, 58). ↩
Qui manducat meam carnem et bibit meum sanguinem, in me manet, et ego in illo (Joann., vi, 57). ↩
Amen, Amen dico vobis: nisi manducaveritis carnem Filii hominis, et biberitis ejus sanguinem, non habebitis vitam in vobis (Joann., vi, 54). ↩
Caritas Dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris per Spiritum sanctum, qui datus est nobis (Rom. v, 5). ↩
In mensuram ætatis pelitudinis Christi (Eph., iv, 13). ↩
Exsultabimus et lætabimur in te, memores uberum tuorum super vinum (Cant. I, 3). ↩
Desiderio desideravi hoc pascha manducare vobiscum, antequam patiar (Luc., xxii, 15). ↩
Hoc facite in meam commemorationem (Luc., xxii, 19). ↩
Ideo inter vos multi infirmi et imbecilles, et dormiunt multi. Quod si nosmetipsos dijudicaremus, non utique judicaremur (1 Cor., xi, 30, 31). ↩
Probet autem seipsum homo: et sic de pane illo edat et de calice bibat (1 Cor, xi, 28). ↩
Sponsabo te mihi in fide: et scies quia ego Dominus (Osee ii, 20). ↩
Hier., Eccl., iii, n. 13. ↩
Qui manducat meam carnem, et bibit meum sanguinem, in me manet, et ego in illo (Joann., vi, 57). ↩
Amen, amen, dico vobis, nisi manducaveritis carnem Filii hominis et biberitis ejus sanguinem, non habebitis vitam in vobis (Joann., vi, 54). ↩
Apud Dominum gressus hominis dirigentur, et viam ejus volet. Cum ceciderit, non collidetur, quia Dominus supponit manum suam (Ps. xxxvi, 23-24). ↩
Nunc ergo, habitatores Jerusalem et viri Juda, judicate inter me et vineam meam. Quid est quod debui ultra facere vineæ meæ, et non feci ei? (Isa., v, 3-4). ↩

Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter V: God, by means of the Sacraments, makes His Designs still more evident

Footnotes