Ninth Day
" Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy."t Who is He Who can give such a command? He Himself has revealed His name, the name proper to Him, which He alone may own. " God said to Moses : I am Who am ;" the One Who lives, the Principle of all beings. " In Him we live, and move, and have our being. "J
"Be ye holy, because I am holy," is, it seems to me, the wish expressed on the day of the creation by the words of God : " Let us make man to Our image and likeness. "1 The Creator's idea has always been to associate and to identify His creature with Himself.
St. Peter writes that we are to be " made partakers of the divine nature. "|| St. Paul recommends us to " hold the beginning of His substance firm unto the end ";% and the Apostle of love declares : c< We are now the sons of God ; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know, that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him : because we shall see Him as He is. And everyone that hath this hope in him sanctifieth himself, as He also is holy."2
I Acts xvii. 28. § Gen. i. 26.
II St. Peter ii. I, 4. fl Heb. iii. 14.
To be holy, even as God is holy, is the measure for the children of His love. Has not the Master said : " Be ye therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect "? God said to Abraham : " Walk before Me and be perfect."3 This, then, is the means by which to attain the perfection that our heavenly Father requires of us. St. Paul, after having penetrated the divine counsels, reveals this to us clearly in the words : " God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity, Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children. "f
I seek light again from the same saint in order to walk unerringly on this magnificent way of the presence of God, in which the soul travels "alone with the One," led by the help of His u right hand," J " overshadowed with His shoulders, trusting under His wings, . . . not afraid of the terror of the night, of the arrow that flieth in the day, of the business that walketh about in the dark : of invasion, or of the noon-day devil."4
" Put off, according to former conversation, the old man . . . and be renewed according to the spirit of your mind : and put on the new man, who according to God, is created in justice, and holiness of truth." ||
The path is traced for us. We have but to deny ourselves, to die to self, to lose sight of self. Is not that the Master's meaning when He says: "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me " ?% j Ps. xix. 7 § lbid.% xc. 4, 5, 6.
" If you live according to the flesh," continues the Apostle, " you shall die. But if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live."* This is the death that God demands, of which St. Paul says : " Death is swallowed up in victory."")* " O death, I will be thy death !" says the Lord j — that is to say : " Soul, My adopted daughter, look on Me, and thou wilt lose sight of self ; flow wholly into Me. Come, die in Me, that I may live in thee !"
Footnotes
Chapter 9 of 16