Thirteenth Day

" Inst aur are omnia in Christo." * Again it is St. Paul who teaches me. He, who has just been immersed in the divine counsels, tells me that " God hath purposed ... to re-establish all things in Christ."

The Apostle comes to my aid again, to help me to fully realize this divine plan, and gives me a rule of life : tt Walk in Jesus Christ the Lord, rooted and built up in Him, and confirmed in the faith, as also you have learned, abounding in Him in thanksgiving." f m

" Walk in Jesus Christ " appears to me to mean to go out from self, to lose sight of, to forsake self, that we may enter more deeply into Him every moment — enter so profoundly as to be c< rooted " in Him, and that we may boldly challenge all events with the defiant cry : " Who, then, shall separate us from the love of Christ ?" When the soul is so deeply fixed in Him as to be rooted in Him, the divine sap flows freely through it and destroys whatever in its life was trivial, imperfect, unspiritual : " Mortality is absorbed in life." Thus stripped of self and clothed with Jesus Christ, the spirit has nothing to fear from without or within ; all such things, far from being an impediment, only root it more firmly in its love for its Master. Throughout¹ whatever happens, for or against it, the soul is ready to " adore Him always for His own sake," being free, liberated from self and all else. It can sing with the Psalmist : u If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear. If a battle should rise up against me, in this will I be confident. . . . For He hath hidden me in His tabernacle"* — that is, in Himself.

I think this is the meaning of St. Paul's words, " be rooted in Jesus Christ."

Now, what is it to be " built up " in Him ? The prophet continues : " He hath exalted me upon a rock, and now He hath lifted up my head above my enemies."f Is not that a figure of the soul cc built up " in Jesus Christ ? He is that Rock on which it is exalted above self, the senses, and nature ; above consolations or sufferings ; above all that is not Him alone ! There, with perfect self-mastery, it controls self, rising above self and all else.

St. Paul also counsels me to be " confirmed in the faith " ; in the faith which never permits the soul to slumber, but keeps it watchful under the eye of its Master, recollected as it listens to His creative word ; in its faith in the " exceeding charity " which allows God to fill the soul u according to His fulness."

Finally, the Apostle desires me to " abound in Jesus Christ in thanksgiving," for all ought to end in this. " Father, I give Thee thanks," was the song of Christ's soul, and He wishes to hear it echoed in mine. But I think that the canticum novum which will best please and charm my God is that of a soul detached from all things, delivered from self, wherein He can reflect all that He is and He can dispose of * Ps. xxvi. 3, 5. f Ibid., 6.

it as He will. Such a soul waits to be touched by Him as though it were a lyre, and all the gifts it has received are like so many strings which vibrate to give forth, day and night, the " praise of His glory."

Footnotes

1. Eph. i. 10. + Col. ii. 6, 7. ↩