Fourteenth Day
a I count all things to be but loss, for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord : for Whom I have suffered the loss of all things . . . that I may gain Christ : and may be found in Him not having my justice, which is of the law, but that . . . which is of God, justice in faith : that I may know Him . . . the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death. ... I follow after, if I may by any means apprehend wherein I am also apprehended by Christ Jesus. . . . One thing I do : forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching forth myself to those that are before, I press towards the mark, to the prize of the supernal vocation of God in Christ Jesus."1
The Apostle has often revealed the grandeur of this vocation : " God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity."")* "We being predestinated according to the purpose of Him Who worketh all things according to the counsel of His will : that we may be unto the praise of His glory. "J
How are we to respond to the dignity of our vocation? This is the secret : " Mihi vivere Chris tus est.% Vivo enim^ jam non ego, vivit vero
Eph. 11,12. § Phil. i. 21.
in me Christus. . . .,,# We must be transformed into Jesus Christ, and study this divine model, so thoroughly identifying ourselves with Him that we can incessantly represent Him before the eyes of His Father.
What were His first words on entering the world ? " Behold, I come to do Thy will, O God/'f
The first oblation of the divine Master was a real one ; His life was but its consequence. He delighted in saying : " My meat is to do the will or Him that sent Me. "J This should be the meat of the bride, and at the same time, the sword that immolates her.
" Father, all things are possible to Thee, remove this chalice from Me, but not what I will, but what Thou wilt."2 Then, serenely peaceful, she goes to meet all sacrifices with her Master, rejoicing at "having been known" by the Father, since He crucifies her with His Son. By never leaving Him, by keeping in close contact with Him, the secret virtue will go forth from her which delivers and saves souls. Detached, freed from self and all things, she will follow her Master to the mountain, to join with His soul in "the prayer of God."|| Then, through the divine Adorer, she will "offer the sacrifice of praise always to God — that is to say, the fruit of her lips confessing to His Name." IF And she will " speak of the might of His terrible acts and will declare His greatness."3
In the hour of humiliation, of oppression, she will remember the short sentence : " Jesus autem4 tacebat"* and she, too, will be silent, "keeping all her strength for the Lord " — the strength we draw from silence.
When she is abandoned, forsaken, in anguish, such as drew forth from Christ the loud cry : " Why hast Thou forsaken Me?"f she will remember the prayer: "That they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves." J And, drinking to the very dregs the chalice given by the Father, § she will find a heavenly sweetness in its bitterness.
Then, after having repeated again and again : " I thirst " — thirst to possess Thee in glory — she will die, exclaiming: "It is consummated || . . . into Thy hands I commend my spirit. "1" Then the Father will come to take her into His heritage, where " in Thy light we shall see light/'** " Know ye also that the Lord hath made His holy One wonderful," ff sang David. Yes, in the case of such a soul, God's holy One is glorified indeed, for He has destroyed all else to clothe it with Himself, and it has conformed its life to the words of the Precursor : "He must increase, but I must decrease. "J J
Footnotes
Chapter 14 of 16