55 — THE POWER OF THE DIVINE MASTER

Presence of God. — O Jesus, I ask You not only to instruct me, but to move my soul to accept and put Your teachings into practice.

Meditation

1 — Jesus not only communicates truth to us, but helps us accept it. Every teacher has this task, but can fulfill it only from without, seeking to preserve the student’s mind from errors and to present truth in an easy and convincing way. Jesus, however, does much more: His action is far more intimate and profound; He is the only Master capable of acting directly upon the soul of His disciples, upon their mind and will. Jesus moves our soul interiorly to accept His teachings and to put them into practice.

The truths He teaches us are divine mysteries, therefore we cannot verify them by human reasoning; to accept them there is needed in our mind a new, supernatural light and strength: the light and strength of faith. Faith comes to us precisely from Jesus: He merited it for us together with grace, the other infused virtues, and the gifts; not only that, but He continually obtains it for us and produces it in us. “He is still the author of our faith... He infuses in the faithful the light of faith” (Myst. Corp.). Jesus, therefore, while revealing eternal truths to us, infuses into our souls the light of faith, to the point of producing in us, through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, a deep, mysterious knowledge that gives us insight, a sense of divine things. Likewise, Jesus acts upon our will by means of the virtue of charity, by which He inclines us to love Him, to love the heavenly Father, to put His teachings into practice. While He instructs us, Jesus kindles in us the fire of divine love, just as happened to the disciples of Emmaus who, after hearing His explanations, said: “Were not our hearts burning within us while He spoke to us?” (Lk. 24, 32).

2 — “Jesus,” writes St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, “has no need of books or doctors to instruct souls: He, the Doctor of doctors, teaches without noise of words; I have never heard Him speak, but I feel that He is in me, that He guides me and inspires me at every instant, and at the very moment when I need them, I discover bright horizons until then unknown to me” (St. 8). Jesus instructs interiorly the souls that know how to listen to Him, and He instructs them above all through His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, according to what He Himself promised the Apostles: “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and remind you of all that I told you” (Jn. 14, 26). Jesus from heaven, together with His Father, continues to send the Holy Spirit to our souls; and this divine Spirit makes us understand the profound meaning of the Savior’s doctrine and suggests to us its practical applications in the concrete cases of our daily life.

Jesus, moreover, instructs us through the Church’s magisterium, to which He entrusted the task of guarding and transmitting integrally His doctrine to all the faithful.

By accepting Jesus as our Master, we must accept with Him all His teaching: the written word of the holy Gospel, the living word of the Church, the mysterious and hidden interior word with which He instructs our souls individually, making us intuit how to conduct ourselves in life. But to profit from it, listening is not enough; we must penetrate Jesus’ word, and for this silence and interior recollection are needed; we must therefore imitate Our Lady, “who kept and pondered in her heart” (Lk. 2, 19) all that she saw and heard of her divine Son.

Colloquy

O Jesus, how much I need You to exercise upon me all Your power as divine Master! I deeply love Your teaching, Your word, and yet too many times this divine word does not produce in me the desired fruit. Why, Lord? Why is it that, after listening to You in prayer and resolving to put into practice what You have deigned to let me understand, at the opportune moment I forget it and let myself be dragged by my usual weaknesses? Perhaps, Lord, it is precisely because I do not know how to guard and deepen Your word in interior recollection, but let it be choked by so many distractions and useless preoccupations, as a negligent farmer lets good seed be choked among wild weeds. Oh, if in difficult cases, when I must put Your teachings into practice, I knew how to return to You, divine Master, always present and operative in me with Your grace, if I knew how to place myself even for one instant at Your feet and invoke Your help, what great advantage I would draw from it! For I know it: You are always ready to receive me, to infuse in me greater spirit of faith so that I may consider everything in Your light and esteem things and circumstances according to their eternal value; You are always ready to kindle in my heart greater fire of charity and thus gently urge me into the practice of the good You teach me.

Men labor so much to seek wise teachers, they face expenses, journeys, sacrifices to consult them even for brief moments; and I, who always have with me, always within my reach, the divine Master, shall I not make use of Him? O Jesus, infinite wisdom and prudence, who do not disdain to bend down to me to be my Guide and my Master, grant that I may not be so foolish as to forget You! May I always listen to Your word, always seek Your light and Your strength.