XI — CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHRISTIAN SOUL

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Presence of God. — Grant, O Lord, that my soul may be deeply rooted in charity and humility.

Meditation

1 — The Epistle read in today’s Mass is one of the most beautiful passages in St. Paul’s letters. In it we find the Apostle’s famous prayer for the Ephesians, which in three strokes summarizes the whole substance of interior life.

“The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ... grant you ... to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.” The inner man is the human spirit regenerated by grace; it is the spiritual man who has renounced material things and pleasures of sense. This man is in each of us and must be strong in order to sustain the struggle against the animal man who, as long as we are on this earth, still lives in us and tries to drag us downward. Rightly the Apostle invokes this strength from the Holy Spirit, because the strength of our virtue is not enough unless it is reinforced by that which the Holy Spirit infuses through his gifts.

“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” Christ, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, already dwells in the soul in grace; yet his presence can become ever deeper. And the deeper it becomes, the more the soul is penetrated by divine charity, so as to be truly “rooted and grounded” in love. If we wish to grow in love, we must remain in contact with the source of love, with God living in our soul.

“That you may be able to comprehend ... this charity of Christ, which surpasses all knowledge.” To understand, as far as our limits allow, the mystery of God’s love is the summit of spiritual life. Christianity is all love: we are Christians in proportion as we live in love, in proportion as we grasp God’s love. Yet this mystery often leaves us somewhat unbelieving, somewhat skeptical. Oh, if we could see — as the blessed see — that God is charity and wants nothing but charity; that the way to Him is the way of love; that suffering, mortification, humility are only means for reaching perfect love, for corresponding to God’s love! Then we would truly be “filled unto all the fullness of God.”

2 — In the Epistle St. Paul exhorted us to be rooted in love; in the Gospel Jesus exhorts us to be rooted in love and humility.

Despite the Pharisees’ tacit disapproval, fruit of the narrowness of their minds and hearts, Jesus heals a poor dropsical man on the Sabbath, and thus teaches us once more the great importance of love of neighbor. We would vainly think ourselves rooted in love of God if we were not also rooted in love of neighbor. How can one think that an act of fraternal charity is opposed to the law of sanctifying the feast day? These are the aberrations reached when one pretends to love God while attending only to one’s own interests, with no thought for others’ needs. This is not Christianity but pharisaism, destroyer of charity.

To be rooted in love, one must also be rooted in humility, because only the humble can truly love God and neighbor. Thus the Gospel continues with a practical lesson in humility, condemning the hunt for first places. We must understand this not only for material places, but also for moral ones, that is, those places our pride claims to occupy in others’ esteem and consideration. It is humiliating to note how our ego always tries to make us take a place higher than befits us, and to our shame, “for everyone that exalts himself shall be humbled.”

“Let us go to place ourselves in the last place,” says St. Bernard. “There is no harm in humbling ourselves and believing ourselves lower than we really are. But it is a terrible and very great harm to want to raise ourselves, even by a single inch, above what we are, and to prefer ourselves even to one alone. As in passing under a door too low, it does no harm to stoop too much, but it greatly harms to raise oneself one finger above the lintel’s height, for one strikes and wounds the head; so we must not fear humbling ourselves too much, but must fear and abhor the smallest movement of presumption.” Let us therefore ask the Lord, as the saints did, to send us a humiliation every time our pride tries to lift us above others. This will be the surest means to root us in humility.

Rooted in humility, we shall also be rooted in charity, and thus possess the two fundamental characteristics of the Christian soul.

Colloquy

“Increase, O Lord, my faith in your love, so that I may say to You with complete truth: ‘I have known the love You have for me, and I have believed in it.’ It seems to me that this is the greatest act of our faith, the most beautiful way of rendering love for love to You, the hidden secret St. Paul speaks of, which my soul is eager to penetrate and, as it penetrates it, thrills with joy. O Lord, make me capable of believing in your excessive love for me. Then I shall no longer stop at consolations or feelings; little will it matter to me whether I feel You or not, whether I receive joy from You or sorrow: I shall believe in your love, and that is enough.

“Grant, O God, that my soul may penetrate into your depth and there remain rooted and grounded in love.

“O Lord, when I consider within myself your immensity, your fidelity, your proofs of love, your benefits, and then look at myself and see my offenses against You, I can do nothing but turn toward my own soul with a deep sense of contempt; and yet this contempt is not enough to put me as low as I would wish. O Lord, immerse me in humility! It seems to me that to be immersed in humility is to be immersed in You, since living in You who are Truth, it is impossible not to know one’s own nothingness. The humble soul is the vessel needed, the amphora capable of receiving your grace, and only into it do You wish to pour it. Grant therefore, O Lord, that I may be humble, and make me understand that the humble soul will never put You high enough, nor itself low enough” (cf. E.T. I, 6; II, 8; I, 9).