Chapter III. The different states of the life of Jesus Christ

In the mortal life of the Incarnate Word we remark six states, which ought to form the ordinary subject of our meditations.

The first is His abode for nine months in the womb of the Blessed Virgin.

The second, His infancy to the age of twelve years.

The third, from the age of twelve years to thirty, which was a hidden life.

The fourth, from the age of thirty to His Passion, which was a life of zeal, of labours, and of persecution.

The fifth, from the Last Supper to the Cross, which was a purely suffering life.

The sixth, the time He hung upon the Cross, which was a languishing and dying life.

To these states may be added that of His glorious life, and that of His abode in the most Holy Sacrament

Article I

Of the infancy ofJeaua Christ, Few persons have a devotion to the holy Infancy of our Lord. They are touched in some little degree by the pains and ignominy of His Passion, but they scarcely ever think of the other mysteries of His life : this is from want of a true and living faith.

The Infancy of Jesus Christ is a state infinitely adorable and amiable, demanding the close application of our minds to honour and imitate it.

We may consider therein the virtues He exercised : His humility in supporting the abjection of such a state. His patience in suffering persecutions and exile. His poverty, His contempt of the world. We may, indeed, humble ourselves for the love of Him, love poverty, despise the world, endure contradictions ; but we cannot become children like Him, except it be spiritually, by expressing in ourselves the peculiar qualities of childhood, — purity, innocence, simplicity, meekness, docility, obedience.

The love of purity is the first virtue of which He gave us the example at His coming into the world, leaving the pure womb of His Blessed Mother, without injury to her virginity, as He had been conceived in like manner : nourished with her virginal milk, being Himself alone a virgin by extraction, making it manifest that the first and the proximate disposition for His incarnation was purity ; for thirty years working no other miracle by His sacred Humanity than that of being bom of a virgin Mother, making Himself like to other children in all beside.

Innocence is of all things the most essential, and that which most constrains God to love us. Nothing brings us nearer to God. He gave no other commandment to Adam than to preserve the innocence in which he had been created. On this one thing alone hung the salvation of men.

Innocence and purity form the grand disposition for receiving the graces of God.

Article II

Of the hidden life of Jesus Christ It is impossible to conceive how our Lord loves the hidden life. He hides Himself in all His states.

He is hidden in the bosom of His Father, in the womb of His Mother, in His birth, in His childhood, in His exile into Egypt, in His abode at Nazareth, in the course of His ordinary life, in the ignominy of His death, in the world after His resurrection, in heaven after His ascension, in the Holy Eucharist, which may be called the great mystery of the hidden life. When we love Jesus Christ, we love to abide with Him. « Your life is hid with Christ in God."

Our Lord gave thirty years to the contemplative life, and three or four only to that which is called mixed, because it is composed of action and contemplation. Two reasons for this conduct may be alleged.

1. He did not wish to teach before the time prescribed by the law.

2. He wished by His example to instruct the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, who alone were more important in His eyes than aU other creatures.

Article III

Ofihe glorious life of Jesus Christ.

The glorious life of our Lord is divided into three parts.

The firsts from the Resurrection to the Ascension.

The second, from the Ascension to the day of Judgment.

The third, from the general Judgment through all eternity.

In this state of glory we must consider Jesus Christ as the prince of liberty.

During this life we suffer three sorts of slavery on the part of creatures.

The first is that of the dominion which creatures exercise over our faculties, over the imagination and the appetite, over the understanding and the will, making impressions on them which we cannot prevent. If a noise is made, it distracts my mind from its attention. The remembrance of something past disturbs me ; the thought of some friture evil causes me alarm ; all objects affect me in spite of myself, and set my passions aU at play like puppets. The devil even has the power of exciting the humours and irritating the temper of unmortified persons, and of those who have not as yet attained to perfect purity. .

The second is that of our dependence on creatures for daily sustenance : as on bread and other food to nourish us, on sun and light to enable us to see, on air to enable us to breathe.

The third is that of the power which creatures possess of making us suffer. Cold, heat, wind, rain, and a thousand other things, incommode and trouble us.

Our Lord never suffered the first kind of subjection to creatures, because it is a mark of imperfection. Creatures made only such impression on His soul as He permitted them to make. Noise did not distract Him. None of the objects that were in His imagination and His mind moved Him more than He chose. Insults did not affect Him. Nothing prevented Him from doing whatever He pleased.

As the second subjection does not involve any thing of moral imperfection, our Lord was pleased to undergo it for love of us : thus He submitted to eat and drink.

As for the third, He was exempt from it in part, creatures having made Him suffer only as the instruments of the malice of men. Thus it was that the scourges lacerated His body, that the thorns pierced His head, that the nails fastened Him to the Cross. But in His glorious state He entirely freed Himself from these two servitudes. After His Kesurrection He no longer needed the sun to give Him light, or food to nourish Him. He was impassible, and beyond the reach of all creatures.

We ought to aspire after this blessed state of the Prince of holy liberty, endeavouring to free ourselves as much as possible from the slavery of creatures, so that they may no longer excite in us irregular movements, nor disturb any longer the peace of our soul. But if we must depend upon them for daily sustenance, at least let us not increase this dependence by our self-indulgence and sensuality, but rather diminish it by mortification and holy poverty.

If we are obliged to suffer the pain and molestation which creatures cause us, let us endure them with joy, in a spirit of penance and for the love of God, who for our sakes has borne so much greater ; but let us rise as m2 much as we can above our sufferings^ and occupy ourselves with them only as little as possible.

§in.

Our Lord during His mortal life was not subject to the illusions of the senses, which often deceive us in the case of a number of objects : the sun, for example, which seems to us much smaller than it is.

Jesus Christ beheld the sun and all creatures in their just proportions.

Now that He is in glory He beholds even with His bodily eyes all that passes in heaven, on the earth, throughout the whole universe, whether He sees it by a single species which He is able to create, or without species, as Suarez, that doctor of the Church, supposes.

Oh, if we beheld the things of this life such as they really are, mean, transient, delusive ! But we see them under a false appearance, as when the clouds appear to us to touch the sky, in which case reason corrects the error of the senses. But in respect to the moral judgment we pass upon things, as we have but very little supernatural light to correct the error of our senses and our reason, we let ourselves be easily deceived on every occasion.

The glorious Body of Jesus Christ possesses as extensive and as subtle a power of hearing as of sight. As He sees every thing, so does He hear every thing, not only with the mind, but also with the bodily ears ; He hears our vocal prayers. He hears our jestings, our murmurs, our slanders, all the bad or idle words we are constantly saying. Ah, how careful in speaking ought this consideration to make us ! with what reserve, with what modesty, ought we to regulate all our movements, weigh all our words, before our Lord ! what reverence ought we to pay to the Presence of that Adorable Hur manit J before whose eyes we live^ and whose observation we cannot escape 1 The brilliancy and the beauty of the glorified body surpasses not only every thing we see, but also every thing we can imagine of beauty and splendour. Were this body placed in the vicinity of the sun, it would so eclipse the lustre of that bright orb, that it would give no more light than a candle at noon-day.

This body is transparent ; and it is a beautiful sight, says St. Anselm, to behold the marvellous symmetry of all its parts, even the most interior. Its eyes have no need of any other light than their own to see every variety of object. It sheds light and withholds it as it pleases. If the least among glorious bodies has so much brilliancy and so much beauty, what must we think of the Body of Jesus Christ, which has infinitely more than all glorious bodies united ? St. Theresa, having beheld only for a moment one of the hands of the King of glory, was so enraptured at the sight, that ever after she could see nothing beautiful on earth, nor love any thing therein. Could we but behold the Son of God in the splendour and majesty of His glorious state, we should feel only contempt and horror for all perishable grandeur and beauty.

Article IV

Of the state of Jesus Christ cut the last Jvdgment, The Father hath given all judgment to the Son.

The exercise of the justice of God belongs to the Man-God, because He has paid an infinite satisfaction to the justice of God. This sovereign justice has communicated to Him the right of judging men and angels.

The Apostles, and those among religious who have excelled in the Tirtae of poverty and in the perfection of their state, will be the assessors of this soyereign judge.

Now men are in two sorts of ignorance regarding our Lord. One which is called ignora/rUia foLctif ignorance of fact : this is the ignorance of idolators and pagans, who do not know Jesus Christ. The other, which is called ignorami/ia pramm disposUionis, ignorance of evil disposition : this is the ignorance of Jews, Turks, Ariaus, who refuse Him adoration, and will not acknowledge Him as God.

These two sorts of ignorance will cease on the great day of judgment. Angels, devils, all mankind will know the Man-God, the Son of God equal to the Father, true God as the Father. They will behold visibly the majesty of God in the countenance of a man, and their eyes will be dazzled by it. They will behold uncreated justice gloriously displayed in the throne of that sacred Humanity to which God has given the sovereign power of judging the living and the dead, in the solemnity of that judgment, the destruction of the elements, and the terror of all nature.

The blessed will behold Him in a new state, in which He had never before been seen by them, terrible and appalling. The reprobate will be confounded thereat, and will be unable to endure His brightness. They will wish to hide themselves in the depths of the earth, and will call upon the mountains to cover them. And what will be the horror of the devils, whom of old His word alone drove from the bodies they possessed, and who trembled at His very Name when invoked by the faithful 1 How shall they endure the presence of His Adorable Person? the lightnings that shall flash from His eyes, the flames of His wrath that shall dart from His countenance ?

Then shall all creatures pay Him homage, and shall annihilate themselves before Him in profoundest reverence. His very enemies shall be compelled to adore Him. " Every knee shall bend before Me, and every tongue confess that I am God."

What will the Jews say then who put Him to death 1 the tyrants who persecuted His Name, that Adorable Name by which alone we are to be saved 1 the apostates who deserted His faith ? the heretics who assaulted it 1 the atheists who made a mock of His mysteries and His religion] the impious who outraged Him? the bad Catholics who dishonoured Him ?

After being thus adored, or rather in the very act of being thus adored, Jesus Christ will "bring to nought all principality and power and virtue." Now all is governed by the powers established by God. St. Thomas and other theologians, following St. Paul, acknowledge a subordination among the angels for the government of the Church, and even among the devils in regard to the war they wage against men. But then the exercise of all these powers, human, angelical, and diabolical, wiU cease. There will be no more popes, no more emperors, kings, or princes : all will be vassals of one only sovereign Lord ; and the song with which the Church addresses Jesus Christ will be perfectly fulfilled : Tu solus somctua : Tu solas Dommus : Tu solus aUissmms, Jesu Ch/riste, cwm Scmcto SpirUu, i/n gloria Dei FcUris, Men will no longer have the power of remitting the sins of men, and of offering to God the sacrifice of a Man-God. Satan will no longer have the power of tempting souls ; he will only suffer his own torments.

At the same time will take place the general manifestation of consciences, which will be so complete that nothing will remain unknown to any one, either of his own conscience or of that of others. Then will be seen the graces which every one has received, and their value, as well as the use or abuse he has made of them ; the temptations he has had, their strength and duration, together with the manner in which he sustained them ; the sins he committed, their gravity, their circumstances and number, all his actions, thoughts, affections, desires, even to the slightest movements of the heart. Now we are masters of the secret of our own heart, we can keep it concealed, and no one can know it, unless we choose to divulge it ; but then nothing will be hidden any longer. The deepest folds of the heart will be laid open before Him who is the light of the world.

All will be ended by the sentence which the sovereign Judge will openly pronounce by the mouth of His sacred Humanity. An irrevocable sentence, and one which will make the separation between the elect and the reprobate. A sentence of life everlasting to the former, and of death to the latter.

After this sentence, all creatures taking the part of God will arm themselves to execute His vengeance ; and all His designs being accomplished, the course of ages will be finished ; time will be swallowed up in the bosom of eternity. The temporal reign of Jesus Christ will give place to His eternal kingdom ; and all things being absolutely submitted to His power. He will give up His kingdom to God His Father, and become Himself " subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all."

PRiiiCiPLE VI. CHAP. nr. 255