Chapter IV. On imitating our Lord in His chastity

" Oh, how beautiful is the chaste generation with glory !"

These words apply admirably to our Lord. It is in the bosom of God the Father, where He was begotten without mother, and in the bosom of the Blessed Virgin, where He was conceived without father, that we seek for the origin as well as the model of perfect chastity, on which we will make four points of meditation.

First point. Jesus Christ is infinitely pure in His eternal generation, because He proceeds from the Father by way of understanding and knowledge, as the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son by way of will and love. Now, the understanding is of all the faculties the purest in its operation ; and nothing is more completely separated from matter than the word it produces. Hence it follows, that as the Holy Spirit, in virtue of procession, is the principle of grace and charity, so the Son, in virtue of generation, is the principle and the source of all purity. This incomprehensible purity of the Incarnate Word is, and will eternally be, the object of the adoration of Angels and Saints.

Second point. Jesus Christ is also infinitely pure in His temporal generation, because of the personal union of the Word with our nature, to which He so communicates the formal effect of His uncreated sanctity, that the Humanity is holy with the holiness of God Himself. The other divine perfections are not communicated to it in the same manner. Omnipotence does not constitute the Humanity formally almighty, nor immensity immense ; but holiness does constitute it formally holy ; so that in virtue of the hypostatic union, the man in Jesus Christ is infinitely holy, infinitely pure, infinitely removed from all sin. 4 Third point. Moreover, in this same temporal generation He derives another kind of purity from the manner in which He is conceived, His conception being wrought by the Holy Spirit in a virgin. Unheard-of miracle ! which also is a new source of purity, — a purity which, though, strictly speaking, it be not infinite like the former, nevertheless surpasses all imagination.

Thus the sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ is pure in every possible way ; and His mind, His body. His blood, His senses, are not only pure, but so many sources of purity, above all in the souls He chooses to be His spouses, and in which He is pleased to be spiritually conceived.

Fourth point. This mystical generation of Jesus Christ in souls must imitate that which the Holy Spirit wrought in Mary. An immaculate purity disposed the Blessed Virgin to co-operate with the Holy Spirit in the incarnation of the Son of God ; and we may say, in a manner, that it was by her incomparable purity she conceived Him in her chaste womb. And thus it is, in its measure, that the soul which has given itself to our Lord, and has taken Him for her spouse, must be disposed to conceive Him spiritually ; and having formed Him in her heart, must have Him always present as the centre of all her thoughts and all her affections, " running after the odour of His ointments."

The different kinds of purification practised under the old law were figures of the pure generation of the Son of God in the bosom of the Blessed Virgin. They were the dispositions thereto. It was necessary that the people of whom the Man-God was to be born should be purified in so many ways, and sanctified by so great a number of h^ ceremonies.

§ ni. The epithalamium of the sacred marriage of Mary with the Holy Spirit, and the incarnation of the Word, which was to be the fruit thereof, is the Canticle of Canticles, wherein the spouse, even according to the literal sense, is, first, the sacred Humanity of our Lord; secondly, the Blessed Virgin ; thirdly, holy Church ; fourthly, each holy soul in particular, as well those that have preserved their virginity as those that having lost it, and having washed themselves in the sacred bath of penance, have afterwards reached the highest degree of chastity.

We ought to celebrate continually the nuptials of the divine union of our souls with Jesus Christ. Confession disposes us thereto by the grace of purity which it imparts to us, the Mass is the wedding-feast, and Holy Communion its consummation.

§v.

The guards of the heavenly spouse march under three banners, in three several troops.

The first is that of the Martyrs, who represent by their death that of Jesus Christ, God never failing to grant them charity in virtue of the death they suffer for Him. Whence it comes that the Church, as is observed by St. Thomas, Suarez, and nearly all theologians, with the exception of a few modems, has never in their canonisation inquired whether they were in a state of grace or not before their martyrdom, being content to establish that they died for the faith, or in defence of some other virtue. Death sets them free, not only from the guilt, but also from all penalty due to their sins, and for them there is no purgatory. In heaven they have a special crown, which is called the aif/reoie, the mark of their love for Jesus Christ.

The second is that of the Doctors, who in their oflSce represent that of Incarnate Wisdom : for the Son of God, who is the Wisdom of the Father, having made Himself man, it is to Him that it belongs to teach mankind j and this He did whilst He was on earth, and this He continues still to do by the ministry of the doctors, filling them with the lights of divine wisdom and science, that they may make Him known to the world. They are, then, especially consecrated to the mystery of the Incarnation. All their study and all their labours ought to tend to making Jesus Christ known and loved. To this end He set them in His Church, and in heaven He gives them an aureole which marks the share they have had in His office of teacher, and the resemblance they bear to Him in this regard.

Chastity is closely allied to wisdom. They appeared one day both together to St. Gregory of Nazianzum, and chastity seemed to take him by the hand in token of espousing him. Accordingly, as St. Thomas has remarked, he is the only one of the holy Fathers who has not broached material heresy, that is to say, who has not entertained some erroneous opinion since condemned as heretical.

The doctors most remarkable for their chastity have also been the most enlightened; witness St. John the Evangelist, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, the blessed Albert the Great, Cardinal Bellarmine.

The third troop is that of the Virgins, who by their state honour that of the Humanity of Jesus Christ, sanctified by the unction of the Divinity which is united to it in the Person of the Word. The aureole by which they are distinguished in heaven marks their union with the divine spouse, and the intimate familiarity they enjoy with Him. These are they that " follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth."