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Chapter 16. The Beatitudes

Aad seeing tha multitudes, He went up into a mountain; and wbea He waa eat down, His disciples came to Him. And opening His mouth He taught them. S. MATT. v. 1, 2.

It was then that Jesus spoke the Sermon on the Mount, which has changed the desert of this world into the garden of the Lord. And this gives us the only othei meditations we have to make on the beautiful and divine work of our sanctification: that is to say, on the Eight Beatitudes. We have already seen how the f ruita of the Holy Ghost grow upon the soul as upon a tree planted in the waters of Baptism. We have seen that they are the acts, internal and external, of the love of God and our neighbor, of great fertility, and variety, and facility, and sweetness. They constitute the active perfection of the soul; for " charity is the bond of perfection." All other graces come and go with charity, and where charity is the soul has the full outline of its original. The life of Jesus is the pattern of all perfection. He was all day long pouring out the words and doing the works of charity. The ardor of the Sacred Heart had no rest in doing good. It was His thought from morning to night. All the day long He was healing, absolving, saving the souls of men. But the perfection of the Son of God was not in His active works alone. He was made perfect through suffering. Obedience is perfected in patience. Jesus revealed the perfection of the Sacred Heart always and everywhere, but nowhere, and at no time, as in the three hours' agony on the Cross. There His deified will wa1;rr?ified — there His heart and mind were conformed tc God by the last conformity of self -oblation and of si Bering unto death. Therefore the Church venerates, above all, her martyred children. They are made perfect in their passion, and ascend at once to the kingdom of their crucified Lord.

We have therefore distinguished perfection, not into two kinds, but into two degrees, the active and the passive. The active perfection is the perfection of tho fruits of the Holy Ghoit; the passive is the perfection of the Beatitudes.

Now the Beatitudes are acts of a more excellent and neroic degree; and in the doing of them the soul is not only preparing itself for its eternal bliss, but it already has a foretaste of its future beatitude.* Therefore such acts are called Beatitudes because they beatify the soul even here in this life of warfare. They constitute also the highest perfections of the saints — the closest conformity to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Beatitudes are eight IK number. They describe

" Beatitudines istap, sunt aetus virtu turn et at videtur qaibnsdam •ant actus excellentium praesertim heroicarum virtutum, cam beati tudo sit operatic opti na." Dion Garth. Elwn. Theol. prop, elf i.

eight kinds of perfection by which the soul tastes of its t eternal sweetness. They are poverty of spirit, meekness, holy sorrow, hunger and thirst for God, mercifulness, cleanness of heart, peacemaking among men, patience under persecution. We have here the image of Jesus Christ from Bethlehem to Calvary. Perfection begins in the stable, and is finished upon the Cross; and all along the way of perfection the children of thw Beatitudes are known, not only for their active charity, which is the sap and strength of the twelve fruits of the Spirit, but by a gentle and passive charity, which unites them, I may say, visibly with God; for no man could do the things they do except God were with him. Some, indeed, teach that the Beatitudes are heroic acts of virtue; others, that every act in these eight kinds, inasmuch as it beatifies the soul in some measure, is also a Beatitude. This, no doubt, is true in itself. But these two ways of speaking run up at last into one. When we say that any man is meek or a peacemaker, we mean that meekness and the love of peace are so dominant in his character that they describe it; that is to say, he is visibly, sensibly, and characteristically meek. It is so also that we speak of the Beatitudes. They are acts of the same kind as those which we do every day, but in such a degree and ripeness as to become marks 0* notes of a character, and to bring a special sweetness into the soul. And I may say that they are the last finishing touches by which the Holy Spirit of God completes His perfect will in us — that is, our perfection. I will therefore, to wind up our subject, try to show — first, what perfection is; secondly, who are called to it: and, thirdly, what are the means of attaining it.

  1. First, as to what perfection is. It is not to be without sin, for then there would have been none perfect in this world except Jesus and His Blessed Mother, Joseph, John Baptist, the Beloved Disciple, Jeremiaa the Prophet, and any others who may have been preserved from all sin. The perfection we speak of is the state of sanctification to which such as we are may attain in this life. Now any Christian who exactly fulfills in his acts, and by the exercise of virtues, the obligations of a son of God, is called perfect. This is the meaning of our Lord's words, " Be you therefore perfect, as also your Heavenly Father is perfect." He explains this. " Love your enemes; do good to them that hate you." For God " maketh His sun to rise upon the good and bad; and raineth upon the just and the unjust."2 Our Lord here takes the equal and unalterable goodness of God as the pattern and law of our perfection. So, also, when Saint Paul says to the Corinthians, " Rejoice: bo perfect. " f Again, when Saint James says, " If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.":);

In the Sacrament of Confirmation we are made " perfect Christians;" that is, all needful grace is given to do %nd to suffer all that is needed to the active and passive perfection of a son of God and of a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

In a word, perfection consists in charity; for charity is the perfection of God, and is therefore the perfection of the soul. Charity is the bond of the soul with God, and the indwelling of God in us. Charity is the perfection of faith and hope, and will be perfect when they are passed away. Charity is also the measure of oui bliss, and bliss itself It is, therefore, perfection both in via and in patria, both here in our way to the heavenly country and hereafter in the eternal home. Charity, then, is personal perfection, as distinct from what ia called instrumental perfection — the state and means by which it may be attained. There are also many degree* of perfection; there is the perfection of children, and of youths, and of men. Saint John says, " I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you, for His name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because you have known Him Who is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one."*

This describes the three states of those who are beginning, those who are advancing, and those who have attained. Each state has its proportionate perfection. There is, lastly, the perfection of those who are being made perfect and the perfection of those who have attained perfection. There is also a distinction between a just man, and a holy man, and a perfect man. A just man fulfills the law, and gives to every man his due; a holy man is specially united with God; a perfect man is both.

Now we will keep our thoughts upon this last, as it completes the outline of all we have been saying of the work of the Holy Ghost in us.

We have been tracing out this supernatural work from its first beginning iu our regeneration, when the graces of the Holy Spirit were infused into us in our unconscious infancy. They were so given as to abide as habits or inherent powers, inclining and enabling ug * S. John iU 12, 13.

to believe, to hope, and to love. As faitli unfolds from a mere potentiality into actual belief, the intellect grows into conformity with the truth; and because the truth is the revelation of the mind of God, the intellect ib conformed to the divine intelligence. Faith believes the whole revelation of God explicitly so far as it knows it; implicitly so far as it is not known as yet. And faith gives to hope its object and its motive, and sustains it with the evidence of things not seen. As faith enlarges, hope strengthens; and as faith and hope illuminate and strengthen the soul, it loves the created and uncreated truth. Charity grows broader in extension and more ardent in intensity as faith gives more light to see the beauty and the bliss of God. Such is the first outline and principle of our union with God. But with these virtues we received sanctifying grace; that is, the indwelling and operation of the Holy Ghost, imparting to us His sanctity, as the sun gives its light and warmth to all things. As this sanctifying grace grows in the heart, the intellect and will are conformed to the intelligence and will of God; and this growing conformity prepares both for the operation of the seven gifts. Then holy tear, and piety, and fortitude control, and soften, and strengthen the will; and knowledge and counsel form the practical reason or conscience; and understanding and wisdom enlarge the head and the heart, and unite both with God. Such is the growth of our sanctification; and such a man may be called a just man, and holy, and wise. But as yet he may not have entered into the region of perfection. There may still be flawa and dentg in the heart, mists in the intelligence, twiste and crookedness in the will. There may be the rooti of many faults yet alive, habitual faults and deliberate venial sins. The complete circle of charity and of its fertility is not yet expanded. There may be no great self-denial, or generosity, or fervor. Such a man may still seek his own tilings, and not the things which are Jesus Christ's. He keeps the commandments, but not the counsels. He does many good things, bat he does not npenJ himself, nor is he willing to be spent for the elect'a bake. We say of such men that they are not largehearted; they have no ready sympathy with their neighbors. There is something upright, indeed, but wooden, aa we say, and dry in all their contacts with mankind. Such men are good men, but not perfect. They need the glad promptness of charity, the frnitfulness in good works, the inventiveness, the facility to listen, to respond, to venture, to undertake the dictates of charity. When they grow up into this region of their conversion to God, which may be called the early summer, when blossoms fall off and fruits are set, then they enter within the circle of active perfection, and multiply the fruits of the Spirit. And yet this is not all. They have not attained, nor are they already perfect.* They have to learn a harder lesson. Active works, even though they l»e with self-denial and hardship, elicit the energies of nature, which are so like the operations of the Spirit, that they are easily mistaken for them. The Pharisees drilled themselves with a human force of will and precision of conscience which looked like perfection, and yet they were whited sepulchres after all. The giving of alms, and blowing of trumpets, and prayer at the corners of the streets were in many altogether, awl in * Phil. iii. 12.

many more.. part, only human acts from human mo tives, and for human ends. They loved the praise of men, they received glory ope of another. Therefore Saint Paul, by the light of the Holy Ghost, draws out the charity of God with a divine insight and delineation: " If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burnt, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity is patient, is kind; charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."* I have repeated the whole of these divine words to bring out that they begin with patience and end with endurance. The whole delineation is a counterpart of the Beatitudes. It shows us an inward region of the passive perfection of the soul; a higher circle of the path which winds round the mountain near to its summit, at a height where clouds and storms begin to meet us, and the darkness of Calvary may not be far off. Along the early path, from the waters of Baptism, the soul is united with God in the light and the sunshine, and along the trodden path of faith, vhere the morning and the evening have their twilight; but there is no night there. This is the * 1 Cor. xiii. 1-7.

clear and conseiois union of the soul with God; the support and reward of those who are beginning, and even of those who are far advanced. But there is another world to be entered, in which spiritual trials multiply, with a growing consciousness of the unapproachable sanctity of God, and therefore of personal sinfulness; reviving temptations, old enemies, new antagonists, crosses from bad men; worse than this, crosses from good men; dryness and darkness of heart. God seems to be nowhere. The earth is empty and void; everything goes wrong; nothing prospers that is good; all seems to prosper that is evil.

Here is a realm which seems to be the home of those whom God has forgotten; where His face is never seen, nor a ray of His light ever shines. Let us now read over the Beatitudes: " Blessed are the poor in spirit;" " Blessed are they that mourn;" " Blessed are they that hunger and thirst;v " Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you for justice' sake." This is a region not so much of active charity as of passive endurance. There ia hardly light enough to work by, but we can suffer hi the dark. It is here that faith holds fast like an anchor out of sight: deep down where no eye can reach. Hope says, " Though He kill me, yet will I trust in Him;" and Charity, " Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee;'' and contrition turns into compunction, and prayer into " Father, if it be possible," once and again; the same words because no others come. This is a stage in the journey which must be passed by those that are perfect. They are learning to Buffer without and within: from the world, from enemies, from friends, from Satan, from themselves. TLej> are learning to be patient as their Divine Master; gentle to all, even the most unworthy; generous to the ungrateful; thankful under the cross; and their will in perfect submission to the will of God.

I am not describing canonized saints, but Christians such as we may- be. There are perhaps no miracles in such a life. But it is a true personal perfection, and the last conformity we shall bear, perhaps, to our Master's will

Nevertheless, in such a state there may yet be venial ems, and there are yet in the heart movements which are still turbulent against the mil, and in the will itself infirmity. But there is no deliberate affection to anything contrary to the will of God. Temptations resisted are not sins; and the indeliberate adhesion of the mind to that which is deliberately resisted is not a transgression of the law. And such souls are among the perfect. " The Lord knoweth who are His."*

  1. Next, who are they that are called to perfection '{ We are all called to be saints. We are, therefore, all called to be perfect. All that are saved must be made perfect before they can see the face of God. But all are not called to the same perfection, nor to the same degree of perfection, nor by the same way. As in the kingdom of bliss there are many mansions, so in this order of grace there are many ministrations of the Spirit oi God. One He sailed to be His own Mother; another to be her Guardian; another to be the forerunner of the Incarnate Word. Twelve were called to be Apostles; •>ne to be the foundation and head of His Church, one to lie upon His bosom, and one was a devil. As no two * 2 Tim. ii. 19.

among them were alike, so neither is their identity or equality among the members of His Body. All are culled, but not all to the same office, or grace, or reward. All have their vocation. Not one is left all the day idle. And all shall have their wages when the evening is come. In one thing they will be all alike. They will all receive of the free sovereign gift of God — eternal life. But they will not all have the same grace here nor the same glory in heaven. All shall be full of bliss, but there are orders and degrees of beatitude.

First, therefore, every one that is born of water and of the Holy Ghost is called to go onward, from faith, hope, charity, sanctifying grace, the seven gifts, the twelve fruits, to the foot of the Cross. Not all in equal measure; but all in some measure. And God alone knows in what measure to mete out His grace to each one of us. Three things are certain: first, that He gives us an exceeding abundance of grace; secondly, that we do not correspond with more than a part of the grace He pours so largely on us; and, thirdly, that we might all attain to a greater perfection than we do.

The essential perfection of the soul is the love of God and our neighbor. Who is there that has attained in this to what he might? What perfection of charity is there that we might not attain? And whose fault is it if we do not? We are not straitened in Him, but in ourselves. The Holy Ghost pervades the whole Church of God with His sanctifying grace. Therefore it has the note of sanctity. With every living member He is perpetually present, not only in the holy Sacraments, but everywhere, and always, and in every action of life. There is no perfection of charity, humility, poverty of spirit we may not attain. All of you living in th« world, in trade and business, in the cares and works of home, you may all be united with God in a close and constant union; and with your lips to the fountain may draw from Him the perfection of charity. We do not realize our vocation to be sons of God; and that, as I have already and often said, because we are not spiritual. It is a snare and illusion to hanker after states which are not our own, and circumstances which can never be ours. Here and now, where we are, we may attain to humility, and through humility charity will be made perfect. A father of the desert was one day asked in vision whether he would desire to see a soul more perfect than himself. He was carried to a poor home where he saw a mother toiling for her children. It was a humble likeness of the Holy House, and under that roof were cares, anxieties, weariness, privations, labors, self-denials, glad sub-- mission of will, tenderness of affection, pity, and service, and filial piety to Qod. These things are a discipline of perfection, which subdue the heart and keep it humble before God and man. And humility is the mind and perfection of Jesus Christ. This applies to every state in life: from kings' courts to the streets of the cities, and to the hamlets and solitary dwellings of the poor. Every state and trade, every condition of wealth or poverty, lettered or unlettered, diverse in all other things, are all alike in this: " God is charity; and he that abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in him;" and charity is perfection.

Nevertheless, there are some who are called *o perfection here and now. Our Lord called His Apostles tc be " the light of the world," and u the salt of the earth;'

THE BEATITTJDB8.

that is, to make other men perfect. If so, they were called to be perfect themselves. He called also all those whom they consecrated to be priests by that very action U> be perfect too. The priesthood was created to guard and to transmit in a living example the perfection ol their Master. Priests share His office and jurisdiction; they consecrate and distribute His Body and His Blood they judge sinners, binding and loosing in His name. They are His witnesses; they represent Him; they are to be His living likeness, that men, in seeing them, may see Him, or in hearing them may hear His voice. Therefore every saint of the Church has spoken with holy fear of the office of a priest. " They ought to have a mind purer than the rays of the sun;"3 and u a hand purer than its light." Priests are called " the holiei members of the body;"f " the saviours of the world;":) " the kinsmen of Christ;"4 " the gates of the eterna/ city, through whom all who believe in Christ enter into Christ;"[ " the documents and example of life;"! " fellow-helpers of God;"5 " the fellow-servants and companions of angels."ft

But there is no language which can express the dignity of a priest. He is u Alter Christus." Therefore, what measure is there of the perfection he ought to have obtained? Saint Alphonsus says: "Mew sanctifying grace is by no means enough for the ra-

\ S. Prosper, lib. ii. 2, De Vita Contempl Sacerd.

ft 8. Pet. Dam. De com. vita Canon cap. 467 ceiving of sacred orders; but beyond this in.erior pet lection is required, as the common consent of all the holy Fathers and Doctors with one mouth demands."8 Saint Thomas says " that priests serve Christ Himself in the Sacrament of the Altar; for which greater interior sanctity is required than the state of religion requires. f Again he says, "They who are engaged in the divine ministry acquire a royal dignity, and in virtue ought to be perfect.^ And the Church, in ordaining its priests, says that our Lord has shown by word and deed that the ministers of His Church ought to be perfect in faith and action; that is, in the twofold love of God and their neighbor.9 " They are chosen out, set apart, and sanctified for this very end, that- they make others perfect; and that not so much by word as by deed. The best preaching is the priest's life If he go before his flock in all spiritual perfection, in faith, hope, charity, sanctity, the seven gifts, the twelve fruits, the eight beatitudes, they will follow him. They will be followers of him as he is also of Christ." They will be insensibly drawn, subdued, changed, assimilated to his mind and will; and therefore to the mind and will of Jesus. Blessed is such a priest; the guardian of the Most Holy Sacrament, the friend of his Lord.

  1. Lastly, what are the means of attaining this perfection?

First, and above all, obedience to the commandments of God is necessary. Without this no man wiH ever reach to it " The law is not made for the just man,'' because he is a law to himself. He has it written on his heart. Saint Augustine says: " Love God, and do what you will." To deviate from the law of God, even in one point, is to turn away from perfection. It is a swerving from our eternal end; and if we fail of this, or if our will be bent on anything aside or below this, we are out of the way, not only of perfection, but of life.

Next, obedience to the precepts and to the authority of the Church. The ultimate and certain test whereby to know whether we are in the way of perfection is perfect conformity to the mind of the Church. I say to the mind, because it is not enough to believe all dogmas and to submit to all discipline. Many do this in whom the spirit of pride, singularity, criticism, and self -choosing are dominant. The mind of the Church is known not only by Pontiffs and Councils, but by the mind of the saints, by the traditions of piety, and by customs of approved or permitted devotion.

Then, again, obedience to the authority of parents for the young; and the authority of pastors for all.

But after these, and with these at all times, the holy Sacraments are the chief means of receiving from God the grace of interior perfection.

There can be no interior perfection without purity of conscience; and the chief means of purifying the conscience is the Sacrament of Penance, whereby the habit of self-examination and of circumspection is maintained, and the grace of contrition and self-knowledge is continually increased.

Next, there can be no interior perfection without cleanness of heart; but the chief sanctification of the heart comes from communion in the Body and Blood of our Divine Master; in the in-dwelling of His Saciud Heart in us, and in the impression of His deified soul upon all the affections of our own.

Beyond this are the counsels of perfection, as they are called. The life of chastity, by which not only the priest and the religious, both men and women, but also many who are not called either to the priesthood or to a convent, sanctify themselves in soul and body in the world. It is sometimes thought, and even incautiously said, that a man or a woman ought either to become a priest or nun, or else to marry. This is a saying which has no warrant from the Church. There are many men who have no call to do either; and many women who have neither vocation, nor fitness, nor inclination, either for a convent or for a married life. The Holy Ghost has not laid down this alternative. He has left this liberty now as it was in the beginning. The life of counsels is for everybody. The life of priests or nuns is only for those who are called to such a state. It is a rash way of talking to imply that the life of counsels is the privilege of priests and nuns. It is offered to all. The eight Beatitudes imply that the life of counsels is open to every one, though they do not necessarily impose it. There have been, and there are, multitudes living and dying in the world who have sat at our Lord's feet without distraction, and have espoused themselves to Him with a perfect and inviolate fidelity. Care and prudence no donbt are needed, both in their directors and in themselves, that they may not rashly engage in a life which is above them; also, that, having entered it, they walk through It, not in the letter only, but in the spirit; and that in all the accessories and surroundings of their life they watch to keep their hearts in the liberty and the light of our Lord's service.

They that are called either to the priesthood or to the cloister enter at once, and openly before the world, into the life of counsels. Chastity, poverty, and obedience are the threefold cord which binds them to the craci fied life of our Lord.

In the cloister it is confirmed by a threefold vow, which constitutes the state or way of perfection as a means to its attainment. In the priesthood the law of chastity is imposed with the yoke of Jesus, when the hands of the bishop are laid upon the head of the priest. In that hour also he promises obedience to the successor of the Apostle who has consecrated him to the service of the altar. The state of poverty is happily now his inevitable lot. The Church has returned into its primitive poverty, at least here in England; and everywhere the world is doing us the service of binding together pastors and people by the generous intei (hange of temporal and spiritual charity. The life of a priest in England is indeed a life of detachment. He lives in a hired house; he has neither land nor revenue; he eats the bread that is given to him, as the Apostles did, by the gatherings of the first day of the week. And with this he has to provide ail sacred things for the altar, and for the poor and for their children. It is a twofold poverty, full of anxiety, but, if it be loved for its likeness to his Master's lot, full of sanctifying grace. Such a life is full of helps to personal perfection: the daily Mass and daily Communion the custody of the Blessed Sacrament, the fellowship 15 with Jesus on the altar, daily mental prayer, the habit of religion, the sign of perfection," as Saiat Thomas says, " which he received when he was tonsured." Add to this the cure of souls, and the endless abnegation of self which the seeking and saving of the lost, the striving with their sins, the bearing of their perversities, the weary watching day and night, at the beck and bid of all, demand of the priest. ~No shirt of hair is more penitential than the pastoral life. No life more blessed to those who have renounced themselves for Christ's sake; none more intolerable to the hireling and to those who love their liberty and their ease. But the missionaries of England bind themselves by a solemn promise on oath, for the good of the Universal Church, never to desert the cure of souls.10 There is in all this the instrumental perfection, and in all who have the cure of souls there is also the state of perfection, at least inchoate. For every pastor must be ready to lay down his life for his sheep; and many do so, either by fever and pestilence or by the slow wasting of the labo^ of unresting charity.

And if such be the obligation binding a priest to perfection, far more formidable is the obligation of the bishop. " The state of religion," Saint Thomas says, " does not presuppose perfection, but leads on to perfection. But the office of a bishop presupposes perfection, so that the bishop is in the state of perfection already attained."!

For the sustaining of this burden he has all the help11 given to the faithful and to the priesthood, and with this a grace attached to the state in which he is proportionate to his dangers and his needs. He is a sign to be spoken against; a butt for all arrows and stones; a prey of tongues; and, as the key of the position, a point of endless assault. These things might perfect tho least perfect. Sacraments and crosses sanctify at last those.who are least like the Good Shepherd.

Such, then, is the perfection to which we are called; and here, with two more thoughts, we will make an end.

  1. First, let us confidently hope to attain the perfection of the Beatitudes, because it is a gift of God. It is the sovereign and free gift of our Heavenly Father for the merits of His Incarnate Son. His will is to give it to us; for He is glorified in our perfection. Every soul that rises above the level of our commonplace life adds to His glory. The greatest glory ever offered to God was the first act of love in the Sacred Heart of the Divine Infant. All worship, and praise, and thanksgiving, and adoration were there in a measure above our infirmity. One perfect soul glorifies God more than a score of lukewarm and earthly minded, Saint Paul has given us a rule of perfection: " Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God." If we made this the text of our life, how much we should leave undone; how far more carefully would all our works be examined and our motives purified from selfish reserves. Saints have ventured even to bind themselves by vow to do always that which is for God's greater glory. This is a hard and exacting law, which only saints could keep. But if we greatly desire to do His will more perfectly, He will not refuse our prayer; for if He wills that we abide still in our infirmities, it is to make us humble, and to keep us so; and in this He will be more glorified than if we received what we ask. It may be our desire to be less imperfect was for our own greater glory, and He Who knows all things read our hearts and granted our prayer more perfectly than we intended. Nevertheless, there is no degree of humility that we may not attain; for it is His gift. If, that is, we have the courage to ask it, and not to shrink when the humiliations come to fulfill our prayer. All our sane tifi cation, from the first gift of regeneration, comes from Him, by a secret infusion of His Holy Spirit; and all our perfection is His work. Therefore it is easy of attainment; for He loves to make perfect what He has once begun.

  2. The other truth is, that though all is of gift, all except the first grace of regeneration is also acquired. Our will must co-operate in all — in faith, and hope, and charity — in all the gifts, and in all the fruits, and in all the Beatitudes. We are fellow-workers together with Him; and His will and ours, though two, yet work as one. "We can do all things through Christ, Who within us gives us strength." We must not break a link in this golden chain of grace; we must not strain it by reluctance, or by tardy and grudging compliance. If we refuse His inspiration when it moves us to things above ourselves, we do not know what we may forfeit, never to be found again. How many have been afraid to look at the light when it shone clearly, and have lost it for ever. It will nover be known till the last day how many were on the threshold of the hea^ only city, and, because they would not enter when they could; fell under the bondage of their own making, and could not enter when, like the foolish virgins, too late they would. Never till that day shall we know how much grace we have wasted, what golden seasons we have lost, what springtides have slipped away, what summer fruits we might have gathered, what autumn harvests we might have reaped and garnered for eternity. Let us, then, pray God to show us all His will, and give ua strength to do it.

And now we have come to the end of our simple thoughts on so divine a work. We have traced the rising and the growth, and the expansion, and the fruitfulness of this mystical vine of our sanctifi cation. We are each one of us after the likeness of our Divine Head; and our Father is the Husbandman Who prunes and dresses His own work in us. Every branch in us that beareth not fruit He taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth, that it may bring forth more fruit. His eyes are over us all the day long, and the darkness is no darkness with Him. He is alwaye with us, and always at work on our sanctification. " We know not what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him; we shall see Him as He is."

We have come to the foot of the mountain of Beatitudes, from which the new law of perfection has gone forth to the ends of the earth. We see the companies of the elect going up each in its order. First the poor, wayworn, and footsore; here and there one who on oarth was great, and noble, and rich, but poor in spirit in the great multitude who eat bread in tLe sweat of their face. Then the raeek, noiseless as the flight of doves; then the mourners, with their heads covered, following the Man of Sorrow by the strait, sure road of affliction. After them those that hunger after God fa the vehemence of the spirit, speeding upward and aalnting no man by the way; next come the merciful, with their hands full of alms, which look like roses. After them the clean in heart, scaling the mountain like rays that run upward with the speed of lightning; then come the peacemakers in the majesty of calm and joy; and in the rear of all, the soldiers of Jesus, the heralds of the Holy Ghost to a world of sin, which smote them and slew them for their charity. All these are going upward. Shall we be left behind? Aim higher and higher. Desire the best gifts. Be faithful over the least. Commit yourselves to the guidance of the Spirit of God, for He is Love, and Light, and Power. Ipse perficiet. As He began so He will nake perfect

Footnotes

  1. " Beatitude vi» eat dispositio, inchoatio, merit urn atqne, prseam bulum beatitndinis putrise, ad quam ascenditur itur ac pervenitor per octo beatitudines viae. * * ↩

  2. S. Matt v. 48, 44-45. \ 2 Cor. xiii 11. J S. James ill. 2. ↩

    1. Joan Chrys. De Sacerdotio, lib. vi. c. 4.
    ↩

  4. S. Pet. Dam. Contra Cleric. Intemp. d. i. c. 7. ↩

  5. S. Hieron. in Abd. v. 21. ↩

  6. S. Bern. Ad Past, in Synodo. ↩

  7. Ibid. *» 1 COT. iii t. ↩

  8. Gvncd. Prov. Westm. IV. Dec. xii. 1, 2, a f Ibid. ↩

  9. Ibid. Dec. ii. 1, 2, 8. § Ibid. ↩

  10. Concil. Prov. Westm. IV. Dec. xii. 6, 7. ↩

  11. S. Thorn. Opus, de Perf. Vata Spirit, c. xir. 2; C&nni. Pr*t Wettm. 2 V.Dec, vii. 2. ↩

Chapter 17 of 18