II. The Following of Christ

Summary. — In consequence of sin, the " seeking after God " takes the character of a “ returning to God ; ’’ this is carried into effect by following Christ. — I. Christ is the Way by His teaching and example. — II. He is the supreme High Priest Who binds us to God. — III. The Fountainhead of grace where¬ from we may draw the necessary help. — IV. These truths apply to religious perfection : Christ is "the Religious" super¬ eminently. — V. How the Rule of St. Benedict is permeated with these truths ; its character is “ Christocentric ". he object of our life is “ to seek God ; ” that is our destiny, our vocation. This vocation is incomparably

**■ high, because every creature, even the angelic creature, is of its nature infinitely far removed from God. God is the fulness of Being and of all perfection ; and every creature, however perfect it may be, is only a being drawn out of nothing and possesses only a borrowed perfection.

Moreover, as we have said, the end of a free creature is, in itself, proportioned to the nature of this creature ; as every created being is “ finite, ” the beatitude to which it has a right by nature is necessarily limited. But God, in immense condescension, has willed to admit us to share His intimate life in the bosom of His Adorable Trinity, to enjoy His own Divine Beatitude. This Beatitude, placed infinitely beyond our nature, constitutes our last end and the foundation of the supernatural order.

You know that from the time when He first formed man, God has called us universally to this beatitude : Adam, the head of the human race, was created in supernatural “justice;” his soul, filled with grace, illuminated with divine light was entirely set towards God. He possessed the gift of integrity by which his lower faculties were fully subjected to reason while reason was fully subjected to the Divine Will : all, in the head of our race, was perfectly in harmony.

Adam sinned, he separated himself from God, and drew all his descendants after him into his revolt and misery. All — the Blessed Virgin Mary excepted — are conceived with the imprint of his apostacy ; in each one of us God beholds the trace of our first father’s rebellion : that is why we are born “ children of wrath ”, filii irae 1, sons of dis¬ obedience, far removed from God, turned away from God.

The consequence of this state of things is that “ the seeking after God ” takes for us the character of a " returning to God ” Whom we have lost. Drawn into the original solidarity, we have all forsaken God by sin in order to turn to the creature ; the parable of the Prodigal Son is but the picture of all the human race that has left the Heavenly Father and must return to Him. It is this character of a “ return ” deeply imprinted on the Christian life that St. Benedict teaches, as a master, from the first lines of the Prologue to whomsoever comes to him : “ Hearken, O my son... incline the ear of thy heart... that thou mayest return to Him from Whom thou hast departed ” : Ausculta, o fili... et inclina aurem cordis tui ut ad eum... redeas a quo ... recesseras. This is the well-determined and precise end.

Now, by what path are we “ to return to God ? ” It is extremely important that we should know it. In fact if we do not take this path, we shall not come to God, we shall miss our end. For we must never forget that our holiness is a supernatural holiness, we cannot acquire it by our own efforts. If God had not raised us to the supernatural order, if He had not placed our beatitude in His intimate glory, we might have been able to seek Him by the light of reason, and attain, by natural means, a natural perfection and beatitude. God did not will this : He has raised man to a suoernatural state, because He destined him for a beatitude which surpasses all the exigences and powers of our nature. Outside this destiny there is nothing but error and damnation.

And what is true of the way of salvation, in general, is equally so of perfection and of holiness which are but a higher way of salvation : they likewise belong to the super¬ natural order ; a man's most finished perfection in the merely natural domain has of itself no value for eternal life. There are not two states of perfection for us nor two beatitudes, the one purely natural, the other supernatural, between which we may make our choice. Now, as God is the sole Author of the supernatural order, He alone “ according to His good pleasure”, secundum beneplacitum ejus 2, can show us the road whereby to arrive at it ; hence we must seek God as God wishes us to seek Him, otherwise we shall not find Him.

This is one of the reasons why so many souls make such little progress in the spiritual life. They imagine a holiness for themselves, they want to be the architects of their own perfection, built up according to their personal conceptions ; they do not understand God’s plan as it concerns them, or else they do not adapt themselves to it. These souls make some progress, certainly, because the goodness of God is infinite and His grace ever fruitful ; but they do not fly in the way that leads to God, they go haltingly all their life. The more I come in contact with souls, the more assured I am that it is already a most precious grace to know this Divine Plan ; to have recourse to it is a source of continual communication of divine grace ; to adapt oneself to it is the very substance of sanctity.¹

But has God made known to us His Will ? Yes, as St. Paul says, He has revealed to us the secret “ hidden from eternity ” : Sacramentwn absconditum a saeculis. 1 And what is this secret ? What are these Divine thoughts ? St. Paul has disclosed to us the Divine Plan in four words : Instaurare omnia in Chrisio 2. God has willed “ to re-establish all things in Christ ” or better, according to the Greek term “ to re¬ capitulate all things in Christ. ”

The Christ, the Divine Word, Son of God, become Son of Adam by being born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is constituted the Head of the race of the elect in order to bring all those who believe in Him to God His Father. As Man-God, Christ will repair the sin committed by Adam, will restore to us the Divine adoption, re-open the gates of Heaven and bring us thither by His grace. This is in a few words the Divine Plan.

Let us contemplate for a few moments this plan of God for us and try to comprehend its height and depth, comprehendere... quae sit... sublimitas et profundum... ut impleamini in omnem plenitudinem Dei 3, that we “ may be filled unto all the fulness of God. ” God wishes to give us all things, to give Himself entirely to us, but He only gives Himself by Christ, in Christ and with Christ : Per Ipsum, cum ipso, in Ipso 4. This is God’s secret for us. Let us contemplate it with faith and reverence, for it infinitely surpasses all our conceptions. Let us also contemplate it with love, for it is itself the fruit of love : Sic Deus dilexit mundum 5. It is because God loved us that He has given us His Son, and through Him and in Him, every good.

What then is Christ Jesus for us ?

He is the Way ; He is the High Priest ; He is the Fountain- head of grace. He is the Way by His doctrine and example ; He is the supreme High Priest, Who was merited tor us, by His sacrifice, the power to follow in the way which He has established ; He is the Fountain of grace wherefrom we draw strength to persevere in the path that leads to “ the holy mountain ” : Usque ad montem Dei.²

We will first of all listen to the very words of the Holy Spirit ; next we will take up in respectful parallelism the corresponding teaching repeated by the one who was, accord¬ ing to St. Gregory, his first biographer, “ filled with the spirit of all the just. ”

I

Christ is the Way.

God wills that we should seek Him as He is in Himself, in a way conformable to our supernatural end. But, says St. Paul, God “ inhabiteth light inaccessible, ” He dwells in very holiness : Tu autem in sancto habitas 4. How then are we to attain to Him ? Through Christ. Christ Jesus is the Word Incarnate, the Man-God. He it is Who becomes “ our Way” : Ego sum via. This way is sure, infallible, it leads to eternal light : Qui sequitur Me non ambulat in tenebris, sed habebit lumen vitae, but above all, never let us forget, this way is unique, there is no other. As Jesus says : “No man cometh to the Father but by Me ” : Nemo venit ad Patrem nisi per Me. Ad Patrem, that is to say to life everlasting, to God loved and possessed in Himself in the intimate secret of His beatifying Trinity. So then in order to find God, to attain the end of our search, we have only to follow Christ Jesus.

And how is Christ the Way that leads us to God ? By His teaching and His example : Coepit facer e et docere 8.

As I have said, God wills that we should seek Him as He is. We must therefore first know Him. Now Jesus Christ Who is “ in the Bosom of the Father ”, in sinu Patris 9, reveals God to us : U ni genitus . . . ipse enarravit 10 ;God is made known to us by the word of His Son : Deus... illuxit in cor di¬ bus nostris ad illuminationem scientiae claritatis Dei in facie Christi Jesu. Jesus tells us : It is I Who reveal My Father, your God ; I know Him, for I am His Son ; “ My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me ; ”... “ I speak that which³

I have seen with My Father ” : Ego quod vidi apud Pattern meum loquor ; I do not deceive you, for I “ have spoken the truth to you ” : Veritatem vobis locutus sunt 2 ; " I am the Truth ” : Ego sum veritas; those who seek God must do so “ in spirit and in truth ” : In spiritu et veritate oportet adorare 4 ; “ the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life 5 ; if you continue in My word... you shall know the truth ” Si vos manseritis in sermone meo... cognoscetis veritatem 6.

“ I have not spoken of Myself : but the Father Who sent Me, He gave Me commandment what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting " : Quia ego ex meipso non sum locutus, sed qui misit Me Pater, ipse mihi mandatum dedit quid dicam et quid loquor ; et scio quia mandatum ejus vita aeterna est 7.

The Father moreover confirms this testimony of the Son : ” Hear ye Him ; ” for He is My own Son in Whom I have placed all My delights : Ipsum audite.

Let us then hear this word, this doctrine of Jesus : it is first of all through this doctrine that He is our Way ; let us say to Him with ardent faith, like St. Peter : “ Lord, to Whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life ” : Verba vitae aeternae habes 9. We truly believe that Thou art the Divine Word, come down on our earth in order to teach us ; Thou art truly God, speaking to our souls ; for God " in these days, hath spoken to us by His Son ” : Novissime locutus est nobis in Filio. We believe in Thee, O Christ, we accept all that Thou dost tell us of the Divine secrets, and because we accept Thy words, we give ourselves to Thee in order to live by Thy Gospel. Thou didst say that if we would be perfect, we must leave all to follow Thee 11 ; we believe this and we have come, having left all things 12 to be Thy disciples. Lead us, Thou, Indefectible Light, for in Thee we have the most invincible hope. Thou wilt not reject us ; we come to Thee that we may be brought to the Father. Thou hast declared : “ Him that cometh to Me, I will not cast out ” : Et e-um qui venit ad me non ejiciam foras 13.

Again Jesus is the Way by His example.

He is perfect God, the sole-begotten Son of God : Deum de Dcou ; but He is also perfect Man ; He belongs authen¬ tically to our race. You know that from His two-fold nature flows a two-fold activity ; a divine activity, and a human i. Joan. VIII, 38. — 2. Ibid, 40. — 3- Ibid, xiv, 6. — 4. Ibid, iv, 24. — 5- Ibid, vi, 64. — 6. Ibid viii, 31-32 — 7- Ibid, xii, 49-50. — 8. Matth. xvn, 5.

— 9. Joan, vi, 69. — 10. Hebr. 1, 2. — 11. Matth. xix, 21. — 12. Ibid, 27.

— 13. Joan, vi, 37. — 14. Credo of the Mass, activity, but these two activities are not confounded, any more than the two natures are confounded, although ineffably united in one and the same Person.

Christ is the revelation of God adapted to our weakness ; He is the manifestation of God under a human form. “ He that seeth Me, " Christ has said “ seeth the Father also ” : Qui videt me, videt et Patrem 1. He is God living amongst us and showing us by this tangible human life how we ought to live in order to please our Father in Heaven.

All that Jesus accomplished was perfect, not only because of the love wherewith He accomplished it, but also in the manner He brought it to fruition ; and all that Jesus did, even His least actions, were the actions of a God and infinitely pleasing to His Father : they are consequently for us examples to be followed, models of perfection : Exemplum dedi vobis tit quemadmodum ego feci ita et vos faciatis 2. In imitating Christ Jesus, we are sure of being, like Him, although under a different title, pleasing to His Father. “ The life of Christ,” said a holy monk who spoke from experience, “ is an excellent book for the learned and the ignorant, the perfect and the imperfect, who desire to please God. He who reads it carefully and frequently, attains high wisdom, and easily obtains... spiritual light, peace and quietness of conscience, and a firm confidence in God in sincere love. ”

Let us then contemplate in the Gospel the example of Jesus : it is the norm of all human sanctity. If we remain united to Jesus by faith in His doctrine, by the imitation of His virtues, especially His religious virtues, we shall surely attain to God. It is true that there is an infinite distance between God and us ; God is the Creator, and we are crea¬ tures, the last rung on the ladder of intellectual creation ; God is spirit, we are spirit and matter ; God is unchanging, we are ever subject to change ; but with Christ we can bridge this distance and establish ourselves in the immutable, because, in Jesus, God and the creature meet in an ineffable and indissoluble union. In Christ we find God. “ Unless you apply yourselves, ” says again the venerable Abbot of Liessies, " to imprint upon your soul the loveable image of Christ’s Humanity, it is in vain that you aspire to the eminent knowledge and enjoyment of His Divinity. ” “ The soul cannot see the Lord in the light of love, be fixed in God and clad, as it were, with the form of the Divinity unless it has become the perfect image of Christ, according to the spirit, according to the soul, and even in the flesh. "⁴

.For it is to the Father that Jesus leads us. Listen to what He says on leaving His disciples : “ I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God 2 ; " the Word has come down from Heaven to take upon Himself our flesh and to redeem us ; His work accomplished, He ascends to Heaven, but He does not ascend alone ; He virtually takes with Him all who believe in Him. And why ? In order that — in Him again — the union of all with the Father should be accomplished: Ego in eis et tu in Me. Is not this Jesus’ supreme prayer to His Father ? “ That

I may be in them, O Father, — by My grace — as Thou in Me, that they may contemplate, in the Divinity, the glory which Thou hast given Me. ”

Never let us wander from this way, for that would be to run the risk of losing ourselves ; to follow it, is to journey infallibly to the light of eternal life. When we take as our Guide the One Who is the true Light of the World, Lux vera quae illuminat omnem hominem 5, we walk with sure and certain steps, and cannot fail to reach the sublime goal of our vocation : Father grant they may be with Me, even to the sharing of My glory : Ut ubi sum ego et illi sint tnecum 6 !

II

It is not enough to know the way, we must also be able to follow it. It is likewise to Christ Jesus that we owe this power.

St. Paul declares that the riches brought to us through the mediation of Christ, our Redeemer, are inexhaustible ; under the Apostle’s pen, terms abound which express the manitold aspects ol this mediation, and give us a glimpse of its inestimable treasures. The Apostle above all reminds us that Christ redeems us, reconciles us with the Father, and creates anew within us the power of bearing fruits of justice.

We were the slaves of the devil — Christ delivers us from this bondage ; we were the enemies of God — Jesus reconciles us with the Father ; we had lost our inheritance — the Only-begotten Son restores to us this inheritance. Let us for a few moments contemplate these aspects of Jesus’ work of mediation. These truths are doubtless known to us, but is it not always a joy for our souls to return to them ?⁵

When “ the fulness of time ” fixed by the eternal decrees had come, says St. Paul, " God sent His Son, made of a woman, that He might redeem them who were under the law 1. " It was then that “ the grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men... that He might redeem us from all iniquity. ”

Such is the essential mission of the Word Incarnate, signified by His very name : “ Thou shalt call His name Jesus, " says the Holy Gospel — Jesus, that is to say Saviour

— “ for He shall save His people from their sins s. ” There¬ fore, adds St. Peter, “ There is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved 4 ; ” this name is unique as the Redemption wrought by it is universal.

And from what does Christ deliver us ? From the yoke of sin. What did Jesus say at the time of His Passion when about to consummate His Sacrifice ? Nunc princeps hujus mundi ejicietur for as. “ Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself. ”

It was indeed by His immolation upon Mount Calvary that our King destroyed Satan's reign. St Paul tells us' that Christ, snatching from the devil's hands the sentence of our eternal bondage, destroyed it “ fastening it to the cross " : Delens quod adversum nos erat chirographum dccreti... affigens illud cruet 6. His death is the ransom of our deliver¬ ance. What is the song that resounds in the holy splendoui of heaven from the innumerable choir of the redeemed ? To Thee, O Lord, be all honour, praise and glory for it is by Thy immaculate Blood, O Divine Lamb, that we have become Thy Kingdom 7 1

Christ delivers us from eternal damnation in order to bring us to the Father and reconcile us with Him. He is “ the one Mediator between God and men " : Unus mediator Dei et hominum. homo Christus Jesus.

Son of God, God Himself, enjoying all the prerogatives of the Godhead, Christ, the Word Incarnate, can treat as' an equal with the Father. When about to shed His Blood as the price of our redemption, He asks His Father that we may be united to Him. Volo, Pater* ; “ I will, O i. Gal. iv, 4-5. — 2. Tit. II, 11 and 14. — 3. Matth. 1, 21. — 4. Act. iv 12

— 5. Joan, xii, 31-32. — 6. Col. n, 14. — 7. Cf. Apoc. iv, 11 ; V, 9. 8

I Tim. 11, 5. — 9. Joan, xvn, 24.

Father. ” The absolute character of this prayer shows the oneness of the Divine Nature in which Jesus, as the Word, lives with the Father and their common Spirit.

He is also Man : the human nature bestows on Jesus the power of offering to the Father all the satisfaction that love and justice demand: Holocautomata... non tibi placuerunt, corpus autem aptasti mihi, ecce vcnio ut faciam, Deus, voluntatern tuamx. The sacrifice of this Divine Victim appeases God, and makes Him propitious to us : Pacificans per sanguinem crucis ejus 2. As Mediator, Christ Jesus is Pontiff ; as Man-God, He forms the bridge over the gulf made by sin between heaven and earth. He binds us to God through His Manhood wherein “ dwelleth all the fulness of the God¬ head corporeally. ”

St. Paul also tells us that “ God indeed was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself ” : Deus erat in Christo mundum reconcilians sibi 4, so that we “ who some time were afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ " : Vos qui aliquando eratis longe, facti estis prope in sanguine Christi. At the foot of the Cross, justice appeased and peace restored give each other the kiss of reconciliation : Justitia et pax osculatae sunt.

Rightly does the Apostle conclude by saying : In quo [Christo] habemus fiduciam et accessum in confidentia per fidem ejus. Through faith in Christ we may indeed have the boldness to draw near to God with confidence. How can we lack confidence when Christ, the Son of the Father, having become our Surety and the Propitiation for our iniquities, has expiated and paid off all ? Why should we not draw near to this High Priest, Who, like unto us in all things, sin excepted, chose to experience all our infirmities, to drink of the chalice of all our sufferings, to find, in the experience of sorrow, the power of compassionating our miseries more deeply ?

So powerful indeed is this High Priest, so effectual is His i. Hebr. x, 5 -7. — 2. Col. x, 20. — 3. Ibid. 11, 9. Let us quote this beautiful text of the great Pope S4 Gregory, the biographer of S4 Benedict, where we find something more than a simple reminiscence of the Prologue of the Rule: Redire ad Deum. “ Dei Films adjuvit hominem f actus honto ut quia pur 0 homini via redeundi non palebat ad Deum, via rcdeundi fieret per Hominem- Deum. Longe quippe distabamus a justo et immortals, nos mortales et injusti. Sed inter immortadem et justum, et nos mortales et injustos, apparuit mediator Dei et hominum, mortalis et justus, qui et mortem haberel cum hominibus, et justitiam cum Deo, ut quia per ima nostra longe distabamus a summis, in seipso uno jungeret ima cum summis, atque ex eo nobis via redeundi fieret ad Deum, quo summis suis ima nostra copularet. ” S. Gregor. M or alia in Job. Lib. xxn, in '. 31. P. L. 76, col. 327-328. — 4. II Cor. v, 19. — 5. Eph. 11, 13. — 6. Ps. xxxiv, 11. — 7. Eph. hi, 12. mediation that the reconciliation is perfect. From the moment when Jesus paid the price of our salvation with His Blood we entered into the rights of the heavenly inheritance. When about to accomplish His essential work of mediation, our Lord reveals the inmost sentiments of His Sacred Heart in the prayer He addresses to His Father. He prays that He may be with Him : Ut tilt sint mecum. And where does He desire this union should be realised. In the glory full of delights which, from all eternity, is His own : “ That they may see My glory which Thou hast given me... before the creation of the world ” : Ut videant claritatem quam de~ disti mihi... ante constitutionem niundi.

Tertullian says 2 somewhere in his writings : T am Pater nemo [ quam Dens ] : “No one is a father like God is. " We might say too: Nemo tarn f rater quam Christus : “No one is a brother like Christ is. ” St. Paul calls Christ “ the Firstborn amongst many brethren ” : Primogenitus in multls fratribus; but, he adds, Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren : Non confunditur fratres eos vocare 4. Indeed what does Jesus Himself say to Magdalen when already in the glory of His Resurrection ? “ Go to My brethren ” : Vade ad fratres meos 5. And how great is His “ fraternity ! ” God as He is, this Only-begotten Son takes upon Himself our infirmities. He makes Himself responsible for our sins, in order to be like unto us. Because, says St. Paul, we are formed of flesh and blood, Christ has willed to fake upon Himself our nature, sinful in us, that by His death, “ He might destroy him who had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil 6, ” and restore to us the possession of the eternal Kingdom of Life with the Father.

And he concludes by bidding us who are called to be “ partakers of the heavenly vocation ” to “ consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus, ” Who faithfully fulfilled the command of Him by Whom He was established Head of His Kingdom. This Kingdom, this house of God, continues St. Paul, “ are we, if we hold fast the confidence and glory of hope unto the end. ”

Truly what a glory for us is this hope we have in Jesus, now that He is our Elder Brother, our High Priest filled with compassion for us, and our all-powerful Mediator. St. Paul is very expressive on this point. On the day of the Ascension, the Humanity of Jesus takes possession of this glorious inheritance in a wonderful manner. But the Man-God only enters into Heaven as our Forerunner : Praecursor pro nobis introivit. And there, for the soul of each one of us, He offers to the Father the infinite price of His Passion in a perpetually living mediation : Semper vivens ad inter pellandum pro nobis.⁶

So our confidence ought to be boundless. All the graces that adorn the soul and make it blossom forth in virtues from the time of its call to the Christian faith until its vocation to the religious life, all the streams of living water that gladden the city of God which is the religious soul, have their inexhaustible source on Calvary : for this river of life gushed forth from the Heart and Wounds of Jesus.

Can we contemplate the magnificent work of our powerful High Priest without exulting in continual thanksgiving : Dilexit me et tradidit semetipsum pro me: “Who loved me, ” says St. Paul, “ and delivered Himself for me. ” The Apostle does not kay, although it be the very truth : dilexit nos : “ He loved us ; ” but “ He loved me, ” that is to say His love is distributed to all, while being appropriated to each one of us. The life, the humiliations, the sufferings, the Passion of Jesus — all concern me. And how has He loved me ? To love’s last extremity : in finem dilexit 8. O most gentle High Priest, Who by Thy Blood hast re-opened to me the doors of the Holy of Holies, Who ceaselessly dost intercede for me, to Thee be all praise and glory for ever¬ more !

Secondly, Christ’s merits are so much our own that we may justly appropriate them to ourselves ; the satisfactions of Jesus compose an infinitely precious treasure whence we can continually draw in order to expiate our faults, repair our negligences, provide for our needs, perfect our deeds, supply for our shortcomings. “ The servant of God, ” says the Venerable Blosius, “ should form the holy custom of offering all his works by a pure intention for the honour of God. He should be careful to join and unite all he does and all he suffers to the actions and sufferings of Christ, through prayer and desire. In this way, the works and trials that are in themselves, and when looked at as belonging to the servant of God himself, vile, worthless and imperfect, will become noble, of the highest value, and most pleasing to God. They receive an unspeakable dignity from the merits of Christ, to which they are united, as a drop of water poured into a vessel full of wine is entirely absorbed by the wine, and receives the full flavour and colour of the wine. The good works of those who piously practise this union with Christ’s actions incomparably excel the good works of those who neglect it. ”⁷

Therefore this great monk, so versed in spiritual ways, does not hesitate to exhort his disciples to unite all their actions to those of Jesus : it is the surest way of attaining perfection. " Confide your good works and exercises to the most holy and sweetest Heart of Jesus that He may correct and perfect them : this is the most ardent wish of His loving Heart ever ready to complete our defective works in the most excellent manner. Rejoice and exult with gladness in that, poor as you are in yourself, you possess such riches in your Redeemer Whose will it is to make you a partaker in His merits... In Him is laid up for you an immense trea¬ sure provided you have true humility and goodwill 2 ”.

This is what our Lord Himself said to a Benedictine nun. Mother Deleloe, whose wonderful inner life has but recently been revealed : " What more can you desire than to have within you the true source of all good, My Divine Heart ?... All these great things are yours, all these treasures and riches are for the heart that I have chosen... Draw as much as you desire of these infinite delights and riches 3. ”

III

It did not suffice for our Heavenly Father to give us His Son as Mediator ; He has appointed Him the universal distri¬ butor of every gift ; “ the Father loveth the Son : and He hath given all things into His hand ” : Pater ditigit Filium et omnia dedit in manu ejus 4. Christ communicates to us the grace that He has merited for us.

Many know that our Lord is the only way that leads to the Father : " No man cometh to the Father, but by me ” : Nemo venit ad Pattern nisi per me 5; that He has redeemed us by His Blood ; but they forget — at least to all practical purposes — another truth of capital importance : it is that Christ is the Cause of every grace and that He acts in us by His Spirit.

Christ Jesus possesses in Himself the plenitude of every giace. Hear what He Himself says : “ As the Father hath⁸

3t life in Himself, so He hath given to the Son also to have life in Himself ” : Sicut Pater habet vitam in semetipso, sic dedit et Filio habere vitam in semetipso x. And what is this life ? It is an eternal life, an ocean of divine life containing all the perfections and beatitude of the Godhead. Now Christ Jesus has this Divine Life “ in Himself ” in semetipso, that is to say by nature, being fully entitled to it, for Christ is the Incarnate Son of God. When the Father beholds His Christ, He is ravished, for this Infinite God beholds His equal in Christ His Son, and He declares : " This is my beloved Son ” : Hie est Filius meus dilectus 2. He sees nothing in His Son except what comes from Himself : “ Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee " : Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te. Christ is truly “ the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His substance; and it gives the Father infinite joy to behold Him : In quo mihi bene complacui 5. Thus Christ, because He is the Son of God, is “ Life " supereminently : “ I am the Life ", Ego sum vita.

This Divine Life that Jesus possesses personally and in its plenitude, He wills to communicate and lavish upon us : “ I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly " : Ego veni ut vitam habeant et abundantius habeant ; He wills that the life which is His through the hypostatic union, should be ours by grace, and it is “ of His fulness we all have received ” : Vidimus [eum] plenum gratiae et de plenitudine ejus nos omnes accepimus 8. Through ilie Sacraments, through the action ot His Spirit in us, He infuses grace into us as the principle of our life.

Bear this truth well in mind : there is no grace of which a soul can have need that is not found in Jesus, the Fount of every grace. For if “ without [Him] we can do nothing 9 ” that brings us nearer to Heaven and to the Father, in Him are laid up “ all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge ” : In quo sunt omnes thesauri sapientiae et scientiae absconditi. And they are there laid up that they may be transmitted to us. If we can sing that only Jesus Christ is holy : Tu solus sanctus u, it is because no one is holy except by Him and in Him.

There is perhaps no truth upon which St. Paul, the herald of the mystery of Christ, more insists when commenting upon the Divine Plan. Christ is the second Adam and, like Adam, is the head of a race, but this is the race of the elect.⁹

“ By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death ; and so death passed upon all men... if by one man’s offence death reigned through one ; much more they who receive abundance of grace, and of the gift and of justice shall reign in life through one, Jesus Christ ”... With this difference, however, that “ where sin abounded grace did more abound 2. ”

Christ has been established by His Father the Head of the race of the redeemed, of the faithful, with whom He forms one body. His infinite grace is to flow into the mem¬ bers of the mystical organism, “ according to the measure of the giving of Christ ” : ZJnicuique nostrum, data est gratia secundum mensuram donatlonis Christi 3. And, by this grace which flows from Himself, Christ renders each of the elect like unto Himself, and pleasing, as He is, to the Father. For in the eternal decrees the Father does not separate us from Christ Jesus : the act by which He predestined a human nature to be personally united to His word is the same act by which He predestined us to become the brethren of Jesus.

We cannot work out our salvation without Christ, without the help of the grace that He gives to us. He is the one, the true Life that saves from death : Ego sum vita*.

IV

These essential truths apply to salvation ; they are equally to be understood of perfection. You are perhaps surprised that I have spoken at such length of Christ Jesus before speaking to you of religious perfection. It is because Christ is the foundation of monastic perfection that He is “ the Religious ” pre-eminently, the Example of the perfect reli¬ gious ; more than that. He is the very source of perfection, and the consummation of all holiness, “ the author and finisher of faith. ”

The religious life is not an institution created on the borders of Christianity ; plunging its roots into the Gospel of Christ, it aims only at expressing the Gospel in all its integrity. Our religious “ holiness ” is but the plenitude of our Divine adoption in Jesus ; it is the absolute tradition of the whole of ourselves through love, to the will of the Most High. Now His Will is essentially that we should be His worthy children. He has predestined us “ to be made conformable to the image of His Son " : Praedes- tinavit (nos) conformes fieri imaginis Filil sui. All that God enjoins upon us and asks of us, all that Christ counsels us, has no other end than to give us the opportunity of showing that we are God’s children and the brethren of Jesus ; and when we attain this ideal in everything, not only in our thoughts and actions, but even in the motives from which we act, then we reach perfection.¹⁰

Perfection can indeed be resumed in this inward disposition of the soul seeking to please the Heavenly Father by living habitually and totally in the spirit of its supernatural adoption.

Perfection has love for its habitual motive ; it embraces the entire life, that is to say it makes one think will, love, hate, act, — not only according to the views of nature vitiated by original sin, nor yet merely according to nature in so far as it is upright and moral (although this is certainly always requisite,) but in the spirit of this divine “ superaddition ” infused by God : to wit, grace which makes us His children and friends.

He alone is perfect who lives habitually and totally according to grace ; it is a failing, an imperfection, for a man adopted as a child of God to withdraw any one of his acts from the influence of grace and from charity which accompanies grace. Jesus has given us the watchword of Christian perfection: “ I must be about My Father’s business”: In his quae Patris mei sunt oportet me esse 2.

The result of this disposition is to render all the actions of a soul, thus fully living according to the meaning of its supernatural adoption, pleasing to God, because they are all rooted in charity.

Let us listen to St. Paul : “ Walk worthy of God ,” he writes, “ in all things pleasing ”: Ut ambuletis digne Deo per omnia piacentes 8. The Apostle tells us we are to do this by walking worthy of the vocation in which we are called. Ut digne ambuletis vocatione qua vocati estis 4. And this vocation is to the supernatural life and the glorious beatitude that crowns it : Ut ambularetis digne Deo qui vocavit vos in suum regnum et gloriam.

So then, to please our Heavenly Father, in order that He be glorified, that His Kingdom be established within us and His will be done by us totally and steadfastly — that is perfection : “ Stand perfect, and full in all the will of God " : Ut stetis perfecti et pleni in omni voluntate Dei 6. i. Rom. viii, 29. — 2. Luc. 11, 49. — 3. Col. 1, 10. — 4. Eph. iv, 1. —

I Thess. 11, 12. — 6. Col. iv, 12.

5-

This attitude towards God avails to make us “ fruitful in every good work ” : Per omnia placentes, in omni bono opere fructificantes x. And does not Our Lord Himself declare that this perfection is glorious to God ? “ In this is My Father glorified : that you bear very much fruit ” : In hoc clarificatus est Pater mens ut frucium plurimum afjeralis 2.

Whence are we to draw the sap which is to make all our actions fruitful in order that we may bring to the Father this abundant harvest of good works whereby we shall glorify Him ?

This fruitful sap which is grace comes to us through Jesus only. It is only by remaining united to Him that we can be divinely fruitful : “ He that abideth in Me, and I in Him, the same beareth much fruit ” : Qui manet in Me et Ego in eo hic fert fructum multum. If without Him we can do nothing that is worthy of His Father, with Him, in Him, we bear much fruit : He is the Vine, we are the branches 4.

You will perhaps ask how we are to “ abide ” in Jesus ? By faith, first of all. St. Paul tells us that it is by our faith Christ dwells in our hearts : Christum per jidem inhabitare in cor dibus vestris 6. Next by love: “Abide in My love " : Manete in dilectione mea 6, the love that, joined to grace, gives us up entirely to Christ's service and the keeping of His commandments : “ If you love Me, keep My commandments ” : Si diligitis Me, mandata mea servate 7.

This doctrine is true of the perfection in which every Christian ought to live according to his state ; it is true above all of religious perfection. Perfection can only exist where the orientation of the soul towards God and His will is habitual and steadfast.

We find many obstacles to perfection in ourselves and all around us : the triple concupiscence of the flesh, and of the eyes, and the pride of life solicits and divides the poorhuman heart, and impairs the integrity necessary to perfection. The religious puts aside, in principle, all the obstacles to his progress by entering into the way of the evangelical counsels : by the vows, he places himself irrevocably in a state of perfection which shields him, if he is faithful, from the fluctuations and solicitations which might disturb and divide his heart ; in this state, the grace of adoption has more freedom and is able to bear more fruit. “ I would, ” says St. Paul, “ have you to be without solicitude. He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord : how he may please God. But he that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world : how he may please his wife. And he is divided... And this I speak for your profit... which may give you power to attend upon the Lord, without impediment ” : Volo vos sine sollicitudine esse... quod facultatem praebeat sine impedimento Dominum obsecrandi.¹¹

This is why Christ Jesus said to the young man enamoured of the ideal : “ If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast and give to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. And come follow me ” : Si vis perjectus esse, vende omnia quae habes, et veni, sequere me*.

The religious, the monk, despoils himself, detaches himself from everything : Reliquimus omnia* ; he puts away all the obstacles that could retard his progress and shackle bis flight towards God. In him, faith, whereby Christ dwells in souls, is more ardent, love, whereby they dwell in Christ, is more generous and far-reaching. In this blessed state, the soul can more fully cleave to God, because it follows Christ more closely : Et secuti sumus te 4.

Perfection has then grace for principle, love for its mainspring, and the degree of union with Jesus for its measure. Of this perfection Jesus is the initiator by the supernatural vocation ; secondly, He is its one model, at once divine and accessible ; finally and above all, it is He Who gives it to us as a participation in His own perfection. We must be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect 5 ; this is what Christ tells us, but it is God alone Who can make us perfect and He does so by giving us His Son.

Therefore all is summed up in constant union with Jesus, in ceaselessly contemplating Him in order to imitate Him, and in doing, at all times, for love, as He did : quia diligo Patrem 0 — the things that please the Father: — Quae placita sunt ei facio semper 7 . This is the secret of perfection.

It is related in the life of St. Mechtilde, that one Saturday, during the singing of the Mass Salve sancte parens, she saluted the Blessed Virgin and besought her to obtain for her true holiness. The glorious Virgin replied : “ If thou desirest true holiness, keep close to my Son ; He is Holiness itself, sanctifying all things. " While St. Mechtilde was asking herself how she could do this, the sweet Virgin said to her again : “ Unite thyself to His most holy Childhood, beseeching Him that by His innocence, the faults and negligences of thy childhood may be repaired. Unite thyself to His most fervent Boyhood ever unfolding in a more burning love which alone had the privilege of giving sufficient matter to the love of God. Unite thyself to His Divine virtues, which have power to ennoble and elevate thine. Secondly, keep close to My Son by directing all thy thoughts, words, and actions towards Him in order that He may blot out all that is imperfect therein. Thirdly, keep close to my Son as the bride keeps close to the bridegroom who, out of his possessions, furnishes her with food and clothing, while she cherishes and honours, for love of him, the friends and family of her bridegroom. Thus, thy soul will be sus¬ tained by the Word of God as with the best sustinence, and clad and adorned with the delights she takes in Him, that is to say with the example that He gives her to imitate... Thus thou wilt be truly holy, according as it is written, with the holy thou shalt be holy, in the same way as a queen becomes queen in sharing the lot of the king. "¹²

“ Therefore, beloved brethren, " concluded the Saint on another occasion when the same doctrine was revealed to her, “ receiving with deep gratitude this high favour from the divine Clemency, let us take possession of Christ’s most holy life that we may supply for all that is lacking to our merits. Let us also strive, as far as we are able, to be conformed to Him by our virtues for this will be our supreme glory in eternal beatitude. What glory indeed could be greater than, by a certain resemblance, to approach Him Who is the splendour of everlasting light 2 ? "

V

St. Benedict lived on these fruitful truths; from these springs of living water he slaked the thirst of his great soul ; in this beneficent light he wishes to see the lives of his disciples transfigured. Let us go back to the beginning of his Prologue : he supposes that a postulant presents himself in ordet to be received as a monk and asks what he must do. St. Benedict replies that he must return to God by following Christ. “ To thee, therefore, my words are now addressed who... desirest to fight for the Lord Christ, our true King ” : Ad te ergo nunc mens sermo dirigitur quisquis... Domino Christo vero Regi militaturus. It is not a mere formula with St. Benedict ; this idea impregnates the entire Rule and gives it that eminently Christian character, so much admired by Bossuet 1. The holy Legislator points out by these opening words of his Rule that he intends to take Christ fundamentally as Example and to consider Him as the source of perfection. His Rule is “ Christocentric ”, So he tells us again and again “ to prefer nothing to the love of Christ a, ” “ to hold nothing dearer than Christ 3; ” and, in ending his Rule, he condenses all the ascetic programme of the monk in a sentence of absolute devotion to Christ : “ Let nothing whatever be preferred to Christ, Who deigns to bring us all alike to everlasting life ” : Christo omnino nihil praeponant qui nos pariter ad vitam aeternam perducat. 4¹³

These are the great Patriarch’s last words, as it were the supreme farewell that he bids his sons upon leaving them ; these words echo those that open the Rule. Christ is the Alpha and Omega of all perfection.

In the chapter that serves as the epilogue and crown of the monastic code, S* Benedict repeats this truth that we shall find the way to our eternal country in Christ, and that it is by His grace alone we can fulfil the Rule traced out, and thus attain the end proposed at the head of the first page : “ to seek God ” : Quisquis ergo ad patriam caelestem festinas, hanc Regulam descriptam adjuvante Christo perfice&.

So throughout our life, whatever be the state of our soul and the circumstances that may arise, we ought never to turn our gaze away from Christ. St. Benedict constantly places the Divine Model before our eyes. If he tells us we ought to deny ourselves, it is that we may follow Christ : Abnegare semetipsum sibi ut sequatur Christum 6. All our obedience — and what is the whole of our life but a continual obedience ? — is to be inspired by the love of Christ :

Haec convenit his qui nihil sibi a Christo carius aliquid existimant 7. Are we a butt to temptation ? We must have recourse to Christ, it is against Him as against a rock that we must dash our evil thoughts the instant they come into the heart : Cogitationes malas cordi suo advenientes mox ad Chris¬ tum allidere 8. Our tribulations, our adversities, must be united to Christ's sufferings : Passionibus Christi per patientiam participemur. The whole existence of a monk is to consist in walking in the path traced out by the Divine Master in the Gospel : Per ducatum Evangelii pergamus itinera ejus 1. Finally, if we come to a state of perfect charity, which is the bond of perfection, it is the love of Christ that has brought us thither and because He is the mainspring of all our actions: Ad caritatem Dei perveniet illam quae perfecta... universa custodit... amore Christi 2.¹⁴

You see how for St. Benedict Christ must be everything to the monk. In all things he would have the monk think of Christ, lean upon Him ; the monk is to see Christ in everyone, in the Abbot, in his brethren, in the sick, in the guests, in strangers, in the poor, and, if need be, he is to pray for his enemies in Christi amore. The love of Christ brought the postulant to the monastery, it is the love of Christ that keeps him there and transforms him into the likeness of his Elder Brother.

We understand why it was that St. Benedict told a hermit who had bound himself by chains in his cave : “ If thou art the servant of God, do not bind thyself by an iron chain but by the chain of Christ ” : Non teneat te catena ferri, sed catena Christi l, that is to say by the love that binds thee to Christ.

May it be the same for us ; may the love of Christ hold us united to Him : Teneat te catena Christi! There is no other way so traditional for us. Read the most authentic and most magnificent monuments of Benedictine asceticism, and you will see they are overflowing with this teaching. It explains the ardent aspirations of St. Anselm towards the Word Incarnate, the tenderness of St. Bernard’s love for Christ, the astonishing familiarities of St. Gertrude and St. Mechtilde with the Divine Saviour, the burning out- i. Prologue to the Rule — 2. Rule, ch. vn. At the end of the chapter on Humility, S4 Benedict borrows a quotation from Cassian ; it is textual, saving the addition of the words : amore Christi to indicate the first motive power of all our deeds. It is a remarkable fact that these two words have sufficed to change essentially the " physiognomy ’’ and the bearing of the quotation, and to open out a special perspective, unknown to Cassian but revealing the thought of the great Patriarch. In reference to Cassian, it has moreover been remarked with justice that “ in the same extent that S4 Benedict is indebted to Cassian in what concerns the observance and organisation of the claustral life, he differs from him in his teaching on grace. S4 Benedict’s originality does not then consist only in the manner wherein he adapts the asceticism of the East to Western conditions, but also in the clearness with which he repudiates rationalistic tendencies and entirely subjects the natural to the supernatural : hence results, in his conception of asceticism, the indubitable subordination of the letter to the spirit, and of the matter of the act to the intention. " D. M. Festugiere in the Revue BtnSdictine, 1912, p. 491. — 3. Rule, ch. n and lxiii. — 4. Ibid. ch. 11. — 5. Ibid. ch. xxxvi — 6. Ibid. ch. mi. — 7. and 8. Ibid. — 9. Ibid. ch. iv. — 10. S. Greg. Dial. lib. m, c. xvi. pourings of Ven. Blosius to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus L These great souls so pure and high in holiness, had fully made proof of tnis line of conduct proposed by the great Patriarch whose faithful disciples they were : Nihil amori Christi praeponere: "To put the love of Christ before all things.”

This way of making everything converge to Christ Jesus, which is so characteristic of St. Benedict, is extremely advan¬ tageous for the soul. It makes the life of the soul powerful, for it concentrates it in unity ; and in the spiritual life, as in everything, sterility is the daughter of dispersion. It renders it attractive, for nothing can more delight the mind and more easily obtain the necessary efforts from the heart than to view the Adorable Person of Christ Jesus. “ It requires very little experience of life to know how necessary it is for every one to have ever ready some sort of idea or word or thought — which by practice comes instinctively to our aid in times of difficulty or mental stress and gives us courage and strength to walk in the right path. This — a veritable talisman to the soul if we will only let it be so

— js to be found in the sacred Name of our Blessed Lord. His should be an ever abiding presence to us, not a theo¬ retical and abstract personality but a living actuality ever with us, ‘Christ in the mind, Christ in the heart, Christ in the hands’ — the abiding thought of Christ, the abiding love of Christ, the constant and conscious following of Christ — this secures the union of our souls with God and makes our service real and a work of love... Of all the means which St. Benedict proposed to his disciples as aids to the spiritual life, this constant keeping of our Lord before the mind and following His example is perhaps insisted on most frequently and clearly. ” i. And so many others like S* Odilo, S* Hildegarde, S* Elisabeth of Schonau, S* Frances of Rome, Mother Deleloi, favoured, long before S* Margaret Mary, with the revelations of the Sacred Heart, Blessed Bonomo, etc. For the period previous to the 13th century, see D. Besse : Les Mystiques Benedict ins (Paris, 1922) ; for the Abbot of Liessies, see the excellent article La place du Christ dans la doctrine spirituelle de Louis de Blois, by Dom P. de Puniet, in La Vie Spirituelle, August 1920, p. 386 seq. — 2. Rule, ch. iv, v and lxxii.

— 3 Card. Gasquet, Religio Religiosi. The object and scope of the Religious Life.

Footnotes

1. 1. Eph. ii, 3. — 2. Ibid. 1, 9.
   ↩
2. 1. Cf. Eph. hi, 9 ; Col. i, 26. — 2. Eph. 1, 10. — 3. Ibid, hi, 18-19. — 4. Canon of the Mass. — 5. Joan, in, 16.
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3. 1. Ill Reg. xix, 8. — 2. S. Greg. Dialog, lib. u, c. VIII. — 3. I Tim. vi, 16. — 4- Ps. xxi, 4. — 5. Joan, xiv, 16. — 6. Ibid, vni, 12. — 7. Ibid, xiv, 6^ — 8. Act. 1, 1. — 9. Joan. 1, 18. — xo. Ibid. — xi. II Cor. iv, 6. — 12. Joan vii, 16.
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4. 1. Joan. XIV, 9. — 2. Ibid, xiii, 15. — 3. Blosius, The Mirror of the Soul, ch, x, 7. — 4. Sanctuary of the Faithful Soul.
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5. 1. A Book of Spiritual Instruction, ch. xn, 2. — 2. Joan, xx, 17. — 3. Ibid, xvii, 23. — 4. Cf. Ibid. 24. — 5. Ibid. 1, 9. — 6. Ibid, xvii, 24. — 7. Eph. hi, 8.
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6. 1. Joan, xvn, 24. — 2. Quis ills nobis intelligendus Pater ? Deus scilicet tam pater nemo, tam pius nemo. De Poenitentia, c. vm. — 3. Rom. vm, 29. — 4. Hebr. 11, 11. — 5. Joan, xx, 17. — 6. Hebr. 11, 14-15. — 7. Ibid. 111, 1-2 and 6.
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7. 1. Hebr. vi, 20. — 2. Ibid, vn, 25. — 3. Gal. 11, 20. — 4. Joan, xm, 1.
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8. 1. A Book of Spiritual Instruction, translated from the Latin by the late Bertrand A. Wilberforce of the Order of Preachers. Ch. ix. All this chapter should be read. — 2. The Mirror of the Soul, ch. vii, 4. — 3 .La Mire Jeanne Deleloe, Collection “ Pax. ” See also further on, p. 36 the same doctrine set forth b>y S* Mechtilde. — 4. Joan. 111, 35. — 5. Ibid, xiv, 6.
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9. 1. Joan, v, 26. — 2. Matth. in, 17 ; xvii, 5. — 3. Ps. n, 7. — 4. Hebr. 1, 3. — 5. Matth. xvii, 5. cf. Ibid, hi, 17. — 6. Joan, xiv, 6. — 7. Ibid, x, 10. — 8. Ibid 1, 14 and 16. — 9. Ibid, xv, 5. — 10. Col. 11, 3. — 11. Gloria of the Mass.
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10. 1. Rom. v, 12, 17. — 3. Ibid. 20. — 3. Eph. iv, 7. — 4. Joan, xiv, 6. — 5. Hebr. xii, 2.
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11. 1. Col. i, io. — 2. Joan, xv, 8. — 3. Ibid, xv, 5. — 4. Ibid. — 5. Eph. in, 17. — 6. Joan, xv, 9. — 7. Ibid, xiv, 15.
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12. 1. I Cor. vii, 32, 35. — 2. Matth. xix, 21. — 3. Ibid. 27. — 4. Ibid. — 5, Ibid, v, 48. — 6. Joan, xiv, 30. — Ibid, vm, 29.
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13. 1. The Book of Special Grace, Ist part., ch. 37, How to obtain true holiness. — 2. The Book of Special Grace, 3rd part, ch. 14. How a man can attribute to himself all the Life of Jesus Christ. Cf. also 2nd Part, ch. 34, 3rd Part. ch. 15 4 16 ; 4th Part. ch. 22, How Jesus Christ supplies for what is lacking to us
    ↩
14. 1. Panegyric of S* Benedict. — 2. Rule, ch. iv. — 3. Ibid. ch. v. — 4. Ibid, cb, i.xxii. — 5. Ibid. ch. lxxiii. — 6. Ibid. ch. iv ; cf. Matth. xvx, 24. — 7. Rule, ch. v. — 8. Ibid. ch. iv. — 9. Prologue to the Rule.
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