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Some Aspects of the Public Life of Jesus

SUMMARY. — Variety of the aspects of the Public Life of Jesus. — [. The testimonies which Christ bears to His Divinity. — II. How these testimonies are likewise the foundation of our faith in Jesus Christ. — II]. The human actions of the Incarnate Word declare the Divine perfections ; the human kindness in Christ reveals the eternal love. — IV. Christ’s mercy towards sinners: the Prodigal Son, the Samaritan Woman, Magdalen, the Woman taken in adultery. — V. The Saviour’s mercy is the first source of our confidence ; how this confidence is strengthened by penitence. — VI. Severity of Jesus towards the hypocrital pride of the Pharisees.

HE Apostle St. John says at the end of his Gospel : “There are also many other things which Jesus did ; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written ”’ +.

This thought is brought home to us in a special manner as we are about to contemplate Our Lord’s public life. lf we would comment in detail upon each of His words, consider and explain each of His actions, a whole lifetime would not suffice.

We will at least take some characteristic points from this period of the Saviour’s life.

First of all we will see how Christ Jesus declares and establishes the divinity of His mission and person ;—we will next contemplate with what unwearying condescension towards misery under every form, He reveals to the world the depths and riches of Infinite Goodness ;—this revelation will be the more striking if we consider it in contrast with

Our Saviour’s attitude towards the pride of the Pharisees.

These are, out of a thousand others, three aspects of the public life of Jesus from which, dwelling upon them, we may draw graces of light and principles of life.

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At the Baptism of Jesus, which marks the beginning of His public life, we hear the Father testifying that Christ is His beloved Son in Whom He is well pleased ?.

The teaching of Jesus during the three years of His exterior ministry towards souls is but the unceasing commentary on this testimony. We shall see Christ manifest Himself in His actions and words, not as the adoptive Son of God, as one chosen to fulfil a special mission towards His people, as were the simple prophets,—but as the very Son of God, Son by nature, possessing in consequence the Divine prerogatives, the absolute rights of the Sovereign Being, and requiring from us faith in the divinity of His work and of His Person.

When we read the Gospel, we see that Christ speaks and acts not only as man, like unto us, but also as God, high above all creatures.

We see that He speaks of Himself as greater than Jonas, than Solomon, than Moses? ; if, as Man, born of Mary, He is the Son of David, He is also the Lord, seated at the right hand of God, sharing in His eternal power and infinite glory.

Thus He declares Himself to be the Supreme Lawgiver, by the same title as God. As God gave the Law to Moses, so Christ establishes the code of the Gospel : “ You have heard that it was said to them of old... but I say to you...” * This is the formula that is repeated throughout the Sermon on the Mount. He shows Himself to be the sovereign Master of the Law to such a degree that He derogates from it by His own authority when He so pleases, with an entire independance, as being He Who instituted it.

This power is boundless. Jesus forgives sins, a privilege which God alone enjoys, because it is God alone Whom sin offends. “Be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee’, says He to the man sick of the palsy who is brought to Him. The Pharisees, scandalized at hearing a man speak thus, murmur among themselves : “ Who can forgive sins, but God only”. But Jesus reads the secret thoughts of their hearts ; and to prove, to those who contest it, that He possesses this divine power, not by delegation but as being personally entitled to it, He immediately works a miracle : “That you may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then said He to the man sick of the palsy), Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house’’*.1

This is a characteristic example : Christ Jesus works His miracles by His own authority. Except before the raising of Lazarus, when He asks His Father that the miracle He is about to perform may enlighten those who are to witness it, He never prays before manifesting His power, as did the prophets ; but with a word, a gesture, a single act of the will, He heals the maimed, makes the paralyzed walk, multiplies the loaves, calms the furious waves, casts out devils, raises the dead.

In fine, His power is so great that He will come upon the clouds to judge every creature ; all power has been given to Him by His Father in heaven and in earth? ; like His

‘Father, He promises eternal life to those who follow Him °.

These words and actions show us that Jesus is equal to God, participating in the supreme power of the Divinity, in God’s essential prerogatives and infinite dignity.

We have still more explicit testimonies.

You know the episode wherein Peter confesses his faith in his Master’s divinity, saying : “ Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God”. “ Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona : because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father Who is in heaven”. And in order to mark the greatness of this act of faith, the Saviour promises that He will make Peter the foundation of His Church ¢.

At the hour of His Passion, standing before His judges, Our Lord proclaims His Divinity yet more authoritatively.2

In his position of president of the great counsel, Caiphas says to the Saviour: “I adjure Thee by the Living God, that Thou tell us if Thou be the Christ the Son of God”. “ Thou hast said it”, answers Jesus ; “ hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven”. You know that “to sit at the right hand of God” was regarded by the Jews as a divine prerogative, and that to arrogate this prerogative to oneself constituted a blasphemy punishable by death. This is why Caiphas has scarcely heard the reply of Jesus than he rends his garments in sign of protestation, and cries out : “ He has blasphemed ; what further need have we of witnesses” ? And all the others reply : “He is guilty of death” *. And rather than retract, Christ accepts His condemnation.

It is above all in St. John’s Gospel, that we find upon the lips of Jesus testimonies to a union between Himself and His Father such as can only be explained by the Divine nature that He indivisibly possesses with the Father and their common Spirit.

You will notice that, except when He teaches His disciples how to pray, Christ Jesus never says: “Our Father” ; always, when speaking of His relations with God, He says : “the Father, My Father” ; and in speaking to His disciples : “ your Father”. Our Lord is careful to denote the essential difference that exists, in this matter, between Himself and other men : He is the Son of God by nature, they are so only by adoption.

He has, therefore, personal relations of a unique character with the Father, which can only result from His Divine origin.

One day, He says in the presence of His disciples : “I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones. Yea, Father ; for so hath it seemed good in Thy sight. All things are delivered to Me by My Father. And no one knoweth the3

Son but the Father ; neither doth anyone know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Father to reveal Him”?. By these words, the Word Incarnate shows us clearly that between Himself and His Father there is a perfect equality of knowledge incomprehensible for us. This Son Who is Jesus is so great and His Sonship so ineffable that only the Father, Who is God, can know Him ; the Father is of such majesty, His Fatherhood is so sublime a mystery, that the Son alone can know what the Father is. This knowledge so far surpasses all created science that no man can participate therein unless it be revealed to him.

Thus Our Lord testifies to His Divine union with the Father,—a union which is not limited to the knowledge which He has of the Father, but extends to all the works wrought by Christ as Man.

See how, on the Sabbath day, Jesus heals the paralytic man, telling him to take up his bed and walk. Immediately the Jews, quite scandalized, reproach the Saviour with not observing the Sabbath day. And what does Our Lord answer ? In order to show that He is, by the same right as His Father, the supreme Master cf the Law, He replies to the Pharisees : “ My Father worketh until now ; and I work”. His hearers so throughly understand that, by these words, He claims to be God that they seek to put Him to death ; “ because He did not only break the Sabbath, but also said, that God was His Father, making Himself equal to God”. Far from contradicting them, Our Lord confirms their interpretation : “ Amen, amen, I say unto you, the Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing ; for what things soever He doth, these the Son also doth in like manner. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things which He Himself doth...” ?. Read, in the Gospel, the sequel and development of these words, you will see with what authority Christ Jesus proclaims Himself in all things equal to the Father, God with Him and like to Him.

The whole discourse after the Last Supper, and all the sacerdotal prayer of Jesus at that solemn moment, are full of these affirmations showing that He is the very Son of4

God, having the same Divine nature, possessing the same sovereign rights, enjoying the same eternal glory : Ego et Pater unum sumus?*.

II

If now we seek to know why Christ thus attests His Divinity, we shall see that it is in order to lay the foundation of our faith.

St. Paul exhorts us to “consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus” : Considerate apostolum et pontificem confessionis nostrae Jesum?. “ Apostle” means one who is sent to fulfil a mission, and St. Paul says that Christ is the Apostle of our faith. How is this ?

The Incarnate Word is, according to the expression of the Church, Magni Consilii Angelus *, “the Angel of great counsel” who dwells in the splendours of the divinity. And wherefore is He sent ? To reveal to the world “ the mystery which hath been hidden from eternity in God ”, the mystery of the salvation of the world by a Man-God. Such is the fundamental truth to which Christ is to give testimony : Ego in hoc natus sum et ad hoc veni in mundum ur testumonium perhibeam veritati *.

The great’ mission of Jesus, above all during His public life, is then to manifest His Divinity to the world : Jpse enarravit®. All His teaching, all His conduct, all His miracles, tend to inculcate this truth in the minds of His hearers. See, for example, how at the tomb of Lazarus, before He raises His friend to life, Christ, lifting up His eyes to heaven, says : “Father, I give Thee thanks that Thou hast heard Me. And I know that Thou hearest Me always ; but because of the people who stand about have I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me” : Ut credant quia tu me musistt ®.

Doubtless, Our Lord only inculcates this truth gradually in consideration of the Jews’s monotheistic notions ; but with admirable wisdom, He makes all converge towards this manifestation of His Divine Sonship. At the end of His life, when upright minds are sufficiently prepared, He

I. Joan. X, 30. — 2. Hebr. 11, 1. — 3. Iniroit to the third Mass on Christmas Day. — 4. Joan. XVIII, 37. — 5. Ibid. 11. — 6. Ibid. x,

41-42. does not hesitate to confess His Divinity before His judges, at the peril of His life. Jesus is the King of martyrs, of all those who, by the shedding of their blood, have professed their faith in His Divinity.

In His prayer at the Last Supper, He renders account, as it were, to His Father of His mission, and He sums up all in these words : “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do”. And what is the fruit of His work ? That His disciples have accepted His testimony. “ They have known in very deed that I came out from Thee : and they have believed that Thou didst send Me” ?.

Thus this faith in His Son’s Divinity is, according to the very words of Jesus, the work that God especially demands of us: Hoc est opus Dei, ut credatis in eum quem misit ille ?,

It is this faith that brings healing to many sick with divers diseases : Secundum fidem vestram fiat vobis* ; to Magdalen it brings the forgiveness of her sins : Fides tua te salvam fecit, vade in pace*. It is this faith whereby Peter merits to be established as the indestructible foundation of the Church ; it is this faith which makes the Apostles pleasing to the Father, and the objects of His love: Pater amat vos, quia vos me amastis, et credidistis *.

Again it is this faith that gives us “ power to be made the sons of God” : His qui credunt in nomine ejus®; which makes the divine fountains of the grace of the Holy Spirit spring up in our hearts : Qui credit in me, flumina de ventre ejus fluent aquae vivae™ ; which scatters death’s shadows : Vem ut omms qui credit in Me in tenebris non maneat® ; which brings us divine life, “for God so loved the world, as to give His Only-begotten Son ; that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting” : Ut ommis qui credit in ipsum non pereat, sed habeat vitam aeternam ®,

It is because of the lack of this faith that the enemies of5

Jesus will perish : “ If I had not come, and spoken to them, they would not have sin ; but now they have no excuse for their sin” ?. And it is why “he that doth not believe is already judged : because he believeth not in the name of. the Only-begotten Son of God” : Qui autem non credit, jam judicatus est, quia non credit in nomine Unigeniti Fil Der) ’

This faith in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, is then the basis of all our spiritual life, the deep root of all justification, the essential condition of all progress, the assured means of attaining the summit of all sanctity.

Let us cast ourselves down at the feet of Jesus, and say to Him: O Christ Jesus, Incarnate Word, Who camest down from heaven to reveal to us the secrets that Thou, the Only-begotten Son of God, dost ever contemplate in the bosom of the Father, I believe and I confess that Thou art God, like the Father, equal to Him ; I believe in Thee ; I believe in Thy works ; I believe in Thy Person ; I believe that Thou art come forth from God, that Thou art one with the Father ; that he that seeth Thee, seeth the Father ; I believe that Thou art the Resurrection and the Life. I believe this and, believing it, I adore Thee and consecrate to Thy service, all my being, all my activity, all my life. I believe in Thee, O Christ Jesus, but increase my faith : Credo, Domine, sed adjuva incredulitatem meam ! —

III

If Christ reveals to the world the dogma of His eternal filiation, it is by means of His Humanity that He manifests to us the perfections of His Divine nature. Although He be the true Son of God, He loves to call Himself “ the Son of man”. He gives Himself this title even on the most solemn occasions when He claims with most authority the prerogatives of the Divine Being.

Indeed each time that we come in contact with Him, we are in presence of this sublime mystery ; the union of two natures—Divine and Human—in one and the same Person, —without mingling or confusion of natures. This is the initial mystery that we ought ever to have before our eyes when we contemplate Our Lord. Each of His mysteries places in relief either the oneness of His adorable Person, the truth of His Divine nature, or the reality of His human condition.6

One of the principal and most touching aspects of the economy of the Incarnation is the manifestation of the Divine perfections made to men through the Human Nature. God’s attributes, His eternal perfections are incomprehensible to us here below, they surpass our understanding. But, in becoming man, the Incarnate Word reveals to the most simple minds the inaccessible perfections of His Divinity, by the words which fall from His human lips and by the actions performed by His human nature. We are charmed and drawn to Him as He enables us to grasp these divine perfections by His visible actions : Ut dum visibiliter Deum cognoscimus, per hunc in invisibilium amorem rapiamur 3,

It is above all during the public life of Jesus that this economy full of wisdom and mercy is declared and carried into effect.

Of all the Divine perfections, love is certainly the one that the Incarnate Word is most pleased to reveal to us.

The human heart needs a tangible love in order to realize something of infinite love, deeper far as it is than this tangible love and surpassing our understanding. Nothing, indeed, so much attracts our poor hearts as to contemplate Christ Jesus, true God as well as true Man, translating the eternal goodness into human deeds. When we see Him lavishly scattering around Him inexhaustible treasures of compassion and mercy, we are able to conceive something of the infinity of that ocean of Divine kindness whence the Sacred Heart draws these treasures for us.

Let us dwell on some traits ; we shall see with what condescension, at times surprising, Our Saviour stoops towards human misery under every form, sin included. And never forget that, even when He stoops towards us, He remains the very Son of God, God Himself, the Almighty Being, Infinite Wisdom, Who, ordering all things in truth, does nothing save what is sovereignly perfect. This un- doubtedly gives to the words of kindness that He utters, to the deeds of mercy that He performs, an inestimable value that infinitely enhances them, and especially wins our hearts by manifesting to us the profound charms of the Heart of our Christ, of our God.7

You know the first miracle of the public life of Jesus : the water changed into wine at the marriage feast of Cana, at the prayer of His Mother?. For our human hearts, what an unexpected revelation of the Divine tenderness and delicacy ! Some austere ascetics may be scandalized to see a miracle asked or wrought in order to hide the temporal need of a poor household during a wedding banquet. And yet it is this that the Blessed Virgin does not hesitate to ask, it is this that Christ vouchsafes to work. Jesus allows Himself to be touched by the embarrassment in which these poor people were about to find themselves ; so as to spare them, He works a great prodigy. And what His Heart herein reveals to us of human goodness and humble condescension is but the outward manifestation of divine goodness whence the other has its source.

A short time afterwards, in the synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus quoting from Isaias, appropriates to Himself these words unveiling the plan of His work of love : “ The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Wherefore He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor, He hath sent me to heal the contrite of heart, to preach deliverance to the captives, and sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of reward”.

“This day”, Jesus adds, “is fulfilled this scripture in your ears” ®.

And indeed Jesus reveals Himself to all as a King full of meekness and kindness*. I should need to quote every page of the Gospel if I would show you how misery, weakness, infirmity and suffering have the gift of touching Him, and in so irresistible a manner that He can refuse them nothing. St. Luke is careful to note how He is “ moved with compassion” : Misericordia motus*. The blind and the lame, and deafmutes, those with the palsy, lepers come to Him ; the Gospel says that He “ healed all” : Sanabat omnes *.8

He welcomes them all too with unwearying gentleness. He allows Himself to be pressed on all sides, continually, even “after sunset”? ; one day He “could not so much as eat bread ”*® ; another time, on the shore of the Lake of Tiberias, He is obliged to enter into a ship so as to be more at liberty to distribute the divine word‘. Elsewhere the multitude throng into the house where He is, so that in order to enable a paralytic man lying upon his bed to come near to Him, there is no other resource save to let down the sick man through an opening made in the roof ®.

The Apostles themselves were often impatient. The Divine Master took occasion of this to show them His gentleness. One day they want to send away the children that are brought to Him. “Suffer the little children to come unto Me”, Jesus says, “and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God”. And He stays to lay His hands upon them and bless them®. Another time, the disciples, being angry because He had not been received in a city of Samaria, urge Him to allow them, to “ command fire to come down from heaven” to consume the inhabitants : Domine, vis dicimus ut ignis descendat de caelo ? And Jesus immediately rebukes them : Et conversus increpavit illos : “ You know not of what spirit you are. The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save” ’.

This is so true that Jesus works miracles even to raise the dead to life. Behold how at Naim He meets a poor widow following the mortal remains of her only son. Jesus sees her, He sees her tears ; His Heart, deeply touched, cannot bear this sorrow. “ O woman, weep not” ! Noli flere. And at once He commands death to give up its prey : “ Young man, I say to Thee, arise”. The young man sits up, and Jesus restores him to his mother ®.

All these manifestations of the mercy and goodness of Jesus, which reveal to us the sensibility of His human Heart, touch the deepest fibres of our being ; they reveal,

  1. Luce. vi, 19. — 2. Marc. I, 32-33. —3. Ibid. ut, 20, — 4. Ibid. rv, 1-2.

— 5.Ibid. m 4. — 6. Mare. X, 13-14, 7. Luc 16. — 7. IX, 54-56. — 8. Ibid. vir, 11-15.

. under a form which we are able to grasp, the infinite love of our God. When we see Christ weeping at the tomb of Lazarus, and hear the Jews, who witnessed this sight, say to one another : “ Behold how He loved him”, our hearts comprehend this silent language of the human tears of Jesus, and we penetrate into the sanctuary of eternal love that they unveil : Qui videt me, videt et Patrem ?.

We see too how everything that Christ does condemns our selfishness, our harshness, our dryness of heart, our impulses of anger and revenge, our resentment towards our neighbour !...We too often forget those words of Our Saviour : “ As long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me” ®.

O Jesus, Who hast said : “ Learn of Me that I am meek and humble of Heart”, make our hearts like to Thine. Following Thy example, may we be merciful so that we may “obtain mercy” for ourselves, but above all so that by imitating Thee, we may become like to our Father in Heaven.

IV

The deepest form of misery is sin. If there is a trait particularly striking in the conduct of the Incarnate Word during His public life, it is the strange preference that He manifests for His ministry towards sinners.

The sacred writers tell us that “as He was sitting at meat... behold many publicans* and sinners came, and sat down with Jesus and His disciples” : Ecce muLti publicani et peccatores venientes discumbebant cum Jesu et discipulis ejus®. Jesus was even called “the friend of publicans and sinners” : Publicanorum et peccatorum amicus *, And when the Pharisees showed that they were scandalized, far from denying the fact, Jesus confirmed it, in giving the reason that lay at the root of it : ‘ They that are well have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. For I came not to call the just but sinners” ’.

I. Joan. XI, 36. — 2. Joan. xiv, 9. — 3. Matth, xxv, 40. — 4. Taxcollectors in the pay of the Roman masters of Judea; recruited from the lowest class, they were regarded as contemptible on account of their exactions : they were ranked among thieves. — 5. Matth. rx, 10; cf. Marc. m 15; Luc. v, 29. — 6. Matth. x, 19; Tuc. vi, 34. — 7. Ibid. rx, 12-13 ; Mare. 1, 17 ; Luce. V, 31-32.

In the eternal plan, Jesus is our Elder Brother : Praedestinavit [nos Deus] conformes fieri imaginis Filu sui, ut sit primogenitus in multis fratribus?. He has taken our nature, sinful in the race, but pure in His Person, Jn similitudinem carnis peccati?. He knows that the great mass of mankind fall into sin and need forgiveness ; that souls, the slaves of sin, sitting “in the darkness and in the shadow of death”, do not understand the direct revelation of divine things ; they can only be drawn to the Father by the condescension of the Sacred Humanity. This is why a great part of His teaching and doctrine, and countless acts of benignity and forgiveness towards sinners, tend to make these poor souls understand something of the depths of Divine mercy.

In one of His most beautiful parables *, that of the Prodigal Son, Jesus discloses to us an authentic portrait of His Heavenly Father.

This parable has, however, for its immediate end, as the Gospel clearly indicates, to explain His own condescension towards sinners. St. Luke tells us indeed that “the Pharisees and the Scribes murmured, saying : This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them”. Thereupon, in order to justify what He did “ He spoke to them this parable ” *.

He shows first of all the extraordinary goodness of the father, who forgets all the ingratitude, all the baseness of the prodigal, remembering only that his son “was dead and is come to life again ; he was lost, and is found” °.

Christ Jesus might have made this parable consist only in showing forth the mercy of the father towards the prodigal. So wide is this mercy that we cannot conceive of a greater ; we are so touched by it, so full of wonder, that it holds all our attention and most often we lose sight of the lesson that Jesus wishes to give to the murmurers, to those who blasphemed His behaviour towards sinners.

For He goes on to represent the odious attitude of the elder son who refuses to take part in the common joy by sitting down at the feast prepared for his brother.

He wishes to make the Pharisees understand not only how hard was their proud behaviour, and how contemptible was the scandal that they took, but likewise to teach them that He, our Elder Brother, far from avoiding contact with His repentant brethren, the publicans and sinners, sought them out and took part in their feasts. For “there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance” ?.9

Of itself alone, the parable of the Prodigal Son forms a magnificent revelation of divine mercy. But it pleased Our Saviour to illustrate this teaching and lay stress upon this doctrine by deeds of mercy that deeply charm and move us.

You know the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman’. It was quite at the beginning of Christ’s public life. Our Lord was going from Jerusalem into Galilee. Having to journey a long distance, He set out early in the morning. Towards the hour of noon, He arrived near Sichar, a city of Samaria. The holy Gospel tells us that Jesus was ‘“ wearied with His journey”. He was tired, as we ourselves should have been after having travelled a considerable distance: Fatigatus ex itinere. And He sat down on the side of the well of Jacob that was there : Sedebat sic supra fontem.

All the actions of the Incarnate Word are wonderfully beautiful in their simplicity. God as He is, Jesus is equally, if I may thus express it, very human in the full and noble sense of the word : Perfectus Deus, perfectus homo*. We recognise in Him truly one of our own.

He is sitting then on the weil-side, whilst His disciples go to seek food in the neighbouring town. But what has Jesus come to do there? Is it only to take a little rest ? to await the return of His disciples ? No, He has come above all to seek a wandering sheep, to save a soul.

Christ Jesus came down from heaven to redeem souls : Dedit redemptionem semetipsum pro ommnibus*. During thirty years He had to repress the ardour of this zeal for souls which burnt within Him. Doubtless He laboured,

  1. Luc. xv, 7. — 2. Joan. Iv, 5-29. This episode is read on the Friday after the 3" Sunday in Lent. — 3. Creed attributed to St Athanasius.— 4.1, Tim. u, 6; cf, Matth. xx, 28 ; Marc. X, 45.

Christ in His Mysteries. 14

He suffered, He prayed for them ; but He did not go out to them. Now the hour had come wherein it was the will of His Father that in order to gain souls He should undertake the preaching of the truth and the revelation of His mission. Our Lord came to Sichar to save one predestined from all eternity.

And who was this soul? Certainly, in this locality, there were many to be met with far less corrupted than the sinner whom He willed to save ; and yet it is this one whom He now awaits. He knows all the sin, all the shame of this poor woman, and it is she, in preference to all others, ‘to whom He is about to manifest Himself.

The sinful woman then arrives, bearing her pitcher wherewith to draw water from the well. Christ at once speaks to her. And what does He say to her! Does He begin to reproach her with her evil conduct, and speak to her of the chatisements that she deserves ? In nowise. A Pharisee would have spoken in that way, but Jesus acts altogether differently. He takes occasion of their surroundings to draw her into converse: Da mihi bibere, “Give me to drink”.

The woman looks at Him in astonishment. She has just recognised that He who speaks to her is a Jew, and the Jews despised the Samaritans who hated the inhabitants of Judea. Between the Jews and Samaritans there was no communication : Non coutuntur. “ How dost Thou, being a Jew, ask of me to drink”, she says to Our Lord. And He, seeking to excite in her a holy curiosity, answers : “ If thou didst know the gift of God” : Si scires donum Dei! “Tf thou didst know... Who He is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink ; thou perhaps wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water ”’.

This poor creature, sunk in the life of sense, grasps nothing of spiritual things. She is more and more astonished ; she asks herself how her interlocutor could give her water, having no means of drawing any, and what water could be better than that of this well whereat the patriarch Jacob came to drink, he and his sons and his cattle. ‘Art Thou greater than our father Jacob” ? she ~ asks of Christ. Jesus insists upon His reply : ‘“ Whosoever... shall drink of the water that I will give him, shall not thirst for ever”. It ‘“‘ shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting”. “Sir, give me this water”, says the woman.

The Saviour then makes her understand that He knows the evil life that she is leading. This sinner, whom grace begins to enlighten, sees that she is in presence of One Who sees to the depth of the heart : Propheta es tu. And immediately her soul, touched by grace, ascends towards the light. She says to Him: “Our fathers adored on this mountain : and You say that at Jerusalem is the place where men must adore”. As you know, this was a perpetual subject of dispute between the Jews and Samaritans.

Christ Jesus beholds arising in this soul, in the midst of its corruption, a glimmer of good will, enough for Him to grant a still greater grace ; for as soon as He sees uprightness and sincerity in the search after truth, He brings light, He rejoices to reward this desire of good and of justice.

Thus He is about to make a double revelation to this soul. He teaches her that “the hour cometh and now is when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeketh such to adore Him”: Paier tales quaerit qui adorent eum. He manifests Himself to her as the Messias : Ego sum qui loquor tecum, a revelation that He had not yet made to anyone, not even to His disciples.

Is it not remarkable that these two great revelations were made first of all to a poor creature, who had no other title to be the object of such a privilege except her need of salvation and a glimmer of goodwill ?...

This woman returns justified. She had received grace and faith. She “left her water-pot” and went into the city to preach the Messias Whom she had met. Her first act is to made known “the gift of God”, communicated to her with such liberality.

Meanwhile, the disciples return with the food. They offer some to their Master: Rabbi, manduca. What does Jesus answer? “I have meat to eat, which you know not... My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me” : Meus cibus est ut faciam voluntatem ejus qui misit me*. And what is the will of the Father? He wills that every soul should come to the truth that leads to salvation *.10

It is for this end that Jesus spends Himself. The Father’s will is that Jesus should bring to Him the souls that the Father desires to save, that He should show them the way, and reveal to them the truth that leads them to life : Omne, quod dat mihi Pater, ad me veniet, et eum qui venit ad me non ejiciam foras. That is the whole work of Jesus.

There was nothing in the sinful woman of Sichar to distinguish her from others, unless it was the depth of her misery ; but she was drawn to Christ by the Father. Then the Saviour receives her, enlightens, sanctifies, transforms her, and makes her: His apostle: Et eum qui venit ad me non ejiciam foras. For “ this is the will of the Father Who sent Me, that of all that He hath given Me, I should lose nothing ; but should raise it up again” to grace here below, whilst awaiting “the last day”, when I will raise it up again in glory.

The woman of Samaria is one of the first to be raised up to grace by Jesus. Magdalen is another, but how much more glorious !

Evrat in civitate peccatrix : “ And behold a woman that was in the city, a sinner”. Thus the Gospel begins her story with the attestation of her evil life. For Magdalen’s profession was to give herself up to sin, as the profession of a soldier is to bear arms and that of a politician to direct the destinies of the state. Her sinful life was notorious. Seven devils, symbol of the abyss into which she had fallen, made of her soul their abode.

One day, Christ is invited to the house of Simon the Pharisee. Scarcely has He taken His place at table than the woman, “who was a sinner”, bearing an alabaster box of ointment comes suddenly into the festal hall. Coming near to Jesus, “she began to wash His feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment ”’.

As soon as she has entered, the Pharisee, altogether scandalized, says within himself : “This man, if He were a

  1. Tim. O, 4.

SOME ASPECTS OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS Zo prophet, would know surely who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him, that she is a sinner” : Quae et qualis est mulier, quae tangit eum, quia peccatrix est! “ Answering ”’, (notice the word respondens, the Pharisee had said nothing aloud, but Christ answers his inmost thought), Jesus proposes to him the question that you know. Of two insolvent debtors, whose debts the creditor remits, which will love him most ? “TI suppose that he to whom he forgave most”, Simon replies. “Thou hast judged rightly’, answers Jesus. Then turning towards Magdalen: “ Dost thou see this woman” ? this woman who is indeed a sinner ; whom thou despisest in thy heart, “she hath loved much” as she hath even now testified : therefore ‘ many sins are forgiven her : Remuittuntur et peccata multa, quomam dilexit multum?.

Magdalen the sinner has become the triumph of the grace of Jesus, one of the most magnificent trophies of His Precious Blood.

This compassion of the Incarnate Word towards sinners is so wide that He sometimes seems to forget the rights of His justice and holiness. The enemies of Jesus know this so well that they go so far as to lay snares for Him on this ground.

And lo, they bring to Christ a woman taken in adultery ”. It is impossible to deny the crime or to diminish its gravity; the Gospel tells us that the guilty woman has been taken in the very act ; the law of Moses ordained that she should be stoned. The Pharisees, knowing the compassion of Jesus, count upon His absolving this woman ; that would be to place Himself in opposition with their lawgiver : Tu ergo, quid dicis ?

But if Jesus is goodness itself, He is likewise eternal wisdom. At first He answers nothing to the perverse injunction of the accusers. ‘They insist. Then Our Lord says to them : “ He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her”. Such a response puts His enemies out of countenance. They have no other resource save to withdraw one after the other.11

Jesus is left alone with the guilty woman. Great misery and great mercy are in presence of one another. And behold mercy stoops to misery : ‘“‘ Woman, where are they that accused thee ? Hath no man condemned thee” ? “No man, Lord”. “ Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more” ?.

The goodness of Jesus appeared so excessive to certain Christians of the early Church that this episode is suppressed in several manuscripts of the first centuries ; but it is quite authentic, and its insertion in the Gospel was willed by the Holy Spirit.

All these examples of the kindness of the Heart of Jesus are but the manifestations of a higher love : the infinite love of the Heavenly Father towards poor sinners. Never let us forget that we are to see in what Jesus does as Man, a revelation of what He does as God, with the Father and their common Spirit. Jesus receives sinners and forgives them : it is God Himself, Who, under a human form, stoops towards them, and welcomes them into the bosom of His eternal loving-kindness.

V

The revelation of the Divine mercy made through Christ Jesus is the first source of our confidence.

To all to us come moments of grace when, in the divine light, we perceive the abyss of our sins, of our miseries and nothingness. We say to Christ, like St. Peter : “ Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” 2. Could it be possible for You to bind Yourself in a close union with a soul touched by sin? Seek rather privileged souls that are noble and pure. As for me, I am too unworthy to remain so near to You,

But let us remember what Christ Himself said : “I am not come to call the just, but sinners”. And indeed did He not call Matthew the publican to the rank of an apostle? And whom did He place at the head of His Church that He willed to be without “spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy, and without blemish ”, and for the sanctification whereof He came to give all His precious Blood? ? Whom did He choose? Was it John the Baptist, sanctified from his mother’s womb, confirmed in grace and of such eminent perfection that he was taken for Christ Himself? No. Was it John the Evangelist, the virgin disciple, he whom Christ loved with a special love, who alone remained faithful to Him even to the foot of the Cross ? Again no. Whom then did He chose? Knowingly, deliberately, Our Lord chose a man who was to forsake Him. Is it not remarkable ?12

Christ, being God, knew beforehand all that was to happen. When He promised Peter that He would build upon him His Church, He knew that Peter, wonderful as was the spontaneity of his faith, would deny Him. Despite all the miracles wrought under his eyes by the Saviour, despite the glory with which he beheld Christ’s Humanity resplendent on Thabor, Peter on the very day of his first communion and his ordination, swore saying : “ I know not the Man”? !.... And it was he whom Jesus chose in preference to all others. Why was this ?

Because His Church would be composed of sinners. Except the most pure Virgin Mary, we are all sinners ; we have all need of divine mercy ; and therefore Christ willed that the visible head of His kingdom should be a sinner whose fault would be related in Holy Scripture with every detail showing its cowardice and ingratitude.

See again Mary Magdalen. We read in the Gospel that women followed Jesus in His apostolic journeys in order to minister to His needs and those of His disciples. Among all these women of unwearying devotedness, whom did He single out ? Magdalen. He willed that the sacred scribe should hide nothing of the fact of her sinful life ; but He willed too that we should read how He accepted the presence of Magdalen at the foot of the Cross, by the side of His Mother, the Virgin of virgins * ; and how it was to her, before all others, that He first appeared after His Resurrection *.

Yet once more, why so much condescension ? Jn laudem gloriae gratiae suae+: to exalt the triumphant glory of His grace in the sight of all. Such is indeed the greatness of divine forgiveness that it raised to the highest holiness a sinner who had fallen so low : Abyssus abyssum tnvocat *. An author of the first centuries says : Christ “found a fallen woman and made her [by the depth of her repentance] purer than a virgin” : Invenit meretricem, et virgine castiorem reddidit °.13

God wills that ‘‘no man may glory” in his own righteousness *, but that all should magnify the power of His grace and the wideness of His mercy : Quoniam in aeternum misericordia ejus *.

Our miseries, our failings, our sins, we know them well enough ; but what we do not know,—souls of little faith ! —is the value of the Blood of Jesus and the power of His grace.

Our confidence has its source in God’s infinite mercy towards us, and increases in proportion to our sorrow for sin.

The extreme condescension of Jesus towards sinners cannot serve as a motive for remaining in sin or falling into sin again after having been set free from it. “ Shall we continue in sin” says St. Paul, “that grace may abound? God forbid. For we that are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer therein” ° ?

You will have noticed that in forgiving the woman taken in adultery, Jesus gives her a grave warning: “Sin no more”. He says the same to the paralytic man, adding the reason : “ Behold thou art made whole ; sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee’”’. It is indeed as Jesus Himself has said : When the evil spirit has been cast out of a soul, he returns to besiege it with “ other spirits more wicked than himself” and if he again makes himself master, the last state of that soul is worse than the first 8. Penitence is the requisite condition for receiving and safeguarding within us divine forgiveness. Look at Peter : he sinned, sinned grievously, but the Gospel relates that he “wept bitterly” for his sin: Flevit amare? ; afterwards he was to efface his threefold denial by a threefold protestation of love, “ Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that TI love Thee”?! Again look at Magdalen, for she is, as well as one of the most magnificent trophies of Christ’s grace, the splendid symbol of penitent love. St. Paul says that the hair of a woman “is a glory to her ; for her hair is given to her for a covering” *. And this adornment which had served Magdalen to allure and ruin souls she now uses to wipe the Saviour’s feet. In thus humbling herself publicly in the sight of the guests who knew her, and that by the movement of her contrite love, she attracts and holds treasures of mercy : Remitiuntur et peccata multa quoniam dilexit multum.14

However numerous be the falls of a soul, we ought never to despair of it. “How often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him”? Peter asked Our Lord. “ Seventy times seven times”, Jesus replied, meaning by this that there should be no limit to our forgiveness *.

Here below, this inexhaustible measure towards repentance is that of God Himself.

To complete what I have just said of the goodness and condescension of Christ Jesus towards us, | will add another trait which further reveals His tenderness, namely His affection for Lazarus and his two sisters.

In all the public life of the Incarnate Word, there is perhaps nothing to be met with that brings us nearer to Him and brings Him nearer to us than this intimate picture of His relations with His friends in the little town. If our faith tells us that He is the Son of God, God Himself, the way in which He vouchsafes His friendship reveals to us, so it seems to me, His quality as “ Son of Man”.

The sacred writers have only sketched the outline of the picture of this holy affection, but they have done so sufficiently to give us a glimpse of what was infinitely delightful about it. St. John tells us that “ Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus” : Diligebat autem Jesus Martham, et sororem ejus Mariam, et Lazarum®. They were His friends and the friends of His Apostles. Speaking of Lazarus to the apostles, He calls him “our friend” : Lazarus amicus noster’. The Gospel adds that “ Mary was she that anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair” ?.15

Their house in Bethania was the home which Christ, the Incarnate Word, had chosen here below as His place of repose, and the scene of that holy friendship whereof He Himself, the Son of God, has deigned to give us the example. There is nothing sweeter for our human hearts than the picture of this home that the Holy Spirit discloses to us in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke. Jesus is truly the honoured, but very intimate, friend of this household. He must have been a very familiar friend for one day Martha, who was busily serving Him, dares to complain to Him of her sister Mary who was sitting quietly at the feet of Jesus and listening enraptured to the Saviour’s words. “Lord, hast Thou no care that my sister hath left me alone to serve ? Speak to her therefore, that she help me” : Domine, non est tibt curae quod soror mea reliquit me solam ministrare ? Dic ergo ili ut me adjuvet. And, far from resenting a like familiarity, which included Him as it were in the reproach made by Martha to her sister, Christ Jesus intervenes and settles the question in favour of her who symbolizes prayer and union with God : “Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away from her:

When, in a spirit of faith, we assist at this delightful scene, we feel in our hearts that Jesus is truly one of us : Debut per omnia fratribus similari* ; we feel that in His Person is wonderfully verified the revelation made to the world by Eternal Wisdom : “ My delights were to be with the children of men” *. We realize at the same time that “neither is there any other nation so great, that hath gods so nigh them, as our God is present to our petitions ” °,

Christ Jesus is truly the “ Emmanuel”, God living amongst us, with us.16

VI

The life of Jesus is a manifestation of the perfection of God, of the liberality of His supreme goodness and unfathomable mercy. It is in the Incarnate Word that God discloses to us His immost character : [lluxit in cordibus nosiris... in facie Christi Jesu’. Christ is “the [visible] image of the invisible God’? ; His words and deeds are the authentic revelation of the Infinite Being.

Now, our contemplation of the character of Jesus and our idea of God would be incomplete, if, in meditating upon Christ’s attitude of unwearying condescension towards every form of misery, sin included, we neglected to examine also His conduct towards that form of human malice which is most opposed to the divine nobility and goodness and is resumed in one word : pharisaism.

You know who the Pharisees were. After the return from the Babylonian captivity some zealous Jews had done everything possible to neutralize the foreign influence, perilous for the orthodoxy of Israel ; above all, they had striven to replace in honour the precepts of the Law of Moses and to guard their purity.

This zeal which was worthy of all praise and manifested a high ideal, unhappily degenerated little by little into fierce fanaticism and in an attachment beyond all measure to the letter of the Law. A ciass of Jews was formed, called the Pharisees, that is to say the “ Separated”, separated from all foreign contact and from all intercourse with those who did not observe their “ traditions ” *.

Interpreting the Law with a rare refinement of casuistry, the Pharisees added thereto a great number of oral prescriptions that most often rendered it impraticable, and, in many cases, childish and ridiculous. Two points of which the details were subjects of endless discussion, especially attracted their attention. These were the observance of the repose of the Sabbath day, and the legal purifications. More than once in the Gospel, we shall see the Pharisees take Our Saviour to task upon these points.17

They had fallen into the narrowest formalism. Without troubling about the inward purity of the soul, they clung to the outward, material and trifling observance of the letter of the Law. That was all their religion and perfection. From this resulted a profound moral obliteration. They neglected the great precepts of the natural law only to dwell upon absurd details, based upon their personal interpretations. Thus, under pretext of not violating the repose of the Sabbath, they taught that none might care for the sick nor give alms to the poor upon that day ; and we see them reproaching the disciples of Jesus for not having observed the Sabbath because they had rubbed in their hands the ears of corn that they had gathered to eat *.

This excessive formalism led of necessity to pride. Being themselves the authors of many precepts, they believed themselves to be equally the authors of their own sanctity. They were the “ separated’, the pure, untouched by anything unclean. Hence what had they wherewith to reproach themsleves ! Were they not perfectly “correct” in every way ? Therefore they had the utmost esteem for themselves. Their overweening pride urged them “to love salutations in the market-place, and the first chairs in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts” ?.

This pride was displayed even in the sanctuary. You know the parable in which Christ strikingly depicts this odious ostentation *. Our Divine Saviour places before us the humility of the Publican who dare not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven on account of his sins, and the self-sufficiency of the Pharisee who, standing, gave thanks to God that he was above the rest of men because of his exact observance of the Law. The Pharisee, as it were, claimed from God the entire approbation of his conduct ¢. i. Matth. xm, i-2; Marc! i, 23-24)luci Vi, 1-2. — 2. luc. xx, 46. — 3. Ic. XVII, 9-14. — 4. In another series of conferences, Christ the Ideal of the Monk, chapter x, Humility, we have commented in detail upon this parable which throws a strong light upon the character that our relations with God ought to bear.

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What rendered many of the Pharisees contemptible was that this pride was coupled with profound’ hypocrisy. In consequence of the multitude of ordinances that they laid down, and that Our Lord Himself declared “ intolerable” +, many among them only attained a name for the kind of sanctity of which they boasted by the clever dissimulation of their sins and backslidings, and by making the text of the Law subject to disloyal interpretations. In this way they could infringe the Law, whilst saving appearances in the eyes of the common people who admired them.

For their authority and influence were considerable. They were regarded as the interpreters and guardians of the Law of Moses. Whilst making a show of profound respect for all the outward practice of their observance, they imposed upon the multitude by whom they were considered as saints.

Thus they took offence at anything that could lessen this ascendency. They began to oppose Our Lord from the outset of His public life. Besides the fact that Christ did not attach His teaching to their school, the doctrine that He preached and the way in which He required them to act up to it were the antipodes of their opinions and their conduct. The Saviour’s extraordinary condescension towards publicans and sinners, rejected by them as unclean, His independance in regard to the Law of the Sabbath, for He said that He was the Lord of the Sabbath ?, the miracles whereby He drew the people to Him could not fail to disquiet them.

Sinking deeper and deeper into their blindness, despite the warnings of Jesus Himself, they lay snares for Him. They ask of Him “a sign from heaven” * as a proof of His mission ; they bring to Him a woman taken in adultery to put Him in opposition with the Law of Moses* ; they insidiously ask Him if tribute must be paid to Caesar °. Throughout the Gospel we see them full of hatred against Jesus, striving to destroy His authority with the multitude, to turn His disciples away from Him and to deceive the people in order to hinder Him from fulfilling His mission of salvation.18

More than once Our Saviour had warned His disciples to beware of their hypocrisy * ; but at the end of His public ministry, He willed, as the Good Shepherd, who was about to give His life for His sheep, to completely unmask those wolves who showed themselves under the guise of sanctity so as to deceive simple souls and lead them to their ruin.

In His Sermon on the Mount, Christ had astonished His Jewish audience by the revelation of a doctrine that ran counter to their inveterate instincts and worldly prejudices. He had declared before them all that the blessed of His Kingdom are the poor of spirit, the meek, those that mourn, those that hunger after justice ; He had declared that it is the merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers who are the true children of His Heavenly Father, and that the greatest of the beatitudes is to be an object of persecution for His sake ?.

This doctrine which forms the Gospel’s “ great charter” of the poor, the little, the humble, is the antithesis of that which the Pharisees preached by words and example.

This is why we hear Our Saviour pronounce against them a series of eight maledictions which form the counterpart of the eight beatitudes.

Read them in their entirety in the Gospel where they fill a whole page® ; you will see with what indignation Christ, the Infallible Truth and Life of souls, warns the multitude, and His disciples in particular, against a teaching and conduct that turned souls away from the Kingdom of God, concealed cupidity and false zeal, distorted the truth and precepts of the Law, established a wholly exterior religion, merely surface purity, under which corruption and _ persecuting hatred were hidden.

“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ; because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men, for you yourselves do not enter in ; and those that are going in, you suffer not to enter” *.

“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ; because you devour the houses of widows, praying long prayers. For this you shall receive the greater judgment ”.19

“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ; because you tithe mint, and anise, and cummin, and have left the weightier things of the Law ; judgment, and mercy, and faith. These things you ought to have done, and not to leave those undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel” ?}.

“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness ?.

“You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of hell” ?

What a contrast between these terrible denunciations, these vehement invectives and Our Lord’s attitude towards the greatest sinners, the Samaritan woman, Magdalen, the woman taken in adultery, whom He forgives without a word of reproach ; towards malefactors, such as the good thief, to whom He promises heaven ° !

Whence comes this difference ? It is because every form of weakness, of misery, when humbly acknowledged and avowed, draws forth the compassion of His Heart and the mercy of His Father : Quomodo miseretur pater filiorum, misertus est Dominus timentibus se ; quoniam ipse cognovit figmentum nostrum* ; whilst pride, especially intellectual pride, like to the sin of the demons, excites the indignation of the Lord : Deus superbis resistit®.

Now the pharisaical spirit is the epitome of all that is odious and hypocritical in pride. These “ proud in the conceit of their heart”, rich in their own estimation, are “sent empty away” for ever, from the presence of God : Divites dimisit inanes °.

It is to be remarked that pharisaism takes many forms. Our Lord did not reproach the Pharisees only on account of their hypocritical pride which hid corruption under a

  1. The Law forbade the eating of any unclean animal; the Pharisees, exagerating this precept, drank nothing that had not been scrupulously filtered, but, on the otker hand, they neglected the other precepts of the Law. — 2. The Pharisees avoided with ridiculous care the least purely legal stain, but were not careful to avoid sin, which stains the soul. — 3. Luc. XXII, 43. — 4. Ps. CII, 13-14. — 5. Jac. Iv, 6; I Petr. v, 5. — 6. Lue. I, 53. cloak of perfection : “ Whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness”*. He reproached them, moreover, for having substituted a formalism of human origin for the eternal law of God.

The Pharisees were scandalized to see Christ healing the sick upon a Sabbath day ; they took offence because the apostles did not submit before sitting down to table to all the childish series of legal ablutions which they had invented and wherein they made all the purity of man to consist. Placing all sanctity in the minute observance of traditions and practices issued from their own brain, they neglected even the gravest precepts of the divine law. Thus, according to them, a man could, by pronouncing a single word, consecrate all his goods or money to the service of the Temple, and thereby render them inviolable, so that the devout Pharisee could not dispose of them even to pay his debts or to provide for the needs of his parents in their necessity. This was, according to our Saviour’s own words, to “ have made void the commandment of God” by their tradition ”.

This narrow formalism, all of human invention, which perverted and diminished religion, and this false conscience were so repugnant to the nobility of heart and the sincerity of Jesus that He unmasked and condemned them unsparingly. What judgment did He in fact pass upon this casuistry ? “TI tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” °.

What a revelation of the intimate character of God! What a manifestation of His manner of judging and appreciating men! What a precious light do these bitter reproaches addressed to the Pharisees throw upon the notion of true perfection !

In the Sermon upon the Mount, Christ points out the height of true holiness ; in His condemnation of the Pharisees, He discloses the abysses of the false piety of which the Pharisee is the faithful type.

The devil has no more redoubtable nor more fatal snare

  1. Matth. xxn, 27. — 2. Ibid. xv, 1-9 ; Marc. vu, 1-13. — 3. Matth. Vv, 20.

SOME ASPECTS OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS 22h than that of making some form of pharisaism pass for the holiness required by the Gospel. In this way the prince of darkness even attacks souls seeking after perfection ; he darkens the eyes of their souls by the appearance of an altogether formal virtue substituted for the truth of the Gospel. Far from making progress in such a path, one remains barren before God. “Every plant which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up”. This is the inexorable sentence of Jesus against the race of Pharisees.

We see how important it is in this matter to distrust our own judgment, our own lights ; how important it is not to base our holiness upon such or such a practice of devotion, however excellent, which we choose for ourselves, nor upon such or such an observance of our religious rule. Such an observance may be suspended by a higher law, as is, for example, the law of charity towards our neighbour. Holiness for us must be based before and above all upon the fulfilment of the divine law: the natural law, the precepts of the decalogue, the commandments of the Church, and the duties of our state. A piety that does not respect this hierarchy of duties ought to be held suspect ; all ascetism that is not governed by the precepts and doctrine of the Gospel cannot come from the Holy Spirit Who inspired the Gospel. “ Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God”, says St. Paul, “they are the sons of God” ”.

The tenderness of Jesus is so wide that at the very hour when He is heaping terrible maledictions upon the Pharisees and forewarning them of divine anger, the Gospei shows Him to us deeply moved. The thought of the chastisement that was to fall upon the Holy City for having, in listening to these “blind leaders of the blind” ’, rejected the Messias, forces accents of anguish from His Sacred Heart.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent upon thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth

  1. Matth. xv, 13. — 2. Rom. vin, 14. The development of these ideas ate to be found in the Conference, The Truth in Charity ot our work Christ the Life of the Soul. — 3. Matth. xv, 14.

Christ in His Mysteries. ‘ 15 n220 CHRIST IN HIS MYSTERIES gather her children under her wings, and thou wouldst not” ! And in allusion to the Temple, into which He is not again to enter, for it is the eve of His Passion, He adds : “ Behold, your house shall be you desolate. For I say unto you, you shall not see me henceforth till you say : Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord”? ?

As long as we are here below, God in His eternal kindness never ceases to call us : Quoties volui!... But let us not be of those who by the continual squandering of grace and the habit of deliberate sin, even though slight, harden their hearts to the point of no longer comprehending : Et noluisti. Let us take care not to drive away the Holy Spirit from the temple of our soul by wilful and obstinate resistance : God would leave us to our blindness : Ecce relinquetur domus vestra deserta. Mercy is never lacking to a soul ; it is the soul that closing itself against mercy, provokes justice.

Let us seek rather to remain faithful, with a fidelity that is not bounded by the letter, but that has its source in love, and is supported by confidence in a Saviour full of kindness. Then, whatsoever be our weaknesses, our miseries, our shortcomings, and the faults that escape us, the day will arise when we shall for ever bless the One Who appeared upon earth under a human form. He came to heal our diseases, to redeem us from the abyss of sin ; it is again He Who will crown us for ever with the gifts of His mercy and love : Benedic anima mea Domino... qui sanat omnes infirmitates tuas,—qui redimit de interitu vitam tuam,—qui coronat te in misericordia et miserationibus ?.

  1. Matth, xxIm, 37-39. — 2. Ps. CU, I, 3-4. iON. THE HEIGHTS OF TFHABOR. (Second Sunday in Lent).

Footnotes

    1. Matth. mi, 17; Marc. 1, 11; Luc. WI, 22. — 2. Matth. xl, 41-423 Luc. XI, 31-32. — 3. Cf. Ps. cix, 1. — 4. Matth. V, 22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44-
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    1. Matth. rx, 2-4,6; Mare. m, 5-7, 9; Ic. Vv, 20-22, 24. — 2. Cf. Matth. xxvui, 18. — 3. Ibid. x1x, 28-29. — 4. Ibid. xv1, 17-18.
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    1. Matth. xxvi, 63-66; Marc. XIV, 61-64. — 2. Many of these testimonies are read at the Masses of Lent, especially after Passion Sunday.
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    1. Matth. XI, 25-27. — 2. Joan. v, 16-20.
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    1. Pater, opus consummavi, quod dedisti mihi ut faciam.... et ipsi acceperunt et cognoverunt vere quia a te extvi, et crediderunt quia tu me misistt. Joan. XVI, 4, 8. — 2. Joan. V1, 29. — 3. Matth. rx, 29; cf. Marc. Vv, 34; X, 52; Luc. xv, 19. — 4. Luc. vo, 50. — 5. Joan. xvI, Dap a 6. Ibid. 1, 12. — 7. Ibid. vm, 38. — 8. Ibid. x11, 46. — 9. Ibid, ur, 16.
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    1. Joan. xv, 22. —2. Ibid. mm, 18.
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    1. Preface for the Feast of the Nativity.
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    1. Joan. 0, 1-11. — 2. Lue. Iv, 18-9, 21 ; cf. Isa. LxX1, 1. — 3. Matth. XXI, 5.— 4. Luc. VO, 13.
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    1. Rom. vin, 29. — 2. Ibid. 3. — 3.The Church reads to us this parable on the Saturday after the 2"¢ Sunday in Lent. — 4. Luc. xv, 1-3, 11. — 5. Ibid. 32.
    ↩
    1. Joan. Iv, 31-32, 34.
    ↩
    1. Luc. vu, 37-47. — 2. We tread this episode on the Saturday after the 34 Sunday in Lent.
    ↩

  12. 1 Joan, vil, 3-11. — 2. Luc. v, 8. ↩

    1. Ephes. v, 25-27. — 2. Matth. xxvI, 72, 74. — 3. Joan. xIx, 25. — 4. Marc. XVI, 9.
    ↩
    1. Ephes. 1, 6. — 2. Ps. xu1, 8. — 3. This text is found among the sermons attributed to St John Chrysostom. — 4. Ephes. 1, 9. — 5. Ps. CXxxv. — 6. Rom. VI, 1-2. — 7. Joan. v, 14.— 8. Matth. xu, 45; Luc. SS AX),
    ↩
    1. Luc. XXII, 62. — 2. Joan. XXI, 15-17. — 3. I Cor. XI, 15. — 4. Matth. xvul, 21-22. — 5. Joan. XI, 5.
    ↩
    1. Joan. XI, 11. — 2. Ibid. 2. — 3. Luc, xX, 40-42.— 4. Hebr. 0, 17.— 5. Prov.vin, 31.— 6. Deut. Iv, 7. — 7. Matth. 1, 23.
    ↩
    1. II Cor. Iv, 6. — 2. Col. I, 15. — 3. To the Pharisees must be joined the Scribes, affiliated to that sect; they were principally concerned with the text of the Law, its interpretation and its observance. Sharing in the errors of the Pharisees, they are included in the maledictions which the Saviour heaped upon them.
    ↩
    1. Matth. xxi, 4; Luc. XI, 46. — 2. Matth. xu, 8; Marc. n, 28; Luc. VI, 5. — 3. Matth. xvi, 1. — 4. Joan. vl, 3-6. — 3. Matth. x11, 15-17; Marc. XU, 13-14 5 Luc. XX, 20-22.
    ↩
    1. Matth. Xvi, 11-12; Luc. xm, 1. — 2. Matth. v, 3-11. — 3. Matth. XXIII, 13-33. — 4. By obstructing the path to heaven by the multitude of their intolerable ordinances, and above all by turning souls away from Christ.
    ↩

Chapter 12 of 21