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I.1. The Divine Plan of Our Adoptive Predestination in Jesus Christ

Summary. — Importance, for the spiritual life, of the knowledge of the Divine Plan. — I, General idea of this plan: the holiness to which God calls us by supernatural adoption, is a participation in the Divine life brought to us by Jesus Christ. — II. God wills to make us share in His own life so as to make us holy and fill us with beatitude; what holiness is, in God. — If. Holiness in the Trinity ; fulness of the life to which God destines us. — IV. Fulfilment of this decree through Divine adcption by means of grace : supernatural character of spiritual life. — V. The Divine Plan, crossed by sin, re-established by the Incarnation. — VI. Universality of the Divine adoption; the ineffable love it manifests. — VII. Primordial aim of the Divine plan: the glory of Jesus Christ and of His Father, in the unity of their Spirit. world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His

_ sight in charity. Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the purpose of His Will : unto the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He hath graced us in His beloved Son?”.

These are the terms in which the Divine plan is set forth by the Apostle St. Paul, who had been caught up to the _ third heaven, and was chosen by God to bring to light, as he himself says, the economy of the mystery which hath been hidden from all eternity in God. We see the great Apostle labouring unceasingly to make known this eternal plan, established by God Himself for the sanctification of our souls. Why do all the efforts of the Apostle tend, as he carefully points out, to bring to light this Divine dispensation 2 ?

oa oD chose us in Christ ” before the foundation of the1

Because God, Who is the Author of our salvation, and the first source of our sanctity, could alone make known to us what He desires of us in order that we may attain to Him.

Among the souls who seek God, some hardly succeed in reaching Him.

Some have no precise idea of what holiness is ; being ignorant of the plan traced out by Eternal Wisdom, or setting it aside, they make holiness consist in such or such a conception formed by their own intelligence, they only wish to be guided by themselves; attached to those purely human ideas they have framed, they go astray ; if they make great strides, it is outside the true way marked out by God; they are the victims of those illusions against which St. Paul warned the first Christians *.

Others have clear notions on points of detail, but lack a view of the whole; losing themselves in these minutiae, and not having any synthetic view, they are always going over the same ground; their life becomes a real labour, subject to incessant difficulties, without zest, without expansion, and often without much result, because these souls attach too much importance to their acts, or give them less value than they should relatively have.

It is therefore extremely important, as St. Paul says, to run in the race, ” not as at an uncertainty ”, as one beating the air ?, but so as to obtain the prize: Sic currite ut comprehendatis*; to know as perfectly as possible the Divine idea of holiness; to examine with the greatest care, so as to adapt ourselves to it, the plan traced out by God Himself, whereby we may attain to Him: it is only at this price that our salvation and sanctification can be realised.

In so grave a matter, in so vital a question, we must look at and weigh things, as God looks at and weighs them. God judges all things in the light, and His judgment is the test of all truth. ” We must not judge things according to our own liking”, says St. Francis of Sales, ” but according to that of God; this is the great secret. If we are holy according to our own will, we shall never be truly holy, we must be so according to God’s Will*.” Divine Wisdom is infinitely above human wisdom ; God’s thoughts contain possibilities of fruitfulness such as no created thought possesses. That is why God’s plan is so wise that it cannot fail to reach its end because of any intrinsic insufficiency, but only through our own fault. If we leave the Divine idea full freedom to operate in us, if we adapt ourselves to it with love and fidelity, it becomes extremely fruitful and may lead us to the most sublime sanctity.2

Let us contemplate in the light of Revelation, God’s plan for us. This contemplation will be a source of light, strength and joy for our souls.

I am going to give you, first of all, a general idea of the Divine plan; we will then study it in detail, following the words of St. Paul quoted at the beginning of this conference. t!

It can be demonstrated by human reason that there exists a Supreme Being, the First Cause of every creature, the Providence of the world, the Sovereign Rewarder and the Last End of all things. From this rational knowledge and from the relations it manifests between creatures and God, proceed for us certain duties towards God and towards our neighbour, duties which form what is called the natural law,and the observance of which constitutes natural religion.

But our reason, powerful though it is, has been unable to discover anything, with certainty, of the intimate life of the Supreme Being: the Divine life appears to natural reason to be infinitely distant, far off in solitude : Lucem inhabitat maccessibilem 1.

Revelation has come to us, bringing its light.

It teaches us that there is an ineffable paternity in God. God is a Father: that is the fundamental dogma which all the others suppose, a magnificent dogma which leaves the reason confounded, but ravishes faith with delight and transports holy souls.

God is a Father. Eternally, long before the created light rose upon the world, God begets a Son to Whom He communicates His Nature, His perfections, His beatitude, His life, for to beget is to communicate? being and life: Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te® ; ex utero ante luciferum genui te*. In God then, is life, life communicated by the3

Father, and received by the Son. This Son, like in all things to the Father, is the only Son of God: Unigenitus Dei Filius’. He is so because He has”, with the Father, one same and indivisible Divine Nature, and both, although distinct from one another, (on account of their personal properties “of being Father” and ” of being Son”) are united in a powerful, substantial embrace of love, whence proceeds that Third Person, Whom Revelation calls by a mysterious name: the Holy Ghost.

Such is, as far as faith can know it, the secret of the inmost life of God; the fulness and the fruitfulness of this life are the source of the incommensurable bliss that the ineffable society of the three Divine Persons possesses.

And now God — not in order to add to His plenitude, but by it to enrich other beings — extends, as it were, His Paternity. God decrees to call creatures to share this Divine life, so transcendent that God alone has the right to live it, this eternal life communicated by the Father to the Only Son, and by them to the Holy Spirit. Ina transport of love which has its source in the fulness of Being and Good that God is, this life overflows from the bosom of Divinity to reach and beatify beings drawn out of nothingness, by lifting them above their nature. To these mere creatures -God will give the condition and sweet name of children. By nature God has only one Son ; by love, He wills to have an innumerable multitude: that is the grace of supernatural adoption.

Realised in Adam from the dawn of creation, then crossed by the sin of the first of human kind, who drew after him into disgrace all his race, this decree of love is to be restored by a marvellous invention of justice and mercy, of wisdom and goodness. The Son of God, Who dwells eternally in the Bosom of the Father, unites Himself in time, to a human nature, but in so close a manner that this nature, while being perfect in itself, belongs entirely to the Divine Person to Whom it is united. The Divine life, communicated in its fulness to this humanity makes it the very humanity of the Son of God: that is the wonderful work of the Incarnation.

  1. Unigenitus Dei Filius qui est in sinu Patris. — 2. Strictly speaking, we should say that He is with the Father and the Holy Gost one same

Divine nature. Creatures can _ only lisp when they speak of such mysteries.

It is true to say of this Man Who is called Jesus, the Christ, that He is God’s own Son.

But this Son, Who by nature is the only Son of the Eternal Father, Unigenitus Dei Filius, appears here below only to become the Firstborn of all who shall receive Him, after having been redeemed by Him: Primogenitus in multis fratribus*. Alone born of the Father in eternal splendour, alone Son by right, He is constituted the head of a multitude of brethren, on whom, by His redeeming work, He will bestow the grace of Divine life.

So that the same Divine life which proceeds from the Father into the Son and from the Son into the humanity of Jesus, will circulate, through Christ in all who will accept it; it will draw them even into the Bosom of the Father, where Christ has gone before us’, after having paid, with His Blood, the price of this divine gift.

Hence all holiness is to consist in this: to receive the Divine life from Christ and by Christ, Who possesses its fulness and Who has been constituted the One Mediator; to keep this Divine life and increase it unceasingly by an ever more perfect adhesion, an ever closer union with Him Who is its source.

Holiness then, is a mystery of Divine life communicated and received: communicated in God, from the Father to the Son by an ineffable generation * ; communicated by the Son to humanity, which He personally unites to Himself in the Incarnation; then restored to souls by this humanity, and received by each of them in the measure of their special predestination: secundum mensuram donationis Christi *, so that Christ is truly the life of the soul because He is the source and giver of life.

Communication of this life will be made to men within the Church until the day fixed by the eternal decrees for the achievement of the Divine work upon earth. On that day, the number of the children of God, of the brethren of Jesus, will have reached its perfection. Presented by Christ to His Father °, the innumerable multitude of these predestined

  1. Rom. vi, 29. — 2. Ascendo ad Patrem meum et Patrem vestrum... In domo Patris mei mansiones multe sunt... Vado parare vobis locum. Joan. xIv, 2; xx, 17. — 3. Isa. Lint, 8. — 4. Ephes. 1v, 7. — 5. I Cor.

XV, 24-28. souls will surround the throne of God, to draw an endless beatitude from the fountains of life, and to exalt the splen- dours of the Divine goodness and glory. Union with God will be eternally consummated, and ” God will be all in all”. Such is the Divine Plan in its general outline.

When, in prayer, we consider this liberality and these advances towards us on the part of God, we feel the need of prostrating ourselves in adoration, and of singing a song of thanksgiving to the praise of the Infinite Being Who stoops towards us to give us the name of children. ”O Lord, how great are Thy works; Thy thoughts are exceeding deep!” Nimis profundae factae sunt cogitationes tuae. ”" Thou hast multiplied Thy wonderful works, O Lord, my God ; in Thy thoughts there is no one like to Thee*.” "Tn the works of Thy hands I shall rejoice?.” ”I will sing to the Lord as long as I live, I will sing praise to my God while I have my being*. Let my mouth be filled with praise that I may sing Thy glory!” Repleatur os meum laude ut cantem tibi gloriam tuam *.

II

‘Let us now resume our exposition in detail, being guided by the text of the Apostle. This exposition will inevitably lead to some repetition, but I have confidence that your charity will bear with it on account of the importance of such vital questions.

We cannot sufficiently appreciate the greatness of these dogmas and their profit to our souls unless we contemplate them at some length.

In every science, there are, as you know, first principles, fundamental points which must first be grasped, because on them all the ulterior developments and final conclusions depend.

These first elements have to be gone into so much the more deeply and require so much the more attention in as far as their consequences are the more important and extended. Our minds, it is true, are so made, that they are easily wearied in the analysis or meditation of fundamental notions. All initiation in a science, such as mathematics, in an art, such as music, in a doctrine, such as that of the inner life, requires an attention from which the mind is prone to wander. In its impatience, it wishes to hasten to the development to admire its sequence, and to the applications in order to gather and taste the fruits. But it is greatly to be feared that if the mind does not carefully fathom the principles, it will lack solidity in the conclusions that it will afterwards draw from them, however brilliant these may appear to be.4

God wills us to be saints : that is His eternal Will 3 its for that He has chosen us: Elegit nos... Ut essemus sancti et immaculati in conspectu ejus*. "For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” St. Paul says again : Haec est voluntas Dei sanctificatio vestra?.

God desires, with an infinite will, that we should be holy ; He wills it because He is Himself holy * ; because it is in this holiness that He has placed the glory He expects from us *, and the joy with which He desires to satisfy us ®.

But what is ” being holy” ? We are creatures, our holiness only consists in a participation in God’s holiness ; to understand what it is, we must then consider what sanctity is in God. He alone is holy by essence, or rather, He is holiness itself.

Holiness is the Divine perfection which is the object of the eternal contemplation of the Angels. Open the Scriptures. You will see that twice only, the gates of Heaven were partly opened, in the sight of two great prophets, the one of the Ancient alliance, the other of the New, Isaias and St. John. What did they see? What did they hear? Both saw God in His glory, both saw the angelic choir _ surrounding His throne, both heard them ceaselessly praising, not the beauty of God, nor His mercy, nor His justice, nor His greatness, but His holiness : Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus exercituum; plena est omnis terra gloria ejus °.

Now in what does holiness in God consist ?

  1. Ephes. 1, 4. — 2. I Thess. rv, 3- — 3. Levit. x, 44; I Petr. 1, 16. — 4. Joan. xv, 8. — 5. Ibid. xvi, 22. — 6. Isa. v, 3; Apoc. Iv, 8.

Io CHRIST, THE LIFE OF THE SOUL.

In God, all is simple ; His perfections are, in Him, really identical with Himself ; besides, the notion of sanctity can only be applied to Him in an absolutely transcendent manner ; we have no term which can adequately render the reality of this Divine perfection. However, it is permitted us to employ a human language. What then, is holiness in God ?

According to our manner of speaking, it seems to us that it is composed of a double element : first, infinite distance from all that is imperfection, from all that is created, from all that is not God Himself.

This is only a “negative” aspect. There is another element which consists in this : that God adheres, by an immutable and always present act of His will, to the Infinite Good which is Himself, in order to conform Himself entirely to all that this Infinite Good is. God knows Himself perfectly. His All-Wisdom shows Him His own essence as the supreme norm of all activity. God cannot will, do, or approve anything which is not ruled by His supreme wisdom, according to this ultimate norm of all good, which is the Divine essence.

This immutable adhesion, this supreme conformity of the Divine Will to the infinite Essence considered as the ultimate norm of activity could not be more perfect, because in God the will is really identical with the essence.

Divine holiness is, therefore, the most perfect love and the supremely unchanging fidelity with which God loves Himself infinitely’. And as His supreme Wisdom shows God that He is the All-Perfect, the only necessary Being, it causes Him to refer all to Himself and His own glory. That is why Sacred Scripture grants us to hear the angels’ song: ” Holy, holy, holy... Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory”. It is as 1f the Angels said: ” Thou art the All-Holy, O God, Thou art Very Holiness, because with Sovereign Wisdom, Thou dost glorify Thyself worthily and perfectly. ”.

Hence the Divine holiness serves as the first foundation, the universal exemplar and the one source of all created holiness. You understand that, necessarily loving Himself with infinite perfection, God also necessarily wills that every creature should exist for the manifestation of His glory 2,

  1. Cf. D. L. Janssens. Praelectiones de Deo Uno, t. Il, p. 238, and 366. sq. — 2. See p. 23, 6. n.

THE DIVINE PLAN OF OUR ADOPTION. It and that, remaining in the rank of creature, it should only act conformably to the relations of dependence and of end that the Eternal Wisdom finds in the Divine Essence.

Our holiness will be the higher according as there will be in us more loving dependence on God and conformity of our freewill to our ultimate end (which is the manifestation of the Divine Glory). The more we adhere to God by detaching ourselves from all that is not God, the more this dependence, conformity, adhesion, and detachment are firm and stable 1.

III

Human reason can arrive at establishing the existence of this holiness in the Supreme Being, holiness which is an attribute, a perfection of the Divine nature considered in itself.

But Revelation brings us a new light.

Here we must reverently raise the eyes of our soul even to the sanctuary of the Adorable Trinity, we must hear what Jesus Christ, both to nourish our piety and to exercise our faith, has Himself willed to reveal to us, or to teach us through His Church, about the intimate life of God.

There are, as you know, Three Divine Persons in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, three distinct Persons, but all three having one and the same Nature or Divine Essence. Being infinite Intelligence, the Father perfectly knows His perfections, He expresses this knowledge in One Word, the living, substantial Word, the adequate expression of what the Father is. In uttering this Word, the Father begets the Son, to Whom He communicates all His Essence, His Nature, His Perfections, His Life: Sicut Pater habet vitam in semetipso, sic dedit et Filio habere vitam in semetipso?. The Son also belongs entirely to His Father, is entirely given up to Him by a total donation which pertains to His nature as Son. And from this mutual donation of one and the same love, proceeds, as from one principle, the5

Holy Spirit Who seals the union of the Father and the Son by being Their substantial and living Love.

This mutual communication of the three Persons, this infinite loving union between themselves assuredly constitutes a new revelation of holiness in God: it is the ineffable union of God with Himself in the unity of His Nature and the Trinity of Persons ?.

God finds all His essential beatitude in this inexpressibly unique and fruitful life. To exist, God only has need of Himself and all His infinite perfections ; finding all felicity in the perfections of His nature, and in the ineffable society of His Persons, He has no need of any creature ; He refers to Himself, in Himself, in His Trinity, the glory which springs from His infinite perfections.

God has decreed, as you know, to make us enter into participation of this intimate life proper to Himself alone ; He wills to communicate to us this infinite, endless beatitude, which has its source in the fulness of the Infinite Being.

Therefore — and this is the first point of St. Paul’s exposition of the Divine Plan — our holiness is to consist in adhering to God, known and loved, not only simply as Author of creation, but as He knows and loves Himself in the bliss of His Trinity ; this is to be united to God to the point of sharing His intimate life. We shall soon see in what a marvellous manner God realises His design. Let us for a

  1. Let us here state, for the sake of those more initiated in theological questions that each Person of the Trinity is identical with the Divine Essence, and consequently is holy, with a substantial holiness, because each only acts conformably to this Essence considered as the supreme norm of life and activity. It may be added that the Persons are holy because each of Them gives Himself to and belongs to the Other in an act of infinite adhesion. Lastly, the Third Person is especially called holy, because He proceeds from the Two Others through love ; love is the principal act by which the will tends towards its end and is united to it; it designates the most eminent act of adhesion to the norm of all goodness, that is to say, of holiness, and therefore the Spirit, Who, in God, proceeds through love, bears pre-eminently the name of holy. This is the text of St-Thomas who exposes this beautiful and profound doctrine to us. Cum bonum amatum habeat rationem finis, ex fine autem motus voluntarius bonus vel malus redditur, necesse est quod amor quo ipsum bonum amatur, quod Deus est, eminentem quamdam obtineat bonitatem, QUAE NOMINE SANCTITATIS EXPRIMITUR... Igitur Spiritus quo nobis insinuatur amor quo Deus se amat, Spiritus Sanctus nominatur. Opuscula selecta, t. III, c. xtvu. It is to be seen from all this that we gain a more profound conception of Divine sanctity by considering the Trinity of Persons. moment consider the greatness of the gift He makes us. We shall get some idea of it if we look at what takes place in the natural order.

Look at minerals; they do not live; there is no interior principle in them as source of activity, they possess a participation in being, with certain properties, but their mode of being is very inferior. Then there is the vegetable kingdom; plants grow and live in accordance with fixed laws, and progress towards the perfection of their being, but this life is at the bottom of the scale, for the plant is destitute of knowledge. Although superior to that of plants, the life of animals is yet limited to sensibility and the necessities of the instinct. With man we rise to a higher sphere : reason and free-will characterise the life proper to a human being ; but man is also matter. Above him, is the angel, a pure spirit, whose life reaches the highest degree in the scale of creation. Infinitely surpassing all these created lives received in participation, is the Divine life, life uncreated, fully autonomous and independent, above the strength of any creature, a necessary life, subsistent in itself. God being unlimited intelligence, apprehends by an eternal act both the infinite and every being of which the prototype is found in Him. Being the Sovereign Will, He attaches Himself in the fulness of His strength to the Supreme Good which is none other than Himself. In this Divine life in which is all plenitude, is found the source of all perfection and the principle of all bliss.

It is this life which God wills to communicate to us ; it is a share in this life which forms our holiness. And as, for us, there are degrees in this participation, the more this participation is extended,’ the higher will be our holiness.

And let us never forget that it is only out of love that God has resolved, proposmit sibi Deus, to give Himself thus. ‘The ineffable communications of the Divine Persons with each other are all that is necessary in God?. These mutual relations belong to the very Essence of God ; it is the life of God. All other communications that God makes of Himself are the outcome of a love supremely free. But as this love is divine, the gift of it makes us so likewise. God loves divinely ; He gives Himself. We are called to receive this Divine communication in an ineffable measure. God intends to give Himself to us, not only as supreme beauty, to be the object of our contemplation, but to unite Himself to us so as to make Himself, as far as possible, one with us. Holy Father, said Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, let My disciples be one in Us, as Thou and I are one, so that they may find in this union the endless joy of Our own beatitude. Ut habeant gaudium meum impletum in semetipsis *.6

IV

How does God fulfil this magnificent design by which He wills us to have a part in this life which exceeds the capacities of our nature and surpasses its rights and proper energies, which none of its exigences require, but which, without destroying this nature, fill it with bliss unimagined by the human heart ? How will God cause us to enter into the ineffable ” fellowship” ? of His Divine life so that we may partake of eternal beatitude ? By adopting us as His children.

With a Will infinitely free, but full of love : Secundum propositum voluntatis suae*, God has predestined us to be not only creatures, but His children : Praedestinavit nos in adoptionem filtorum*, thus to share in His Divine Nature : Divinae consortes naturae®. God adopts us as His children. What does St. Paul mean by this ?

What is human adoption ?

It is the admission of a stranger into a family. By adoption the stranger becomes a member of the family, he takes the name and receives the titles of this family, he has the right to inherit its possessions. It is necessary for the one who is adopted to be of the same race as the one who adopts. To be adopted by man, it is necessary to be a member of the human race. Now we, who are not of the race of God, who are poor creatures, by nature further from Him than the animal is from man, we who are infinitely distant from God, hospites et advenae*®, how can we be adopted by Him ?7

Here is a marvel of the Divine Wisdom, power, and goodness. God gives us a mysterious share in His Nature which we call ’ grace”: Efficiamini divinae consortes naturae *.

Grace is an interior quality, produced in us by God, inherent to the soul, adorning it and making it pleasing to God, just as in the natural domain, beauty and strength are qualities of the body, genius and science are qualities of the mind, loyalty and courage are qualities of the heart.

According to St. Thomas, this grace is a ” participated similitude” of the Divine nature. Participata similitudo divinae naiurae*. Grace makes us sharers in the nature of God in a way we cannot fathom. We are raised above our nature by grace ; we become in some manner, gods. We do not become equal, but like to God ; that is why Our Lord said to the Jews: "Is it not written in your law: I said: you are gods?” Nonne scriptum est in lege vestra: quia ego dixi: Dii estis? ?

For us, participation in this Divine life is brought about by grace, in virtue of which our soul becomes capable of knowing God as God knows Himself, of loving God as God loves Himself, of enjoying God as He is filled with His own beatitude, and thus living the life of God Himself.

Such is the ineffable mystery of our Divine adoption. But there is a profound difference between Divine and human adoption. The latter is only exterior, fictitious. Certainly, it is established by a legal document, but it does not penetrate the nature of the one who is adopted. On the contary, in adopting us, in giving us grace, God penetrates to the depths of our nature ; without changing what is essential to the order of this nature, He raises it by this grace to the point of making us truly children of God. This act of adoption has so much efficacy that we really become, through grace, partakers of the Divine nature. And as participation in the Divine life constitutes our holiness, this grace is called sanctifying.

  1. II Petr. 1, 4. — St. Peter does not say that we become participants of the Divine Essence, but of the Divine nature, that is to say, of that activity which constitutes the life of God, and consists in the knowledge and the fruitful, beatifying love of the Divine Persons. — 2. S. Thom. Ill, q. xm, a. 1. This is why it is said in theology that grace is deiform,8

The consequence of this Divine decree of our adoption, of this loving predestination by which God wills to make us His children, is to give a special character to our holiness.

This character is that our holiness is supernatural.

The life to which God raises us is supernatural, that is to say, exceeding the capacities, the strength and the exigences of our nature. Hence, it is no more as simple human creatures that we must be holy, but as children of God, by acts animated and inspired by grace.

Grace becomes the principle of the Divine life in us. What is it to live ? For us, to live is to move in virtue of an interior principle, the source of actions which tend to the perfection of our being. Another life is engrafted, so to speak, upon our natural life, a life of which grace is the principle ; grace becomes in us the source of actions and operations which are supernatural, and tend towards a Divine end, namely, one day to possess God, to rejoice in Him, as He knows Himself and rejoices in His perfections.

This point is of capital importance. God might have been content to accept from us the homage of a natural religion ; it would have been the source of a human, natural morality, of a union with God conformable to our nature as reasonable beings, founded upon our relations as creatures with our Creator, and our relations with our kind.

But God did not wish to limit Himself to this natural religior. We have all met with men who were not baptised, but who were however, straightforward, loyal, upright, equitable, just and compassionate, but that can only be a natural goodness '. Without rejecting this, (on the contrary), God is not content with it. Because He has decided to make us share in His infinite life, in His own beatitude — which is for us a supernatural end — because He has given us His grace, God demands that our union with Him should be a supernatural union, a holiness which has His grace for principle.

Apart from this plan, there is, for us, only eternal loss. God is Master of His gifts, and He has decreed from all eternity that we shall only be holy in His sight, by lhving through grace as children of God.9

O Heavenly Father, grant that I may preserve within my soul the grace that makes me Thy child ! Keep me from all evil that might separate me from Thee |...

We

As you know, it is from the time of the creation of the first man that God has realised His design. Adam received for himself and for his race, the grace that made of him a child of God ; but by his sin, he lost this Divine gift for himself as well as for his race. Since his revolt, we are all born sinners, deprived of the grace which would have made us children of God; we are, on the contrary, Filii irae, enemies of God, and children of wrath+. Sin crossed God’s plan.

But, as the Church says, God has shown Himself even more wonderful in the restoration of His designs than He had been in the creation: Deus qui humanae substantiae digmtatem mirabiliter condidisti et MIRABILIUS reformasti ?. How is this done ? —What is this Divine marvel ?

This mystery is the /ncarnation.

It is through the Incarnate Word that God will restore all things. Such is the ” mystery which hath been hidden from eternity ”*, in the thoughts of God, and which St. Paul reveals to us. Christ, the Man-God will be our Mediator ; He it is Who will reconcile us with God and restore grace to us. And as the great design has been foreseen from all eternity, it is with good reason that St. Paul speaks of it as an ever-present mystery. It is the last great feature of the Divine Plan made known to us by the great Apostle.

Let us listen to him with faith, for here we touch the very heart of the Divine work.

The Divine design is to constitute Christ the Head of all the redeemed, of all that is named in this world and in that which is to come : Quod nominatur non solum in hoc saeculo sed in futuro *, in order that by Him, with Him, and in Him, we may all arrive at union with God, and realise the supernatural holiness which God requires of us.

There is no thought more clearly expressed in the Epistles of St. Paul, none of which he is more convinced, or that he

  1. Ephes. u, 3. — 2. Offertory of the Mass. — 3. Ephes. 1, 9. — me ibid. 1, 24.

Christ, the life of the soul. 2 places in higher relief. Read all his Epistles and you will see that he continually returns to this, to the extent of making it - almost all the substance of his doctrine. In this passage of the Epistle to the Ephesians that I quoted at the beginning, what does he tell us ? It is in Christ that God has chosen us, that we should be holy; He has predestinated us to be His adopted children, through Jesus Christ... “He hath graced us in His beloved Son”. It is in His Son, Jesus, that God has resolved ” to re-establish all things” Instaurare omnia in Christo, or rather, according to the Greek text, ” to gather together all things under Christ, as under one only Head”. Christ is always foremost in the Divine idea.

How is this realised ?

The Word Whose eternal generation we adore in the Bosom of the Father, in sinu Patris, is made flesh: Et Verbum caro factum est?. The most Holy Trinity has created a humanity like to ours, and from the first instant of His creation, has united it in an ineffable and indissoluble manner to the Person of the Word, of the Son, of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. This God-Man is Jesus Christ. This union is so close that there is only one single Person, that of the Word. Perfect God, Perfecius Deus, by His Divine nature, the Word becomes, by His Incarnation, perfect Man: Perfectus homo. In making Himself man, He remains God: Quod fuit permansit, quod non erat assumpsit® : the fact of having taken a human nature in order to unite it to Himself, has not lessened the Divinity.

In Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, the two natures are united without admixture or confusion, they remain distinct while being united in the unity of the Person. On account of the personal character of this union, Christ is the very Son of God, He possesses the life of God: Stcut Pater habet vitam in semetipso, sic dedit et Filio habere vitam in semetipso . The same Divine life subsists in God and fills the Sacred Humanity of Jesus. The Father communicates His life to the Word, to His Son, and the Word communicates it to the Humanity which He has personally united to Himself. That is why, in looking upon Our Lord, the Eternal Father recognises Him as His own Son : Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genwi te?. And because He is His Son, because this Humanity is the humanity of His Son, it possesses a full and entire communication of all the Divine perfections. The soul of Christ is filled with all the treasures of God’s knowledge and wisdom: In quo sunt om- NES THESAURI sapientiae et scientiae?. In Christ, says St. Paul, ” dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporally”. In ipso inhabitat OMNIS PLENITUDO divinitatis corporaliter ; the holy Humanity is filled with grace and truth +.10

The Word made flesh is, therefore, adorable in His Humanity as in His Divinity, because beneath this humanity is veiled the Divine life. O Jesus Christ, Incarnate Word, I prostrate myself before Thee, because Thou art the Son of God, equal to the Father. Thou art indeed the Son of God, Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero. Thou art the beloved Son of the Father, in Whom He is well pleased. I love and adore Thee! Venite adoremus !

But, this Divine life which is in Jesus Christ is to overflow from Him upon us, upon the whole human race. ° This is a wonderful revelation which fills us with joy.

The Divine Sonship which is in Christ by nature, and makes Him God’s own and only Son, Unigenitus qui est im sinu Patris, is to be extended to us by grace, so that in the thought of God, Christ is the first-born of many brethren, who are by grace what He is by nature, sons of God: Praedestinavit nos conformes fieri imaginis Filii sui ut sit ipse primogenitus in multis fratribus®.

We are here at the central point of the Divine Plan : it is from Jesus Christ, it is through Jesus Christ that we receive the Divine adoption. "God sent His Son”, says St. Paul, “that we might receive the adoption of sons” ; Deus misit Filium suum factum ex muliere, ut... adoptionem fihorum reciperemus*. The grace of Christ the Son of God is communicated to us so as to become in us the principle of adoption ; it is at this fulness of Divine life and grace of Jesus Christ that we must all draw. After having said that the fulness of the Divinity dwells corporally in Christ, St. Paul adds immediately by way of conclusion: Et estis in illo repleti, qui est caput omnis principatus et potestatts *. Behoid in Him you have all, because He is your Head. And St. John says likewise, after having shown us the Word, full of grace and truth: ” And of His fulness we have all received.” Et de plenitudine ejus nos omnes accepymus ’.11

Thus, not only has the Father chosen us from all eternity in His Christ : Elegit nos in ipso — note the expression In ipso: all that is apart from Christ docs not exist, so to speak, in the Divine thought — but it is also by Jesus Christ that we receive grace, the means of the adoption He destines for us : Qui praedestinavit nos in adoptionem fiiorum PER Jesum Curistum*®. We are sons, like Jesus, we by grace, He by nature; He, God’s own Son, we His adopted sons: Et ipse filius et nos fil; ille proprius, nos adoptivi, sed ille salvat et nos salvamur*. It is by Christ that we enter into God’s family, it is from Him and by Him that grace and consequently Divine life come to us: Ego sum vita... ego veni ut vitam habeant et abundantius habeant °.

Such is the very source of our holiness. As everything in Jesus Christ can be summed up in His Divine Sonship, thus everything in the Christian can be summed up in his participation of this sonship, by Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ. Our holiness is nothing else but this: the more we participate in the Divine life through the communication Jesus Christ makes to us of the grace of which He ever possesses the fulness, the higher is the degree of our holiness. Christ is not only holy in Himself, He is our holiness. All the holiness God has destined for our souls, has been placed in the Humanity of Christ, and it is from this source that we must draw.

"© Jesus Christ”, we sing with the Church in the Gloria of the Mass, ” Thou only art holy”: Tu solus sanctus, Jesu Christe. Only holy, because Thou dost possess the fulness of the Divine life; only holy, because it is from Thee alone that we look for our holiness: Thou hast become, as the great Apostle says, our justice, owr wisdom, our redemption, our holiness: Estis in Christo Jesu qui factus est Nogis sapientia a Deo et justitia et sanctificatio et redemptio®, In Thee we find all; in receiving Thee, we receive all; for in giving Thee to us, Thy Father, Who is our Father, as Thou hast Thyself said +, has given us all: Quomodo non etiam cum illo omnia nobis donavit? ? All the graces of salvation and forgiveness, all riches, all the supernatural fruitfulness with which the world of souls abounds, come from Thee alone: Jn Christo habemus redemptionem... secundum divitias gratiae ejus quae superabundavit in nobis 3. Let all praise be given to Thee, O Christ; and by Thee may all praise ascend to Thy Father for the unspeakable gift He has made us of Thee !12

VI

We must all be partakers of the holiness of Jesus. Christ excludes no one from the life He has brought, and, by it, He renders us children of God: Pro ommibus mortuus est Christus * ; Christ has re-opened the gates of eternal life to all humanity. As St. Paul says: He is the first-born, but of a multitude of brethren: Jn multis fratribus®. The Eternal Father wishes to constitute Christ His Son, Head of a Kingdom, the Kingdom of His children. The Divine Plan would not be complete if Christ was isolated. It is His glory, as it is the glory of the Father, Jn laudem gloriae gratiae suae ®, to be at the head of an innumerable company, which is His complement, zAyjowux, and without which, so to say, He would not be complete.

St. Paul distinctly says this in his Epistle to the Ephesians, where he traces out the Divine Plan: God has made Christ to sit “on His right hand in the heavenly places, above all principality and power and virtue and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And He hath subjected all things under His feet, and hath made Him head over all the Church which is His body”. It is this company, this Church that Christ has acquired, according to the words of the same Apostle, that it may be at the last day, without ” spot or wrinkle, but holy and without blemish”: Ut exhiberet ipse sibi gloriosam Ecclesiam, non habentem maculam, aut rugam, aut aliquid hujusmodi, sed ut sit sancta et wmmaculata®. This Church, this Kingdom is being formed even here below. It is only entered by Baptism. On earth we live in it by grace, in faith, hope, and charity, but the day will come when we shall contemplate its perfection in heaven ; that will be the kingdom of glory in the light of vision, the rejoicing in unending possession and union. That is why St. Paul said that ” the grace of God is life everlasting, in Christ Jesus, our Lord’ ”.13

This is the great mystery of God’s design. $1 scires donum Dei! If you but knew the gift of God! Gift ineffable in itself, ineffable above all in its source, which is love.

Tt is because He loves us that God wills to make us share, as His children, His own beatitude: Videte qualem caritatem dedit nobis Pater ut filii Dei nominemur et simus*. The love which makes us such a gift is infinite, for, says St. Leo: “the gift surpassing all gifts is that God calls man His child, and that man calls God his Father*”. Each of us can say in all truth: It is by a special act of love and kindness that God has created and called me by Baptism to Divine adoption, for in His plenitude and infinite riches, God has no need of any creature: Genuit nos VOLUN- TARIE verbo veritatis suae*. By a special act of love and complacency God has chosen me, Elegit nos, to be raised infinitely above my natural condition, to enjoy eternally His own beatitude, to be the realisation of one of His Divine thoughts, to be a voice in the concert of the elect, to be one of those brethren who are like to Jesus, and share for ever His heavenly inheritance.

This love is manifested with special splendour in the way the Divine plan is fulfilled “in Jesus Christ”, ix Christo Jesu.

” By this hath the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him®". Yes, God loves us so much, that to show us this love He has given us His only-begotten Son : Sic Deus dilexit mundum ut Filium suum Unigenitum daret®; He has given us His Son, so that His Son may become our Brother, and that we may one day be His coheirs, and share in the riches of His grace and glory: Ut ostenderet... ABUNDANTES DIVITIAS gratiae suae IN BONI- TATE SUPER NOS in Christo Jesu’.14

Such is then in its majestic range and merciful simplicity, God’s plan for us. God wills our holiness, He wills it because He loves us infinitely, and we ought to will it with Him. He wills to make us saints in making us participate im His very life, and for that end, He adopts us as His children, and the heirs of His infinite glory and eternal beatitude. Grace is the principle of this holiness, supernatural in its source, in its acts, and in its fruits. But God only gives us this adoption through His Son, Jesus Christ. It is in Him, and by Him, that God wills to unite Himself to us, and that we should be united to Him: NEMO venit ad Patrem msi per Me. Christ is the Way, the only way, to lead us to God, ant without Him we can do nothing : Sine Me niuit potestis facere?. Our holiness has no other foundation than that same one which God has established, that is to say, union with Jesus Christ. Fundamentum aliud nemo potest ponere, praeter id quod positum est, quod est Christus Jesus *.

Thus, God communicates the fulness of His Divine life to the Humanity of Christ, and through it, to all souls in the measure of their predestination in Jesus Christ: Secundum mensuram donationis Chrisit *.

We must understand that we can only be saints according to the measure in which the life of Jesus Christ is in us : that is the only holiness God asks of us ; there is no other. We can only be holy in Jesus Christ, otherwise, we cannot be so at ali. There is not an atom of this holiness in creation; it proceeds from God by a supremely free act of His Almighty Will, and that is why it is supernatural.

St. Paul returns more than once to the gratuitousness of the Divine gift of adoption, and also to the eternity of the ineffable love which determined Him to make us partakers of it, and to the wonderful means of realising it through the grace of Jesus Christ. He bids his disciple, Timothy, remember that God has ” called us by His holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the times of the world®”. By grace you are saved through faith, he wrote to the faithful of Ephesus, ” and not through your own works, that no man may glory ®”.15

VII

It is to God that all glory must be referred. This glory is the end of the Divine work*. St. Paul shows us this when he concludes his exposition of the Divine Plan in these words: In laudem gloriae gratiae suae.

If God adopts us as His children; if He realises this adoption through the grace of which the plenitude is in His Son Jesus; if He wills to make us partakers in Christ’s eternal inheritance, it is for the exaltation of His glory.

Remark how insistently St. Paul dwells upon this point in exposing the Divine Plan to us in the words I quoted at the beginning: God ” has predestinated us... unto the praise of the glory of His grace”: In laudem gloriae gratiae suae *. He twice returns to this point further on: ” In Whom we who are called... being predestinated unto the praise of His glory”: Ut simus in laudem gloriae ejus ®.

The first expression of the Apostle is particularly remarkable. He does not say unto the glory of His grace, but ” unto the praise of the glory of His grace”; which means that this grace will be surrounded with the splendour attached to a triumph. Why does St. Paul speak thus ? It is because in order to restore to us the Divine adoption, Christ has had to triumph over the obstacles created by sin. But per fidem et hoc non ex vobis, Dei enim donum est, non ex operibus, ut ne quis gloriectur.

  1. The Vatican Council has defined that, ” it is not to increase His beatitude, nor to put the seal to His perfection, but to manifest this perfection by the help of the benefits God heaps upon His creatures, that He has freely drawn the creature from nothing by an act at once of His goodness and Almighty power. " (Dogmatic Constitution De fide Catholica.). In the 4th. canon, the Council pronounces an anathema against " whoever shall deny that the world was created for God’s glory. " — From these texts it follows that God created the world for His glory, that this glory consists in the manifestation of His perfections by the gifts He bestows upon His creatures, that the motive freely determining Him thus to glorify Himself is His goodness (or, formaliter, the love of His goodness). God therefore unites the happiness of the creature to His glory ; to glorify God becomes our beatitude. "The gifts of God,” says D. L. Janssens, " have no other source and no other end than the supreme goodness of which His glory is the most synthetic expression.” Now the gift by excellence, whence all the others flow for us, is that of the hypostatic union in Christ: Sic Deus dilexit mundum ut Filium suum Unigenitum DaRET... Quomodo CUM ILLO non OMNIA nobis PONAVIT. -— 2. Ephes. 1, 6. Note the use in the Greek text of the preposition et¢ which denotes the end towards which one tends in an active manner. — 3. Ibid. 12 and 14; cf. Philip. 1, 10-11. " That you may be sincere and without offence unto the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of justice through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.” In gloriam et laudem Dei. these obstacles have only served to make the Divine marvels in the work of our supernatural restoration shine out the more in the sight of the whole world : Mirabiliter condidisti et mirabilius reformasti. Each of the elect is the fruit of the Blood of Jesus, and of the wonderful operations of His grace; all the elect are so many trophies won by this Divine Blood, and that is why they are all like a glorious praise to Christ and to His Father: Ut simus in laudem gloriae ejus.

I said at the beginning that the Divine perfection of which the Angels especially sing the praise, is holiness: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus. But what is the outburst of praise which rises from the choir of the elect in heaven ? What is the uninterrupted canticle of that immense multitude that constitutes the kingdom of which Christ is the Head? ”O Lamb that wast slain, Thou hast redeemed us, Thou hast made us to our God a kingdom: to Thee and to Him that sitteth on the Throne, praise and honour and glory and power for ever and ever’.” That is the song of praise with which heaven resounds to exalt the triumph of the grace of Jesus: Ju laudem GLORIAE gratiae suae.

We enter, then, into the eternal designs, if, even here below, we join in this canticle. When St. Paul writes this wonderful Epistle to the Ephesians, he is a prisoner; but at this moment when he is preparing to reveal to them the mystery hidden from the beginning, he is so transported with the greatness of the mystery of the Divine adoption in Jesus Christ, he is so dazzled with the ” unfathomable riches” brought by Christ, that he cannot prevent himself in spite of his privations, from exclaiming at the very beginning of his letter, in an outburst of praise and thanksgiving: ’ Blessed be the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ Who hath blessed us with spiritual blessings in Christ?”. Yes, blessed be the Eternal Father Who has called us to Himself from all eternity to make us His children, and partakers of His own life and His own beatitude; Who, in order to fulfil His designs, has given us in Jesus Christ, all good, all riches, all treasures, so that in Him nothing is wanting to us: Ita ut nihil vobis desit in ulla gratia® !16

All our holiness consists in entering more and more deeply, by the light of faith, into this Sacramentum absconditum, in entering into the design of God and realising the eternal economy in ourselves.

He Whose Will it is to save us and to make us holy has traced out the plan with a wisdom only equalled by His goodness. Let us adapt ourselves to this Divine design by which God wills that we should find our holiness in our conformity to Christ Jesus. Once again, there is no other way; we shall only be pleasing to the Eternal Father, — and is not that all the substance of sanctity: to be pleasing to God ? — if He recognises in us the features of His Son. We must, by grace and by our virtues, be so identified with Christ that the Father, in looking down upon our souls, will recognise us as His true children and be well-pleased with us as He was when contemplating Jesus Christ during His earthly life. Christ is His Beloved Son, and it is in Him that we shall be filled with all blessings which will lead us to the fulness of our adoption in the beatitude of heaven.

How good it is to repeat now, in the light of these truths, the prayer that Jesus Himself, the Beloved Son of The Father, has placed on our lips, which, coming from Him, is pre-eminently the prayer of the child of God: O Holy Father, Who dwellest in Heaven, we are Thy children, since Thou dost will to be called Our Father! May Thy Name be hallowed, honoured, glorified ! May Thy perfections be praised and exalted more and more upon the earth! May . We manifest in ourselves, by our works, the splendour of Thy grace! Extend then Thy reign; may Thy Kingdom ever increase, this Kingdom which is also that of Thy Son, since Thou hast made Him the head of it. May Thy Son be truly the King of our souls, and may we testify to His kingship over us by the perfect accomplishment of Thy Will !. May we, like Him, ever seek to adhere to Thee by fulfilling Thy good pleasure*, Thy eternal designs for us, so as to be like to Jesus in all things, and through Him, worthy children of Thy love !

  1. Quae placita sunt ei facio semper. Joan. vill, 29.

Footnotes

    1. Ephes. 1, 4-6. — 2. Mihi data est gratia hec... illuminare omnes, que sit dispensatio sacramenti absconditi a seculis in Deo. Ephes. ut. 8-9.
    ↩
    1. Col. m, 8. — 2. 1 Cor. 1x, 26. — 3. Ibid. 24 — 4. Letter to the wife of President Brulart, Sept. 15th. 1606.
    ↩
    1. I Tim. v1, 16. — 2. By the gift of a similar nature. — 3. Ps. 1, 7. = Hebr, 1, 53 v; &.— 4. Ibid. crx, Bi
    ↩
    1. Ps. xxxix, 6. — 2. Ibid. xcr, 5. — 3. Ibid. cm, 32. — 4. Ibid. Lxx, 8.
    ↩
    1. S. Thomas (II-II, q. Lxxxi, a. 5, c.) states as the elements of holiness in us, purity (avoidance of all sin and all imperfection, detachment from all created things) and stability in adhering to God; to these two elements correspond, in God, the All-Perfection of His Infinitely transcendent Being, and the immutability of His Will in adhering to Himself. — 2. Joan. v, 26.
    ↩
    1. Necessary in this sense that it is impossible for them not to be. fo. 84 hom- l,4g. XLT, a. +2,7ad)-9.
    ↩
    1. Joan. Xvu, 11, 13 ; ef. xv, 11, — 2. I Joan. 1, 3. — 3. Ephes. 1, 5. — 4. Ibid. 1, 5. — 5. II Petr. 1, 4. — 6. Ephes. uy, 19.
    ↩

  8. in order to denote the Divine resemblance it produces in us. — 3. Joan. xX, 34. ↩

  9. 1.. It is however necessary to add, that on account of the evil tendencies resulting from original sin, this purely natural goodness is rarely perfect. ↩

    1. Ephes. 1, 10. — 2. Joan. 1, 14. — 3. Antiphon of the Office of the Circumcision. — 4. Joan. v, 26. ‘
    ↩
    1. Ps. 1, 7; Hebr. v, 5. — 2. Col. 11, 3. — 3. Ibid. 1, 9. — 4. Joan. I, 14. — 5. Rom. vi, 29. — 6. Gal. iv, 5.
    ↩
    1. Col. n, 10. Qui est caput Christus, Ephes. 1v, 15. — 2. Joan. 1, 16. — 3. Ephes. 1, 5. — 4. Migne, P. L. txvi, 7or. — 5. Joan. x, 10. — 6.01 Const; Bo;
    ↩

  13. 1, Joan. xx, 17. — 2. Rom. vill, 32. — 3. Ephes, 1, 8. — 4. II Cor. Vv, 15- — 5. Rom. vi, 29. — 6. Ephes. 1, 6. — 7. Ibid. 3, 20-23. — 8. Ibid. v, 27. ↩

    1. Rom. vi, 23. — 2. I Joan. m, 1. — 3. Omnia dona excedit hoc donum ut Deus hominem vocet filium et homo Deum nominet Patrem. Serm. VI. de Nativ. — 4. Jac. 1, 18. — 5. I Joan. 1v, 9. — 6. Joan. m, 16. — 7. Ephes. Ul, 7.
    ↩
    1. Joan. xiv, 6. — 2. Joan. xv, 5. — 3. I Cor. 11, 11. — 4. Ephes. Iv, 7. — 5. If Tim. 1, 9. — 6. Ephes. 1, 8-9. Gratia enim estis salvatt
    ↩

  16. This is the Divine Plan. r. Apoc. v, 9 and 14. — 2. Ephes. 1, 3. — 3. Cor. 1, 7. ↩

Chapter 3 of 21