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I.3. Christ, the Author of Our Redemption and Infinite Treasury of Grace

Summary. — Christ by His satisfactions, merits for us the grace of Divine sonship. — J. Impossibility for the human race, ,issued from Adam, to regain the eternal inheritance lost by his sin; only a God made Man can make fully adequate satisfaction. — HW. Jesus, Saviour; the infinite value of every act of the Incarnate Word. However the Redemption was, in fact, only effected by the sacrifice of the Cross. — Ii. Christ merits not only for Himself but for us. This merit is founded upon the grace of Christ constituted the Head of the human race; and upon the supreme liberty and ineffable love with which He undergoes His Passion for all mankind. — IV, Infinite efficacy of Christ’s satisfactions and merits, the boundless confidence to which they ought to give birth. — V. Christ now unceasingly pleads with His Father for us. Our weakness entitles us to heavenly mercy ; how we glorify God by placing our reliance on the satisfactions of His Son.

HE imitation of Christ Jesus in His Being of grace and in His virtues is the substance of holiness for us. That is what I have tried to point out in the preceding conference. In order 10 help you to know better the One we have to imitate, I have sought to place before the eyes of your souls our Divine Model: Christ Jesus, true God and true Man. Doubtless, the contemplation of Our Lord, so adorable in His Person, so admirable in His life, and actions, makes your hearts glow with ardent desire to be able to resemble Him and unite yourselve to Him.

But can we, being but creatures, hope to reproduce within us the features of the Incarnate Word, and to share His life ? Can we find strength to follow this one and only way that leads to the Father ? Yes. Revelation tells us we can find this strength in the grace that the satisfactions of Christ have merited for us.

Our God does all things with wisdom. F urthermore, He is Infinite Wisdom. His eternal and ineffable designs being to make us conformable to the image of His Son, we may be sure that to this end He has subordinated means of infallible power. Not only can we expect the realisation of the Divine ideal in us, but God Himself invites us to do so. Praedestinavit nos conformes fiert imaginis Filii sui. He wills that we should reproduce in our souls, although we can only do this in a limited measure, the features of His beloved Son. To desire to reproduce this ideal is neither pride nor presumption, but a response to God’s own desire: Ipsum audite. All we have to do is to use the means He has Himself fixed.

Christ is not only the one and universal Model of all perfection, He is also, as I have said, the satisfactory, meritorious, and efficient cause of our sanctification. Christ is, for us, the source of grace, because having paid all our debt to divine justice by His life, passion and death, He has merited to distribute all grace to us: Causa satisfactoria et meritoria,

Let us examine this consoling truth. We shall see in the next conference how Christ Jesus is the efficient cause of our sanctity. ie

What are we to understand when we say Christ is the satisfactory and meritorious cause of our salvation and sanctification ?

As you know, God in creating the first man established him in justice and grace and made him His child and heir: But the divine plan was crossed by sin; Adam, the head of his race, prevaricated. In one moment, he lost for himself and his descendants, all right to the divine life and inheritance. All the children of Adam, having become slaves of the devil’, share in his disgrace. That is why St. Paul says they are born ” enemies of God ?”, “objects of wrath*?”, and for this reason excluded from eternal beatitude *.

Ts no one to be found, among the sons of Adam, to redeem his brethren, and take away the curse that weighs upon them all ? No — for all have sinned in Adam; none, either for himself or others, can make adequate satisfaction.1

Sin is an injury done to God, an injury that must be expiated; man, being a mere creature, is incapable, of himself, of worthily paying the debt that has been contracted towards the divine Majesty by a sin of which the malice is infinite. Satisfaction, in order to be adequate, must be made by one equal in dignity to him against whom the offence was committed. The gravity of an injury is measured according to the dignity of the offended person. An injury done to a prince assumes greater gravity on account of his rank, than the same injury done to a peasant 7+. As regards satisfaction, the principle must be reversed. The greatness of the reparation is measured not according to the dignity of the one who receives it, but of the one who makes it. The same king receives the homage of a peasant and a prince; ‘it is evident that the prince’s homage outweighs that of the peasant.

Now between us and God lies infinity. Must humanity then despair ? Is the outrage done to God never to be repaired ? Is man never to regain possession of the eternal inheritance? God alone can answer us, God alone can give a solution to this agonising problem.

You know what God’s respense was, and the solution, full at once of mercy and justice, that He supplied. In His unfathomable designs, He decreed that the redemption of humanity should only be effected by a satisfaction equal to the rights of His infinite justice, and that this satisfaction should be made by the bloody sacrifice of a victim, voluntarily substituted for sinful humanity. Who will this victim be? Who this Saviour ? Tu es qui venturus est?? God promised Him immediately after Adam’s fall, but thousands of years pass before He comes; thousands of years during which humanity lifts supplicating hands from the depths of a nameless abyss whence it is powerless to raise itself; thousands of years during which it adds sacrifice upon sacrifice, holocaust upon holocaust, to free itself from servitude.

1, Peccatum contra Deum commissum infinitatem habet ex infinitate divinae majestatis ; tanto enim offensa est major quanto major est ille in2

But ” when the fulness of time” comes, God sends the promised Saviour, the Saviour Who is to redeem creation, destroy sin, and reconcile man to God. Who is He? He is the Son of God made Man. .

Being man, issued from Adam’s race, He is able to substitute Himself voluntarily for all His brethren, and make Himself the surety for their sin; freely accepting to suffer and expiate in His flesh, He Will be capable of meriting; being God, His merit will have infinite value, the satisfaction will be adequate, the reparation complete. St. Thomas says there is no full satisfaction if it is not infinite in value, that is to say, if it is not one that God only can accomplish’. In the same way that the order of justice requires the punishment to correspond to the fault, it seems to require also, says St. Thomas, that he who has committed the fault should satisfy for it, and that is why it was necessary to take from that nature, which had been corrupted by sin, what was to be offered in satisfaction for this nature 2.

Such is the solution God Himself gives; He could have given others, but it is this one which it has pleased His Wisdom, Power and Goodness to give us; it is this one that we must hence contemplate and adore. For it is a wonderful solution. ” The humanity of Christ”, says St. Gregory, ” permitted Him to die and make satisfaction for men Se Edis Divinity gave Him power to restore to us the grace that sanctifies*”. Death had come forth from human nature stained by sin; it was from a human nature united to a God that the source of grace and life was to spring forth. Ut unde mors oriebatur inde vita resurgeret *.

(3 eee

“When”, says St. Paul, ” the fulness of time was come, God sent His Son made of a woman that He might redeem them who were under the law; that we might receive the adoption of sons”: At ubi venit plenitudo temporis misit Deus Filium suum ut eos qui sub lege erant redimeret, ut adoptionem filiorum reciperemus®. To redeem humanity from sin and restore to it the grace of Divine adoption, such is in fact the fundamental mission of the Incarnate Word, the work which Christ comes to accomplish here below.

  1. S. Thom. III, q.1, a. 2, ad. —2. Ibid. q. 1v, a.6. — 3. Moralia, XVII, C. 30, n. 46. — 4. “Preface” of Passiontide. — 5. Gal. Iv, 4-5.

Christ, the life of the soul. 4

His Name, the Name of Jesus, given by God Himself, is not without signification: Jesus nomen vanum aut inane non portat*. This Name signifies His special mission of salvation and denotes His special work: the Redemption of the world. ” Thou shalt call His Name Jesus”, says the angel sent to St. Joseph, ” for He shall save His people from their sins 2.”

Let us contemplate Him at this solemn moment, unique in the history of humanity. What does He say ? What is it that He does? Jngrediens mundum dicit: Hostiam et oblationem nolusti, corpus autem aptasti mihi; holocautomata pro peccato non tibt placuerunt ; tunc dixi: ecce venio...* ' When He cometh into the world He saith : (to His Father) Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldst not; but a body Thou hast fitted to Me. Holocausts for sin did not please Thee. Then said I: Behold I come.” These words taken from St. Paul, reveal to us the very first movement of the Heart of Christ at the moment of His Incarnation. And having made this initial act of total oblation, Christ ” hath rejoiced as a giant to run His course” : Exsultavit ut gigas ad currendam viam *.

As a giant, for He is a Man-God ; and all His actions, all His works, are those of a God, and, in consequence, worthy of God to Whom He offers them in homage.

According to the language of philosophy, ” the acts belong to the person”: Actiones sunt suppositorum. The different actions we perform have their source in human nature and in the faculties derived from this nature; but in the last analysis, we attribute them to the person who possesses this nature and employs his faculties. Thus, it is with the intelligence I think; with the eye, I see; with the ear, I hear; to see, hear, and understand are the actions of human nature; but we refer them finally to the person: it is J, the same I, who sees, hears, and thinks; although each of these actions has its immediate source in a different faculty, they are due to one and the same person who possesses the nature endowed with these faculties.

Now in Jesus Christ, human nature, perfect and integral in itself, is united to the Person of the Son of God. Many of Christ’s actions could only be wrought in His human nature: if He works, walks, sleeps, eats, if He teaches, suffers and dies, it is in His humanity, through His human nature; but all His actions belong to the Divine Person to Whom this humanity is united. It is a Divine Person Who acts and operates by human nature.3

It results from this that all the actions accomplished by the humanity of Christ, however small, ordinary, simple or limited they may be in their physical reality and earthly duration, are attributed to the Divine Person to Whom this humanity is joined; they are the actions of a Cod. On this head, they possess trancendent beauty and splendour; they acquire, from a moral point of view, an inestimable price, infinite value and inexhaustible efficacy. The moral value of Christ’s human actions is measured by the infinite dignity of the Divine Person in Whom the human nature subsists and acts. lf this is true of the least:action of Christ, how much truer yet is it of those that constitute, properly speaking, His mission here below, or are connected with it: namely, the voluntary substitution of Himself for us, as a stainless Victim to pay our debt and, by His expiation and the satisfaction He made, restore Divine Life to us.

For such is the mission He is to fulfil, the course He is to run. God has laid on Him”, a man like us, of Adam’s race, yet just, innocent and stainless, ” the iniquity of us all”. Posuit m eo iniquitatem omnium nostrum?. Because He has become, as it were, partaker of our nature, and has taken upon Himself our sin, Christ has merited to make us partakers of His justice and holiness. ” God”, according to the energetic expression of St. Paul, ” sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin, hath condemned sin in the flesh.” Deus Filium suum mittens in similitudinem carnis peccatt, et de peccato damnavit peccatum in carne*; and with yet more astounding energy: ” Him, that knew no sin, for us He hath made sin”. Eum qui non noverat peccatum, pro nobis peccatum fecit*. What energy there is in this expression: peccatum fecit ! The Apostle does not say: peccator, ” sinner” but even, peccatum, ” sin”.4

Christ, on His side, accepted to take upon Himself all our sins, to the point of becoming in some manner, upon the Cross, universal sin, living sin; He has voluntarily put Himself in our place, and therefore death will strike Him. He has purchased us ” with His own Blood*”. Humanity is to be redeemed, ” not with corruptible things as gold or silver... but with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled, foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world ?”.

Let us not forget that we have been ” bought with a great price*’”. Jesus Christ shed the last drop of His Blood for us. It is true to say that a single drop of this Divine Blood would have sufficed to redeem us; the least suffering, the slightest humiliation of Christ, even a single desire of His Heart would have been enough to expiate every sin, all the crimes that could be committed; for each of Christ’s actions, being the action of a Divine Person constitutes a satisfaction of infinite price. But God willed to make the immense love His Son bears towards Him shine forth the more in the eyes of the world: Ut cognoscat mundus quia diligo Patrem ‘. He willed to show the ineffable charity of this same Son towards us: Majorem hac dilectionem nemo habet*; to bring home to us more vividly how infinite is the Divine holiness, and how profound the malice of sin. For these and other reasons not revealed to us ®, the Eternal Father has required all the sufferings and the Passion and Death of His Divine Son in expiation of the crimes of humanity. Indeed, the satisfaction was only complete, when, from the height of the Cross, Jesus, with His dying voice, pronounced the Consummatum est. " Ali is consummated”. Then only, the personal mission of the Redeemer here below was fulfilled, and His work of salvation accomplished.

III

By these satisfactions, as, moreover, by all the acts of His Life, Jesus Christ merited for us every grace of pardon, of salvation and sanctification.5

What, exactly, is merit ? It is a right to a recompense ?. When we say that the works of Christ are meritorious for us, we mean that by them, Christ has won the right that eternal life and all the graces leading to it or attached to it should be given to us. It is indeed what St. Paul tells us: We are ” justified freely by His grace, through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus ?”. Justified, that is to say, rendered just in the eyes of God, not by our own works, but by a gratuitous gift of God, namely grace, which comes to us through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The Apostle makes us understand, then, that the Passion of Jesus which achieves and crowns all the works of His earthly life, is the source from whence eternal life flows for us. Christ is the meritorious cause of our sanctification.

And what is the profound reason of this merit since all merit is personal ? When we are in a state of grace we can merit for ourselves an increase of this grace, but we cannot merit grace for others. The most we can do is to implore it from God. How, then, could Jesus Christ merit for us? What is the fundamental reason why Jesus Christ can merit not only for Himself, for example, the glorification of His Humanity, but also eternal life for others, for us, for the whole human race ?

Merit, the fruit and property of grace, has, if we may thus speak, the same extent as the grace upon which it is founded. Jesus Christ is filled with sanctifying grace, in virtue of which he can personally merit for Himself. But this grace in Jesus does not stop at Himself; it possesses not only a personal character, it enjoys the privilege of universality. Christ was predestined to become our Head, our Chief, our Representative. The Eternal Father wills to make of Him the Primogenitus omnis creaturae, the first-born of every creature. In consequence of this eternal predestination, the grace.of Christ, Who is of our race through the Incarnation, bears a character of eminence and universality, the end of which is no longer to sanctify the human soul of Jesus, but to make of Him, in the domain of eternal life, the Head of humanity *. Hence, a social character is attached to all the

  1. We are speaking of merit in the sense of a strict and rigorous right, which is called in theology : ineritum de condigno. — 2. Rom. 11, acts of Jesus, when they are considered in relation to the human race; all that Christ does, He does not only for us, but in our nature. That is why St. Paul tells us that if ” by the disobedience of one man (Adam) many were made sinners; so also, by the obedience of one, many shall be made just ?”. Jesus Christ then, in His quality of Head, has merited for us all, in the same way as in substituting Himself for us, He has satisfied for us. And as He Who has merited for us is God, His merits have infinite value and an inexhaustible efficacy ”.6

That which completes the work of giving all beauty and fulness to the satisfactions and merits of Christ, is that He accepted His sufferings voluntarily and from love. Liberty is an essential element of merit, for the act is only worthy of praise if the one who accomplishes it is responsible: Ubi non est lbertas, nec meritum, says St. Bernard *.

This liberty covers the whole redeeming mission of Jesus. As Man-God, Christ accepted absolutely, to suffer in His passible Body. When on His entrance into this world He said to His Father: ” Behold I come”, Ecce venio, ut faciam, Deus, voluntatem tuam, He foresaw all the humiliations, all the sufferings of His Passion and Death, and freely, from the depth of His Heart, out of love for His Father and for us, He accepted all : Volui, ” I have willed ”. Et legem iuam in medio cordis met‘.

Christ keeps intact this willingness to suffer, throughout His whole life. The hour of His sacrifice is always present to Him ; He awaits it with impatience: He calls it ” His hour °” as if it were the only one that counted for Him in His earthly existence. He announces His Death to His disciples, He traces out its details to them in advance, in such clear terms that they cannot be deceived. When St. Peter, deeply moved at the thought of seeing His Master die, wishes to set himself in opposition to the realisation of these sufferings, Jesus rebukes him: ” Thou savourest not

  1. Rom. v, 19. — 2. It goes without saying that Christ’s merits must be applied to us in order that we should experience their efficacy. Baptism inaugurates this efficacy; by Baptism we are incorporated with Christ, we become living members of His mystical body : the bond is established between the Head and the members; once justified by Baptism, we, in our turn, can merit. — 3. Serm. I, in Cant. — 4. Ps. xxxrx, 8-9, and Hebr. x, 9. — 5. Joan. xi, 1. the things that are of God!”. But for Himself ” He knows His Father”, and through love for Him and charity for us, He goes to meet His Passion with all the ardour of His holy soul, but likewise with a sovereign liberty. His will is aglow with love, so that it burns in Him like a furnace: ” I am come to cast fire upon the earth and what will I but that it be kindled ? I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptised”, a baptism of blood 2, and yet no man has the power to take away His life; He lays it down of Himself °. See how He manifests the truth of these words. One day, the inhabitants of Nazareth want to cast Him down headlong from the brow of the hill: Jesus passes through the midst of them with wonderful calmness*. Another time, at Jerusalem, the Jews attempt to stone Him, because He affirms His Divinity ; He hides Himself and goes out of the temple °: His hour is not yet come.

But when it does come, He yields Himself to them. See Him in the Garden of Olives on the eve of His death; the armed troops advance to take Him and lead Him to be condemned. ” Whom seek ye?” Heasks them. At their reply: ” Jesus of Nazareth”, He says to them simply: "I am He”. This one word uttered by Him is enough to overthrow His enemies and make them fall to the ground. He could have kept them there; He could, as He said Himself, ask His Father, and He would send legions of angels to deliver Him®. It is at this moment that He reminds these men that every day He sat with them in the temple and they did not lay hands on Him; the hour was not come, that is why He did not give them licence to seize Him. , Now the hour has struck when, for the salvation of the world, He is about to deliver Himself up to His executioners, who only act as the instruments of the powers of hell: Haec est hora vestra et potestas tenebrarum’. The soldiery lead Him from tribunal to tribunal, He does not resist. However, before the Sanhedrin, the supreme tribunal of the Jews, He proclaims His rights as Son of God, then He abandons Himself to the fury of His enemies, unti! the moment when He consummates His sacrifice upon the Cross.

It is truly because He has willed it, that He is delivered to death : Oblatus est QuIA 1psEvoluit*. In this voluntary surrender of His entire self upon the Cross; by this death of the Man-God; by this immolation of a stainless victim, offering Himself through love and with absolute liberty — infinite satisfaction is paid to Divine Justice for us”, inexhaustible merit is gained for us by Christ, while eternal life is restored to humanity. Et consummatus, factus est omnibus obtemperantibus sibi causa salutis aeternae*. “And - being consummated, He became to all that obey Him the (meritorious) cause of eternal salvation”. Thus St. Paul could also say that in virtue of this will, we are sanctified by the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ once offered. In qua voluntate sanctificati sumus per oblationem corporis Jesu Christi semel *.7

It is for us all, for each one of us, that Our Lord died: Pro omnibus mortuus est Christus ®. Christ has become the propitiation not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world: Jpse est propitiatio pro peccatis nostris; non pro nostris autem tantum, sed etiam pro totius mundi ®, so that He is the one Mediator between men and God: Unus mediator Dei et hominum, homo-Christus Jesus 7.

When we study the Divine plan, above all when we do so in the light of the Epistles of St. Paul, we see that God wills that we should seek our salvation and our sanctification only in the Blood of His Son; there is no other Redeemer. ” There is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved *””, for His death is supremely efficacious: Una oblatione CONSUMMAVIT IN SEMPITERNUM sanctificatos®. The Will of the Father is that His Son Jesus, after having substituted Himself for all humanity in His bitter Passion, should be established Head of all the elect whom He has saved by His sacrifice and death.

This is why the song that redeemed humanity will sing in heaven is one of praise and thanksgiving to Christ: Redemisti nos in sanguine tuo ex omni tribu, et lingua et populo et natione »°.

When we shall have entered into a blessed eternity, and

  1. Isa. Lit, 7. — 2. In morte Christi facta est consummatio eorum quae exigebantur ad satisfactionem. S. Thom. 3. Sent. dist. xxt, q. 2, a. I, ad 3 and 4. — 3. Hebr. v, 9. — 4. Hebr. x, 10. — 5. II Cor. v, 15. — are united to the choir of the saints, we shall contemplate Our Lord and shall say to Him: Thou hast redeemed us by Thy precious Blood; by the grace of Thy Passion, Thy sacrifice upon the Cross, Thy satisfaction and merits, we are saved from eternal damnation; O Christ Jesus, the Lamb that was slain, to Thee be ” benediction and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever?”.8

IV

It is above all in their fruits that the Passion and Death of Our Divine Saviour are efficacious.

St. Paul does not weary of enumerating the benefits we gain from the infinite merits acquired by the Man-God im His Life and sufferings. When he speaks of them, the great Apostle exults; he can find no other terms to express his thought than those of abundance, of superabundance of riches that he declares unfathomable”. The death of Christ redeems us, gives us access to the Father, and reconciles us with Him, justifies us and bestows holiness and the new life of Christ upon us. To sum up, the Apostle compares Christ to Adam whose work He has come to repair; Adam brought us sin, condemnation and death; Christ, the second Adam, restores to us justice, grace and life®. Translai de morte ad vitam‘*; the redemption was abundant: Copiosa apud eum redemptio®. ” But not as the offence, so also the gift (the gratuitous gift of grace)... For if by one man’s offence death reigned through one; much more they who receive abundance of grace, and of the gift, and of justice, shall reign in life through one, Jesus Christ... And where sin abounded, grace did more abound °”,

That is why ” There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus’”.

Our Lord, in offering to His Father in our name, a satisfaction of infinite value, destroyed the obstacle that existed between man and God: the Eternal Father now regards with love the human race redeemed by the Blood of His Son; for His Son’s sake He has poured upon it all the grace it needs to unite itself to Him, to live for God, and of the very life of God. Ad serviendum Deo vivENTI®.

. Apoc. v, 11-12. — 2. Rom. v, 17,sq. ; I Cor. 1, 6-7 ; Ephes. 1, 7-8, 18, TOSH IE Ty “xSe" Col. 1275-313 of Philip. IV, 193 1 Tim. 1, 14;9

Thus, every supernatural good given to us, all the lights God lavishes on us, all the helps with which He surrounds our spiritual life, are bestowed on us in virtue of the life, passion, and death of Christ; all the graces of pardon, justification, perseverance God gives and ever will give to souls in all ages have their one source in the Cross.

Truly, if ’” God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son’”; if He ” hath delivered us from the powers of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in Whom we have redemption through His Blood, the remission of sin?” ; if, as St. Paul again says: Christ ” hath loved us, and hath delivered Himself for us ?”, for each one of us, to testify the love He bears to His brethren; if He has given Himself to redeem us from all iniquity and ” cleanse to Himself a people acceptable+”, why do we still hesitate in our faith and confidence in Jesus Christ ? He has expiated all, paid all, merited all, and His merits are ours: we have been ” made rich in Him”, so that if we will it, ” nothing is wanting to us in any grace of holiness”. Divites facti estis in illo, ita ut niaIL vobis desit in ULLA gratia ®.

Why then, is it that pusillanimous souls are to be found who say that holiness is not for them, that perfection is something beyond their power, who say, when one speaks to them of perfection: ” It is not for me; I could never arrive at sanctity”. Do you know what makes them speak thus ? It is their lack of faith in the efficacy of Christ’s merits. For it is the will of God that all should be holy : Haec est voluntas Dei, sanctificatio vestra®. It is the Lord’s precept: ” Be ye therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect’”. But we too often forget the Divine Plan; we forget that holiness for us is a supernatural holiness, of which the source is only in Jesus Christ, our Chief and our Head; we do a wrong to the infinite merits and inexhaustible satisfactions of Christ. Doubtless, by ourselves, we can do nothing in the way of grace or perfection; Our Lord expressly tells us so. Sime Me nin potestis facere*, and St. Augustine, commenting on this text, adds: Sive parum, sive multum, sine illo fieri non potest sine quo nihil fieri

  1. Joan. m, 16. — 2. Col, 1, 13-14. — 3. Ephes. v, 2. — 4. Tit. 0, 14.

— 5. I Cor. 1, 5-7. — 6. I Thess. tv, 3. — 7. Matth. v, 48. — 8. Joan. XV Ss potest*. Thatissotrue! Whether it concerns great things or small, we can do nothing without Christ. But by dying for us, Christ has given us free and confident access to the

Father *, and through Him there is no grace, for which we cannot hope. , oes of little faith ! Why do we doubt of God, of our d?

V. it is true that now Christ merits no longer (merit being only possible up to the instant of death), but His acquired merits and satisfaction remain to us. For this High Priest, because He is eternal, possesses an everlasting priesthood ” whereby He is able also to save for ever them that come to God by Him?”.

St. Paul particularly insists on showing that Christ, in Heaven, now intercedes for us, in His quality of supreme high priest. Jesus has ascended to Heaven as our forerunner. Praecursor PRO NoBIs introivit Jesus*. If He is seated at the right hand of His Father it is that He may henceforth plead for us. Ut appareat NuNC vuliui Det PRO NOBIS ® ;” always living to make intercession for us”. SEM- PER VIVENS ad interpellandum PRO NOBIS ®.

Because He is our Head, Christ shows without ceasing the marks of His Wounds to His Father for us; He causes all His merits to be of avail for us: and because He is always worthy of being heard by His Father, His prayer is always granted: Pater, sciebam quia semper me audis’. What unlimited confidence ought we not to have in such a High Priest, Who is the Beloved Son of His Father, and is constituted by Him our Chief and Head, Who gives us a share in all His merits, in all His satisfactions * !

It sometimes happens, when we groan beneath the weight of our miseries and sins, that we say with the Apostle: ” Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the t. Tract. in Joan. LXxx, 3. — 2. Ephes. u, 18; m, 12. — 3. Hebr. Vl, 24-25. — 4. Hebr. vi, 20. — 5. Ibid. 1x, 24. — 6. Hebr. vu, 25. St. Paul uses the same expression in his Epistle to the Romans (vim, 32) whence we should understand that our confidence must be unlimited : " Hath He not also, with Him, given us all things?" — 7. Joan. x, 42. — 8. Caput et membra sunt quasi una persona mystica et ideo satisfactio,

Christi ad omnes fideles pertinet sicut ad sua membra. S. Thom. III, q. XUVIM, a. 2; ad! 5. body of this death ?” Hear the reply of St. Paul: Gratia Dei per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum*. "” The grace of God, by Jesus Christ Our Lord.” We find in Jesus Christ all that is needful to be victorious here below, while awaiting the final triumph in glory.

If we could only have a deep conviction that we are powerless without Christ, and that we have all in Him! Quomodo non etiam cum illo omnia nos donavit? ? Of ourselves we are weak, very weak; in the world of souls there are weaknesses of all kinds, but that is not a reason for being discouraged; these miseries, when they are not wilful, rather entitle us to Christ’s mercy. See the unfortunate who wish to excite the pity of those from whom they ask alms; far from hiding their poverty, they make a display of their rags, they show their sores; that is what entitles them to the charity and compassion of the passers-by. For us also, as for the sick who were brought to Christ when He lived in Judea, it is our misery confessed and displayed in His sight that draws down His mercy. St. Paul tells us that Christ willed to experience our infirmities — excepting sin — that He might have compassion on us; and in fact, we read several times in the Gospel that Jesus was moved with compassion at the sight of the sufferings He witnessed: Misericordia motus*. St. Paul expressly adds that Jesus keeps this sentiment of compassion in glory, and he immediately concludes: ” Let us go therefore with confidence cum fiducia, to the throne” of Him Who is the source ” of grace”; for if we do so in these dispositions, we shall ” obtain mercy *”.

Besides, to act thus is to glorify God, it is to render Him very acceptable homage. Why so? Because the Divine ideal is that we should find all in Christ, and when we humbly acknowledge our weakness and lean on His strength, the Father regards us with benevolence, and with joy, because by this we proclaim that His Son Jesus is the one Mediator Whom He has willed to give to the world.

See how convinced the great Apostle was of his truth. In one of his Epistles, after having published his misery, and what struggles he has to sustain in his soul, he cries out:10

Libenter gloriabor in infirmitatibus meis. Instead of complaining because of his infirmities, his weaknesses and struggles, he ” glories” in them. This seems strange, does it not? But he gives a profound reason for it. And what is this reason? Ut inhabitet in me virtus Christi?. So that it may not be my strength, but the strength of Christ, the grace of Christ that dwells in me and causes me to triumph, and that all glory may be rendered to Him alone.

And see again how far St. Paul goes when he speaks of our weakness: Non quod suficientes simus cogitare aliquid a nobis quasi ex nobis*; he goes so far as to say that we cannot even have a good thought, a thought worth anything for heaven, of ourselves: Quasi ex nobis; and he was inspired by God when he wrote these words. All that is good in us, all that is meritorious for eternal life comes from God through Christ: Sufficientia nostra ex Deo est *. It is God Who enables us to act, and not only to act but even to will, in a supernatural manner : Deus est enim qui operatur in nobis et velle et perficere, pro bona voluntate ®, according to His good will, for such is His good pleasure.

So we see that of ourselves we can neither will, nor act, nor pray supernaturally: Sine me NIHIL potestis facere.

Are we to be pitied for this? In no wise. St. Paul, after having detailed our weakness, adds: Omnia possum im co qui me confortat®. ”I can do all things.” Omnia, not of myself, but ”in Him Who strengtheneth me”, so that all glory may be given to Christ, Who has merited all, and in Whom we have all things. There is no obstacle that I cannot surmount, no difficulty I cannot support, no temptation I cannot resist, through the grace Jesus Christ has merited for me. In Him, through Him, I can do all things, because His triumph is to render strong what is weak: Sufficit tibt gratia mea, nam virtus in infirmitate perficitur’. By this, God wills that all glory should ascend to Him by Christ, Whose grace triumphs in our weakness: In laudem GLORIAE gratiae suae ®.

At the last day, when we shall appear before God, we shall not be able to say to Him: ” My God, I have had to surmount too great difficulties; to triumph over them was impossible; my many sins have discouraged me”. For11

God would reply: ” That would have been true if you had been alone ; but I gave you My Son, Jesus ; He has expiated and paid for all; in His sacrifice there are all the satisfactions which it was My right to demand for all the sins of the world; He merited everything for you by His Death; He has been your redemption and He has merited to be your justification, your wisdom, your sanctity. In My Divine designs, He is not only your salvation, but the source of your strength: for all His satisfactions, all His merits, all His riches ——- and they are infinite — were yours from Baptism, and since He is seated at My right hand, He has offered for you unceasingly all the fruits of His sacrifice; you should have leaned on Him, for, in Him, I would have given you a superabundance of strength to overcome all evil, as He Himself prayed: Rogo ut serves eos a malo’; and I would have filled you with every good, for it is for you, not for Himself, that He ever makes intercession * ”.

Oh! if we knew the infinite value of the gift of God! Si scires donum Dei! Tf, above all, we had faith in the immense merits of Jesus, a lively, practical faith, which would fill us with an invincible confidence in prayer, with abandonment in the needs of our soul! With the Church who, in her liturgy, repeats this formula each time she addresses a prayer to God, we should ask nothing except in His Name, for this Mediator, always living, reigns, God, with the Father, and the Holy Spirit: Per Dominum Nostrum Jesum Christum... qui tecum vivit et regnat. For through Him, we are sure of obtaining all graces. When St. Paul exposes the Divine Plan, he says it is in Christ that "we have redemption through His Blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of His grace, which hath superabounded in us*”. We have at our disposal all the riches acquired by Jesus; through Baptism they have become ours. We have only to have recourse to Him to be like the spouse ” that cometh up from the desert” of her poverty, but ” flowing with delights” because she is ” leaning upon her beloved”: Quae est ista quae ascendit de deserto deliciis affluens, innixa super dilectum suum * ?

If only we lived by these truths ! Our life would then be a continual hymn of praise, of thanksgiving to God for the inestimable gift He has made us of His Son, Jesus Christ: Gratias Deo super menarrabili dono ejus*. We should thus enter fully, for the greatest good and most ardent joy of our souls, into the designs of God, Whose Will it is that we should find all in Jesus, and that receiving all from Him, we should render to Him and to His Father, in the unity of their Holy Spirit, all benediction, all honour, and all glory: Sedenti in throno et Agno, benedictio, et honor, et gloria, et potestas, in saecula saeculorum 2.12

  1. II Cor. rx, 15. ~ 2. Apoc. v, Be

Footnotes

    1. Acts. xxvi, 18; Joan. x1t,-31 ; Col. 1, 14. — 2. Rom. v, 10; x1, 28. — 3. I Thess. 1, 10; Rom. u, 5, 8; Ephes. m, 3. —4. Rom. ui, 2; v, 15-18.
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  2. quem delinquitur. S, Thom. Ill, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2; cf. I-11, q. LXXXVII, a. 4. — 2, Matth. x1, 3. ↩

    1. S. Bernard, Serm. I. de Circumcis. — 2. Matth. 1, 21. — 3. Hebr. X, 5-7; cf. Ps. xxXxiv, 7-8. — 4. Ps. xvi, 6.
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    1. Theology calls them theandric, from two Greek words, meaning God and man. — 2. Isa. Li, 6. — 3. Rom. vim, 3. — 4. II Cor. v, 21.
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  5. 1, Act. XxX, 25. — 2.I Petr. 1, 18-20. — 3. I. Cor. vi, 20. — 4. Joan. XIV, 31, — 5. Ibid. xv, 13. — 6, The Redemption is a mystery of faith: we can understand in some measure its admirable appropriateness after it has been revealed to us, but in its essence it remains hidden for us. This is what St. Paul calls the Sacramentum absconditum. Ephes. 1 9; 1, 33 Col. 1, 26. bia ↩

    1. — 3. This is what is called in theology Gratia capitis.Cf. Thom. III, Oe DANII Be
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    1. Marc. vim, 31-33. — 2. Luc. xu, 50. — 3. Joan. x, 18. — 4. Luc. IV, 36. — §. Joan. vu, 59. — 6. Matth. xxv, 53. — 7. Luc. xxn, 53.
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    1. I Joan. 1, 2. — 7. I Tim. m, 5. — 8. Act. 1v, 12. — 9. Hebr. x, 14. —= 10, Apoc. V,: 9.
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  9. Tit. 1, 6. — 3. I Cor. XV, 22. — 4. I Joan. any 14. — §. Ps. CXXIX, 7 — Pe Rom. v, 15-20. — 7. Rom. vin, 1. — 8. Hebr. 1x, 14. ↩

    1. Rom. vu, 25. — 2. Ibid. vim, 32. — 3. Luc. vil, 13; Marc. vin, 2 ; ef. Matth. xv, 32. — 4. Hebr. rv, 14-16.
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    1. II Cor. xu, 9. — 2. Ibid. — 3. Ibid. m1, 5. — 4. If Cor. m, 5. — 5. Philip. 1, 13. — 6. Ibid. 1v, 13. — 7. II Cor. xu, 9. — 8. Ephes. 1, 6.
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    1. Joan. xvi, 15. — 2. Hebr. vu, 25. — 3. Ephes. 1, 7. — 4. Cant. Vill, . 5.
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Chapter 5 of 21