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II.1. Faith in Jesus Christ, the Foundation of Christian Life

Summary. — Faith, the first attitude of the soul and the foundation of the supernatural life. — I, Christ requires faith as the preliminary condition of union with Him. — II. Nature of faith: Assent to the testimony of God proclaiming that Jesus is His Son. — If. Faith in the Divinity of Christ is the foundation of our inner life; Christianity is the acceptation of the Divinity of Christ in the Incarnation. — IV. Exercise of the virtue of faith; fruitfulness of the inner life based upon faith. — V. Why we must have an intense faith in the infinite value of Christ’s merits. How faith is the source of joy. n the preceding conferences which constitute a general exposition, I have tried to show you the economy of the divine designs considered in itself.

We have seen the eternal plan of our adoptive predestination in Jesus Christ ; — the realisation of this plan by the Incarnation, Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father, being at once our Model, our Satisfaction, our Life ; — lastly the mission of the Church continuing here below, under the action of the Holy Ghost, the sanctifying work of the Saviour.

The Divine figure of Christ dominates all this plan : the

Eternal thoughts are centred on Him : He is the Alpha, He is the Omega. In the days before His coming, figures, rites and prophecies converge towards Him ; after His coming, all is linked with Him. He is truly the centre of the Divine plan. 4 He is also, as we have seen, the centre of the supernatural life. The supernatural is to be found first of all in Him : — the Man-God, perfect humanity indissolubly united to a Divine Person, possessing fulness of grace and heavenly treasures, and meriting by His passion and death, to be the universal distributor of them.

He is the Way, the only one by which to come to the

Christ, the life of the soul. 9

Eternal Father : Nemo venit ad Patrem Nisit per me* ; except this foundation preestablished by God, nothing is stable: Fundamentum enim aliud NEMO potest ponere, praeter id quod positum est, quod est Christus Jesus*. Without this Redeemer and without faith in His merits, there is no salvation, still less holiness: NON est IN ALIO aliquo salus. Nec enim aliud nomen est sub caelo datum hominibus, in quo oporteat nos salvos fieri®. Christ Jesus is the only Way, the only Truth, the only Life. Who follows not this way goes astray from truth and seeks in vain for life. Qu habet Filium, habet vitam ; qui non habet Filium, vitam non habet *.

To live supernaturally is, for us all, to share in the plenitude of Divine life that is in Jesus Christ: Ego vem ut vitam habeant... Et de plenitudine ejus nos omnes accepimus. We receive our state of adoption from Him. We are only children of God in the measure we are conformed to Him Who, alone, is by right the only true Son of the Father, but Who wills to have with Himself a multitude of brethren through sanctifying grace. All the supernatural work considered from God’s point of view is summed up in this.

It was in order we might receive this grace of adoption that Christ came and gave Himself to us : Ut adoptionem filiorum reciperemus® ; and that He has confided all His treasures and all powers to the Church. He sends and continues to send ”the Spirit of Truth”, the sanctifying Spirit, to direct her and perfect, by His action in souls, the work of sanctification, until this mystical body comes, at the end of time, to its last perfection. Beatitude itself, the crowning of our supernatural adoption, is nothing less than the inheritance Christ shares with us: Heredes Dei, coheredes Christi ®.

So Christ is and remains the one object of divine complacency. It is only in Him and for His sake that the elect, who form His kingdom, are enveloped in the same eternal look of love : Christus heri et hodie, ipse et in saecula’.

That is what we have seen so far. But it will serve for little if it is only in an abstract and theoretical manner we contemplate this Divine plan, whence shines forth the wisdom and goodness of our God. We must adapt ourselves practically to this plan, under penalty of not belonging to Christ’s kingdom. This is what we shall see in the following conferences. I will try to show you how grace takes possession of our souls in baptism ; how the work of Cod is elaborated in us; and the conditions of our personal action as free creatures so that we may be enabled to participate. in the divine life in the largest manner possible.1

We shall see that the foundation of all this spiritual edifice is faith in the Divinity of Our Lord, and that baptism, the first of all the sacraments, marks our whole existence with a double character of ” death to sin”, and of ” life for God”.

In the wonderful discourse Our Lord pronounced at the Last supper, on the eve of His death, when He raised as it were a corner of the veil which hides from us the secrets of the divine life, He said it is to the glory of the Father that we bear much fruit : In hoc clarificatus est Pater meus, ut fructum plurimum afferatis*. It is therefore to enter into the eternal designs if we seek to develop in us, in the highest degree, our condition of children of God.

Let us ask Christ Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Father and our Model, to teach us practically not only how He abides in us, but also how we ought to abide in Him, for that is the one means for us of bearing much fruit by which the Father will recognise us as His beloved children : Qui manet in Me, et ego in eo, hic fert fructum multum ?.

All holiness, as I have said — and my greatest desire is that this truth should be engraved in the depths of your souls — all holiness for us consists of participating in the holiness of Christ Jesus, the Son of God. .

But how are we to participate in it ? — By receiving Jesus Christ Who is the one source of holiness. When speaking of the Incarnation, St. John tells us that all those who receive Christ are ” made the sons of God”: Quotquot autem receperunt eum dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri. And how do we receive Christ, the Incarnate Word? First and before all, by faith : His qui credunt in nomine ejus *.

St. John then says that it is faith in Jesus Christ that makes us children of God. That is likewise the thought of St. Paul: ” For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus”: Ommnes filti Dei estis per fidem, quae est in Christo Jesu. Because by faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ, we identify ourselves with Him ; we accept Him as the Son of God and the Incarnate Word. Faith yields us to Christ ; and Christ, introducing us into the supernatural domain, yields us to His Father. And the more perfect, profound, ardent and constant our faith is in Christ’s divinity, the more right we have, as children of God, to the communication of Divine life. In receiving Christ by faith, we become by grace what He is by nature — children of God ; and then our state calls forth an influx of divine life from the Heavenly Father. Our state of ” children of God” is like a continual prayer : O Holy Father, give us this day our daily bread, that is to say, the divine life of which Thy Son has the plenitude !2

I wish to speak to you of this faith. Faith is the very first attitude we ought to have in our relations with God : Prima conjunctio ad Deum est per fidem?. St. Augustine says the same: "It is primarily faith that subjects the soul to God”: Fides est prima quae subjungat animam Deo. St. Paul says: ” Without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God, must believe” : Sine fide impossibile est placere Deo*. With still greater reason, it is impossible without faith to attain to His friendship and remain His child : impossibile est ad filiorum ejus consortium pervenire *.

You see at once that this subject is not only important, ‘but vital. We shall understand nothing of the supernatural life, of the divine life in our souls, if we do not grasp that it is altogether founded upon this faith, Jx fide FUNDATI®, upon this intimate and profound conviction of the divinity of Jesus Christ. For as the Holy Council of Trent says : ” Faith is the root and foundation of all justification” and in consequence, of all holiness : Fides est humanae salutis initium, fundamentum et radix omnis justificationis *.

We will now see what this faith is, what its object is, and how it is manifested.

Gal. 11, 26; cf. Rom. m, 22-26. — 2. S, Thom. IV Sent. dist. 39, a. ia ad 2. Est aliquid primum in virtutibus directe per quod scilicet jam ad Deum acceditur. Primus autem accessus ad Deum est per fidem. II- II, q. crxt, a. 5, ad 2. Cf. II-Il, q. 1v, a. 7 et q. xx, a. 8. — 3. De agone Christiano, 14. — 4. Hebr. x, 6. — 5. Concil. Trid. Sess. VI, cap. 8. — 6, Col. 1, 23. — 7. Sess. VI, cap. 8.

FAITH, THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 133 lie

Let us consider what happened when Our Lord lived in Judea. When we read the account of His life in the Gospels, we see it is first of all faith that He requires from those who come to Him.

We read that one day two blind men were following Him, crying out : _” Have mercy on us, O Son of David”. Jesus lets them approach Him, and says to them: ”Do you believe that I can do this unto you” ? And they reply : “Yea, Lord”. Then He touches their eyes and gives them back their sight, saying : ” According to your faith, be it done unto yout”. Again, after the Transfiguration, He finds at the foot of Mount Thabor, a father who asks the cure of his son possessed by a devil. And what does Jesus say to him? ” If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth”. Immediately the father of the boy cries out: ”I do believe, Lord, help my unbelief”. And Jesus delivers the child?. When the chief of the synagogue asks Him to save his daughter, Our Lord still gives the same reply: ” Believe only, and she shall be Ss Cot

These words often fall from His lips. Very often too we hear Him say : ” Go, thy faith hath saved thee : thy faith hath made thee whole”. He says it to the paralytic man. He says it to the woman who had suffered from an infirmity that had lasted twelve years and was cured by touching the hem of His garment with faith *.

He makes faith in Him the indispensable condition of His miracles. He requires this faith even from those He loves the most. When Martha, the sister of His friend Lazarus, whom He comes to raise from the dead, says to Him that if He had been there her brother would not have died, Our Lord tells her that Lazarus shall rise again. But He wills before working this miracle that Martha should make an act of faith in His Person : ” I am the Resurrection and the Life : believest thou this’” ?

Where He does not meet with faith, He deliberately limits the effects of His power. The Gospel expressly says that at Nazareth ” He wrought not many miracles, because of their

  1. Matth. 1x, 27-30. — 2. Ibid. xvu, 14-19 ; Marc. 1x, 16-26; Luc. Ix, unbelief”: Ei non fecit ibi virtutes multas propter imcredulitatem eorum?. If I may so express it, Christ’s action appears to be paralysed by lack of faith.3

But wherever He finds it, He can refuse it nothing. He takes pleasure in praising it openly. One day when Jesus was at Capharnaum, a pagan officer who commanded a company of a hundred men, came up to Him and asked the cure of one of his servants who was sick. Jesus says to him: ’"T will come and heal him”. But the centurion at once replies : ” Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof : but only say the word and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man... having under me soldiers and I say to this one, Go and he goeth, and to another, Come, and he cometh, and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it ; in the same way, it is sufficient for Thee to speak one word, to command the sickness, and it will depart ”.

What faith in this pagan ! Christ Jesus, even before pronouncing the liberating word, manifests the joy this faith causes Him :' ” Amen, I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israél. And I say to you that many Gentiles shall come and shall sit down at the feast of eternal life in the kingdom of heaven, while the children of Israel, who were the first to be called to this banquet, shall be cast out on account of their unbelief”. And turning to the centurion, He says to him : ” Go, and as thou hast believed, so be it done to thee ?”.

Faith is so pleasing to Jesus that it even obtains from Him what appeared not to be His first intention to grant. We have a striking example of this in the cure besought by the woman of Canaan. Our Lord had reached the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, a pagan region. A woman of these parts, being come where He was, cries in a loud voice: ” Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David : my daughter is grievously troubled with a devil”. But Jesus answers her not a word. Then His disciples come and say to Him : * Send her away, for she crieth after us”. And Christ answers that His mission is only to preach to the Jews. He had reserved: to His disciples the work of evangelizing the pagans. But the woman, prostrating herself before him, says: "Lord, help me”, and Jesus answers her as He had answered the apostles, but in employing a proverbial saying, then in use for distinguishing the Jews from the pagans : “ It is not good to take the bread of the children and to cast it to the dogs”. And the woman, animated by her faith, exclaims: ” Yea Lord: for the whelps also eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters”. Jesus is so touched by this faith that He cannot refrain from extolling it, and immediately granting her what she asks : ”O woman, great is thy faith : be it done to thee as thou wilt”. And from that same hour, her daughter was cured 7.4

Doubtless, nearly all these examples have to do with bodily cures; but it is also on account of faith that Our Lord forgives sins and grants eternal life. What does He say to Magdalen, when she comes and throws herself at His feet and washes them with her tears? ” Thy sins are forgiven thee”. The remission of sins is assuredly a grace of a purely spiritual order. And for what reason does Christ restore the life of grace to Magdalen ? On account of her faith. Christ Jesus says exactly the same words to her as to those He cured of their bodily ills: ” Thy faith hath made thee safe: goin peace?”. See again at Calvary. What a magnificent recompense He gives to the good thief on account of his faith ! This man was probably a brigand ; but upon the cross when all the enemies of Jesus hurled sarcasms and mockeries at Him, saying: “If He be the Son of God, as He says, let Him now come down from the cross and we will believe Him”, — this thief confesses the divinity of the Christ abandoned by His disciples and dying on a gibbet. He speaks to Jesus of ” His Kingdom” at the moment when Jesus is about to die: he asks for a place in this Kingdom. What faith in the power of the dying Christ! And how moved Jesus is by this faith ! ’” Amen, I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise”. He forgives him all his sins because of this faith, and assures to him a place in the eternal Kingdom.

So then faith is the first virtue our Lord claims from thage who approach Him and it remains the same for us all.

When, before ascending into Heaven, He sends His apostles to continue His mission throughout the world, it is faith He requires; and in this faith He sums up, as it were, all the Christian life: Go, teach all nations... he that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned ”.5

Is faith alone then sufficient ? No, the sacraments and the observance of the commandments are necessary too, but a man who does not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ is a stranger to His commandments and sacraments. Besides, it is because we believe in the divinity of Jesus that we observe His precepts and approach the sacraments. Faith then is the basis of all our supernatural life.

God wills that during the stage of our mortal life we should serve Him by faith. His glory requires it to be so. It is the homage He expects from us and the probation we have to pass through before arriving at the eternal goal. One day we shall see God unveiled; His glory will then consist in communicating Himself fully in all the splendour and brightness of His eternal beatitude. But as long as we are upon earth, it enters into the economy of the divine plan that God should be for us a hidden God. Here below, God wills to be known, adored and served by faith; — and the greater, the more ardent and practical this faith is, the more we are pleasing to God.

It:

»But you may say,what is this faith? Speaking in a general way, faith is the adhesion of our intelligence to the word of another. When an upright, loyal man tells us something, we admit it, we have faith in his word; to give one’s word is to give one’s self.

Supernatural faith is the adhesion of our intelligence, not to the word of a man, but to the word of God. God can neither deceive nor be deceived. Faith is the homage rendered to God as the supreme truth and authority. In order that this homage may be worthy of God, we must submit ourselves to the authority of His word, whatever be the difficulties our mind encounters. This Divine word affirms the existence of mysteries beyond our reason; faith can be required from us in things where our senses, our experience seem to tell us the very contrary of what God tells us; but God requires our conviction in the authority of His revelation to be so absolute that if all creation affirmed the contrary we should say to God in spite of everything: ” My God, I believe because Thou sayest it +”,

To believe, says St. Thomas, is to give, under the empire of the will, moved by grace, the assent and adhesion of our intelligence to the Divine truth: J psum autem credere est actus intellectus assentientis veritati divinae ex imperio voluntatis sub motu gratiae?. It is the mind that believes, but the heart is not absent from believing; and so that we may make this act of faith, God places in us at baptism, a power, a force, a ” habitude”: namely the virtue of faith, whereby our intelligence is inclined to admit the testimony of God out of love for His truth. That is the very essence of faith, but this adhesion and this love naturally include an infinite number of degrees. When the love that leads us to believe yields us up entirely to the full acceptation, in both our mind and conduct, of the testimony of God, then our faith is perfect: it operates and manifests itself by charity °.

Now what is the testimony of God that we have to accept by faith ? It is summed up in this: That Christ Jesus is God’s own Son, sent for our salvation and given for our sanctification.

You know that the voice of the Father has only been heard three times by the world‘, and each time it was to tell us that Christ is His Son, worthy of all love and all glory: Hic est filius meus dilectus... ipsum audite: " Hear ye Him”. That was, according to our Lord’s own words, the testimony of God to the world when He gave it His Son: Qui misit me Pater, ipse testimonum perhibuit de me ®. And to, confirm this testimony, God gave His Son the power of working miracles; He raised Him from the dead. Our Lord Himself tells us that life everlasting depends for us upon the full acceptation of this testimony: Haec est autem voluntas Patris mei qui misit me, ut omnis qui videt Filium

  1. This is not the place to examine the psychological and theological question relative to the nature of the act of faith: the character of our conferences does not lend itself to this. We refer the reader desirous of going deeply into these questions to the lucid explanation of Rev. Fr. Bainvel, S. J. in his work La foi et l’acte de foi. His exposition of the teaching of Cardinal Billot on the faith of authority is particularly striking. See also the remarkable study of R.P.Gardeil O.P. upon La Crédibilité. —- 2. S. Thom. II-II, q. 1, a.9. —3. Fides nisi ad eam spes accedat et caritas neque unit perfecte cum Christo, neque corporis ejus vivum et credit in eum, habeat vitam aeternam*. Christ Jesus often lays stress on this point: ” Amen, I say unto you: He that believeth Him that sent Me, hath life everlasting... (he) is passed from death to life?”.6

We cannot too often meditate on these words of St. John: ” God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son”. And why did He give Him? ” That whosoever”, he says, ” believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting”. And he adds in explanation: ” For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him. He that believeth in Him is not judged. But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God?”. “To judge” here means to condemn. Now St. John says that he that doth not believe in Christ is already condemned. Note this term: "is already condemned”. What does it mean? That it is vain for one who has not faith in Jesus Christ to try to save himself : his cause is even now judged. The Eternal Father makes faith in His Son, Whom He has sent, the first necessary attitude of our soul and the source of our salvation. Oui credit in Filium habet vitam aeternam: qui autem incredulus est Filio, non videbit vitam, sed ira Det manet super eum *. God attaches so much value to our belief in His Son that His wrath abides — again remark the present tense: it ” abideth ”. now — on him who does not believe in his Son. What does all this signify ? That faith in the divinity of Jesus is, according to the designs of the Father, the first thing needful in order to share in the divine life; faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ bears with it all other revealed truths.

All revelation, it may be said, is contained in this supreme testimony God gives us that Jesus Christ is His Son, and all faith is likewise contained in the acceptation of this testimony. If we believe in Christ’s divinity, we believe at the same time in the whole revelation of the Old Testament which has its fulfilment in Christ; we believe the whole revelation of the New Testament, for all that the apostles and the Church teach us is only the development of the revelation of Christ.7

Whoever then accepts the divinity of Christ embraces the whole of revelation. Jesus is the Incarnate Word; the Word says all that God is, all that He knows; this Word is incarnate and reveals God to men: Unigenitus qui est im sinu Patris ipse enarravit*, And when by faith we receive Christ, we receive all revelation. ;

Therefore, the intimate conviction that Our Lord is truly God constitutes the first foundation of our supernatural life. If we understand this truth and put it into practice, our inner life will be full of light and fruitfulness.

TU.

This truth is so important that I want to dwell on it some moments.

During the mortal life of Jesus, His divinity was hidden under the veil of His humanity; even for those who lived with Him, His divinity was an object of faith.

Doubtless, the Jews were aware of the sublimity of His doctrine. ” Never did man speak like this man?” they repeated. They were the witnesses of works which, as they acknowledged, God alone could do*. But they saw too that’ Christ was man; it is said that even His near acquaintances who had only known Him in the workshop of Nazareth did not believe in Him in spite of His miracles *.

His apostles, although they were His familiar hearers, did not see His divinity. In the episode which I have already related, when Our Lord asks His disciples who He is, St. Peter says to Him: ’”’Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. And our Lord at once replies it is not because St. Peter had any natural evidence that he thus spoke but only because the eternal Father had given him this revelation. And on account of this revelation, He proclaims His apostle blessed : Beatus es, Simon Bar Jona, quia caro et sanguis non revelavit tibi, sed Pater meus qui in caelts est.

More than once we read in the Gospel that the Jews disputed amongst themselves concerning Christ. Thus after Christ had explained the parable of the Good Shepherd Who freely gives His life for His sheep, there arose a discussion among those who heard Him. Some said: ” He hath a devil and is mad, why hear you Him ?” But others replied:8

” These are not the words of one that hath a devil”. And alluding to the miracle of the man born blind whom Jesus had cured a few days previously, these added: ” Can a devil open the eyes of the blind” ? Then wishing to ascertain the truth, the Jews surround Jesus, and say to Him : ” How long dost Thou hold our souls in suspense ? If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly”. And what does our Lord teply ? ”I speak to you, and you believe not ; the works that I do in the name of My Father, they give testimony of Me”; and He adds: ” But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep : My sheep hear my voice ; and I know them and they follow me; and I give them life everlasting ; and they shall not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck them out of My hand. That which My Father hath given Me is greater than all; and no one can snatch them out of the hand of My Father. I and the Father are one”. Then the Jews taking Him for a blasphemer, because He called Himself the equal of God, take up stones to stone Him, and on Jesus asking them why they do so, they reply”: We stone Thee for Thy blasphemy; because that Thou being aman, makest Thyself God”. And what does Jesus answer? Does He deny what they reproach Him with ? No, on the contrary; He rather confirms it ; He is truly what they say — the equal of God. They have understood Him aright, but He affirms His words anew: He is the Son of God since, He says, He does the works of His Father Who sent Him and because by the Divine nature, ’the Father is in Me, and I in the Father?”.

Therefore, you see, faith in the divinity of Christ Jesus constitutes the first step towards the divine life for us as well as for the Jews of His time. To believe that Jesus is the Son of God, God Himself, is the first condition that is necessary in order to be numbered among His sheep and be pleasing to His Father. For that is indeed what the Father requires of us: Hoc est opus Dei ut credatis in eum quem misit dle, Christianity is nothing else than the acceptation in all its far-reaching, doctrinal and practical consequences of the divinity of Christ in the Incarnation. The reign of Christ — holiness, through Him — is established in us in the measure of the purity, intensity and fulness of our faith in Jesus Christ. Holiness for us is the full development of our condition of children of God. Now it is by faith that we are first of all born to that life of grace that makes us children of God: Omnis qui credit quoniam Jesus est Christus EX DEO NATUS EST?. We are not truly God’s children unless our life is based on this faith. The Father gives us His Son to be everything for us — our Model, our Satisfaction, our Life. He says to us: Receive My Son, for in Him you have all things : Quomodo non etiam cum illo omnia nobis donavit? ? And in receiving Him, you receive Me, you become, through Him, in Him, My beloved sons. That is what our Lord said Himself : ” He that believeth in Me, doth not believe in Me, but in Him that sent Me?”. St. John says: ’ If we receive the testimony of men”, (if we believe reasonably what men affirm to us) ” the testimony of God is greater than any human testimony. And once again, what is this testimony of God? It is the testimony God has given that Christ is His Son. ” He that believeth in the Son of God, hath the testimony of God in himself. He that believeth not the Son, maketh Him a liar: because he believeth not in the testimony which God hath testified of His Son+”, Qui credit in Filium Dei habet testimonium Dei m se. These words contain a very profound truth. For in what does this testimony consist ? ” That God hath given to us eternal life” says St. John. ” And this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son, hath life. He that hath not the Son, hath not life>”. What do these words signify ? To understand them we must, in the light of Revelation, mount to the very source of life in God. All the life of the Father in the Holy Trinity is to ” utter ” His Son, His Word, to beget, by one simple, eternal act, a Son like to Himself, to Whom He communicates the fulness of His being and of His perfections. In this one and eternal Word, infinite like Himself, the Father unceasingly recognises His Son, His own image, ”the splendour of His glory”. And every word, every outward testimony that God gives us of Christ’s divinity, such as that given at the baptism of Jesus: — ” This is My beloved Son”, is only the echo, in the world of the senses, of this testimony the Father renders to Himself in the sanctuary of the Divinity, and that He expresses by a Word in which He places all Himself and which is His intimate life: Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te.910

When therefore we accept this testimony of the Eternal Father, when we say to God: ” This little Child lying in the crib is Thy Son, I adore and give myself to Him ; this Youth toiling in the workshop of Nazareth, is Thy Son, I adore Him; this Man crucified on Calvary, is Thy Son, I adore Him; these fragments of bread are the appearances under which Thy Son is hidden, I there adore Him”; when we say to Jesus Himself: ” Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God”, and prostrate ourselves before Him, yielding to Him all our energies to serve Him, when ail our actions are in accordance with this faith and spring from the charity ‘that makes faith perfect, — then our whole life becomes the echo of the life of the Father Who eternally expresses His Son in one infinite word ; and this divine action, never ceasing, embracing all time; being an eternal “now”, we shall thus associate ourselves in the very life of God. That is what St. John says: ” He that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God, hath the testimony of God in himself”, that testimony by which the Father ” utters” His Son.

IV

We cannot repeat these acts of faith in Christ’s divinity too often. We received this faith in baptism, but we must not leave it buried or sleeping in the depth of our heart; we must ask God to increase it in us: Domine, adauge nobis fidem ; we must exercise it by the repetition of our acts. And the purer and more intense it becomes, the more it will envelop our existence and the more solid, true, luminous, sure and fruitful our spiritual life will be. For the profound conviction that Christ is God and that He has been given to us, contains all spiritual life: holiness flows for us from this intimate conviction as from its source. This intense faith penetrates through the veil of the humanity that hides the divinity of Christ from our sight. Whether He be shown to us in a crib, under the form of a little Child, or in a workshop; as a prophet ever the object of contradiction for His enemies; under the species of bread and wine, — faith tells us, with ever the same certainty, that it is always the same Christ, true God as well as true Man, equal to His Father and the Holy Ghost in majesty, in power, in wisdom and in love. And when this conviction is deep it throws us into an act of intense adoration and abandonment to the will of Him Who while being man, remains what He is — the Almighty and infinite perfection.

Let us place ourselves at the feet of Christ and say to Him: Lord Jesus, Incarnate Word, I believe that Thou art God; true God begotten of true God: Deum verum de Deo vero; I do not see Thy divinity but because Thy Father tells me: ” This is My beloved Son”, I believe it; and because I believe it, I submit myself to Thee entirely, body, soul, judgment, will, heart, sensibility, imagination, all my energies; I wish that the words of the psalmist may be fulfilled in me, namely that all things may be subjected under Thy feet in homage, Omnia subjecisti sub pedibus ejust. 1 wish to follow Thee as my Chief and that Thy Gospel may be my light and Thy Will my guide; I wish neither to think otherwise than as Thou thinkest because Thou art the infallible Truth, nor to act without Thee, because Thou art the only Way to go to the Father, nor to seek my joy outside Thy Will, because Thou art the very fountain of life. Possess me wholly, through Thy Spirit, for the glory of the Father !

By this act of faith, we lay the very foundation of our spiritual life: Fundamentum aliud nemo potest ponere, praeter id quod positum est, quod est Christus Jesus 2.

And if this act is frequently renewed, then Christ, as St. Paul says, ” dwells in our hearts”: Christum habitare per jidem in cordibus nostris*, that is to say He reigns in our souls in a constant manner as Master and King, and becomes in us, through His Spirit, the principle of divine life. j

Let us then often renew this act of faith in the divinity of Jesus, because each time we do so, we assure and consolidate the foundation of our spiritual life, rendering it ever less liable to be shaken. When you enter a church and see the little lamp burning before the tabernacle announcing the presence of Christ Jesus, the Son of God, do not let your genuflection be a mere ceremony performed out of routine, but a homage of intimate faith and profound adoration be- fore our Lord as if you saw Him in all the splendour of His eternal glory ; when you sing or recite in the Gloria of the Mass all the praises and supplications it contains to Jesus Christ: “Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father... Thou Who sittest at the right hand of the Father... Thou only art holy, Thou only art the Lord, Thou only, O Jesus Christ with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father ”, let all these praises come from your heart more than from your lips; when you read the Gospel, do so with this conviction that it is the Word of God, the infallible Light and Truth speaking to you and revealing to you the secrets of the divinity; when you sing in the Credo the eternal generation of the World, come to be united to all humanity : Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, do not only be concerned with the meaning of the words or the beauty of the chant, but consider them as an echo of the voice of the Father contemplating His Son and declaring that He is equal to Himself: Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te; when you sing: Et incarnatus est, “Who was incarnate”, let all your being inwardly bow down in an act of self-abasement before the God-made-Man, in Whom the Father is well pleeased; when you receive Jesus in the Eucharist, receive Him with deep reverence as if you saw Him face to face.11

Such acts are extremely pleasing to the Eternal Father, because all His exigencies — and they are infinite — are summed up in willing the glory of His Son.

And the more this Son veils His divinity, the more He abases Himself out of love for us, the more profoundly too we ought to adore Him as Son of God, the more we ought to exalt Him and render Him our homage. God’s supreme desire is to see His Son glorified: Clarificavi et adhuc clarificabo*; that is one of the three words of the Father the world has heard. He wills to glorify Christ Jesus, because Christ, His Son, is equal to Himself; but He wills it also, says St. Paul, because His Son humbled Himself: Semetipsum exinanivit... propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum ?, because He humbled Himself, the Father ” hath exalted Him and hath given Him a name which is above all names: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow... and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father”. That is why the more Christ humbles Himself in becoming a little Child, in choosing the hidden life of Nazareth, in bearing such of our infirmities as are compatible with His dignity, in submitting Himself to the death of the gibbet like a criminal, Cum sceleratis*, in veiling Himself in the Eucharist; the more His divinity is attacked and denied by unbelievers, — the more too ought we to place Him high in the glory of the Father, and in our hearts to yield ourselves to Him in a spirit of intense reverence and entire submission to His Person, and to labour for the extension of His reign in souls.12

Such is true faith, the faith that being made perfect in love, surrenders all our being, and practically enveloping all the acts, all the works of our spiritual life, constitutes the very basis of our supernatural edifice and of all sanctity. In order to be truly a foundation, it is needful that faith should sustain the works we accomplish and become the principle of all our progress in the spiritual life?. “Asa wise architect”, says St. Paul, ” I have laid the foundation (in making known to you the Gospel of Christ which you have received by faith). But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon *”.

This spiritual edifice is built of our works. St. Paul says again that the ” just man lives by faith”: Justus ex fide*. The ” just man” is he who, by the justification received at baptism, is created in justice and possesses in himself the grace of Christ and with it, the infused virtues of faith, hope and charity. The just man lives by faith. To live, is to have in oneself an inward principle that is the source of movement and operation. It remains true that the inward principle that must animate our acts in order for them to be acts of supernatural life, proportionate to final beatitude, is sanctifying grace; but it is faith that introduces our souls into the region of the supernatural. We only have a share in the divine adoption if we receive Christ, and we only receive Christ by faith: Quotquot autem receperunt eum, dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri, his qui credunt in

  1. Isa. tim, 12. — 2. Justificati... in ipsa justitia per Christi gratiam accepta, cooperante fide bonis operibus crescunt ac magis sanctificantur. Concil. Trid. Sess. VI, c. 10. — 3. I Cor. m, 10. — 4. Rom. 1, 17. It is remarkable that St. Paul gives expression to this truth three times in his Epistle. Cf. Gal. m, 11 and Hebr. x, 38.

Christ, the life of the soul. 10 nomine ejus. Faith in Jesus Christ leads to life, and to justification by grace; that is why St. Paul says that the just live by faith.

In the supernatural life, faith in Jesus is a power so much the more active as it is the more deeply anchored in the soul. It first embraces with fervour all the fulness of its object ; and as faith refers all to Christ, it regards all things in the divine light of Christ. Faith receives not only the Person of Christ, but embraces all He has said, all He has done and all He has instituted: that is to say, the Church, the sacraments and all that constitutes the supernatural organism established by Christ in order that our souls may live by His divine life. Moreover, the intimate and profound conviction we have of the divinity of Jesus is the spring of all our activity so that we may generously fulfil all His commands and be rendered unshaken in temptation, — fortes in fide, — and that our hope and love may be sustained in every trial.

What an intensity of supernatural life there is in a soul intimately convinced that Jesus is God !_ What an abundant source of inner life and of indefatigable apostolate there is in this certainty, becoming stronger every day, that Christ is all Holiness, all Wisdom, all Power and all Goodness !...

I believe, Lord Jesus, that Thou art the Son of the Living God : I believe it, but increase my faith !

V

There is one point I want to dwell on, which, above all, must be the explicit object of our faith if we wish to live the divine life fully: — that is, faith in the infinite value of Christ’s merits.

I have already touched on this truth when explaining how Our Lord is the infinite price of our sanctification. But it is important to return to it here when speaking of faith, for it is faith that enables us to draw abundantly from those unfathomable riches which God gives us in His Christ : Jnvestigabiles divitiae Christi.

God has made us an immense gift in the Person of His Son Jesus. Christ is a tabernacle wherein are ” hidden all the treasures of divine wisdom and knowledge” that He has

Twbetr.. V0.0. there stored up for us. Christ Himself, by His passion and death, merited to communicate them to us, and He is always living, interceding with His Father for us. But we must know the value of this gift and how to use it: Si scires donum Dei! Christ with the plenitude of His sanctity and the infinite value of His merits and credit is this Gift; but this gift is only useful to us according to the measure of our faith. If our faith is great, intense, profound, and reaching to the height of this gift as far as is possible for a creature, there will be no limit to the divine communications made to our souls by the holy Humanity of Jesus. If we have not a boundless esteem for Christ’s infinite merits, it is because our faith in the Divinity of Jesus is not intense enough; and those who doubt this divine efficacy do not know what is the humanity of a God.

We ought often to exercise our faith in the satisfactions and merits acquired by Jesus for our sanctification.

When we pray, let us come before the Eternal Father with an unshaken confidence in the merits of His Son. Our Lord has paid all our debt; He has gained all for us, and He unceasingly intercedes with His Father for us: Semper vivens ad interpellandum PRO NoBis?. Let us then say to God: I know, O my God, that I am altogether wretched; that I only add to my faults every day; I know that before Thy infinite holiness I am, of myself, like mud before the sun ; but I prostrate myself before Thee; through grace, I am a member of Thy Son’s mystical body; Thy Son has given me this grace, after having redeemed me by His Blood; now that I belong to Him, do not reject me from before, Thy divine face !

No, God cannot reject us when we thus rely on the credit of His Son; for the Son treats with Him as equal with equal. When we thus acknowledge that of ourselves we are weak and miserable, that we can do nothing, Sine me nihil potestis facere, but that we hope for everything from Christ, all that we need in order to live by the divine life, Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat, we acknowledge that this Son is everything for us, that He has been established as our Chief and High Priest. That is, says St. John, to render very acceptable homage to the Father ” Who loves the Son”, Who wills that everything should come to us through the Son because He has given Him all power of life for souls. The soul that has not this absolute confidence in Jesus does not fully acknowledge Him for what He is: — the beloved Son of the Father, and hence does not render to the Father that honour which He absolutely requires: Pater enim diligit Filium, ut omnes honorificent Filium sicut honorificant Patrem. Qui non honorificat Filium, non honorificat Patrem qui misit illum *.13

In the same way, when we approach the sacrament of penance, let us have great faith in the divine efficacy of the Blood of Jesus. It is this Blood which in this sacrament cleanses our souls from their sins, purifies them, renews their strength, and restores their beauty. The very Blood of Christ is applied to us with His merits at the moment of absolution, that Blood which our Saviour shed for us with incomparable love, those merits which are infinite, but were acquired at the price of measureless sufferings and ignominy. If you knew the gift of God !

Again, when you assist at Holy Mass you are present at the sacrifice which is the same as that on the cross; the Man-God offers Himself upon the altar for us as He did on Calvary, although the manner of offering Himself is different; but it is the same Christ, true God as well as true Man, Who immolates Himself upon the altar in order to make us partakers of His inexhaustible merits. If only our faith were ardent and deep! With what reverence we should assist at this sacrifice, with what unshaken confidence we should receive Jesus in Holy Communion, when He gives Himself with His humanity and His divinity, His treasures and His merits, He, the Ransom of the World, and the Son in Whom the Father is well pleased ! Si scires donum Dei !

When we often make such acts of faith in the power of Christ, in the value of His merits, our life becomes by the very fact, like a perpetual song of praise to the glory of this supreme High Priest, this universal Mediator, Who gives us every grace; and this is to enter deeply into the eternal ideal, the divine plan; it is to adapt our souls to the sanctifying designs of God at the same time as we associate ourselves with His will by glorifying His beloved Son: Clarificavi et adhuc clarificabo.

Let us then go to Our Lord — He alone has the words of eternal life. Let us first of all receive Him with a lively faith wherever He is present: — in the sacraments, in the Church, in His mystical body, in our neighbour, in the providence that directs or permits every event, even suffering; let us receive Him, whatsoever be the form He takes and the moment He comes, with an entire adhesion to His divine word and complete abandonment to His service...In this is holiness.14

We have all read in the Gospel that episode of the cure of the man born blind related by St. John with so many touching details*+. After having been cured by Jesus on the sabbath day, the man that was blind is questioned, over and over again, by the Pharisees, the enemies of the Saviour. They want to make the man confess that Christ is not a prophet because He does not keep the repose of the sabbath day prescribed by the Law of Moses. But the poor man does not know much. He invariably replies that one called Jesus cured him by sending him to wash at a pool : that is all he knows and all that, at first, he replies. The Pharisees can find nothing against Christ in what he says, and finally they cast the man out of the synagogue because he persists in saying that it has never been heard of before that any man had opened the eyes of one born blind: Jesus must therefore be a prophet sent by God. Our Lord hearing he had been cast out, and having found him, says to him: ” Dost thou believe in the Son of God?” The one born blind answers: ” Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him” ? What promptitude of soul! Jesus says to him : “Tt is He that talketh with thee”. And immediately this poor man adheres to the word of Christ. ’I believe, Lord”, and in the intensity of his faith, he falls down at the feet of Jesus and adores Him: Credo, Domine, et procidens, adoyavit eum; he embraces the feet of Christ and, in Christ, all the work of Christ.

The man born blind is the image of the soul, healed by Jesus, delivered from eternal darkness and given light through the grace of the Incarnate Word’. Whenever Jesus presents Himself to us, we ought to say: Outs est, Domine, ut credam in eum. And immediately we should yield ourselves entirely to Christ, to His service, to the interests of His glory which is likewise the glory of His Father. In acting always thus, we live by faith. Christ dwells and reigns in us, His divinity being in us, by this faith, the principle of all our life.15

This faith which is crowned and manifested by love, is lastly a source of joy for us. Our Lord said: Beatt qui © non viderunt et crediderunt: " Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed?”. He said this, not for His disciples, but for us. And why then does Our Lord declare "blessed ”” those who believe in Him? Faith is a source of joy because it makes us share in the knowledge of Christ. He is the Eternal Word and has taught us the Divine secrets: Unigenitus Filius qui est in sinu Patris ipse enarravit?. In believing what He tells us, we have the same knowledge as He; faith is a source of joy because it is the source of light.

It is a source of joy too because it places us in radical possession of future bliss, it is ” the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not”: Sperandarum substantia rerum®. Jesus says Himself: ” He that believeth in the Son, hath life everlasting”, Qui credit in Filium Det habet vitam aeternam*. Note the present tense: habet, “he hath”; Christ does not speak in the future tense: ” he will have”, but He speaks of an already assured possession®; just as we have seen that he that believeth not is already judged. Faith is a seed, and every seed contains in germ the future harvest. Provided that we put away from faith all that can diminish and tarnish it; that we develop it by prayer and practice, that we constantly give it the occasion of manifesting itself in love, faith places in our hands the substance of the joys to come and gives birth to unshaken confidence: Qui credit im eum non confundetur °.

Let us remain, as St. Paul says, ” grounded in the faith ” In fide fundati?; built up in Christ and confirmed in our faith in Him: Sicut ergo accepistis Jesum Christum Domi-

  1. Joan. xx, 29. — 2. Ibid. 1, 18. — 3. Hebr. x, 1. — 4. Joan. In, 3-6. — 5. Dicitur aliquis jam finem habere propter spem finis obtinendi S. Thom. I-I, q. LxIx, a. 2; and the angelic doctor adds: Unde et apostolus dicit: Spe salvi facti sumus. All this article should be read. — 6. | Rom. 1x))'33.. -> 7. Cole: 7, 23°

FAITH, THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. I5t num, im ipso ambulate, radicati et superaedificati in ipso et confirmati fide, sicut et didicistis+, This faith will be put to the test in this century of unbelief, blasphemy, scepticism, materialism and human respect which surrounds us with its unwholesome atmosphere. If you remain confirmed in your faith, says St. Peter, the prince of the apostles (upon whom Jesus founded His Church when Peter proclaimed that Christ was the Son of God), this faith will ” be found unto glory and honour at the appearing of Jesus Christ Whom not having seen you love: in Whom also now, though you see Him not, you believe: and believing shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorified’. For, he adds, the end and assured recompense of faith is the salvation and, in consequence, the sanctity of your souls ”. r. Col 1, 6, 7. — 2. 1 Petr..3, 79.

Footnotes

    1. Joan. xiv, 15. — 2. I Cor. m1, 11. — 3. Act. Iv, 12. — 4. I Joan. v, 12. — 5. Gal. Iv, 5. — 6. Rom. vu, 17. — 7. Hebr. xm, 8.
    ↩
    1. Joan. xv, 8. — 2. Ibid. 5. — 3. Ibid. 1, 12.
    ↩

  3. 38-43. — 3. Luc. vi, so. — 4. Marc. v, 25-34. — 5. Joan. x1, 27; cf. X, 40 a 42. ↩

    1. Matth. xm, 58.— 2. Ibid. vim, 1-13; Luc. vit, 1-10.
    ↩
    1. Matth, xv, 22-28. — 2. Luc. vi, 50.
    ↩

  6. membrum efficit. Concil. Trid. Sess. VI, cap. 7. — 4. Matth, m1, 17 ; xvu, 5; Joan. xi, 25. —5. Ibid. v, 37. See all the passage from v, 31. ↩

    1. Joan. vi, 40; cf. Xvm, 21. — 2. Ibid. v, 24. — 3. Ibid. im, 16-18. — 4., Ibid. 111, 36,
    ↩
    1. Joan. 1, 18. — 2. Ibid. vu, 46. — 3. Ibid. 1, 2. — 4. Ibid. vu, 5.
    ↩
    1. I Joan. v, 1. — 2 .Rom. vim, 32. — 3. Joan. xu, 44. — 4. I Joan. V, q. 10 — 5. Ibid. v, 11-12.
    ↩
    1. Joan. x, 37-38. — 2. Ibid. vi, 29.
    ↩

  11. _1. Ps. vim. 8, See in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 0, 8, the application of these words to Christ. — 2. I Cor. m1, 11 ; cf. Col. 1, 6. — 3. Ephes. 54 6 to ↩

    1. Joan. x11, 28. — 2. Philipp. u, 79.
    ↩
    1. Hebr. vi, 25.
    ↩
    1. Joan. v, 20-24.
    ↩
    1. Joan. mx, 11, 38. — 2. Cf. S. Augustin, In Joan, XLIV, 1.
    ↩

Chapter 9 of 21