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II.13. Coheredes Christi

Summary. — The heavenly heritage, the final term of our adoptive predestination. —- J. Eternal beatitude consists in the face to face vision of God, unchanging love and perfect joy. — Il. The bodies of the just will share, after the resurrection, in this beatitude; the glory of this resurrection already realised in Christ, the Head of His mystical body. — II. The degree of our beatitude is fixed here below by the measure of our grace ; how St. Paul exhorted the faithful to progress in the exercise of the supernatural life ” until the day of Christ”. work which Thou gavest Me to do. And now glorify

Thou Me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with Thee... Father, I will that where I am, they also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me; that they may see My glory which Thou hast given Me?”.

These words form the beginning and the end of the ineffable prayer that Jesus addressed to His Father at the Last Supper, when about to crown His mission of salvation upon earth by His redeeming Sacrifice.

Christ Jesus first asks that His holy Humanity may share in that glory which the Word possesses from all eternity. Then, as Christ never separates Himself from his mystical body, He asks that His disciples and all those who shall believe in Him, may be associated with Him in that glory. It is His will that we should be ” where He is”. And where is He? In gloria Dei Patris: "in the glory of God the Father?”. There is the final term of our predestination, the consummation of our adoption, the supreme completion of our perfection, the plenitude of our life.

Let us hear how St. Paul sets forth this truth. After having said that God, Who wills us to be holy, has predestinated us to be made conformable to the image of His Son, in order that this Son may be the firstborn amongst

  1. Joan. Xvi, 4, 24. — 2. Philipp. u, 11.

« [ HAVE glorified Thee on earth. I have finished the many brethren, He immediately adds: ” And whom He predestinated, them He also called. And whom He called them He also justified. And whom He justified, them He also glorified*”. These words point out the successive phases of the work of our sanctification: namely, our predestination and vocation in Christ Jesus, our justification by grace, which makes us the children of God, and our supreme glotification assuring eternal life to us.

We have seen God’s plan for us: how Baptism is the sign of our supernatural vocation, the Sacrament of our Christian initiation, and how we are justified, that is to say, rendered just, by the grace of Christ. This justification can go on being made more and more perfect, according to the degree of our union with Jesus Christ, until it finds its final term in glory. Quos justificavit, illos et glorificavit. Glory is this Divine inheritance which comes to us from the fact of our being the children of God: Si filii et haeredes, haeredes Dei; an inheritance Christ has merited to give us, which He Himself already possesses, and wills to share with us: cohaeredes autem Christi?. The same inheritance which is Christ’s is to become ours — eternal life, glory and beatitude in the possession of God. ‘The term of the Divine life in us is not to be found here on earth. It is, as Jesus says, with the Father: apud te... in gloria Patris.

It is fitting, therefore, that in ending these conferences upon the life of Christ in us, we should cast our gaze upon this eternal inheritance that our Lord has asked His Father to give us. We should often think of it, for it is the final aim of all the work of Christ.

Vem ut vitam habeant: ” 1 am come that you may have life”. But the only true life is that which is eternal. All our knowledge and all our love of the Father and His Son Jesus must attain to the eternity of this life which makes us children of God. Haec est vITA AETERNA wt cognoscant te solum Deum verum et quem misisti Jesum Christum*, Here on earth it is always possible for us to lose the Divine life which Christ gives us through grace ; only death ”in the Lord” fixes and assures this life in us in a permanent manner. The Church notes this truth in calling the day on which the Saints enter into eternal possession of this life their ” birth- day”: Natalitia?. The life of Christ in us here below by grace is like the dawn of day; it only attains its noon-tide — a noon-tide without decline — if it comes to its fulness in glory. Baptism is the source whence the Divine river rises ; but this river, which makes glad the city of souls, flows at last into the ocean of eternity. That is why we shall only have an incomplete idea of the life of Christ in our souls if we do not contemplate the end which, of its nature, it must reach.1

You know how earnestly St. Paul prayed for the faithful of Ephesus that they might understand the mystery of Christ, and that it might be granted them to comprehend the sublimity and depth of this mystery ?. But the great Apostle is also careful to point out that this mystery is only crowned in eternity, and that is why he ardently desires that this thought should occupy the minds of his disciples. ” I do not cease”, he writes to them, ”to make commemoration of you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may enlighten the eyes of your heart that you may know what is the hope of your calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints”. Ut sciatis quae sit spes vocationis ejus et quae divitiae gloriae hereditatis ejus in sanctis *.

Let us then see what is this “hope”, what are these ” riches” that St. Paul so much wished should be known. Yet did he not say himself that ” eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man what things God hath prepared for them that love Him*” ? This is true. All that we can say of these ” riches of the glory of our inheritance” will fall short of the reality. Revelation, however, teaches us something of this. We can comprehend it if we have the Spirit of Jesus, for, says St. Paul in the same place, ’ the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God... Now we have received... (at Baptism) the Spirit that is of God, that we may know the things that are given us from God”, the marvels of His grace®, the dawn of glory. Let us then listen to this revelation, but with faith, not with the senses, for here, all is supernatural.

  1. For example in the Oremus for the feast of St. Prisca. (January

18th.) — 2. Ephes. mi, 14, 18. — 3. Ibid. 1, 16-18. — 4. I Cor. u,9. — 5. Ibid. 1, 10, 12. f

COHEREDES CHRISTI. 391 iE

Speaking of the theological virtues which accompany _sanctifying grace and are like the sources of supernatural activity in a child of God, St. Paul says that in our present state on earth remain these three virtues, ” faith, hope and charity ”; but he adds, ” the greatest of these is charity?”. And why is this ? Because at the heavenly term of our adoption, faith in God gives place to the vision of God, hope vanishes in the possession of God, but love remains and unites us to God for ever.

The glorification which awaits us and will be ours consists in this: We shall see God, we shall love God, we shall enjoy God. ‘These acts constitute eternal life, the assured and full participation in the very life of God, and thence the beatitude of the soul, a beatitude in which the body is to share after the resurrection.

In heaven, we shall see God. To see God as He sees Himself is the first element in this participation in the Divine nature that constitutes the life of blessedness. It is the first vital act in glory. Here below, as St. Paul tells us, we only know God by faith, in a dim manner, but then "face to face”. ” Now”, he says, “I know in part, but then I shall know even as Iam known?”. What this vision is in itself, we cannot know now, but the soul will be confirmed in grace by ” the light of glory ” which is the unfolding of grace in heaven. We shall see God with all His perfections ; or, rather, we shall see that all His perfections are but one infinite perfection, which is the Divinity. We shall contemplate the inner life of God. We shall enter, as St. John says, into fellowship with the Holy and Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit®. We shall contemplate the fulness of Being, the fulness of alli truth, of all holiness, all beauty and all goodness. We shall contemplate, and that for ever, the Humanity of the Incarnate Word; we shall see Jesus Christ, in Whom the Father is infinitely well pleased; we shall see Him Who has willed to become our ” Elder Brother” : we shall contemplate the Divine features, henceforward glorious, of Him Who has delivered us from death by His bitter Passion, Who has given us to live this immortal life. To Him we shall sing the song of gratitude: ” Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord, in Thy Blood, and hast established us in Thy Kingdom; to Thee be praise and glory*”. We shall see the Blessed Virgin Mary, the choirs of angels, all that multitude of the elect which St. John declared to be innumerable, surrounding the throne of God.2

This vision of God, unveiled and clear, and without intermediary, is our future inheritance; it is the consummation of our Divine adoption. ” The adoption of the sons of God”, says St. Thomas ?, ” consists of a certain conformity of similitude to the image of Him Who is His Son by nature*”. This conformity is brought about in a double manner: here below by grace, per gratiam viae, which is imperfect conformity, according to the Words of St. John: ” Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him because we shall see. Him as He is*”. Here below, then, our Divine resemblance is not complete, but in heaven it will appear in its perfection. Here below, we have to work in the dim light of faith, to render ourselves like to God ; to destroy the ”old man”, and to allow the “new man” created in the image of Jesus Christ °, to increase in newness of life. We must ever become more perfect, that we may attain a closer resemblance to the Divine Model. In heaven our resemblance to Christ will be consummated; we shall realise that we are truly the children of God.

But this vision will not constitute us in a state of immobility like a statue. The contemplation of God will not be the annihilation of our activity. While not ceasing for an instant to contemplate the Divinity, our soul will keep the full play of all its faculties. Let us look at Our Lord Jesus Christ. Here upon earth, His blessed soul constantly enjoyed the Beatific Vision, and yet His human activity was not absorbed by this continual contemplation. It remained intact, and was manifested by His Apostolic journeys, by preaching and miracles. The perfection of Heaven would no longer be a perfection if it were to annihilate the activity of the elect.

We shall see God. Is that all? No; to see God is the first element of eternal life, the first source of beatitude, but if the intelligence is divinely satisfied by the Eternal Truth, must not the will also be so by the Infinite Goodness? We shall love God*. ” Charity”, says St. Paul, ” never falleth away””. We shall love God, no longer with a weak, vacillating love, so often turned aside by creatures, and exposed to fall away, but with a love that is powerful and pure, perfect and eternal. In this vale of tears where we must painfully struggle to preserve the life of Christ in us, love is already so strong and intense in certain souls as to draw from them such words as those of the Apostle: ” Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation? or distress? or persecution?... neither death nor life... nor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God”. What then will this love be when it embraces, never more to lose it, the Infinite Good? What loving aspirations towards God ceaselessly satisfied! And this unending love will express itself in acts of adoration, complacency and thanksgiving. St. John shows us the saints prostrating themselves before God, and making Heaven resound with their praise: ” Glory, honour and power to our God for ever andever*”. That is the expression of their love.3

Finally, we shall enjoy God. You have read in the Gospel how Our Lord Himself compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a wedding feast that God has prepared to honour His Son. ” He will gird Himself and make them sit down to meat, and passing, will minister to them*”. What does this signify if not that God will be our joy? The Psalmist exclaims: ” (Thy elect) shall be inebriated with the plenty of Thy house: and Thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of Thy pleasures. For with Thee is the fountain of life”. Quoniam apud te est FONS vItaE*®. God says to the soul that seeks Him: ”I Myself will be thy reward exceeding great”. Eco ero merces tua magna nimis®. It

  1. According to St. Thomas (I-IJ, q. ui, a. 4), beatitude consists essentially in the possession of God contemplated face to face. This Beatific vision is, above all, an act of intelligence. From this possession of God by the intelligence proceeds, as a property, the beatitude of the will which finds its complete satisfaction and repose in the possession of the beloved object rendered present by the intelligence. — 2. I Cor. is as if He said: ” I have loved thee so much that I have not willed to give thee a natural bliss: I have willed to bring thee into My own house, to adopt thee as My child, that thou mayest partake of My beatitude. It is My will that thou shouldst live of My very life, that My beatitude should become thine. Here below, I have given thee My Son ; become mortal by His humanity, He delivered Himself up to merit for thee the grace of being and remaining My child. He has given Himself to thee in the Eucharist under the veil of faith; now, it is I in glory Who give Myself to thee to make thee share in My life, and to be thy endless beatitude”. Seipsum dabit quia seipsum dedit; seipsum dabit ammortalibus immortalem, quia seipsum dedit mortalibus mortalem*. Grace here below, glory above; but it is the same God Who gives us both and, as I have said, glory is only the unfolding of grace: the Divine adoption, on earth, is hidden and imperfect, in Heaven, it is revealed and consummated,4

This is why the Psalmist so longed and thirsted after the possession of God: ” As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God. My soul hath thirsted after the strong, living God”. Sitivit anima mea ad Deum vivum. ” For I shall be satisfied when Thy glory, shall appear”. Satiabor cum apparuerit gloria tua.

Again when Our Lord speaks of this beatitude, He tells us how God bids His faithful servant enter into the joy of his Lord*. This joy is the joy of God Himself, the joy that He possesses in the knowledge of His infinite perfections, the beatitude that God has in the ineffable society of the Three Persons; the infinite repose and_ satisfaction wherein He dwells. His joy will be ours: Ut habeant gaudium meum impletum in semetipsis*. His beatitude and His repose will also be ours. His life, our life — perfect life in which all our faculties will be perfectly satisfied.

There we shall find that ” entire participation in the unchanging good” as St. Augustine excellently calls it : Plena participatio incommutabilis boni®. Even to this extent God has loved us. Oh ! if we knew what God has reserved for them that love Him '!...5

And because this beatitude and this life are those of God Himself, they will be eternal. ” Death shall be no more”, says St. John, ” nor mourning nor crying nor sorrow shall be any more... and God shall wipe away all tears?”, from the eyes of those who enter into His joy. We shall be always with the Lord: Semper cum Domino erimus?. There where He is, we shall be.

Hear in what forcible terms Jesus has given us this assurance. He says of those who are His sheep: ” 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?”. What confidence Jesus Christ gives us! ” You now indeed have sorrow”, He said to His disciples, ’ but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you”: Et gaudium vestrum nemo tollet a vobis*. Let us say to Him like the Samaritan woman: O Lord Jesus, Divine Master, Redeemer of our souls, Elder Brother, give us of this Divine, life-giving water, that we may never thirst®; grant to us here below to remain united to Thee by grace so that one day we may be where Thou art, to behold the glory of Thy Humanity, as Thou didst pray the Father for us®, and enjoy Thee for ever in Thy Kingdom!

II

As you know, this life of blessedness becomes the portion of every soul as soon as it goes forth from this world, if it is, by grace, a child of God, and if nothing more remains of the penalty of sin to be expiated in Purgatory. However, this is not all. God reserves something yet more for us. Can it be that the soul is not wholly filled with joy? Truly it is, but God wishes to give the body also its beatitude, when the end of time shall bring the resurrection.

The resurrection of the dead is a dogma of faith: Credo... carnis resurrectionem... vitam aeternam. Our Lord has promised it to us : ” He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh6

My Blood, hath everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day? ”.

Furthermore, Christ Himself has already risen, and coming forth victorious and living from the tomb, has, by so doing, raised us up with Him. As I have often said to you, the Word, on becoming Incarnate, mystically united Himself to all humanity, and forms, with His elect, a body of which He is the Head. If our Head is risen again, not only shall we one day rise again with Him, but on the day of His triumph, He already raised up, in principle, and by right, all who believe in Him... See how clearly St. Paul sets forth ' this doctrine: ” God (Who is rich in mercy) for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us... hath quickened us together in Christ; and hath raised us up together, and hath made us sit together in the heavenly places, through Christ Jesus”. Deus... Conresuscitavit nos et consedere fecit nos in caelestibus in Christo Jesu?. God loves us so much in His Son, Jesus, that He will not separate us from Him. He wills us to be like to Him, that we may share His glory, not only as to the soul but also as to the body.

Well might the great Apostle say that God is rich in mercy, and loves us with an exceeding charity! It is not enough for God to satisfy our souls with eternal happiness. It is His Will that our bodies, like that of His Son, should share in this endless beatitude. He wills to adorn them with those glorious prerogatives of immortality, agility and spirituality with which the Humanity of Jesus was resplendent on coming forth from the tomb. Yes, the day will come when we shall all rise again, ” everyone in his own order”; Christ has risen the first, being the Head of the elect and the firstfruits of the harvest; next all those will rise again who are His by grace*. ” As in Adam all die, so also in Christ, all shall be made alive... Afterwards the end when He shall have delivered up the Kingdom (won by his Blood) to God and the Father... He must reign until He hath put all things under His feet, and the enemy death shall be destroyed last... and when all things shall be subdued unto Him; then the Son also Himself (in His Humanity) shall be subject unto Him that put all things under His feet, that God

  1. Joan. vi, 55 and x, 25. — 2. Ephes. um, 4-6. — 3. The damned will likewise rise again, but without the glorious prerogatives of the elect ; their bodies will be for ever subject to eternal suffering. may be all in all*”. Jesus Christ overcame death on the day of His Resurrection. ”“O death, where is thy victory 2”? He will again overcome death in His chosen ones at the final resurrection.

Then His work as Chief and Head of the Church will be achieved, entirely consummated. Christ will possess this Church for which He delivered Himself up, that she might be glorious ” not having spot or wrinkle... but... holy and without blemish*”. The mystical body will have wholly come “unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ*”. Then Jesus Christ will present to His Father that multitude of the elect of whom He is the Elder Brother. What a glorious sight it will be to see this kingdom subject to Jesus, to contemplate the work of His Blood and His grace, offered by Christ Himself to the glory of His Father'!.. What ineffable beatitude to belong to this kingdom together with the Blessed Virgin, the Angels, the elect, the blessed souls we have known here below, with whom we have been united by ties of blood, or by holy affection! Then Jesus will be able to say in all truth to His Father: ” I have finished the work Thou gavest Me todo”. The wish manifested by His Sacred Heart at the Last Supper will be fulfilled: Father... I pray for them whom Thou hast given Me... that they may have My joy filled in themselves... that where I am, they also whom Thou hast given Me may be; that they may see My glory... that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them °”. The Church triumphant will contemplate the glory of her Head; she herself will be filled with the fulness of joy. Divine, eternal life will flow forth from Christ into each one of us, and we shall reign for ever with Him.

St. John, in His Apocalypse, has described something of the glory of this kingdom: ” I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunders, saying: Alleluia: for the Lord our God the Almighty hath reigned. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb (Who is Christ) is come and His spouse (the henceforward triumphant Church) hath prepared herself, and it is granted to her that she should clothe herself with fine linen glittering and white”. This fine linen, adds St. John, is ” the justification of the saints”. And the Angel said to him: “Write: Blessed are they that are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb*” 1...7

This in only a shadow of the Divine reality of the beatitude awaiting us. We received the germ of it at Baptism. But this germ needs to grow, to develop, to be secured against briars and stones; by penance we have put away from it all that could destroy or diminish its growth; we have maintained it by the Sacrament of life, and by the practice of the virtues. This Divine life communicated to us by Christ now remains hidden in us: Vita vestra abscondita est cum Christo in Deo?, but in Heaven it is revealed, its splendour appears, its beauty is manifested. And never forget that, arrived at its efflorescence, it will not know any more growth, its splendour will increase no more, its beauty reach no higher perfection. Faith tells us that here below is the place of labour, and of merit, that Heaven is the term; there no more growth will be possible: there is the reward after the struggle. ” He who believes, gathers up merits; he who sees, enjoys the recompense”: Credenti colligitur meritum, videnti redditur praemium *.

III

There is yet something more. We shall enjoy God according to the same measure of grace to which we have attained at the moment of our going out of the world *.

Do not let us lose sight of this truth: the degree of our eternal beatitude is, and will remain fixed for ever by the degree of charity we have attained, by the grace of Christ, when God shall call us to Himself. Each moment of our life is then infinitely precious, for it suffices to advance us a degree in the love of God, to raise us higher in the beatitude of eternal life.

And let us not say that one degree more or less is a small matter. How can anything be a small matter when it concerns God, and the endless life and beatitude of which He is the source? If, according to the parable spoken by Our

  1. Apoc. xIx, 6-9. — 2. Col. m, 3. — 3. S. Aug. In Joan. Lxvin, 3.

— 4. Unusquisque propriam mercedem accipiet secundum suum laborem. DeCors an ss:

Lord in person, we have received five talents, it was not that we might bury them, but that we might make them - Bear increase*. And if God measures the reward according to the efforts we have made to live by His grace and increase it in us, do not think it matters little what kind of a harvest we bring to our Father in Heaven. Jesus Himself has told us that His Heavenly Father is glorified in seeing us abound, by His grace, in fruits of holiness, which will be fruits of Deatitude in heaven. In hoc clarificatus est Pater meus ut fructum plurimum afferaiis®. This is so true that Christ compares His Father to a vine-dresser Who prunes us by suffering in order that we bear much fruit: Ut fructum plus afferat*. Can it be that our love for Jesus Christ is so weak that we account it a small thing to be a more or less resplendent ‘member of His mystical body in the heavenly Jerusalem? The holier we become, the more we shall glotify God during all eternity, the greater will be our part in that song of thanksgiving sung by the elect to Christ the Redeemer: Redemisti nos, Domvine.

Let us then be vigilant ever to put away from us the obstacles that might lessen our union with Jesus Christ; to let the Divine action penetrate us deeply, and the grace of Jesus act so freely within us that we may ” come to the fulness of the age of Christ”. Hear the pressing exhortation that St. Paul, who had been caught up to the third heaven, made to his dear Philippians: ” For God is my witness how I long after you all in the Heart of Jesus Christ. And this I pray that your charity may more and more abound... that you may be sincere and without offence unto the day of Christ; filled with the fruits of justice, through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and the praise of God”: Et hoc oro ut caritas vestra magis ac magis abundet ut sitis... repleti fructu justithae per Jesus Christum, in gloriam et laudem Dei‘.

And, above all, see what a wonderful example he sets in the fulfilment of this precept. The great Apostle has reached the end of his career; the imprisonment he is enduring in Rome has suspended the course of the numerous journeys undertaken to spread abroad the good news of Chrst: he has arrived at the term of his struggles and labours. He is so deeply imbued with the mystery of Christ which he has revealed to so many souls that he can say to these same Philippians: ” For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain ””.8

However, he continues: ” And if to live in the flesh, this is to me the fruit of labour, and what I shall choose I know not. But I am straitened between two; having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ, a thing by far the better. But to abide still in the flesh, is needful for you... for your furtherance and joy of faith”... The Apostle then recalls how he has despised the advantages of Judaism in order to join himself only to Jesus Christ in Whom he has found all, for nothing henceforward can separate him from Christ. And yet, these are the words he writes: ” Not as though I had already attained (the prize, the crown that is given to the victor after the race) or were already perfect... But one thing I do; forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching forth myself to those that are before, I press towards the mark, to the prize of the supernal vocation of God in Christ Jesus?”. Thus St. Paul wished to forget all the progress he had already made so as toa tend with ever more energy towards the eternal aim. And he exhorts the faithful to follow him: ” Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ... our conversation is in Heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory, according to the operation whereby also He is able to subdue all things unto Himself”. And the Apostle, at last ends with this moving and pressing salutation : ” Therefore, my dearly beloved brethren, and most desired, my joy and my crown, so stand fast in the Lord *”.

And to you also, I would say, in ending these conferences, stand fast in the faith in Jesus Christ; keep an invincible faith in His merits, live in His love. By ardent faith, holy desires, and a charity which causes you to yield yourself without reserve to the generous and faithful accomplishment of the Divine good pleasure, do not cease, as long as you are here below, ” absent from the Lord*”, as St. Paul says, to augment your capacity of seeing and loving God, of enjoying Him in eternal beatitude, of living of His own life. The day will come when faith will give place to vision, when hope will be succeeded by the blessed reality, when love will fully unfold in God’s eternal embrace. Sometimes it seems to us that this beatitude is so far off; but no, each day, each hour, each minute brings us nearer to it.9

I would say to you again, with S. Paul: ” Seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth”, such as fortune, honours, pleasures; ” for you are dead ” to all these passing things; ” your life”, your true life, that of grace, ” is hidden with Christ in God ”. But ” when Christ ”, your Head, ” shall appear” triumphant at the last day, ” you also shall appear with Him in glory”, that glory which you will share with Him because you are His members. Cum Christus apparuerit vita vestra, tunc et vos apparebitis cum ipso in gloria}. .

Therefore, let no pain, no suffering cast you down; ” for that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory ?”. Let no temptation hold you back, for if you are found faithful in the hour of trial, the hour will come when you will receive the crown which will be given to you on entering into the true life ” which God hath promised to them that love Him*”. Let no senseless joy seduce you, ” for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal*”. Time is short, and the world passes away. That which does not pass away is the word of Jesus Christ: Verba autem mea non transibunt °. These words are for us the principle of Divine life: Spiritus et vita sunt ®,

I have endeavoured to show you, in the course of these conferences, that the Divine life in us is only a participation, by grace, in that fulness of life which is in the humanity of Christ Jesus, and flows in each of our souls to make us children of God: De plenitudine ejus nos omnes accepimus. The source of our holiness is there and not elsewhere. This holiness, as I have often told you, and, in ending, wish to repeat, is of an essentially supernatural order; we shall only find it in our union with Jesus Christ: Sine me, nihil potestis

18 ; cf. Rom, vi, 18. — 5. Luc. xx, 33. — 6. Joan. vi, 4. — 7. Ibid 1; 16.

  1. Col. m, 1-4. — 2. II Cor. 1v, 17. — 3. Jac. 1, 12. — 4. II Cor. rv,

Christ, the life of the soul. 26 facere+. All the treasures of grace and of holiness that God destines for souls are gathered up in Jesus Christ; He came here below to give us a share in these treasures: Veni ut vitam... abundantius habeant. The Eternal Father gives us His Son that He may be our redemption, our wisdom, our sanctification, our justification ?, our life.

So that, if without Him we can do nothing, in Him we are ” made rich”, and nothing is wanting to us: Jta ut nihil vobis desit in ulla gratia*. These riches are incomprehensible, says St. Paul, because they are divine, but, if we so wish, we may make them ours. What, then, is necessary ? That we should remove the obstacles, sin, attachment to sin, to creatures, to ourselves, all that might impede the action of Jesus Christ and of His Spirit within us; that we yield ourselves to Christ with every energy of body and soul, to seek, like Him, to do always, through love, what pleases our Heavenly Father.

Then our Father in Heaven will recognise in us the features of His Beloved Son; for the sake of Jesus Christ, He will be well pleased with us, He will shower His gifts upon us, whilst we await that thrice-blessed day when we shall all be for ever with the Lord, Christ Jesus, our Life: Cum CHRISTUS apparuerit VITA VESTRA, tunc ET VOS apparebitis CUM IPso in gloria.

” O Christ Jesus, Incarnate Word, Son of Mary, come and live in Thy servants with Thy Spirit of holiness, the fulness of Thy power, the reality of Thy virtues, the perfection of Thy ways, the communication of Thy mysteries, and overcome all hostile powers by Thy Spirit to the glory of the Father. Amen”.

  1. Joan, xv,)5. — 2. I. Cor. 1, 30; —3- Ibid. 1, 5, 7.

Footnotes

    1. Rom. vin, 30. —2. Ibid. 17. —- 3. Joan. xvi 3.
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    1. I Cor. xm, 13.:—.2. Ibid. 12. — 3. I Joan..1, 3.
    ↩
    1. Apoc. v, 9-10, and 13. — 2. III, q. xiv, a. 4. — 3. Praedestinavit nos conformes fieri imaginis Filii sui, Rom. vit, 29. — 4. I Joan. mr, 2. — 5. Col. 1, 9-10 ; Cf. Ephes. tv, 22 and 24.
    ↩

  4. xia, S$: —- 3: Apoc. vil, 12. — 4. Luc. xu, 37. — §. Ps. XXxXV,. 9. — 6; Gens XV, X. ↩

    1. S. Aug. Enarr. in Ps. xun, 2. — 2. Ps. xu, 1-3. — 3. Ibid. XVI, 15. — 4. Matth. xxv, 21. — 5. Epist. ad Honorat. cx1, 31.
    ↩
    1. Apoc. xx1, 4. — 2. I Thess. 1v, 16. — 3. Joan. x, 18-30. — 4. Ibid. XVI, 22. — 5. Ibid. 1v, 15. — 6. Ibid. xvu, 24-26.
    ↩
    1. ICor. xv, 22-28. —2. Ibid. 55. — 3. Ephes. v, 27. — 4. Ibid. 1v, 13. — 5. Joan. xvi, 4, 9, 13, 24, 26
    ↩
    1. Matth. xxv, 14-30. — 2. Joan. xv, 8. — 3. Ibid. 2. — 4. Philipp. I, 8-11.
    ↩
    1. Philipp. 1, 21. — 2. Ibid. a1, 12-14. — 3. Ibid. tv, 20-21 ; cf. I Cor. x1, and Philipp. tv, 1. — 4. II Cor. v, 6
    ↩

Chapter 21 of 21