II.5. The Truth in Charity

Summary. — Christianity, the religion of life. — 1. First character of our works: truth; works conformable to our nature as reasonable beings ; harmony of grace and nature ; works conformable to our individuality and our special vocation. — Il. To accomplish our works in charity, in a state of grace ; necessity and fruitfulness of grace for the supernatural life. — Ill. Marvellous variety of the fruits of grace in souls ; it has, however, only one source.

HRISTIANITY is a mystery of death and life, but it is ce especially a mystery of life. As you know, death was not included in the Divine plan; it was the sin of man that brought it upon the earth; sin, which is the negation of God, has produced the negation of life, namely, death. If therefore, Christianity requires renunciation, it is in order to immolate that in us which is contrary to life; we must remove the obstacles that are opposed to the free development within us of the Divine life which Christ brings us: He is the great Author of our holiness, without Him we can do nothing. It is therefore not a question of seeking or practising mortification for itself, but primarily in view of facilitating the development of the Divine germ placed within us at Baptism. St. Paul, in telling the neophyte he must ” die to sin’, does not include in this single formula all the practice of Christianity; he adds that he must still ” live for God in Christ Jesus”. This expression, so rich in meaning, as we shall see in the course of the following conferences, sums up the second operation of the soul. Like all life, the supernatural life has laws proper to itself, to which it must be subject if it is to be maintained. In the two preceding conferences I have shown you what are the elements of the ” life for God in Jesus Christ ”.¹

It is necessary, first of all, to establish the fundamental principle which regulates all Christian activity, and is the condition of its value in God’s sight. Let us see now what is this general essential order that should rule the infinite variety of actions of which the ordinary thread of our life is woven.

You know this text of St. Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians: Veritatem facientes in caritate*, ” Doing the truth in charity”. I would like to dwell upon it with you for afew moments. You will see that in these words the Apostle states the fundamental law that regulates our supernatural activity in the domain of grace.

” Doing the truth in charity” is equal to saying that the supernatural life must be maintained in us by human acts, animated by sanctifying grace and referred to God through charity.

The term Facientes indicates the necessity of works. I need not insist much on this point. All life must manifest itself by acts; without works, faith, which is the foundation of the supernatural life, is a dead faith: Fides, si non habeat opera, mortua est in semetipsa?. It is the Apostle St. James who writes this. And St. Paul, who never wearies of showing the riches we have in Our Lord, does not fear to tell us that Christ is only a cause of salvation and eternal life to those who obey Him: Factus est omnibus OBTEMPERANTI- BUS SIBI causa salutis aeternae . If our desire to be pleasing to God is sincere, let us listen to what Jesus Christ says: "Tf you love Me, keep My commandments”; ” for not everyone that saith to Me (with the lips) Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doth the Will of My Father®”. Christ wishes to lead us to do this. ” Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and might cleanse to Himself a people acceptable, a pursuer of good works?”.²

But what are these works? What nature and character do they bear? Veritatem facientes, they must be true works. What does St. Paul mean by this? To speak the truth is to express something that is in accordance with our thoughts. An object is true when there is accord between what, by nature, it ought to be and what it is in reality: gold is true when it possesses all the properties that we know to belong to the nature of this metal. It is false when it has the appearance but not the properties of gold; there is no accord between what it appears to be and what it ought to be considering the elements that we know constitute its nature. A human action is true if it really corresponds to our human nature as creatures endowed with reason, will, and liberty. St. Paul says we must do true works, that is, those that accord with our human nature. Every act that is contrary to our nature as reasonable beings, and that does not correspond to it, is a false act. We are not statues, or machines ; neither are we angels. We are men, and the character that ought, first of all, to be manifested in our actions and that God wishes to find in them, is the character of human works done by a free creature.

Consider the universe around you. God finds His glory in all creatures, but only when they are conformed to the laws that rule their nature. The stars of heaven praise God in silence by their harmonious course in incommensurable space: Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei*; the waters of the sea praise Him by not overpassing the limits He has assigned to them: Terminum posuisti quem non transgredientur ® ; the earth by keeping the laws of its stability: Fundasti terram, et permanet*; the trees by producing blossoms and fruits after their kind and according to the seasons; the animals by fulfilling the instincts placed in them by their Creator. Special laws rule the existence of each order of beings, and by manifesting God’s power and wisdom, frame a song of praise to His glory: Domine, Dominus noster,

1. Dedit semetipsum pro nobis ut nos redimeret ab omni iniquitaie et mundaret sibi populum acceptabilem, sectatorem bonorum operum. Tit. Ml, 14. — 2, Ps. xvi, 2. — 3. Ibid, cm, 9. The whole of this psalm, which is a magnificent hymn to the Creator, denotes the different ope- quam admirabile est nomen tuum in umiversa terra’! Lastly, man, whom the Lord has established king of creation, Omnia subjecisti sub pedibus ejus, has laws which are the condition of his nature and activity as a reasonable creature. Like all creatures, man was made to glorify God, but he can only glorify Him by acts conformable to his nature. Man thus responds to the ideal God formed when creating him, and thereby glorifies Him and is pleasing to Him.³

By nature, man is a reasonable being. He cannot, like an animal destitute of reason, act only by instinct: what distinguishes him from all other beings of the earthly creation, is that he is endowed with reason and liberty. Reason must therefore be sovereign in man; but, as a creature, reason must itself be subject to the Divine Will on which it depends, and that is manifested by the natural law, and by positive laws.

To be “true”, which is the first condition necessary in order to be pleasing to God, each human action must be in conformity with our condition as free and reasonable creatures, subject to the Divine Will; otherwise this action does not correspond to our nature, to the properties belonging to it and the laws that govern it: it is false.

Do not forget that the natural law is something essential in the order of religion. God need not have created me; but since I have been created, I am and remain a creature, and the relations resulting from this fact are unchangeable. One cannot, for example, conceive that a man could be created, for whom it would be lawful to blaspheme his Creator.

It is this character of human action, entirely free, but in accord with our nature and the last end of our creation, and consequently morally good, which must be primarily the distinguishing mark of our works in God’s sight: Qui dicit se nosse Deum et mandata ejus non custodit, mendax est et in hoc veritas non est ”.

In order to act as Christians, we must first of all act as men. And this is not without importance. Doubtless, a perfect Christian will necessarily fulfil his duties as man, for the law of the Gospel comprises and perfects the natural law. But one meets with Christians, or rather with some calling themselves Christians, and that not only among the simple faithful, but even among religious and priests, who are exact even to scrupulosity as to their self-chosen practices of piety, and yet hold certain precepts of the natural law very cheaply. These people have it at heart not to miss their exercises of devotion, and this is excellent, but, for example, they do not abstain from attacking a neighbour’s reputation, from falsehoods, and from failing to keep their word; from giving a wrong meaning to what an author has written, from not respecting the laws of literary or artistic property, from deferring, sometimes to the detriment of justice, the payment of their debts, and not observing the clauses of a contract exactly.⁴

Such as these ” whose religion spoils their morality’ ”, to use the expression of the great English statesman, Gladstone, have not understood St. Paul’s precept: Veritatem facientes. There is a want of logic in their spiritual life, there is: “untruth”. Many of these souls may be unconscious of this ” untruth ”, but it is not less hurtful, because God does not find in them that order which He wills should reign in all His works.

So then, we must be “true”. That is the basis on which grace works. As you know, grace does not destroy nature. Although we have received that which is like a new being, by Divine adoption, Nova creatura, grace (which must become within us the source and principle of new and supernatural operations) presupposes nature and the operations proceeding from it. Far from being opposed to one another,

1. There is one proposition which the experience of life burns into my soul: it is this, that man should beware of letting his religion spoil hts morality. In a thousand ways, some great, some small, but all subtle, we are daily tempted to the great sin. Sir John Mortey, Life of Gladstone, 1, 185. — We can compare this thought with these words of Bossuet: ” One is uneasy if he has not said his rosary or other fixed prayers, or if he has omitted some Ave Maria in a decade ; [donot blame him ; God forbid ! I have only praise for religious exactitude in exercises of piety. But who can endure to have this same person easily breaking four or five precepts of the Decalogue daily without troubling, and treading under foot the holiest duties of Christianity without scruple? Strange illusion, with which the enemy of the human race beguiles us! He is not able to eradicate from the heart of man the principle of religion which he finds too deeply implanted there, so he substitutes a dangerous amusement instead of its legitimate employment, in order that, deceived by the appearances, we may believe we have satisfied the serious obligations religion imposes on us by these trifles. Undeceive yourselves, Christians... In doing works of supererogation, take care not to forget those that are of necessity.” Sermon for the Feast of the Conception of the Virgin. 1669. Oratorical Works. grace and nature, as regards what is good and pure in the latter, are in harmony, each preserving its own character and beauty.

Let us contemplate what took place in Jesus Christ, for we must always regard Him in all things. Is He not the model of holiness ? He is God and man. His state of Son of God is the source whence flows the Divine value of all His acts; but He is also man, Perfectus homo. Although united in an ineffable manner to the Divine Person of the Word, His human nature in no way lost its own activity, its special manner of acting; this nature was the source of perfectly authentic human actions. Jesus Christ prayed, worked, ate, suffered, slept: those were human actions, which showed that Our Lord was truly man; I dare even say that none has ever been so much man as He, for His human nature was incomparably perfect. Only, in Him, the human nature subsisted in the Divinity.

Something analogous is produced in us: grace does not suppress or reverse nature either in its essence or in its good qualities. Doubtless, it constitutes a new superadded state, infinitely superior to our natural state. A profound modification has been effected in us, both as regards our end which has now become supernatural and the forces which serve to attain it, but our nature is neither troubled nor diminished thereby*. It is in exercising our own faculties, intelligence, will, love, sensibility and imagination, that our human nature, even when adorned with grace, must perform its actions: but these acts proceeding from nature, are raised by grace to the point of being worthy of God.

We must, first of all, remain ourselves, live in a manner coniormable to our nature as free and reasonable creatures: this is the first element of the ” truth” of our actions. I will add: we should live in a way that corresponds to our individuality.

We must keep our personality in our supernatural life, as to what is good in it; that is a part of that ” truth”, that ” sincerity ”, which the life of grace demands. Holiness is not a single mould where the natural qualities that characterise one’s personality have to disappear so that only a uniform type may be represented. Far from that. God, in creating us, endowed each of us with gifts, talents, privileges; each soul has its special natural beauty: one shines by depth of intelligence, another is distinguished by strength of will, a third attracts by breadth of charity. Grace respects this beauty as it respects the nature on which it is based; it will but add a supernatural splendour to the natural beauty, raising and transfiguring it. In His sanctifying operation, God respects His work of creation, for He has willed this diversity: each soul, in translating one of the Divine thoughts, has a special place in the Heart of God.⁵

Lastly, we must be ” true” by being in accord with the vocation to which God has called us. We are not only isolated individuals; we form part of a society which includes different states of life. It is clear, that in order ” to be in the truth”, we must also practise the duties of the special state in which Providence has placed us; grace cannot be in contradiction to this. It would be ” untrue” to her state for the mother of a family to pass long hours in church when her presence is required at home for the ruling of her household. It would be ” untrue” to his vocation for a religious to employ an hour in private devotions, instead of the work prescribed at that hour by obedience, however commonplace this work might be. Such acts are not entirely ” true”.

” Sanctify them in truth”, was the prayer of Jesus, at the Last Supper, for His disciples.

II

But if our acts are true and conformed to our condition as reasonable creatures subject to God, freely accomplished and according with our state, is this sufficient to make them acts of supernatural life ?

No, this is not enough; it is necessary besides, (and this is the capital point), that they should proceed from grace, and be accomplished by a soul adorned with sanctifying grace. That is what St.Paul means by the word: Jn caritate.

“In charity”, that is to say, first of all, in fundamental, essential charity, which causes us to refer ourselves entirely to God and find in Him the Supreme Good which we prefer to all other good: that is the fruit of grace which makes us pleasing to God to the extent of becoming His children. Tt is true that supernatural charity is not grace; but charity and grace always go together: Caritas diffusa est in cordibus nostris per Spiritum Sanctum qui datus est nobis. Grace elevates our being; charity transforms our activity; the degree of one marks the degree of the other, and every grave fault, of whatever nature it may be, kills grace and charity in us at one and the same time.

Sanctifying grace should be the source from which our human activity is nourished; without it, we cannot produce any supernatural act, having any meritorious proportion with the beatitude of eternal life. God first of all establishes us in a state, the state of grace: this is of primary importance. A being only accomplishes actions by reason of his nature: we only accomplish human actions if we first possess human nature; in the same way, we can only perform the acts of the supernatural life if we first possess, by grace, what is, as it were, a new nature: Nova creatura.

There is a man lying on the ground before your eyes. He may be only asleep or perhaps he is dead. In the first case he will presently wake and give signs of life; his natural energies will be manifested. Why? Because he still keeps within him the source from whence issue these energies, that is to say, the soul. But if the soul be absent, the body will never move; whatever you may do to it, it will remain in the cold inertness of a corpse. No activity will henceforth arise from this body of death: the vital principle whence its energies were derived has left it.

So it is with the supernatural life. Sanctifying grace is the inward principle whence all supernatural activity emanates. If the soul possesses this grace, it can produce acts

1. Rom. v, 5. ” Sanctifying grace and Divine Charity are the outpouring of Christ’s Spirit, the Paraclete. For habitual grace and the supernatural spiritual endowment of charity are only distinguishable from one another as the sun’s light is distinguished from the sun. Sanctifying grace is the life of the soul; charity is that same living force ready to burst forth into all the operations of the supernatural life, and chiefly into actual love of the Source of all its life and beauty." Hepiey, Retreat, pp. 302-303. of life, supernaturally meritorious: if not, the soul is dead in the sight of God’.

Jesus Christ has given a comparison which makes us well able to understand the function of grace in us. Our Lord loved to make use of images which render the truth easy to grasp. It is after the Last Supper. Our Divine Saviour leaves the Cenacle with His disciples to go to the Mount of Olives. On the way, outside Jerusalem, He passes over a _ little hill covered with vineyards”. In pointing them out to His Apostles He says: ” I am the Vine; you the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without Me you can do nothing... As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me”. In the same way as the branch cannot bear fruit unless it remains united to the trunk, so is it with us, if we do not remain united to Christ by grace.

Grace is the sap that rises from the root to the branches. It is not the root or the trunk that bear fruit: it is the branch; but the branch united by the trunk to the root, and drawing from the root the sap that nourishes. Break off the branch, separate it from the trunk, and, no longer receiving the sap, it withers and becomes dead wood, incapable of producing the least fruit.

It is the same with the soul that does not possess grace: it is not united to Christ, it does not draw from Him the sap of sanctifying grace which would make it supernaturally living and fruitful. Do not forget that Christ alone is the source of our spiritual life; all our activity, all our existence have no value for eternal life unless we are united to Christ by grace. If we are not, it is in vain that we exert and spend ourselves, and accomplish the most brilliant actions in the sight of men; in God’s sight all this activity is devoid of supernatural profit and without merit for eternal life.

1. Of course, this is only a comparison serving to show us the necessity of grace as’a supernatural vital principle; for the soul in a state of mortal sin can, through the Sacrament of Penance,live again by recovering grace. Moreover the soul ought to prepare itself for the reception of this sacrament by free, supernatural acts, (supernatural because they are accomplished under the impulsion of supernatural actual help given by God), acts of fear, hope, charity and contrition. Cf. note p. 223. —⁶

You may say: Are these actions then bad? No, not necessarily. If they are honest, they may yet be pleasing to God, Who sumetimes rewards them with temporal favours: they gain a certain merit, in the very wide sense of the word, for the one who accomplishes them, or rather, there is a certain appropriateness that God should not leave them without some recompense. But as sanctifying grace is lacking, there is not the necessary proportion between these actions and the eternal inheritance God has promised only to those who are His children by grace. Sz filui, et heredes?, God cannot recognise in these actions the supernatural character requisite in order that they may count with Him for eternity.

You may see two men giving alms to the poor: the one is, by grace, in the holy friendship of God, he gives the alms from a movement of Divine charity; the other is destitute of sanctifying grace: both perform exteriorly the same action, but what a difference in God’s sight! The alms of the first gains for him an increase of infinite and eternal happiness; it is of him Our Lord spoke when He said that he who gives a cup of cold water in His Name should not lose his reward*. The alms of the second is without merit as regards the same eternal beatitude, even if he should lavish handfuls of gold. That which proceeds from nature alone has no value far eternal life. Certainly, God, Who is Goodness itself, will regard graciously the good actions done by the sinner, above all when they are acts of charity towards the neighbour, not done from human ostentation, but from a movement of compassion towards the unfortunate. Often indeed, and this is a great reason for confidence, God’s mercy inclines Him to grant graces of conversion to those who do these charitable actions, which, in the end, give back to them the supreme good of the Divine friendship. But it is sanctifying grace alone that gives true meaning and fundamental value to our lives.

This is so true that, when the sinner again enters into a state of grace, those actions which were done without grace still remain valueless from the point of view of supernatural merit, however numerous and excellent they may have been. They are irretrievably lost.

St. Paul has thrown great light on this truth. This is what he says: ” If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy, and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing 7”. In other words, the most extraordinary gifts, the highest talents, the most generous undertakings, the most splendid actions, the most strenuous efforts, the greatest sufferings, are of no merit for eternal life without charity, that is to say, without that supreme love of the soul for God, considered as He is in Himself, that supernatural love which is born of sanctifying grace, as the flower arises from its stem.⁷

Let us then refer all our life to God, our Last End and Eternal Beatitude: the charity of God that we possess with sanctifying grace must be the mainspring of all our activity. When we possess Divine grace within us, we fulfil the wish of Our Lord: we ” abide in Him”, Manete in me, and He ” abides in us”, Et ego in vobis; He abides with the Father and the Holy Spirit: Ad eum veniemus et mansionem apud eum faciemus*. The Holy Trinity, dwelling truly within us as in a temple, does not remain inactive, but unceasingly sustains us so that our soul may exercise its supernatural activity: Pater meus usque modo operatur, et ego operor®.

You know that, in the natural order, God ever sustains us in life and in the exercise of our acts, by His Divine action, that is the ” Divine concourse”. This Divine concourse exists also in the supernatural order; we can never act supernaturally unless God gives us the grace so to act. This grace, on account of its transitory effect is called actual, in opposition to sanctifying grace, which, being in its nature, permanent, is called habitual:grace. With sanctifying grace, the infused virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, actual grace makes part of the supernatural order. In the ordinary practice of the supernatural life, actual grace is the Divine concourse applied to the supernatural order. On special occasions however, resulting from the state of the soul, in consequence of original sin, this Divine con- course translates and manifests itself in particular illumination of the intelligence, and greater strength given to the will to enable it to resist a grave temptation or accomplish an arduous task. Without this special help, which God grants to prayer, we could not attain the supreme end ; we could not, as the Council of Trent says, ” persevere in gustice? ’.⁸

Such is then, in broad outline, the fundamental law of the practice of our supernatural life. Without changing anything of what is essential to our nature, of what is good in our individuality or requisite for our particular state of life, we must live by the grace of Christ, referring through charity all our activity to the glory of His Father. Grace is grafted on nature and envelops its operations; such is the principal source of that diversity we meet with in the Saints

III

Moreover, the degree of grace itself varies in souls. It is true that there is only one singie model of holiness, as there is only one source of grace and life: Jesus Christ. Justification and beatitude are specifically, in their basis and substance, the same for all: ” One Lord, one faith, one baptism ”, says St. Paul ?.

But just as all those who possess human nature vary in their qualities, so God freely distributes His supernatural gifts in accordance with the designs of His wisdom: ” To every one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the giving of Christ”. Umnicuique nostrum data est gratia secundum mensuram donationis Christi®. In the flock of Christ, each sheep bears its name of grace. Jesus says that the Good Shepherd knows His sheep and calls them by name: Proprias oves vocat nominatim‘, just as the Creator knows the multitude of the stars, and calls them all by their name, for each one has its own form and perfection:

1. Sess. vi, can. 18; cf. can. 13. — It is quite evident, however, that the soul in the state of mortal sin can receive actual supernatural graces which enlighten the intelligence and strengthen the will in the work of its conversion ; but in this soul these graces are not linked (as they are in one which possesses sanctifying grace) to that " Divine concourse” of which we are speaking, which maintains sanctifying grace in the souls of the just. The Holy Spirit moves the sinner towards conversion, He does not dwell in his soul. — 2. Ephes. 1v, 5. —- 3. Ibid. 7. — 4. Joan. X, 3-

Qui numerat multitudinem stellarum, et omnibus eis nomina vocat?. ” Now there are diversities of graces but the same Spirit ”, says St. Paul, ” there are diversities of operations, but the same God Who worketh all in all... to one... is given the word of wisdom... to another, faith... to another the grace of healing... to another the working of miracles... to another, prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits... but all these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to everyone according as He will?”.

And each soul corresponds to the Divine idea in a manner proper to itself, each turning to account the talent confided to its liberty and reproducing the features of Christ in itself by a co-operation which has its own special character.

Thus, under the infinitely delicate and varied action of the Holy Spirit, we should aim at representing the Divine Model by our own individual activity, elevated and transformed by grace. Thus is realised that harmonious variety which renders God “wonderful in His Saints”. Mirabilis Deus in sanctis suis*. We finds His glory in them all, but one can say of each of them, with the Church*: None has been found like unto him who kept the law of the Lord. Non est inventus similis illi... qui conservavit legem Excelsi’. The splendour of the sanctity of a St. Francis of Sales is not the same as that of a St. Francis of Assisi; the brightness that adorns the soul of a St. Gertrude or a St. Teresa is quite different to that of a St. Mary Magdalen.

In each of the Saints, the Divine Spirit has respected particular natural characteristics; grace has transfigured these natural characteristics, and added gifts of the supernatural order to them. The soul, guided by what the Church calls: Digitus Paternae dexterae®, has been responsive to these gifts, and has thus attained to holiness. It will certainly be a true rapture for us to contemplate in Heaven the marvels which the grace of Christ has caused to rise from so varied a foundation as that of our human nature.

Great as are the Saints, exalted as they are in the state of supernatural union, the first principle of all their holiness is

_ 1. Ps. cxtvi, 4. Cf. Baruch. m, 34-35. "The stars have given light in their watches, and rejoiced. They were called and they said, Here we are ; and with cheerfulness they have shined forth to Him that made them. — 2. Cor. xu, 4-11. — 3. Ps, yxvm, 36. — 4. Office of Confessors. — 5. Eccli. xtiv, 20. — 6. Hymn, Veni Creator. to be found in the grace of Divine adoption. I have already said, but now wish to repeat, that all the graces, all the gifts God bestows on us, have their source in that Divine regard of predestination by which we have been called to be children of God through the grace of Jesus Christ. There is the dawning of all God’s mercies towards us. All the loving dealings of God with each of us are linked to this grace of adoption which Jesus brought us and which we received at Baptism. Oh, if we but knew the gift of God! Si scires donum Dei. If we knew the value of this grace which, without changing our nature, makes us children of God, and males us live as such while awaiting the eternal inheritance! Without it, as you have seen, the life of the most brilliant and gifted genius is profitless for heavenly beatitude. That is why St. Thomas could say that the perfection that results for a single soul from the gift of grace surpasses all the natural riches of the entire universe’. ” What doth it profit aman”, says Jesus, ” if he gain the whole world ”, if he win its esteem, yet, not possessing grace, be shut out forever from the Kingdom of Heaven”? Grace is the principle of our real life, the seed of future glory, the true germ of a blessed eternity.

Hence, we understand what an inestimable jewel is sanctifying grace for a soul. It is a precious pearl, all the beauty of which is due to the Blood of Jesus. We understand why Our Divine Saviour pronounced such terrible anathemas against anyone, who, by his scandals, drags souls into sin and makes them lose the life of grace. ” It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea*”. We also understand why saintly souls, leading a life of labour, prayer and expiation for the conversion of sinners that grace may be restored to them, are so pleasing to Jesus Christ. Our Lord one day showed St. Catherine of Siena a soul for which she had obtained salvation by her prayer and patience. ” The beauty of this soul was such”, the Saint told Blessed Raymond, her confessor, ” that no words could express it”. And yet this soul was not yet clad in the glory of the Beatific Vision ; it had only the beauty given by the grace of Baptism. ” Behold”, said Our Lord to the Saint, ” it is through thee

1. Bonum gratiae unius majus est quam bonum totius universi. I-II, gq. CXIl, a. 9, ad 2. — 2. Matth. xvi, 26. — 3. Luc. xvu, 2.

Christ, the life of the son!. 15 that I have regained this soul which was already lost”. Then He added: ” Does it not appear to thee very resplendent and beautiful? Who then, would not accept any pain in order to win so wonderful a creature’... If I have shown thee this soul, it is to make thee more ardent to procure the salvation of all, and in order that thou mayest lead others to this work according to the grace that shall be given thee*”.

Let us then be watchful jealously to guard Divine grace within us, let us carefully put away all that could weaken it, and leave it defenceless against the mortal blows of the enemy, those deliberate resistances to the action of the Holy Spirit Who dwells in us and unceasingly wills to direct all our activity towards the glory of God. May our soul be Radicata in caritate, as St. Paul says?; by possessing in itself this Divine root of sanctifying grace and charity, the fruits it produces will be fruits of life. Let us remain united to Jesus Christ by grace and charity, as the branch to the vine: Siizs in Christo radicati, the Apostle again says *. Baptism has grafted us on Christ *, and henceforth we have the Divine sap of His grace in us. It is thus that we can accomplish all our actions divinely, because their inward principle is Divine.

And when this principle is so powerful that it becomes the only one, and our whole activity springs from it, then we fulfil the words of St. Paul: Vivo ego, jam non ego, vivit vero in me Christus®. ’I live”, that is to say, I exercise my human and personal activity; ” now, not I, but Christ liveth in me”: it is Christ Who lives, because the principle on which all my own activity, all my personal life is based, is the grace of Christ. All comes from Him by grace, all returns to His Father by charity: I live for God in Jesus Christ. Viventes autem Deo in Christo Jesu ®.

Note

Can we know whether we are in a state of grace, in the Divine friendship? If you mean with an absolute knowledge excluding even the shadow of a doubt, we cannot; but we are able, and even we ought, to hope that we possess grace if we are not conscious of any mortal sin, and if we are sincerely striving to serve God with a steadfast goodwill.⁹

This last sign is given by St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi somewhere in her writings. To generous souls, docile to the inspirations from on high, the Holy Ghost often adds His own testimony : Ipse Spiritus testimonium reddit spiritui nostro quod sumus filii Dei. There is then a practical certainty which does not exclude fear, but ought to be sufficient to enable us to live with confidence the divine life to which God calls us, and to taste the deep joy arising in the soul from the thought that we are, in Jesus, the object of the Heavenly Father’s delight.

Footnotes

1. 1. Per unum hominem, peccatum in hunc mundum intravit et per peccatum mors, et ita in omnes homines mors pertranstit. Rom. v, 12.
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2. 1. Ephes. 1v, 15. — 2. Jac. 1, 17. —3. Hebr. v, 9. —4. Joan. xiv, 15. — 5. Matth. vn, 21.
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3. rations peculiar to the three kingdoms, mineral, vegetable, and animal. — 4. Ps. cxvil, go. ↩

4. 1. Ps. vit, 10. — 2. Joan. MI, 4.
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5. 1. It goes without saying, that the supernatural state tends to exclude all that is vitiated in nature through original sin: that which is called by ascetical authors the ” natural” life, as opposed to the “ supernatural” life. We have seen above, how mortification consists precisely in destroying this " natural” life.
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6. 2. Fouarp, Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. L. V1, ch. v, the Discourse of Jesus on the way to Gethsemani.
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7. 1. Rom. vu, 17. — 2. Matth. x, 42.
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8. 1. I Cor. xi, 1-3. — 2. Joan. xiv, 23. — 3. Ibid. v, 17.
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9. 1. Life of St. Catherine of Siena by Blessed Raymond of Capua. — 2. Ephes. m1, 17. — 3. Col. 1, 7. — 4. Rom. x1, 16. — 5s. Gal. 11, 20. — 6. Rom. vI, 11.
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