Preface by Cardinal Mercier

These pages will do much good. They are restful for the soul. They simplify Christian life.

The dominant preoccupation of the author who has received the confidences of many restless souls, embarrassed by the complications of their personal methods, 1s, tf I am not mistaken, to enlarge these souls, to free them from their self-bondage, to facilitate for them, by rendering it more attractive, their ascension towards God. He leads them, in each of his conferences, to Him Who is " the Way, the Truth and the Life+.”

‘He shows them, by turns, Divine Providence enveloping, in the same design of predestination, Christ, the Word made Man, and ourselves (Ist conference) ; then, in the lines laid down bySt. Thomas of Aquinas”, he describes the mediation of Christ, the Sanctifier of our souls (2nd & 3rd conferences), he shows in Him, true God and true Man, the one and universal Exemplar of all holiness; the meritorious and satisfactory Cause Who has paid the price of our salvation to Divine justice, according to these words of the apostle St. Paul: Et consummatus, factus est omnibus obtemperantibus sibi causa salutis aeternae, appellatus a Deo pontifex juxta ordinem Melchisedech. Through the consummation of His mediatorial work, Christ has become, for all who submit to His teaching, the cause of eternal salvation. So He was " called by God a high priest according to the order of Melchisedech*”; and lastly, the realiser, the

1. Joan. x1v, 6. — 2. Summa theol. 11, q. 24, a. 3. — 3. Hebr. v, 9-

X efficient Cause of our holiness, for, always following the doctrine of the apostle St. Paul whom the author is never tired of quoting: We have our divine origin in Christ: God has willed He should be " made unto us wisdom, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption”, Ex ipso autem vos estis in Christo Jesu, qui factus est nobis sapientia a Deo et justitia et sanctificatio et redemptio ’.

The office of Christ being thus shown under all tts aspects, the Benedictine theologian next considers the realisation of the Divine plan in souls: Christ forms His mystical body, the visible and invisible Church; but the Holy Ghost formed Christ — at least it ts so expressed by theology in tts language of " appropriation” — and, as the ” Spirit of Jesus”, He consummates the work of our sanctification (5th & Oth conferences). ;

Thus is completed the picture of the work of Christ conceived eternally in the designs of the Heavenly Father and realised by Christ the Mediator and by His sanctifying Spirit.

Christ is the centre of the plan and of the work of God: as Man-God He sums up all: Tu solus sanctus, tu solus Dominus, Jesu Christe.

The Blessed Albert the Great, the master of St. Thomas of Aquinas, in that substantial and delightful opuscule entitled: De adhaerendo Deo ” Of the adherence of the soul to God”, invites us to enter into Christ, from man to God, to pass through the open Wounds of the suffering and dying Humanity of Christ so as to penetrate into the secrets — of His Divinity: Nec aliud, unquam, objectum quis mente attendat quam solum Jesum Christum vulneratum, sicque per. eum in eum, id est, par hominem in Deum, per vulnera humanitatis ad intima divinitatis suae sedulo et obnixe intendat ?. *

1. Cor. 1, 30. — 2. B. Alberti Magni. De adhaerendo Deo, cap. 2.

All the substance of the spirituality of the Gospel lies in this formula. Hence the Right Reverend Abbot Columba says wisely: ” For certain souls, the life of Christ Jesus is one subject of meditation among many others; this is not enough. Christ is not one of the means of the spiritual life; He is all our spiritual life” (p. 64).

The second part of the volume is consecrated to showing forth the work of the soul that wills to receive abundantly the Divine life of which Christ is the source.

Faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ constitutes the first | Step towards this life; baptism, the first of all the sacraments, renders the one on whom it is conferred, a disciple of Christ. . The work of baptism is double, although simultaneous: it takes away sin, the germ of death, and gives grace, the source of life. By this sacrament of adoption and initiation, the Christian becomes a partaker of the death and glorious life of his Divine Head. These two aspects of spiritual life, so clearly pointed out by St. Paul, ought to envelop the whole existence of every Christian.

The author next shows in detail how we " die to sin” and how we "live for God”. He develops the laws to which the practice and growth of this life for God are subject, and the sources whence it is especially nourished: — the Eucharist, Sacrifice and Sacrament; prayer, whether it be the prayer of the Church in her liturgy " which makes us one with Christ’, or mental prayer,” the blossoming of the gifts of the Holy Ghost”. The love of a soul for Christ will necessarily overflow on all who compose the mystical body of Christ; and in the first place ranks the Virgin Mary who, by her Divine Maternity, enters into the very essence of the mystery of the Incarnation. The last conference shows how ” the fulness of the mystical body of Christ” 1s only attained in the beatitude of eternal life; that is the final term of our

XII predestination, the consummation of our adoption in Christ Jesus.

Thus end these conferences which place the mystery of Jesus in high relief. They refer everything to Christ, the source of all grace, of all life, of all holiness. This leading idea, full of significance, makes the unity of the work as well as its strength.

The table of contents marks out with much clearness the continuity of this idea in its different stages and renders it superfluous for us to attempt here any detailed exposition. Besides this book is not one to be subjected to a dry analysis. It must be read and meditated with the heart as well as with the head, as it was with all his apostolic soul that the author delivered the conferences of which the book ts composed.

There are perhaps some souls who will wonder at this simplification of spirituality; they cannot accustom themselves to the idea that it 1s not necessary to seek difficulties where none exist, in order to arrive at perfection.

However, it is Christ and His Gospel that are right. And is it not written in the Gospel: "Unless you become as litile children, you shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven?” And did not our Divine Jesus say in a moment of holy exultation, — Exsultavit Spiritu Sancto — ”J confess to Thee, O Father... because Thou hast hidden these things from (those the world esteems) the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones?”

The perfume of Holy Scripture, to be breathed in at each page of this volume, gives the impression that it was conceived and prepared during prayer, at the foot of the altar, before being given to the public.

Souls desirous of living the inner life will gratefully welcome this work. The religious communities above all, to whom these conferences were preached, will recall the com-

XII municative accents they heard whilst listening to the solid and clear doctrine now left to them as a guide, and they will ask the Holy Spirit, as we do, to grant this inspiwing book, Christ, the Life of the Soul, the full success it merits.

D. J. Card. MERCIER, Archbishop of Mechlin.