12. Of Celestial Melodies

OUR Heavenly Father called us from all eternity, elected us in His Beloved Son, and wrote our names with the finger of His Love in the living book of eternal Wisdom, therefore we should respond with all our power in constant Reverence and Veneration. Thus commences every song of Angels and men, never to cease.

The first method of Celestial

Song is love of God and men, the which to teach us God sent

His Son. Whoso knows not

Love's Gradatory this method cannot enter the heavenly Choir, since having neither knowledge nor the vestment of Grace he must remain everlastingly without.

Jesus Christ, the Soul's Lover, at the moment of His Conception in the chaste womb of His Virgin Mother, chanted in spirit the Glory and Honour of His Heavenly Father, peace and rest to men of goodwill ; and on that night in which He was born of the Virgin Mother the Angels sang the same sweet refrain. The Church recalls it when she, in her turn, sings it, especially on these two Festivals. Love of God and love of man for God and in God, what can be hymned of more sublime or more joyous in Heaven or on earth, since the

Love's Gradatory form and meaning of this song are infused by the Holy Spirit ? The Christ, our Choir Master and Precentor, intoned it from the beginning, and will intone eternally for us this hymn of love and endless felicity. Then, in our turn, with all our might, we shall sing with Him, both here below and in the midst of the Choir of the Glory of God. Thus Love, pure and without pretence, is the common song we must all learn in order to take part in the Choir of Angels and Saints in the Kingdom of God ; for Love is the root and cause of all interior virtues, the true ornament and adornment of all exterior good work. Love lives of itself, and is its own recompense ; in its action it can-

Love's Gradatory not be deceived, for there the Christ has gone before Who taught us to love, and lives in love with all who are His, for us to imitate Him, if we wish to be happy with Him, and attain Salvation. Such is the first method of Celestial Song that the Wisdom of God teaches His obedient disciples by the intervention of the Holy Spirit.

Next comes the second method of Celestial Song, which is un pretentious Humility, that none can raise or abase. In this really consists the root and sure foundation of all virtue and the whole spiritual edifice; this, too, con stitutes the measure, key, and finale of all heavenly Song, for it is the mantle and ornament of Love, the sweetest voice that

Love's Gradatory can sing before the face of God. The chords are so graceful and attractive that they draw the Wisdom of God even into our human nature, as when Mary said : " Behold the servant of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word." l God was so completely won that He willed the Eternal Wisdom to take flesh in the womb of the Virgin.

Thus the highest height be came lowliness, since the Son of God humbled Himself and took upon Him the form of a slave, so as to raise us to the image of the Godhead. He humiliated Himself, placing Himself lower than all, despising Himself through desire to serve us even unto death.

Love's Gradatory

If you wish to resemble and follow Him there where is sung the hymn of sincere Humility, you must also deny and despise self, love and desire contempt, disdain, and neglect from others, for true Humility is insensible to what flatters or pains, to honour or shame, to all that is not itself. It is the highest gift and the loveliest jewel that God can bestow on the loving Soul, outside of Himself, the plentitude of every Grace and gift ; whoso dwells with it becomes one with it, and finds everlasting Peace.

The third method of Celestial Song consists in renouncing self-will and everything belonging to self, abandoning all to the most dear Will of God and

Love's Gradatory bearing submissively all He sees fit to impose. And though Nature, bowed under the cross, following our Lord even unto death, suffers pain, the spirit that willingly makes such an offering is joyous. Nature weeps and complains of the heavy burden it bears, but here after there will be joy in the Glory of God, when Jesus shall wipe away all tears, showing us how by His Precious Blood He bought us of His Father by paying the price of death. Then shall we sing with Him this sweet melody, merited by voluntary suffering, and belonging to men, not to Angels. The greater the martyrdom, labour, and suffering, so much greater, too, will be the Glory, recom-

Love's Gradatory pense, and honour. The Christ, our Precentor, constrains us to sing this hymn, for He is King and Prince of all suffering willingly endured for the love and honour of God, and His voice is so rich, so sonorous, it is the perfection of science in heavenly Song, its tones, keys, and varied harmonies. With Him we shall all sing, thanking and praising His Heavenly Father Who sent Him to us.

As it behoved the Christ to suffer and thus to enter into His Glory, so it behoves us, too, to suffer gladly, so as to be like unto Him, and to follow Him into the glory of the Father, with Whom He is one in the fruition of the Holy Ghost, there to sing His praise in the Name

Love's Gradatory of our Lord Jesus Christ, each one personally, in spirit, according to our merits and dignity before God.

Finally, the fourth method of celestial Song, the most interior, noble, and highest, consists in deliquescence in the Praise of God.

1 Above the love of God and our neighbour, true Humility and complete renouncement of self-will, Blessed John Ruysbroeck places the confession of absolute powerlessness to praise God as He deserves. This he calls a mystical fainting in the Praise of God. This acknowledgement of powerlessness comes from the Divine exigency claiming more than we are capable of giving. Under the influence of Grace our supernatural activity can well lead us to the union with God, which the author names intermedium, but the union without intervention of a medium, goes beyond our force and is the work of God alone. The first kind of union has a likeness with God, but the second is

Love's Gradatory

Our heavenly Father is at the same time covetous and liberal. On His beloved who walk before His Face and are elevated in the Spirit, He bestows liberally His gifts and blessings, but expects in return that each render thanks, praise, and good works in the measure in which He has endowed him, both exteriorly and interiorly. ForDivine Grace is not given uselessly, nor in vain ; if we make use of it the flow is ceaseless, giving all that we need, claiming in return from us all that we can give, and the very image of God, graven in the substance of the Soul and constitutes the living Unity with God. In one, the Soul operates continually with the help of the Holy Spirit ; in the other, the Soul enjoys and reposes in Him.

Love's Gradatory from these reciprocal gifts springs the practice of every virtue, without fear of error.

But that which goes beyond all works and the exercise of all Virtues, our heavenly Father teaches to those who are especially dear to Him; thus in His gifts and in His exigency He shows Himself not only liberal and covetous, but covetousness and liberality itself. He wills to give Himself to us entirely, Himself and all that He is, but in return He claims the full donation of ourselves to Him, with all that we are or can be. His will and intention is that we should be entirely His, as He is altogether ours ; each, however, remaining what they are, for we cannot become Divine, but can

Love's Gradatory be united to God both by an intermedium and without an intermedium. We are united to Him by means of His Grace and our good works, and this mutual Love, thus constituted, results in His being in us and we in Him, submissive to His influence even to the point of having but one only will with Him for all good. For His Spirit and Grace operate in every good work far more than our own action ; and the Grace He bestows, with the love we render Him, elaborates a work in which He and we cooperate together of common accord. Our love for God is, indeed, the highest and noblest work of which we can conceive between God and self. The Divine Spirit, on His side, re-

Love's Gradatory quires of our spirit that we should love and thank God and sing the praises due to His supreme dignity and majesty; it is in this that all loving Souls in Heaven as on earth fall short. They are consumed with this desire and fall powerless before the infinite Majesty of God ; His Grace is there perfected with every virtue. But it is possible to be united to God without an intermedium, above Grace and beyond all Virtue, for independently of any medium, we have received the image of God in the living substance of the Soul, and thus established union with God without an intermedium ; not by becoming God, but by remaining always like Him, He living in us and

Love's Gradatory we in Him, through Grace and good works.

We are then united to God without medium and beyond all Virtue, bearing His image im pressed on the very summit of our created nature ; nevertheless, we remain like Him and united to Him by means of His Grace and our good works ; being like unto Him in Grace and Glory, one with Him in our eternal image or ideal. Living union with God is in our very essence ; we cannot understand nor attain to it, nor seize it. It baffles our strength and requires us to be one with God without an intermediary, although this cannot be accomplished alone. We can, indeed, follow after God so far as to attain to the state of

Love's Gradatory emptiness of self; once in this state the Holy Spirit makes His dwelling in the Soul, reposing there with all His gifts. He bestows His graces and gifts on all our powers, asking in return love, thanksgiving, and praise. He inhabits in our essence, claiming from us freedom from self, love and union with Him above all Virtue. Consequently we cannot remain in self with our good works, nor above self with God, in a state of vacuum, in which consists the most intimate action of Love. The Spirit of the Lord within is an eternal operation of God, Who wills that we correspond continually in order to become like unto Him. But He is also repose and fruition of the Father and

Love's Gradatory the Son and all His beloved, in everlasting inaction. This fruition is above works and we cannot comprehend it; works remaining always below fruition we cannot introduce them into that condition. When we act, we always lack something, not being able to love God sufficiently, but in enjoying, we attain satisfaction ; we are then all that we desire. Such is the fourth method of celestial Song, the noblest that can be chanted in Heaven or on earth.

You should know, however, that neither God, nor the Angels, nor Souls, sing with a corporeal voice, since they are spirits, having neither ears, nor mouth, nor tongue, nor throat, to form a note. The Holy Scriptures

Love's Gradatory say well that God spoke to Abraham and Moses, to the Patriarchs and Prophets in many ways with sensible words, before He took upon Himself human nature. Holy Church, in her turn, attests that the Angels sing everlastingly and ceaselessly, 11 Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctits" Again, the Angel Gabriel brought to Our Lady the mes sage that she should conceive the Son of God, by virtue of the Holy Spirit ; Angels sang while bearing the soul of St. Martin to Heaven, and Angels daily delighted Mary Magdalen by their singing. It would seem, then, that good and bad spirits and disembodied Souls can appear to men in what form they like, as far as it pleases

Love's Gradatory

God to allow ; but in the next life this is unnecessary, for then we shall contemplate with the eyes of the intelligent the Glory of God and of all Angels and Saints in general, at the same time as the special Glory and recompense of each in particular, in every delectable way.

But at the last day, at the Judgement of God, when we rise again with glorious bodies, in the power of the Lord, these bodies will be white and re splendent as the snow, more brilliant than the sun, more transparent than crystal, and each one will have a special mark of honour and glory, according to the support and endurance of torments and sufferings, willingly and freely

Love's Gradatory borne to the honour of God. For all things shall be regulated and recompensed according to the Wisdom of God and the nobility of our works; and the Christ, our Precentor and ChoirMaster, shall sing with His sweet triumphant voice an eternal canticle to the Praise and Glory of the Heavenly Father. We also shall sing the same hymn, with joyous spirit and clear voice, eternally without end. The happiness and glory of the Soul shall be reflected in our senses and members, as we contemplate one the other with glorified vision, hearing, speaking, and chanting the Praise of our Lord with unfailing voice. The Christ will serve us and show us His illuminated Visage

Love's Gradatory and glorious Body bearing the marks of love and fidelity printed on them.

We shall, too, contemplate the glorified bodies of the Just, clothed in numberless marks of love, spent in the service of God since the beginning of the world ; and our sensitive life shall be filled, exteriorly and interiorly, with the Glory of God; the heart full of life burning with ardent love of God, the powers of the Soul resplendent with Glory, ornamented with the gifts of God and the practice of all virtue on earth.

Finally, and beyond all else, ravished out of self into the Glory of God, without limit, in comprehensible, immense, we are to enjoy Him for ever and ever.

Love's Gradatory

The Christ in His human nature shall lead the Choir on the right, for He is the highest and most sublime creation of God, and to this Choir belong all who live in Him and He in them. The other Choir is the angelic, for although they are by Nature the more noble, we have been dowered in a more sublime fashion in Jesus Christ, with Whom we are one. He shall be the supreme Pontiff in the midst of the Choir of Angels and men before the throne of the sovereign Majesty of God, and will offer and renew before His heavenly Father, God Al mighty, all offerings that were ever presented by Angels and men, fixed in the Glory of God for ever and ever. MS

Love's Gradatory

Thus, then, shall our bodies and senses by which we serve God now be glorified and beati fied, like unto the glorious Body of the Christ ; that Body in which He served God and man. Our Souls, by which we now and always love, thank, and praise God, will then be blessed and glorious spirits, like to the blessed and glorious Soul of the Christ, the Angels and all spirits who love, praise, and bless God ; and through the Christ we shall be ravished in God to be with Him in fruition and eternal Beatitude. And thus I end the fifth step of the celestial Ladder.

Love's Gradatory