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Epilogue: The Three Ways and the Liturgical Cycle

EPILOGUE : THE THREE WAYS AND THE LITURGICAL CYCLE 2

157%. After taking a survey of the Three Ways, or the three stages, which lead to perfection, it will not be without profit to see how each year Holy Mother the Church invites us through her /¢urgy to start anew and to perfect the work of our sanctification with its three degrees of purification, ellumination and union with God. The spiritual life is in truth a continuous series of new beginnings, and the /zturgtcal cycle comes each year to inspire us to new efforts.

Everything in the liturgy conters about the Incarnate Word, our Mediator and Redeemer, presented to us not only as a model for imitation, but also as the Head of a mystical body, Who comes to live in His members in order to enable them to practise the virtues of which He has given them the example. Each festival, each liturgical period recalls to us some one or other of the virtues of Jesus and brings to us the graces which He has merited and which enable us with His co-operation to reproduce these virtues in ourselves,

  1. The liturgical year, which corresponds to the four seasons of the year, also symbolizes the four main phases of t MONNIN, The Curé of Ars, Bk. III, c. IIT.

2 DoM. GUBRANGER, The Liturgical Year; DomM LEDUC and Dom BAupot, Catéchisme Liturgigue,; DOM FESTUGIERE, La Liturgte Catholique; F, CAVA- LLERA, Ascéticisme et Liturgie.

the spiritual life.t Advent corresponds to the purgative way; Christmastide and Epiphany to the 2lluminative way wherein we follow Jesus by the imitation of His virtues; the period of Septwagesdma and the season of Lent bring about a second purification of the soul more thorough than the first; Paschal time typifies the wztve way, the union with the Risen Christ, a union perfected by the Ascension and the Descent of the Holy Ghost. We add a brief explanation of this liturgical year.

  1. 1° Advent, which signifies a coming, is a preparation for the coming of the Savior, and as such is a period of purification and penance.

The Church invites us to meditate upon the threefold coming of Christ : His advent upon earth through the Incarnation, His entrance into the souls of men through grace, and His appearance at the end of time to judge all mankind. It is chiefly upon the first coming that the Church centers our attention : she recalls to us the longings of the Patriarchs and the Prophets, in order to make us long with them for the coming of the promised Redeemer and the establishment or strengthening of His Kingdom in our souls. This is, then, a time of ody desires and ardent supplications, a time when we ask God to pour down upon us the dew of grace, and above all, the Redeemer Himself : ‘““ Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just!” This prayer takes on the character of still more earnest longing in the great antiphones, O H7manuel, King of Glory, etc... which, by recalling the glorious titles given by the Prophets to the Messias and the chief characteristics of His mission, make us yearn for the coming of Him Who alone can relieve our misery.

  1. But Advent is also a season of penance. It is then that the Church reminds us of the Last Judgment for which we must make ready by the expiation of our sins : the preaching of St. John the Baptist invites us to do penance and thus to prepare the way for the Savior : “ Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” ? Formerly, Christians fasted three days a week, a practice still kept up by some Religious Orders, and if the Church no longer holds her children to this fast, she urges them to make up for it by other practices of mortification. In order to remind us of our duty of penance, she has her priests celebrate the Masses of Advent in violet vestments, the color of mourning.

These holy desires and penitential practices evidently tend to purify the soul and thus prepare it for the reign of Christ.

  1. 2° Christmastide. The Word appears in the weakness of our flesh, with the charms of childhood, but also with its helplessness. He invites us to open our hearts to Him that He may reign therein as our King and enable us
  • Although but three ways are distinguished in the spiritual life, there is such a great difference between the pass¢ve purifications and sweet contemplation, that a division witbin the unitive way into two stages is quite justified,

to share in His dispositions and His virtues. This is the beginning of the z//uminative way. Purified of our faults and separated from sin and its causes, we unite ourselves more and more closely to Jesus in order to share in His abasement, in His virtues of husmzlity, obedience and poverty, which He practised from the very first moment of His birth. He comes to redeem the world; but, who is there to welcome Him? None but a few shepherds and the three Wise Men from the East come to offer Him their homage. The Jews, His Chosen People, refuse to receive Him : “ He came unto his own,and his own received him not.”! Heis forced to flee into the land of Egypt. Returning, He buries Himself in a small Galilean village and there He remains for thirty years, growing in wisdom and knowledge as well as in age, performing the manual labor of a simple tradesman, and being in all things subject to Mary and Joseph. Such is the vision which the Liturgy brings before us during the season of Christmas and Epiphany in order to present us with the examples we are to imitate. At the same time, it invites us to adore profoundly the Infant-God Who abases Himself for us, and it bids us offer our thanks and our love to “ Him Who has loved us so much.”

  1. 3° But before we can taste the joys of divine union, a ew purification more painful and far-reaching than the former is required. This purification is to take place during the seasons of Septuagesima and Lent.

Septuagesima is a prelude, as it were, to Lent. The Church, placing before us in the Bible-lessons of the Divine Office the fall of man and the sins which followed in its wake, the deluge which came as a punishment for these sins, and the holy lives of the Patriarchs which were to expiate them, urges us to consider in the bitterness of our soul all our personal sins, to detest them sincerely and to expiate them through a whole-hearted penance. The means which the Church proposes towards this end are: 1) work, or the faithful accomplishment of all our duties of state for the love of God : “Go you also into my vineyard; ” ? 2) struggle against the passtons : in the Epistle of the Mass the Church compares us to athletes taking part in a race or a wrestling contest in order to win the prize, and she urges us to chastise our body even as these men do in order to bring it into subjection; 3) voluntary acceptance of sufferings and trials, our just punishment, together with a humble prayer t John, 1, 11. —? Matth., XX, 4, that we may profit thereby : “The sorrows of death encompassed me... and in my etitesion I called upon the Lord.” !

  1. Lent offers us some additional means whereby to purify our hearts still more and to triumph over temptation : Jasting, abstinence and almsgiving. We shall use these means in union with Jesus, Who for forty days withdrew into the desert, there to do penance in our stead, and Who consented to be tempted in order to teach us how to overcome Satan. The Preface of the Mass will remind us that fasting curbs our evil tendencies, elevates our heart to God and obtains for us an increase of virtue and of merit.

The scene on Mount Thabor described in the Gospel for the Second Sunday of Lent will show us that penance has its joys, once we have learned to perform it in a spirit of prayer, and to raise up our eyes to God in search of help: “ My eyes are towards the Lord, for he shall pluck my feet out of the snare.” ? The Introit for the Fourth Sunday, “Rejoice, O Jerusalem,” will sustain our courage by enabling us to discern the joys of heaven, joys of which Holy Communion, symbolized by the multiplication of the loaves, gives us a foretaste.

  1. On Passion Sunday the standard of the Cross is raised : “ Abroad the Royal Banners fly.” It is the Cross alone that appears, for the image of the Savior is veiled as a sign of mourning and sorrow, in order to remind us that moments will come when we must suffer without consolations. Butthe Epistle of the day will bring us comfort by showing us our High priest, Who by the shedding of His blood enters into the Holy of Holies, and by telling us again that the Cross, the symbol of death, has become a source of life: “ That whence came death, thence also life might arise. ” 3

Palm Sunday, soon to be followed by the sorrow ful mysteries, will teach us how ephemeral are earthly triumphs, and how the deepest humiliations follow close upon them. Then out of the depths of a soul in anguish will rise the cry: “My God, my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me?” 4 It is the cry of Jesus in the Garden of Olives and on Calvary. It is the cry of the Christian soul when visited by interior sufferings or exposed to calumny. The Epistle however will bring us consolation by urging us to make our own the interior sentiments of Jesus obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross, but soon after rewarded by such an exaltation that every knee bends before Him. If therefore we share in His suffering, we shall

  • (ntroit, Septuagesima Sunday. — ? /ntrozt, Third Sunday of Lent. 3 Preface of the Cross. — 4 /nxtrozt, Palm Sunday.

likewise share in His victory : “ Yet so if we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him.” #

  1. 4° The Feast of the Resurrection and the season of Easter recall to us Christ’s glorious vzsex ife, the model of the wmztve way. This life is heavenly rather than earthly. During the time of His ministry Our Lord dwelt constantly upon earth; He labored, conversed with men and exercised His apostolate. After His resurrection He lives more than ever apart from external things, appearing but rarely to His Apostles to give them His last instructions, and then He returns to His Father : “ Appearing to them and speaking of the kingdom of God.” 2

This is the model for souls in the unitive way, henceforth seeking solitude in order to converse intimately with God. If their duties of state oblige them to deal with others, they do so with the hope of sanctifying them. They strive in all things to approach the ideal of Christ described by St. Paul : “Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, 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 earth. For you are dead : and your life is hid with Christ in God.” 3

The Ascension symbolizes a still higher degree of union with God. Henceforth Jesus lives in heavenly places, at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us without ceasing. His apostolate becomes only the more fruitful, because He sends His Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, Who transforms the Apostles, and through them, millions of souls. In like manner contemplatives who in heart and mind already live in heaven, do not cease to pray and to sacrifice themselves for the salvation of their brethren, and thus their apostolate becomes all the more fruitful.

  1. Pentecost symbolizes the descent of the Holy Ghost upon individual souls in order to work in a more gradual and hidden manner the wondrous internal transformation which He wrought in the Apostles. The Mystery of the Holy Trinity comes to place before our eyes the grand object of our faith and of our religion, the efficient and exemplary cause of our sanctification. The feasts of Corpus Christi and of the Sacred Heart tell us once more that Our Lord, Who in the Holy Eucharist manifests the riches of His Sacred Heart, has a strict right to our adoration and our love, and that He is at the same time the great Worshipper of the Father through Whom and in Whom we can render due homage to the Most Adorable Trinity.

The various Sundays which follow upon Pentecost represent the full development of the work of the Holy Ghost, not only in the Church of

God, but also in every Christian soul, and they invite us to produce under the action of this Holy Spirit abundant fruits of salvation, even1 until the day when we shall go to heaven to join with Him Who has gone before us to prepare a place for us.

  1. Within this liturgical cycle occur the feasts of the Saints. The examples of these persons, members of Christ like ourselves, who reproduced His virtues in spite of all kinds of temptations and obstacles, serve as a powerful stimulus. We hear them saying to us with St. Paul: “ Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ;”2 and while reading in the Breviary the story of their heroic virtues, we repeat to ourselves the words of St. Augustine: “Could you not also do what these men and women have done?”

It is above all from the feasts of Our Lady that we draw inspiration, from that Queen of the Angels and the Saints, from that Mother of the world’s Savior, who is constantly associated with her Son in the Liturgy of the Church, the Son whom we cannot honor without at the same time honoring, loving and imitating His Blessed Mother.

Thus, sustained and helped by the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, and incorporated into the Word Made flesh, we draw nearer to God while we follow the liturgical cycle each succeeding year.

  1. But in order to profit well by the abundant means of sanctification which the Church offers us, we must draw unto ourselves the zzterzor dispositions of Jesus. ‘To accomplish this end we can avail ourselves of the beautiful and highly efficacious prayer, “ O Jesus Living in Mary.” We cannot bring this compendium to a close in a more fitting manner than by giving a brief explanation of this prayer.

DETREI SB) GO) PESOS JEIMAUMG: JISC NEAR VE ©

O Jesu vivens in Maria O Jesus living in Mary, veni et vive in famulis tuls, come and live in Thy servants, in spiritu sanctitatis tuze, in the spirit of Thy holiness, in plenitudine virtutis tue, in the fulness of Thy power, in perfectione viarum tuarum, in the perfection of Thy ways, in veritate virtutum tuarum, in the truth of Thy virtues, in communione mysteriorum tuo- | in the fellowship of Thy myste- rum ; ries, dominare omni adversz potestati, | rule Thou over every adverse power, in Spiritu tuo ad gloriam Patris. in Thy Spirit, for the glory of the Father.

The prayer is obviously made up of three parts of unequal length: the first part indicates the person addressed; the second, the object of the prayer; the third, the fizad aim of the prayer.

  1. 1° The Person addressed is /esus, living in Mary, that is to say, the Incarnate Word, the God-Man, Who in the oneness of His Person possesses at once the divine and the human natures and Who is the merctortous, the exemplary and the vital cause of our sanctification (n. 132). We address ourselves to Him as Living in Mary. For nine months He dwelt physzcal/y in her virginal womb: our prayer does not allude to this indwelling in Mary which ended with Our Savior’s birth. He also lived in Mary sacramentally through Holy Communion, but this sacramental presence came to an end with Mary’s last Communion on earth. He lived, and still lives in her mystically, as the Head of a mystical body of which all Christians are indeed members, but Mary the most exalted of all, since she occupies the place of honor in that body (n. 155-162). He lives in Mary through His Divine Spirit, that is to say, through the Holy Ghost, Whom He imparts to His Holy Mother in order that this Spirit may produce in her dispositions similar to those which He wrought in His own holy soul. By virtue of the merits and prayers of the Savior, the Holy Ghost comes then to sanctify and glorify Mary, to make her more and more like Jesus until she becomes the most perfect living image of Christ.

Father Olier ' explains this well : ‘‘ What Our Lord is to the Church, that He is preéminently to His Holy Mother. Thus He constitutes her interior and divine plenitude of grace, and as He sacrificed Himself more particularly for her than for the whole Church, He imparts to her God’s life more abundantly than to the entire Church. This He does from a sense of gratitude, in return for the life which He received from her; for just as He promised to render to all His members a hundredfold for what they give Him here on earth, so He wills to render to His Mother a hundredfold for that human life which He received from her love and devotion. This hundredfold is the Divine Life of infinite value... We must then regard Jesus as Our All, living in the Most Blessed Virgin in the plenitude of Divine Life, of that Life which He received from the Father, and of that other life which He acquired and merited for men through the mediation of His Mother. It is in her that we must see all the treasures of His riches, the glory of His beauty and the bliss of the Divine Life... There He dwells in all His fulness; there He works with all the power of His Divine Spirit; He is but one heart, one soul, one life with her.” ?

  1. Jesus lives fu//y in Mary in order to sanctify not only her, but through her, the other members of His mysti- t Lettre CCCLXXXIII, t. II, p. 468, ed. 1885. 2 OLIER, Journée chrét., p. 395-396.

cal body. She is, as St. Bernard says, the aqueduct through which all the graces merited by her Son reach us : “ He willed_us to have all things through ‘Mary.” . -It-is therefore most pleasing to Jesus and most “profitable to our soul that we address ourselves to Jesus living 1 in Mary... _.

  1. 2° The object of this prayer is the interior life with all its constituent elements, which is nothing less than a participation in that life which Jesus communicates to His Mother and which we beg Him to deign to communicate to us as. well.

A) Since Jesus living in Mary is the source of this life, we humbly beg Him to come and live in us, and we promise Him to submit in all docility to His influence: COME AND LIVE IN LEY SERVANTS:

a) He comes to.us as Hecomes to Maty, through His Divine Spirit through habitual grace. Every time sanctifying grace is- increased, the Spirit of Jesus likewise grows in our soul, and consequently. each time we perform a supernatural, meritorious act, this Divine Spirit comes to us and makes our soul still more like the soul of Jesus and that of Mary. What a powerful motive for multiplying and intensifying our meritorious actions by animating them with divine love!

b) He acts in us through actual grace which He merited for us and which He imparts to us through His Divine Spirit: “ He worketh in us both to will and to accomplish.” * He becomes the mainspring of our interior movements, of our interior dispositions, so much so that’ our acts proceed only from Jesus communicating to us His Own Life, His sentiments, His affections, His desires. Then we can say with St. Paul: “TI live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me. ” ?

€) That this be so, we must let ourselves be led by Him Any servants and we must co- operate with His grace. Like the humble Virgin we must say in all sincerity: “ Behold the servant of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word.” Conscious of our misery and our helplessness, we must obey promptly the least: inspirations of His grace. This means for us honorable servitude, for to serve Him is to reign. It means a service of love that subjects us to Him Who is indeed Our Master, but also Our Father, Our Friend, and Who commands nothing that is not profitable to our own soul. Let us then open our hearts to Christ Jesus and to His Divine Spirit that He may reign therein as He reigned in the heart of His Blessed Mother!

  1. B) Because Jesus is the source of all holiness, we ask Him to live and to act in us, in order that He may communicate to us His Own sanctity : In the spirit of thy holiness.

There is in Him a twofold holiness : széstantial holiness which flows from the hypostatic union, and participated holiness which is nothing else but created grace (n. 105). It is this latter holiness that we beg Him to communicate to us. It consists first of all in a horror of sin and in the severance from whatever may lead thereto, in a thorough

detachment from creatures and from all self-seeking; but it consists also in a participation in the Divine Life; in an zz/¢mate union with the Three Divine Persons; in a love for God which controls every other affection ; in a word, in positive sanctity.

  1. Since we are unable to acquire such an exalted sanctity through our own efforts, we beg Him to come to us in the fulness of his power. Nay, since we fear lest we turn traitors to God, we pray with the Church that He “deign to subject to His sway our rebellious faculties.”

It is an efficacious grace therefore that we beg for, which, while it respects our liberty, knows how to touch the secret springs of the will and to procure its free consent; a grace which is not rendered powerless by our instinctive repugnance or our irrational opposition, but which sweetly and firmly works in us to will and to accomplish.

  1. C) Since holiness cannot be attained without the emtation of Our Divine Model, we beg Him to make us walk in the perfection of his ways, that is to say, to make us able to imitate His conduct, His exterior and interior actions, in all their perfection. In other words, we ask to become living images of Jesus, other Christs, that like St. Paul we may be able to say to those who would learn of us : “ Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ.” So perfect is this ideal that, of ourselves, we can not realize it. But Jesus becomes our way: “Iam the way,” a shining and living way, a moving way, so to speak, which draws us in its wake : “ And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself.” We shall willingly allow ourselves to be drawn by Thee, O Divine Model, and we shall strive to reproduce Thy virtues!

  2. D) Hence we add: in the truth of thy virtues. The virtues we ask for are real virtues. There are persons who, under a veneer of exterior righteousness, conceal a pagan pride and sensuality. External manners do not constitute holiness. What Jesus comes to bring us therefore are interior virtues, crucifying virtues: humility, poverty, mortification, perfect chastity of mind, heart and body; and unifying virtues: the spirit of faith, of confidence and of love. This is what makes the Christian and this is what transforms him into another Christ.

1598... E) Jesus practised all these virtues especially in His. mysteries, and on this account we pray Him to make us partake in the grace of His mysteries: in the fellowship of thy mysteries. No doubt, all the principal actions of Our Lord are called mysteries, but more especially those t John., XII, 32.

six great mysteries described by Father Olier in his Christian Catechism: the Incarnation, which invites us to put off all self-love in order to consecrate ourselves entirely to the Father in union with Jesus: “ Behold I come to do thy will, O God;” the Crucifixion, Death and Burial, which express so many degrees of that total immolation of self by which we crucify our disordered nature and seek to put off and bury our evil inclinations; the Resurrection and the Ascension, which are the symbols of a perfect detachment from creatures and of the altogether heavenly life which we desire to lead in order to reach heaven.

  1. F) We can not assuredly attain such perfection unless Jesus comes to vanquish our powerful enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil: to rule over every adverse power. These three enemies will never cease their bitter onslaughts, nor will they be completely annihilated as long as we live upon this earth. But Jesus, Who triumphed over them, can thwart them and subjugate them by giving us efficacious graces wherewith to resist their attacks. It is this for which we humbly pray.

3° Lastly, in order to obtain this grace more readily, we proclaim that with Him we have but ove end in view, to procure the glory of the Father under the action of the Holy Ghost : by thy spirit unto the glory of the Father. Since He is come to earth to seek His Father's glory, “I glorify the Father,” we beg Him to fulfil His work in us and to impart to us His own interior holiness, so that with Him and through Him we may be enabled to give glory to that same Father, and that we may have Him glorified by those about us. Then shall we be truly members of His mystical body, true worshippers of God, and He will live and reign in our hearts for the greater glory of the Most Adorable Trinity.

This prayer therefore constitutes a synthesis of the spiritual life and a summary of our Compendium.

In bringing our work to a close, we cannot but bless, and invite our readers to bless with us, that God of love, that loving Father, Who in making us partakers of His Own Life, has filled us with all manner of blessings in His Son.

BLESSED BE THE GOD AND FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, WHO HATH BLESSED US WITH SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS IN: HEAVENLY PLACES, IN CHRIST.

THE END.

BM Mi a Mi Mai Mati APPENDICES

I. The spirituality of the New Testament

In order to help our readers to understand better and to systematize the spiritual treasures found in the New Testament, we shall give a short synthesis of the spirituality of the Synopdics, of St. Paul and of St. John.

1° THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE SYNOPTICS

The central idea of Christ’s teaching as recorded by the Synoptics is that of the Azugdom of God. In order that we may see the spirituality implied in this idea, we shall explain the mature and the constitution of this kingdom together with the conditions of admission.

A) Its nature. The kingdom of God preached by Our Lord is not an earthly one, but, contrary to the prejudices of the Jews, a spiritual kingdom opposed to that of Satan and his rebel angels. a) It is presented under a threefold form: 1) At times it is the Kingdom of Heaven or the place reserved for the Elect : ““ Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”? 2) At other times it is the zz¢erzor kingdom as already established upon earth, that is to say, grace, friendship, sonship bestowed by God and received by men of good-will. 3) Lastly, it is the external kingdom which God establishes in order to perpetuate His work in the world.3 b) These three forms constitute but one and the same kingdom; for the visible Church was founded only to enable the interior kingdom to expand peacefully, and the latter is, so to speak, the sum-total of the conditions that open to us the kingdom of heaven.

B) Its constitution. This interior kingdom has a King, Who is none other than God Himself.4 Now, this God is the Father of His subjects, not merely collectively as in the Old Dispensation, but of each individual in particular. His goodness is so great that it embraces even evil-doers3 as long as they live upon earth; still, His justice is visited upon hardened sinners, for they shall be cast into hell. °

This kingdom was established upon earth by Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of man, Who is also our King by right of birth, since He is the Son, the natural heir, the one Who alone knows the Father even as the Father knows Himself; Who is our King by vzght of conquest, since He came to save that which was lost, and since He shed His blood for the remission of our sins.? He is a King utterly devoted to His subjects, a King Who loves the lowly, the poor, the forsaken ; a King Who goes after the lost sheep to bring it back to the fold; a King Who upon the Cross pardons His very executioners. ®

= POURRAT, Christian Spirituality, P. 1. —? Matth., XXV, 34.

7 Matth., XI, 27; XIV, 33; XVI, 16; XX, 28; XXV, 31, 34, 40; Luke, X, 22; XIX, 10; XXII, 20; XXIII, 2, 3.

8 Matth., 1X, 13, 36; X, 6; XVIII, 12-24; XIX, 14; Mare, Il, 16; Luke, XI, 12, etc.

oF APPENDICES.

But He is also the Judge of the living and the dead. On the Last Day He will separate the good from the bad; the just He will receive into His abiding kingdom, but the wicked He will condemn to the eternal fires of hell.’ Hence, there is nothing in this world of greater value than this kingdom. This is indeed the pearl of great price, the hidden treasure to be obtained at any cost.

C) Conditions of admission. Admittance to the kingdom is gained through penance, * baptism, belief in the Gospel, and observance of the commandments.4

But the ideal proposed to the members of the kingdom is the imitation, as far as this is possible, of God’s Own perfection. ‘Since we have been made His children, we must strive to live up to our dignity and to model our conduct on the divine perfections : ‘‘ Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.”5

In order to reach so high an ideal, two essential conditions must be fulfilled. We must vemounce self and creatures and thus detach ourselves from whatever constitutes an obstacle to union with God. Moreover, we must dove God and give ourselves entirely to Him by imitating Our Lord: “if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” 5 a) Renuneiation has its degrees. In every case it must exclude that disordered love of self and of creatures which constitutes sin, and it must above all rule out grievous sin, which is an absolute obstacle to the attainment of our destiny. So true is this, that should our right eye be a source of scandal to us, we must not hesitate to pluck it out : “And if thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.” ° For those who would become feryect, renouncement must be still more absolute. It must embrace the practice of the evangelical counsels, vea/ poverty, the giving up of family ties, and perfect chastity or continence. ? Those who are unwilling or unable to carry their renouncement so far as this will content themselves with an zéerior renunciation of family ties and of worldly goods; they will live in the spirit of poverty and of interior detachment from whatever militates against the reign of God in their soul. They can even thus attain to a high degree of holiness. ®

These manifold degrees of renunciation are grounded in the distinction between precepts and counsels : to enter into life it suffices for us to keep the commandments; but to be perfect one must sell one’s goods and bestow them on the poor: “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments... if thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast and give to the poor.” ?

Perfect renunciation goes as far as the Jove of the Cross: “Let him take up his cross.” One comes to love the cross, not indeed in and for itself, but because of the Crucified Christ Whom one would follow unto the end: “And follow me.” Nay more, one finally finds joy in the Cross : “ Blessed are the poor in spirit... Blessed are the meek... Blessed are those who suffer persecution... Blessed are ye when they shall revile you.” *° t Matth., XXV, 31-46.

b) However, renunciation is only a means of attaining to the Jove of God anda the love of the neighbor for God’s sake. In truth, love sums up the whole law : “ In these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.”* It is love that makes us yield ourselves to God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind: “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind... And the second is like to this : thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”? This is the greatest of all the commandments, the one which embodies all perfection.

  1. This love must be a fi/za/ love. It moves us to glorify first of all our Heavenly Father : “Our Father... hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come.” 3 And in order that we give Him glory ina more perfect way, it prompts us to keep His commandments: “ Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven... Not everyone that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven : but he that doth the will of my Father.” 4

  2. It must be a confiding love for the Heavenly Father cares for His children far more than He does for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field : “Are not you of much more value than they? For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things.” This confidence is shown by prayer, which, according to the promises of the Divine Mediator, obtains all that is properly asked for: ‘“ Ask,-and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh, receiveth: and he that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.” °

  3. This love begets love of the neighbor. Since we are all children of the same Heavenly Father, we are all brethren: “For one is your master: and all you are brethren.”? In order to impart to this virtue the greatest possible motivating power, Our Lord declares that on the day of judgment He shall consider as done unto Himself every service rendered to the least of His brethren.* He identifies Himself with His members, and so in Joving the neighbor, it is Christ Himself Whom we love. This love includes even our evemzes, with whom we must patiently bear, for whom we must pray, and to whom we must do good.’ It must therefore be accompanied by meekness and humility, even as was the love of Our Divine Model: “ Learn of me because I am meek and humble of heart.” *°

Renunciation and love, then, are the two essential conditions of admittance into the Kingdom of God and of attaining to perfection. We have seen elsewhere (n. 309 and foll.) how they include all the virtues.

2° THE SPIRITUALITY OF ST. PAUL™

By a different procedure St. Paul arrives at the same conclusions as the Synoptics. The central idea with him is not indeed the Kingdom, but the saving plan of God Who desires to save and to sanctify all men, Jews and Gentiles, through His Son, Jesus Christ, made the Head of the human race and into Whom we must all be incorporated:

a Prat, Theology of St. Paul; POURRAT, Christian Spirituality ; DUPERRAY, Christ in the Christian Life. :

4* APPENDICES. “ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who on blessed us with spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ.. Whom we have redemption through his blood... and he hath subieerge all things under his feet and hath made him head over all the church. ”#

Thus, from all eternity God wills to sanctify us and to adopt us as His children. But an obstacle stands in the way — s27, original sin, committed by Adam, the first head of the human race and transmitted to his descendants together with concupiscence, that law of the flesh that holds us captive under the law of sin. God however takes pity on man. He sends him a Redeemer, a Savior, Who will be the new Head of the race and Who will reclaim us through His obedience unto death, even the death of the Cross. Jesus then will be the center of our lives ; “ For to me, to live is Christ.”? His merits and His satisfactions are applied to us especially through Baptism and the Lfoly Eucharist. Baptism regenerates us, incorporates us into Christ and makes us new men, who under the guidance of the Holy Ghost must fight relentlessly against the flesh, the Old Adam.3 The Holy Eucharist makes us share more abundantly in the death and in the life of Our Lord, in His inner sentiments and in His virtues. 4

But in order to receive these Sacraments with profit, in order to foster the Divine Life which they impart, we must live a life of faith : “The just man liveth by faith.” 5 We must place all our confidence in God and in Our Lord, and we must above all practise that most excellent of all virtues, charity, which will indeed be one of our joys in heaven, ® but which now in this valley of tears exacts the crucifixion of nature. 7

All these ascetical practices are summed up in a formula recurring again and again in the writings of the Apostle : we must incorporate ourselves more and more into Christ Jesus and therefore put off the Old Man with all his tendencies to evil, and put on the New Man with all His virtues : “ Stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of him that created him.” °

A) First of all, we must put off the Old Adam. a) This Old Adam, which is also called the /fesf, is our nature, not indged as it is in itself, but as vitiated by the threefold concupiscence. Consequently, the works of the flesh are the sins man commits, not only those of sensuality and lust, but those also of pride in its various forms. 9 b) We are under a sé¢rict obligation of mortifying or crucifying the flesh, an obligation based on two chief reasons : 1) The danger of consenting to sin and of being damned; for the flesh, or concupiscence which has not been destroyed by Baptism, urges us on with violence to sin, and it will enslave us under the law of sin if we do not combat it relentlessly with the help of God’s grace : ‘‘ Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord.” The second reason for mortification of the flesh is to be found in our baptismal promises.

We are dead to sin and have been buried with Jesus Christ through Baptism, and in order to live with Him of a new life, we pro-

mised to avoid sin and thereby to carry on a vigorous campaing against the /esk and the devil. Life then, must be a combat, a struggle, the victor’s reward being the crown of glory reserved unto us by the God of all justice and love. ?

€) What sustains us in this struggle and what renders the victory relatively easy despite our weakness and our helplessness, is the grace of God merited by Jesus Christ. If we co-operate with it, we are sure of victory : “ And God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able: but will make also with temptation issue.3 I can do all things in him who strengtheneth me. ”

d) This mortification has two degrees: 1) There is the mortification necessary for the avoidance of mortal sin and reprobation : “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.”+ 2) But there is also the mortification, which is profitable unto perfection, such as virginity, perfect humility, absolute disinterestedness.5 From another point of view St. Paul distinguishes three degrees of mortification : crucifixion of the still recalcitrant flesh, then a species of sfzritual death, and lastly, burial. %

B) By putting off the Old Adam we zzcorforate ourselves into Jesus Christ, we put on the Vew MZan. This New Man is the Christian regenerated through Baptism, united to the Holy Ghost and incorporated into Christ, transforming himself under the influence of grace into Christ Jesus. In order to understand this doctrine thoroughly, it is necessary to explain the réle of the Holy Ghost, of Christ, and of the soul itself in this new supernatural life.

a) The Holy Ghost, that is to say, the Most Blessed Trinity, dwells in the soul of the just and transforms it into a holy temple: “ For the temple of God is holy, which you are.”7 b) He operates in the soul, moves it by actual grace, gives it a filial trust in God the Father, and enables it to pray with singular efficacy: ““God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish... Whereby we cry : Abba (Father). The Spirit also helpeth our infirmity... Himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings. ” ® e) Christ is the Head of a mystical body whose members we are, and He imparts to us motion, direction and life. By Baptism we are incorporated into Him, and in Holy Communion we are associated with Him in His passion, which we commemorate, in His sacrifice, and in His risen life in which He makes us share while we await our entrance into heaven where we already dwell to some extent through hope : “For we are saved by hope.”? This communion is prolonged by a sort of spiritual communion whereby all through the day we make our own the thoughts and the affections of Our Lord : “ For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus... And I live, now not I, but t Rom., VI, 1-23.

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6 “ They that are Christ's have crucified their flesh... For you are dead: and your life is hid with Christ in God... For we are buried together with him in baptism into death...” (Galat., V, 24; Colos., III, 3; Rom., VI, 4). — The spiritual meaning of these texts is very well explained by Father Olier in his Christian Catechism, I, C. XXI-XXIII. 71 Cor, Wl, 17. —*® Prelep. 11, 13.; Rome., VIII, 15, 26. — 9 Rom, VIII, 24.

G* APPENDICES,

Christ liveth in me.” ' Thus, nothing can separate us from Him Who is our All: “ Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ?” ? _ d) From this arises the duty of-remaining closely united to Jesus, our Head, our Source of life, the perfect Model, whom we must constantly imitate until we be transformed into Him. 1) We must first of all imitate His za#er dispositions, Ais humility and His “obedience : “For let this mind be in*you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God... emptied himself... becoming obedient unto death.” 3) We must imitate His charity which prompted Him to sacrifice Himself for us: “Christ also hath loved us and hath delivered himself for us.”4 We. must imitate His exterior conduct by practising modesty, bodily mortification, mortification of our vices and passions, in order thus to submit ourselves more completely to Jesus and His Holy Spirit: “Let your modesty be known to all men, ”5

This imitation of Christ ‘admits of many degress, At first we are like children, thinking, speaking and acting as such. Then we begin to grow to perfect manhood, “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ,” ° until we are completely transformed into Christ: “‘ For to me, to live is Christ... But Christ liveth inme.”? It is then that we can say to the faithful : “ Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ.” °

There is therefore no essential difference between the spirituality of St. Paul and that of the Synoptics. To put off the Old Adam is to practise renunciation, and to put on the New Man, the New Adam, is to unite oneself to Jesus Christ and through Him to God; it is to love God and the neighbor.

3° THE SPIRITUALITY OF ST. JOHN

In the writings of St. John, the dominant idea is not that of the Kingdom, nor that of God’s plan of sanctification for man. It is the Spiritual life. We acquaints us with the zztertor life of God, of the Incarnate Word, of the Christian soul.

A) God is /é/e, that is to say, light and love. He is a Father, and from all eternity He begets a Son, Who is none other than His Word. ° Together with His Son, He is the source whence proceeds the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth and of love, Who completes the mission of the Incarnate Word by abiding with Christians until the end of time in order to enlighten and to strengthen them. *

B) God wills to communicate this life to men. Hence, He sends into the world His Own Son, Who by taking flesh becomes man, and by imparting to us His life makes us the adopted children of God. ™ Equal to the Father by nature, He openly proclaims His inferiority to Him as man and His utter dependence upon Him. He judges not, He speaks not, He acts not of Himself, but He conforms His judgments, His words and His actions to the good pleasure of the Father and thus manifests,.His love for Him.” He is obedient unto death in order to glonly His Father and to procure the salvation of men. *8

9 John, 1, 1-5. "10. John, XIV, 26; XM; “26; xViL 7-15. — John, I, 9-14. 1? John, V, 19, 30. — %3 John, X, 18.6

With regard to us, He is: 1) the ght that enlightens us and leads us unto life;.* 2) the Good Shepherd Who feeds His sheep, protects them from the hungry wolf and-lays down His life for them; ? 3) the indispensable Mediator without Whom no one can go to the Father ;3 4) the Vine whose branches we are; receiving from Him as we do our supernatural life.+

_ C) From Him, then, must flow our interior life, which consists in an intimate, affectionate union with Him, and through Him with God;5 for He is the Way that leads to the Father. °

-&) This union begins with Baptism, which gives us new birth, spiritual life,? which incorporates us into Christ, and enables us to bring forth fruit unto salvation. ® :

b) This union is strengthened by the reception of Holy Communion, which nourishes our soul with the Body and Blood of Christ, with His Divinity, with His whole Person, so that we live His very life, and live for Him even as He lives for His Father. 9

@) This union is made abiding by a kind of sAiéritual communion, which causes Jesus to dwell in us and us in Him.” So close is this union, that Our Lord compares it with that existing between Himself and the Father: “I in them, and thou in me.” *

D) This union enables us to share in the virtues of the Divine Master, above all in His Jove for God and for men carried to the point of self zmmolation.

-a) God loves us as His children. We love Him as Our Father. And because we love Him, we keep His commandments. * Thus, the Three Divine Persons come to dwell in our soul: “ We will come to him and make our abode with him.” We must therefore love God because He is love — God zs charity — and because He has loved us first, sacrificing even His Own Son for us. *4 b) Fraternal love flows from the love of God. We must love our brethren not only as we love ourselves, but as Jesus has loved them. We must therefore be ready to sacrifice ourselves for them: “A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another as I have loved you *s... Because he hath laid down his life for us : and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” ° In truth, we are all but one spiritual family whose father is God and whose savior is Jesus Christ. So close must our union be that it is likened to that existing between the Three Divine Persons: “ That they may be one, as we also are one.” 7 This virtue of the love of the neighbor is so necessary that to pretend to love God without loving the neighbor is a lie, * whereas fraternal charity is the surest guarantee of eternal life. ‘9

St. John then, is the Apostle of Jove, the love he practised so well himself. But this love has its foundation in faz¢/, particularly in belief in Christ, belief in His Divinity as well as in His Humanity. It presupposes the struggle against the threefold concupiscence, and hence, mortification. In this St. John agrees with the Synoptics and St. Paul, though he emphasizes dvine charity more than they do.

8 John, XV, 1-10: —9 John, VI, 55-59. — *° John, VI, 57. — ™ John, XVII, 23. rz John,. XIV, 21. — 3 John, XIV, 23. — 141 John., IV, r9.

According to the Synoptics, then, perfection consists in renunciation; according to St. Paul, in zxcorforation into Christ, which implies the putting off of the Old Adam and the putting on of the New; according to St. John, in Jove carried to the point of sacrifice. We have here fundamentally one and the same doctrine, but expressed in various terms and under different aspects, so that it can be easily adapted to the character and the training of each individual soul.

Il. The study of characters. *

When speaking of self-knowledge, (n. 452) we said that a study of temperaments and characters would contribute greatly to our knowledge of self.

Frequently the two terms, temperament and character, are taken as synonymous. ‘The distinction between them lies in this, that the former is the sum-total of those fundamental tendencies which flow from the physiological constitution of individuals, and the latter the sum-total of the psychological dispositions, based on temperament as modified by education and will-power, and made lasting by habit.

It will theretore prove more profitable to study characters than temperaments, for the important thing from the spiritual point of view is not so much physical temperament as the character of the soul. This fact was well understood in olden times, for in the description of various temperaments, the psychological rather than the physiological differences were stessed.

We shall limit ourselves here to the question of characters, and shall make use mainly of the admirable work of Father Malapert, Les Eléments du Caractere, simplifying, and at times correcting, his classifications. We shall give a brief explanation of the basis of our classification, and of the various characters that may be distinguished in relation to the three great activities of man.

1° BASIS OF OUR CLASSIFICATION OF CHARACTERS

A) When we wish to specify the principal tendencies which differentiate characters, the most reliable means is to study characters in relation to man’s different activities. We shall not touch on the question of the purely vegefative activities of man, since they are of little importance from our point of view, and shall study the main characters in relation to feeling, to the sfir¢tual activities of mind and will, and to external activities. A brief synoptic table will make clear our purpose.

  • MALAPERT, Les éléments du caractére et leurs lois de combinatson, 1897; DEBREYNE-FERRAND, La Théol. Morale et les sciences médic., Paris, 1884; p. 9-46; FOUILLEE, Tempérament et caractéres, 1895; PAULHAN, Les Caractéres, 1902.

APPENDICES. se Pate 5 eer Ts SRN NT OES et

Cold-blooded { Fhlegmatic

: Determined

Feeling Wa monona)

motiona

Hot-blooded | Passionate

Characters of the f Speculative or disinterested in ae i i 1 ss eet Spiritual Mind \ Practical or interested me activiies | of the { Masters of self

Will | Masters of others

Timid or reserved

{ Restless \ Men of action

External activities | Active

B) Before we explain this classification, a few preliminary remarks are necessary :

a) The characters we are about to describe do not exist as so many pure types; rather, they possess characteristics of several types, and this in varying degrees. Thus, cold-blooded persons have not only the traits common to this type, but they experience also a certain amount of emotional activity. They are classified as cold-blooded, because this is their characteristic or fredominant trait. The same is to be said of every other type; it is the predominance of one certain element which marks off the type from all others. Moreover, this predominant element admits of many degrees.

b) Again, each individual must be studied from the threefold point of view outlined above in the schematic chart. For instance, a coldblooded person may be intellectual or volitional, just as an intellectual may be interested or disinterested in his pursuit of knowledge. One must therefore learn to take these different points of view into consideration before attempting to place a man in this or that category.

@) The characters we describe are not rigidly fixed types, but rather indications which may enable the spiritual director to observe and to understand better the peculiarities of each of his penitents. Final judgment must not be passed on a man’s character after but a few conversations with him. Such snap judgments are generally faulty and must be revised. The process by which we really come to know a person’s character must necessarily be slow, for it must be one of careful and studied observation of unnumbered actions and reactions.

d) Lastly, we must not forget to beg humbly, frequently and perseveringly for the lights of the Holy Ghost, for we need them in order to acquire a true knowledge of self and of others.

2° DIFFERENT TYPES OF CHARACTER IN RELATION TO FEELING.

Feeling is of course common to all human beings, but some persons have so little of it that they are called cold-blooded, while others, on the

Footnotes

  1. Romans, VU, 17. —? Acts, I, 3. — 3 Coloss., II], 1-3. ↩

  2. This prayer, composed by FATHER DE CONDREN and completed by FATHER OLIER, is recited daily at the end of meditation in all Sulpician Seminaries. The VEN. FATHER LIBERMANN has written a pious conimentary on it. cf. Le¢éves, t. I, p. 506-522, ↩

  3. Matth., V, 16, 45. — © Matth., XXV, 41. ↩

  4. TANQUEREY, Synop. Theol. Fundam., n. 608-611, in which many texts are quoted in support of this assertion. ↩

  5. Matth., V1, 9-10; XXVI, 29. ↩

  6. Philip,, Il, 5; Gadat,, 11, 20. — ? Rom., VIII, 35..— 3 Phzl., I, 5-11. ↩

Chapter 24 of 24