58. The Dignity and Worth of Holy Communion — Third Sermon for the Feast of Corpus Christi

Synopsis — Definitions of the Trinity — Inner perception of the mystery— Witness of a pagan writer — How a detached soul is taught the divine generation interiorly — And also tlie divine procession — The imparting of the gifts of the Holy Ghost in this experience — Practical suggestions.

SECOND SERMON FOR TRINITY SUNDAY.

Amen, amen I say to thee, that we speak what we know, and we testify what we have seen, and you receive not our testimony. If I have spoken to you earthly things, and you believe not ; how will you believe if I shall speak to you heavenly things. — John iii : 11, 12.

We read these words in the Gospel of this feast of the Holy Trinity, the most glorious feast of the year, the end and perfection of all others; just as the beginning and course and term of all creatures, especially reasonable creatures, is in God one and triune. We are at a loss for words to tell the glory of the Holy Trinity, and yet words must be used to endeavor to describe this overpowering mystery of the Godhead. To rightly discourse on this theme, is as impossible as to reach from earth to heaven; for as a needle point is compared to the bulk of the earth and sky, so, only a thousand times less, is all human speech and thought compared to the Trinity.

It is beyond all comprehension how God, who is so simply one in His essence, is yet with this essential unity three fold in personality. And, again, the distinction of the persons: how the Father begets His Son, and how the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, and yet remains in Himself, self-conscious ; how the Father utters His eternal Word, and from the knowledge going forth therefrom there proceeds an inexpressible love which is the Holy Ghost; how this outflowing is also in turn an inflowing into inexpressible perfection of the deity's essential unity — all this is absolutely beyond our power to comprehend. So is the Father what the Son is and what the

Holy Ghost is in power, wisdom and love; and the Son and the Holy Ghost with the Father are all one; and yet is there great distinction between the persons, though one in nature mutually and formlessly inflowing and outflowing.

Many wondrous words may be uttered about this divine unity in distinction, but all must yet remain unspoken and uncomprehended, for it is better to feel this mystery than to speak of it. Nor is it pleasant to discourse about the Holy Trinity or even to listen to others discoursing, no matter from what source the words may be drawn, for every one is unequal to the task. The mystery is a strange thing to us and far removed from us, deeply hidden, incapable of understanding even by the minds of angels. Men in high places must treat of it in order to defend it; let them do so, whilst we on our part shall be content to believe. St. Thomas says: "Let no man go beyond the teaching of the doctors of the Church ; these have been disciples of the Holy Trinity in their lives, and therefore has the Holy Spirit guided them in their teachings." To feel the Holy Trinity is the sweetest experience; to err concerning it, is the worst calamity. Therefore refrain from disputation and hold your faith in all simplicity, giving your souls up to God, longing to have Him born within your souls, not after the manner of human reason, but in the essential depths of your being.

We shall experience the divine Trinity within us in proportion as we are conformed to it in all truth and reality. The resemblance to God is in our souls certainly by nature, though of course in no such noble manner as the resemblance of the divine persons one to another. Hence we need to cherish the determination to consider the divine image within us most attentively, the glory of which no man can rightly describe. For God is here formed in us in a formless way : truly is it formless, though spiritual writers often strive to picture this divine image to us by many forms and comparisons. All teachers say that He is in the highest faculties of our soul, memory, understanding and will, by means of which we are made rightly conscious of the Trinity. Yet all this is but in the lowest grade of perception of God's presence, for it is merely in the natural exercise of the soul's powers. St. Thomas gives us a plainer description : "The perfection of this divine image is rather in its operation in the soul and in the activity of its powers — the active memory, active understanding, active love." So far St. Thomas. Other doctors go much farther. They say it is in the most secret recesses of the soul that God is most essentially to be known, in which He acts, and exists, and enjoys His own divine life. And while that state continues a man can no more separate himself from God than from his own self. This union is rooted in the depths; and therein has the soul by grace a participation of all that

God has by nature. As the soul yields itself to God, so is grace born in the highest degree within its interior life — there and in no other part.

The pagan writer Proclus says: "As long as a man is concerned with images of things beneath him, so long is it impossible for him to fathom the depths of his being." It seems to some of us a sort of delusion that men should think there is such an inner depth to our soul. Wilt thou realize its actual existence? Then renounce all multiplicity and observe thy inner life intelligently. Wilt thou have a yet clearer knowledge? Then renounce even thy reason's observation of the interior life — for reason's activitv is beneath thee — and become one with the One. The same Proclus considers this state as a silent, insensible, slumbering and divine perception. Children, how great a shame it is that this heathen philosopher attained to such knowledge, while we Christians are so far from it and are so unequal to acquiring it. But our Lord teaches: "The Kingdom of God is within you"(Luke xvii:21) — namely, in those interior depths, transcending all the operations of the mental faculties — there it is guaranteed by God's grace. But we do not search it out, as this day's gospel tells us: "We speak what we know, and we testify what we have seen, and you receive not our testimony." Alas, how can a brutish, sensual man, ever absorbed in outward things, accept this testimony of an interior life wholly incredible to him. Thus spoke the Lord by His prophet: "As the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways and so are My thoughts above your thoughts" (Isaias lv:9). And thus our Savior reproached the Jews in this day's Gospel "If I have spoken to you earthly things, and you believe not; how will you believe if I shall speak to you heavenly things?"

Formerly, children, I spoke to you of the wounds of love, and you told me that you did not know what I was saying — and that was a discourse about earthly things: how then can you now understand me, since our subject is the divine work in our interior soul? Your life is wholly given up to outward occupation, all absorbed in the activity of the senses, and this testimony of mine is not about that. Our testimony is truly found in the depths of the soul, all formless. There it is that the heavenly Father generates His only begotten Son swifter a thousand times than the twinkling of an eye. It is done in the swiftness of eternity, in an eternal newness of life, and in the unspeakable glory of the divinity. Whosoever would experience this, let him turn himself inward, abstract himself from all outward works, suspend the activity of his faculties, and exclude from his imagination all that it has drawn from the outer world. Then let him melt awav into the depths. And now the fatherly power of God will come and call the soul through His only begotten Son. And as the Son is begotten of the Father and returns again into the Father, so shall the soul of this man be born of the Father in the Son, return into the Father with the Son, and be made one with Him. It is thus that the Lord would have us call Him our Father, and never cease to follow after Him as He mounts upwards; as if to say: This day have I begotten thee by My Son and in My Son. And at the same time the Holy Ghost is poured into the inmost depths of the heart with unspeakable love and joy, bestowing His heavenly gifts of justice and of knowledge.

A man then becomes most righteous and most gentle, and his knowledge of the path he must tread becomes entirely clear. But this supposes that all virtues have already been acquired, for the gifts now imparted lead the soul into a state of perfection beyond that of the ordinary virtues. Then follow the passive virtues which work together, namely, counsel and fortitude, to which are added the contemplative gifts. These are fear, which holds fast in all carefulness the graces granted by the Holy Ghost; and understanding and wisdom — the two highest — which give the taste of God's truth to the soul. Children, the enemy of mankind antagonizes a man of that kind more than all other men in the world.

Especially is he combatted by the more subtle demons, and hence he is in special need of the gift of knowledge.

Children, a moment of this divine influence is better for the soul than all the outward works a man can do. And the prayers of such a man united so deeply to God, when offered for his friends living and dead, are of more avail than the reading of a hundred thousand psalters by an ordinary Christian.

This is the true witnessing of the Holy Ghost within us that we are the Sons of God, as in this day's epistle it is spoken of. In this thy inner heaven there are three witnesses, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, testifying to thee most truly that thou art God's child, and brightly illuminating thy soul's depths. This in turn reveals thy own self to thee with all thy defects in deed or omission, and that whether thou wiliest or not. All thy life is hereby manifested to thee if thou wilt but advert to it. If thou shalt heed this interior witnessing and be guided by it in thy outer and inner conduct, then shalt thou be exempt from the adverse testimony of the last day. If in word and work and life thou dost reject this hidden witnessing, then at the end of all it shall be thy condemnation, and thine the blame for it, not God's, for not God only but also thy own self shall be thy judge.

Therefore, dear children, keep a watchful eye upon your interior life, recognize God's witness there, and it will be a joy to you. Hast thou overcome thy external weaknesses? Then hasten home to thy interior soul. There thou shalt find thy real self — there more than in thy outward life, or in thy outward methods and devotions. We read in the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert that once a devout married man retired into a forest to escape the obstacles to his perfection, and that his wife in like manner went into a solitude. And soon this good man had two hundred brethren living under him and she had many women with her. This shows the value of single-minded and hidden retirement, a state of soul in which the senses with their methods are no longer in control.

But you might say: I am a help to interior souls, and I would gladly aid all those who are touched interiorly by God and have seen the divine light. And I answer that whatsoever external minded person forces good souls to accept his rude external methods in place of the interior ones, subjects himself to a terrible condemnation, for he thus hinders God's work more than the pagans and Jews did of old. Therefore, ye hard and censorious spirits, take heed to yourselves, with your bitter words and your scornful manner, how you meddle with these good souls.

And now, dear child, wouldst thou attain to the union of thy soul with the Holy Spirit, then must thou diligently do three things. One is to keep God and His honor in view in all that thou dost and in all that happens to thee, and make no account of thyself. The second is to hold a vigilant watch over thyself in all thy doings, keeping at home to thyself in thy thoughts, and recognizing thy utter nothingness; meanwhile cautiously observing thy surroundings. Thirdly, meddle not with what does not concern thee; what is not committed to thee, let it take care of itself — what is good, let it alone, what seems evil, trouble not thyself about it. Turn into thy interior life and therein abide, listening to the fatherly voice that there is calling to thee. If one were thus absorbed in the interior life, a great wealth of gifts would be bestowed on him, and he would be so enlightened that even priests would receive instruction from him.

Dear child, if thou wouldst forget all that has so far been said to thee in this discourse, yet hold fast to two thoughts. One is that thou shouldst be a little, insignificant thing in thy own estimation, and not in words but in the deep sincerity of thy soul, not in outward show but in the very truth of thy conviction. The other is that thou shouldst love God; and this should be not in the way of sentiment and feeling so much as essentially, and in the deepest interior life of divine love. Nor should this be simply an advertence to God in thy outward conduct, as we commonly understand when we speak of good intention. No, it is more than that. It is having God for one's end in one's very soul; just as a man racing towards a goal fixes his eye upon it; or one shooting at a mark never for an instant loses sight of it. That we may all obtain this interior spirit, that we may all totally annihilate self and find instead the Holy Trinity within ourselves, we pray the same Holy Trinity graciously to grant us. Amen.