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Keep close to Our Lord in His mysteries, and draw the purest
love
from His salutary wounds
Christ is the centre, not only of our religion, but of our
spiritual life. By whatever path the soul may be led, active,
passive, ordinary or extraordinary, He is the one guide and
pattern, the chief subject of its meditation and contemplation,
the object of its affection, the goal of its course. He is its
physician, shepherd, and king; He is its food and delight. And
there is no other Name under heaven given to men, whereby they may
be saved, [16] or come to perfection.
Therefore, it is both absurd and impious to imagine that there can
be any prayer from which the humanity of Our Lord may or ought to
be excluded, as an object not sufficiently sublime. Such an idea
can be nothing but an illusion of the devil. Contemplate the
perfections of God, if you are drawn to do so: lose yourself, if
you will, in the Divine Essence; nothing is more licit or
praiseworthy, provided grace gives wings to the flight and
humility is the companion of that sublime contemplation. But never
fancy that it is a lower course to look and gaze upon the Saviour,
whenever He presents Himself to your mind. Such an error is the
effect of a false spirituality and of a refined pride, and whether
we are aware of it or not leads directly to disorders of the
flesh, by which intellectual pride is almost invariably punished.
Know, then, that as long as the soul has free use of its
faculties, whether in meditation or in simple contemplation, it is
primarily to Our Lord that we must turn. Pure contemplation, in
which the understanding alone is exercised upon an entirely
spiritual subject, is too high for weak minds like ours,
encumbered with a weight of flesh, and subjected in many ways to
material things. For some, it is less a prayer than an
intellectual speculation. With others, it is a matter of the
imagination, in which they lose sight both of God and of
themselves. Why, the very seraphim cover themselves with their
wings in the presence of the Divine Majesty, and we would dare to
raise our eyes and gaze thereon!
Besides, this contemplation is too bare and dry for the heart,
which finds no nourishment therein. The abstract consideration of
infinite perfection contains nothing to stimulate us to virtue, or
sustain and encourage us when low. The repose obtained by this
supposed prayer is a false one, and dangerously near to Quietism.
It leaves the soul dry, cold, full of self-esteem, disdain for
others, distaste and contempt for vocal prayer (which in our
weakness we need), and for the common practices of piety, charity
and humility, and indifferent even to the most august and holy of
the sacraments.
If the powers of the soul are bound in time of prayer, then it is
possible that we may not be able to think of Our Lord, or of any
other subject. God, desiring to humble the mind, to subdue our
natural activity and root out from our heart its immoderate love
of sensible consolations, sometimes leaves the soul for years in a
void, during which neither Our Lord nor any other distinct object
is presented to it.
However, in the first place, this is not the act of the soul
itself, but a sort of martyrdom in which it acquiesces because
such is the will of God. And when, during this fearful nudity, Our
Lord occasionally reveals Himself, with what joy does not the soul
welcome Him and converse with Him, during the brief moments of His
stay!
How happy when I find at last,
How joyous when I hold Him fast!
But equally, what anguish does not the soul experience, when it is
plunged once more into the night of its own nothingness.
In the second place, the soul thus treated endeavours to make up
during the day for the loss from which it suffers in time of
prayer. It thirsts to be joined in Holy Communion to Him Who, in
these seasons of dearth, is its only stay, its only food. It
spends itself in holy ejaculations; it invents divers practices
whereby to invoke and adore Him throughout the day in His various
mysteries. It seeks Him in spiritual reading, visits Him in His
holy House, turns to Him for grace, and has recourse to Him in
temptation. There is no soul, really and truly interior, whether
passive or not, but strives to live in Him and by Him and for Him,
and to have for Him a deep and continuous love.
How could it be otherwise? God the Father gave Him to us for this
very purpose. He became man in order to unite us with Himself. Sin
had separated God and man too widely; Christ assumed our nature in
order to repair that separation. No man cometh to the Father, but
by Me, He said. [17] No man abideth in the Father, but by Him. To
forget for one instant that sacred humanity would be to sever our
sole link with the adorable Trinity. How can one conceive that the
Father, Who draws us to His incarnate Son, could ever wish to see
us in a state of prayer in which it would be an imperfection to
think of that Son, or wherein it would be necessary to separate
His humanity from His divinity, and neglect the one in order to
occupy oneself with the other. The mere thought of such a thing
would be both absurd and blasphemous.
St. Paul was not only an interior man, but in the passive state:
bound, as he himself says, by the Holy Spirit, [18] Who in a
sovereign manner was the guide of all his thoughts, his feelings,
his words, and of all he wrote; indeed, of the whole course of his
apostolic work. Can one doubt that he was in the passive way to an
extraordinary degree, in view of what he tells us of the greatness
of his revelations, the humiliating temptations to which he was
subject in order to keep him humble, and of the gifts of the Holy
Spirit which he possessed in such plenitude? [19] Yet his epistles
are full of Christ; he speaks of nothing else, and with what
transports of gratitude and love! The mere mention of the divine
Name is enough to send him into such raptures that his words
cannot contain his thoughts, and pile up their images in the
liveliest disorder and embarrassment, in their endeavour to
express the sublimity of his supernatural enthusiasm. Again and
again, he urges the faithful to study Christ, to imitate Christ,
to 'put on' Christ, [20] to do all and suffer all in the name of
Christ. [21]
He invites the faithful to be followers of him as he is of Christ.
[22] He affirms that he fills up in his person what is wanting in
the sufferings of Christ; [23] that is, by his labours and
sufferings, he applies to himself the merits of the Passion of his
divine Master. He assures us that he carries the marks of Jesus in
his body; [24] and, finally, as though unable to say more, he
declares that he no longer lives, but that Christ lives in him.
[25]
And what am I to say of St. John, the beloved disciple who, as the
eagle dares to gaze with open eyes upon the sun, contemplated the
eternal generation of the Word in the bosom of the Father? Not
only literally, as at the Last Supper, but continuously throughout
his life, he leant upon the bosom of the Saviour. And who ever
reached a higher state of contemplation, or led a more interior
life? And what is his Gospel but the most sublime and touching
exposition in its simplicity of Jesus in His divine nature, of all
that He longs to be to us and wants us to be to Him; as well as of
the most intimate desires of His Sacred Heart, both for the glory
of the Father and the salvation of men? What are his epistles but
a tender exhortation for all men to love Christ, and to love one
another even as He has loved us? [26] What is the Apocalypse but a
prophetic description of Christ, here below in His Church, and
hereafter in the elect, washed and purified in His blood, [27] and
of His temporal and eternal triumph over His enemies? The apostle
was drawing near the end of his life and was consummated in the
most perfect union with his Master, when the Holy Spirit dictated
to him these divine words. Dare one, in view of this, say that
there is a kind of prayer so high that the sacred Humanity has no
place in it? With what horror would not St. John have received and
rejected so detestable a proposition.
Among the saints, men and women, ancient and modern, were
assuredly a great number of contemplatives, who followed either
the active or passive way. But where will one find any to whom
Christ and His mysteries were not at once the centre and
foundation of their prayer; and who in their writings have not
urged Our Lord as the unique Way that leads to perfection? There
are none; there never have been, and there never will be.
You, then, who aspire to the interior life, that is to a life of
genuine piety, enter, as the author of the Imitation counsels,
into the hidden life of Jesus. Study to know Him well, to make His
most intimate thoughts your thoughts. Let this knowledge be the
constant subject of your prayers, your reading and meditation;
refer everything to it as to its centre and term. You will never
exhaust it: you will not even fathom its depths. The saints have
ever discovered new treasures in the measure in which they
advanced, and all have admitted that the little they knew was
nothing to what they longed to know.
But it is not enough to study Christ: we must stir our hearts to
love him, for the love of God and the love of God made man are one
and the same thing. Let this love be the food of your soul; let it
be the object of all your spiritual exercises, in order that you
may grow in that love from day to day. If any man love not Our
Lord Jesus Christ, says St. Paul, let him be anathema. [28] To
love Him in a half-hearted manner is to be but a poor Christian.
The true Christian longs and strives to love Him more and more,
knowing that He can never be loved as He deserves to be loved, or
in the measure of His love for us.
But to love Him without imitating Him would be both vain and
sterile. Therefore, be imitators of Christ. He is our model,
perfect in every detail: a model for all states and for all
conditions. To all men, in every conceivable circumstance, Christ
in His mysteries, His virtues and in His doctrine, gives us the
examples and lessons He proposes for our imitation. His teaching
furnishes us with the most powerful motives, whilst His grace and
the sacraments provide us with the most efficacious means.
But above all, meditate on His Passion; cling to His Passion.
Reproduce in your own life those virtues of which His Passion
presents the most living picture.
Seek in your prayers to draw love from His salutary wounds, above
all from His pierced Heart. Remember that His sacred Passion is
the foundation of the whole of our faith: that He came on earth to
die upon the Cross; that it was by this sacrifice He made
satisfaction to the Father and expiation for our sins; opened
heaven to us and merited all the graces that will bring us there.
Remember that the sublime sacrifice of our altars, which is the
central act of our faith, is but the memorial, the renewal and
extension of the sacrifice of Calvary. Remember, too, that it was
He Himself Who committed to priests and laity the duty to offer
His Body and receive It as food, in memory of His crucified love
for men.
The crucifix is, and always will be, the dearest book of devout
souls. It speaks to the senses, to the mind and to the heart. No
other language is so eloquent or so touching. It is within the
understanding of the most simple and ignorant, yet is, at the same
time, above the comprehension of the greatest intellect and the
highest learning. It says all, teaches all, answers all. It
provokes the greatest efforts, consoles and sustains in times of
the most bitter sorrow, and changes the very bitterness into
sweetness.
The crucifix invites sinners to do penance, causing them to
realize all the malice and enormity of their crimes. It reproaches
them with as much gentleness as force; offers them the remedy,
assures them of pardon, and excites in their hearts feelings of
contrition as loving as they are sincere. It encourages the just,
making the way to virtue easy. It persuades them to renounce and
fight their passions, rendering them deaf to the cries of self-
love, which dreads poverty, suffering and the afflictions that
mortify the mind and flesh. Above all, it humiliates and destroys
human pride, the source of all vice and sin.
The crucifix draws us to a state of recollection and prayer, to
the interior life. It speaks to us of gentleness, patience, pardon
for injuries done to us, love for our enemies, charity towards our
brethren, even to the offering of our lives for them. It provokes
us to love God by revealing to us the extent of His love for us,
and how truly He merits to be loved in return. It impels us to
submission and to the perfect conformity of our will with the
divine will, whatever the cost, and to confidence and abandonment
in times of the greatest desolation. In a word, it engages us to
the practice of virtue and the avoidance of vice, in a way so
gentle and persuasive that it is impossible to refuse.
Devout soul, do you desire to attain to union with God, to receive
the precious gift of His continual presence which makes all labour
light? Then spend some time every day before the crucifix. Take no
other subject for your meditation. Gaze at it, hold it in your
hands, pray to Jesus hanging on the Cross, and ask Him to be your
master and director. Bid your mind be silent in His presence; let
your heart alone speak. Tenderly kiss His hands and feet, press
your lips to the wound in His sacred side. Your soul will be
moved, and torrents of grace will flow into it, and with joy you
will draw waters out of the wells of salvation. [29] You will run
in the way of the commandments, [30] for the Cross contains them
all.
Say not that the sight of the crucifix does you no good; that it
leaves your heart cold and insensible; that, however much you try
to express your love, you have no words wherewith to do so. If you
cannot speak, you can listen. Stay silently and humbly at your
Saviour's feet. If you persevere, He will not fail to instruct,
nourish and fortify you. And if you feel nothing of this at the
time, you will perceive it in your conduct, in the gradual change
in your disposition. We are impatient, and our senses cry out to
be satisfied, and, for this reason, we abandon the most profitable
practices just because they do not succeed immediately. Persevere,
I say. You have greatly abused the love of Jesus, let Him now try
yours a little. He will crown your perseverance with success, and
the gift of prayer will be your reward.
Our Lord's Passion has always been the particular devotion of
those saints who have been renowned for their hidden life. Such
were St. Bernard, St. Francis of Assisi, St. John of the Cross,
St. Catherine of Siena, St. Gertrude, St. Teresa and many others.
And any numbers have written on the subject. Yet if these great
mystics tell us that there are states in which one loses sight of
Our Lord, they will always add that these experiences are the
expression of stages in Christ's own life, and that it is He Who
impresses on the soul His own dispositions as He grew from
childhood to His death. Step by step Jesus leads us to pass
through these various stages, commencing with sensible joys, and
passing to exterior and inner sufferings both of body and soul;
humiliations, contradictions, calumnies and persecutions on the
part of others; temptations on the part of the devil, and trials
and interior aridity on the part of God.
During these trials, we do not see that it is Our Lord Who is
crucifying us, for that would be too great a consolation. For our
own good, it is essential that we should be unaware of His part in
all this, if we are to exercise our faith and trust and so reap
the full benefit of our sacrifice. When Jesus thus hides Himself
from us, we suffer more, it is true, but we merit more. And should
we have to pass the whole of our life in darkness and aridity, our
trust and obedience will grow all the stronger.
Thus we are never more truly and intimately united with Our Lord
than when there seems to be a thick veil between Him and our soul,
which we would like to lift but cannot. It is in this sense solely
that we must understand all approved spiritual writers who have
treated of this matter, and it would be a grave injustice to
accuse them of any kind of Quietism.
What I have written regarding Our Lord applies also to Our Lady
and the saints. All devotion to the saints has its source in the
love of Christ, sole author of their sanctity, and always brings
us back to Him, no matter at what degree of sanctity we have
arrived. To want to do away with such devotion, even temporarily,
under whatever pretext, would be gravely wrong.
And who would dream of suggesting that there is any way of prayer,
in which we can afford to do without Mary; wherein the thought of
her virtues and greatness would be a hindrance? Is it not through
her that we approach the Son, even as it is through the Son that
we go to the Father? Is she not most intimately connected with the
three Persons of the most adorable Trinity? Do not all aspects of
our faith lead us to be in touch with her? Is she not the channel
of graces, and is not hers the most powerful mediation that one
could employ with her Son?
If, then, in times of darkness, trouble and desolation, we are
deprived of the consciousness of Mary's most powerful aid in time
of prayer, it is for the same reason that we are deprived of the
sense of Our Lord's own closeness. But just as it is then that
Jesus, all unknown to us, draws ever closer to us, so it is then
that He communicates to us a deeper and more tender love for His
Mother. And in any case, the deprivation I speak of does not
prevent us in our morning and evening prayers, and during the
course of the day, addressing our devotions to Mary, and honouring
her in various ways.
And so it is with the other saints, with whom as with the angels
we ought to hold a holy commerce. We should always have the
intention of honouring them and praying to them, whatever our
state. Indeed, the higher our state, the greater our love for them
will grow, although we may not always be free to think of them or
invoke them. Yet, short of a special suspension of our faculties
on God's part, I doubt if a day passes, when we are not able to
pay them at least something of the devotion due to them.
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