I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd lays down
his life for his sheep. The hired man, since he is not the shepherd and the
sheep do not belong to him, abandons the sheep as soon as he sees
a wolf coming, and runs away, and then the wolf attacks and scatters the sheep;
he runs away because
he is only a hired man and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd;
I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the
Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. (Jn 10:11-151)
The Good Shepherd gave His life so that we may
have life and have it in abundance. In this issue we offer an overview of the
life Jesus came to give. We begin by presenting a brief sketch of the spiritual
life. This will be followed by content which speaks in a more detailed manner
about the various dimensions of the spiritual life -- our life in Christ.
A Sketch of the Spiritual Life
The Christian life is rooted in the great
event of the Incarnation. We must consequently always focus our gaze upon
Christ, realizing that the Father has spoken to us in the life, death,
resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. It only remains for us, then, to strive to
understand with greater insight the inexhaustible truth of the Word Incarnate
(Heb 1:1-2).
What was the condition of the human race at
the time of Christ’s coming? In some ways, people were much the same as we are
today. There were those just being born into this world of human drama. There
were those who, in death, were leaving it, some of whom had grasped but little
of life’s meaning. There were those who were healthy and vigorous. There were
those who were sick and lame. Some especially felt the burdens, the grief, the
suffering of the human condition. Others were ebullient and desired all the
pleasures life could provide. There was some good being accomplished.
Immorality, however, was rampant. What St. Paul tells us concerning the time
that immediately followed Christ’s existence certainly could also be applied
to the time of His entrance into the world. It is, in short, an ugly picture
that St. Paul depicts for us (Rom 1:22-32).
Into such a depraved condition Jesus entered,
with a full and generous Heart, to lead the human race from the depths of
sinfulness to the vibrant richness of a new life in Himself. Through His
enfleshment, this Christ became the focal point of all history. The authentic
hopes and dreams of the human family, now so overshadowed by the ugliness of
sin, came converging upon this Christ. He would gather them up in Himself, give
them a new luster and brilliance and dynamism, and would lead the human family
back to the Father in the Holy Spirit.
Christ was radically to release us from the
dominion of sin and elevate us to a new level of existence. This life Christ has
given us is not a type of superstructure which is erected atop human existence.
Although nature and grace are distinct, they do not lie side by side as separate
entities. Rather, grace permeates nature. The Christian is one graced person.
The Christian is one who has been raised up, caught up, into a deeper form of
life in Christ Jesus. Nothing that is authentically human in the life of the
Christian has been excluded from this new existence. Whatever is really human in
the life of the Christian is meant to be an expression of the Christ-life. The
simple but deep joys of family life, the wonderment at nature’s beauty, the
warm embrace of a mother for her child, the agony of crucial decision making,
the success or frustration that is experienced in one’s work, the joy of being
well received by others, and the heartache of being misunderstood—all these
experiences are intended to be caught up in Christ and made more deeply human
because of Him.
Jesus has come, then, not to destroy anything
that is authentically human, but to perfect it by leading it to a graced
fulfillment. The more God-like we become through Christ, the more human we
become.
We, through our incorporation into Christ
which occurs at Baptism, are meant to relive the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus. In doing so, we are not only accomplishing our own salvation, but we
are assisting in the salvation of others also. The Incarnation continues all the
time. Christ, or course, is the one Who fundamentally continues the Incarnation.
But He enlists our help. The world no longer sees Jesus, no longer is able to
reach out and touch Him. We are the ones who now, in some way, make Christ
visible and tangible. In union with the invisible, glorified Christ, and
depending on Him as our source of life, we continue the Incarnation in its
visible and temporal dimensions. This is our great privilege. This is our great
responsibility.
The Christian is initiated into the mystery of
Christ, into his or her role in prolonging the Incarnation, through Baptism (Rom
6:3-4).
It is not sufficient, however, that we be
incorporated into Christ through Baptism. All forms of life require nourishment.
So, too, our life in Christ must be continually nourished. How can we
continually keep in contact with Christ? There are various ways as we live our
life within the Church. We contact Christ in a most special way through the
liturgy, above all in the Eucharistic liturgy. Through our most special and most
personal meeting with Jesus in the Mass, we are more deeply incorporated into
Christ. Also, we should remember that all the sacraments make up part of the
Church’s liturgy.
The reading of Scripture provides another
special opportunity for meeting Jesus. This is true for both Old and New
Testaments. The Old Testament prefigures the New Testament and leads to it. It
is obvious, however, that we meet Christ especially in the pages of the New
Testament. How true it is to say that not to be familiar with Scripture is not
to know Jesus properly. We should resolve to read from Scripture daily.
We also meet Jesus in our interaction with
others. Everyone we meet, everyone we serve, is in the image of Jesus. We have
to take the means to grow in this awareness. If I truly believe that everyone
has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, how should I treat everyone?
These, then, are some of the ways we keep in
contact with Jesus. Common to the various ways of meeting Jesus is a certain
degree of prayerful reflection. Our contact with Jesus in the liturgy, in
Scripture, and in our interaction with others, and so forth, will not be all
that it should be unless we are persons of prayer. The light and strength of
prayer enables us to keep in contact with Jesus as we should.
We live out our Christ-life in an atmosphere
of love. Indeed, the life Jesus has given us is centered in love. It has its
origins in the mysterious love of God (Jn 3:16).
Our new life in Jesus has arisen out of God’s
fathomless love. Christ, in His descent into human flesh, has established a
milieu of love. The life He came to give can flourish only in the framework of
love. Indeed, we can summarize the meaning of the Christian life by stating that
it is our loving response to God’s love. The pierced Heart of Jesus, this
Heart which shed its last drop of blood in the greatest love for each one of us,
is the symbol of God’s tremendous love for us. Christ’s Heart also calls us
to respond by giving ourselves in love to God and neighbor. Yes, Jesus invites
us to respond to God’s love by giving ourselves in love to Him in an ever
closer union. The more closely we are united to Him, the greater is our capacity
to love God and neighbor. The more closely we are united with Jesus, the more
closely He unites us to the Father in the Holy Spirit, with Mary our Mother at
our side.
The
Indwelling of the Trinity and the Life of Grace
The spiritual life, the life of holiness,
begins at Baptism. Archbishop Luis Martinez says:
"When we are born we are endowed by God
with all we need for our human life, a complete organism, and a soul with the
full range of faculties. Of course they are not all developed from birth, but we
have them then as the source of everything we are going to need in life. And
thus it is also in the spiritual order. When someone is baptized, he receives in
all its fullness that supernatural world which the Christian carries within his
soul. He receives grace, which is a participation of the nature of God; the
theological virtues, which put him in immediate contact with the divine; the
moral virtues, which serve to regulate and order all his life; and the gifts of
the Holy Spirit, the divine, mysterious receivers for picking up the Spirit’s
inspirations and movements."2
Another author states: "The Three Divine
Persons inhabit the sanctuary of our soul, taking their delight in enriching it
with supernatural gifts and in communicating to us a Godlike life, similar to
theirs, called the life of grace.
"All life, however, implies a threefold
element: a vital principle that is, so to speak, the source of life
itself; faculties which give the power to elicit vital acts; and lastly,
the acts themselves which are but its development and which minister to its
growth. In the supernatural order, God living within us produces the same
elements. He first communicates to us habitual grace (the life of
sanctifying grace) which plays the part of a vital supernatural principle.
This
principle deifies, as it were, the very substance of the soul and makes it
capable, though in a remote way, of enjoying the Beatific Vision and of
performing the acts that lead to it.
"Out of this grace spring the infused
virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit which perfect our faculties
and endow us with the immediate power of performing Godlike, supernatural,
meritorious acts.
"In order to stir these faculties into
action, He give us actual graces which enlighten our mind, strengthen our will,
and aid us both to act supernaturally and to increase the measure of habitual
grace that has been granted to us.
"Although this life of grace is entirely
distinct from our natural life it is not merely superimposed on the latter. It
penetrates
it through and through, transforms it and makes it divine. It assimilates
whatever is good in our nature, our education and our habits. It perfects and
supernaturalizes all these various elements, directing them toward the last end,
that is toward the possession of God through the Beatific Vision and its
resultant life." 3
Our being in the state of sanctifying of grace
and the special indwelling of the Persons of the Trinity within us always exist
together. We cannot have the one without the other. Our life of grace, which is
a sharing in Trinitarian life, allows us to know and love Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit in a most intimate fashion. Through grace we are in the image of the
Trinity, and we enjoy special relationships with the Divine Persons.
Again, we listen to the words of Archbishop
Martinez as he speaks about our relationships with the Divine Persons:
"Love, we have said, is the foundation of
devotion to the Holy Spirit, as it is also the foundation of Christian
perfection. But love as a reflection of God, as His own image, is something that
encloses within its simplicity a boundless wealth and a variety of forms. Who
can fathom the depths of love?
"Human love in all its manifestations is
admirably in harmony with the love of charity; it is confident in filial love,
trusting in friendship, sweet and fruitful in the love of husband and wife,
disinterested and tender in the love of a mother. Our love of God must include
all these forms of human love; every fiber of our heart must vibrate when the
harmonious and full canticle of love bursts forth from it. But since God is one
in essence and triune in Persons, our love for Him takes on a particular aspect
accordingly as it is directed to each one of the divine Persons.
"Our love for the Father is tender and
confident like that of children; eager to glorify Him as His only-begotten Son
taught us to do by word and example. Love for the Father is the intense desire
to have His will fulfilled on earth as it is in heaven. Our love for the Son,
who willed to become flesh for us, is characterized by the tendency to union
with Him and transformation into Him; by imitation of His example, participation
in His life, and the sharing of His sufferings and His Cross. The Eucharist,
mystery of love, of sorrow, and of union, reveals the characteristics of this
love.
"Love for the Holy Spirit also has its
special character, which we should study in order completely to understand
devotion to Him. We have explained how the Holy Spirit loves us, how He moves us
like a divine breath that draws us to the bosom of God, like a sacred fire that
transforms us into fire, like a divine artist who forms Jesus in us. Surely,
then, our love for the Holy Spirit should be marked by loving docility, by full
surrender, and by a constant fidelity that permits us to be moved, directed, and
transformed by His sanctifying action.
"Our love for the Father tends to glorify
Him; our love for the Son, to transform ourselves into Him; our love for
the Holy Spirit, to let ourselves be possessed and moved by Him."4
Life
In and With Jesus
The spiritual life centers in Christ. Here
are words from the Jerusalem Catecheses: "When we were baptized into
Christ and clothed ourselves in him, we were transformed into the likeness
of the Son of God. Having destined us to be his adopted sons, God gave us a
likeness to Christ in his glory, and living as we do in communion with
Christ, God’s anointed, we ourselves are rightly called ‘the anointed
ones.’ " 5
Msgr. Robert Guste says: "Ideal
Catholics held up to us by the Church are the saints. As you read their
lives, what do you notice? One after the other, they were men and women who
had a deep, personal relationship with Our Lord Jesus Christ. Their hearts
were on fire with love for Him..." 6
When we are baptized we are incorporated
into Christ’s paschal mystery of death and resurrection. St. Paul speaks
of this marvelous union with Jesus: You cannot have forgotten that all of
us, when we were baptised into Christ Jesus, were baptised into his death.
So by our baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that as Christ
was raised from the dead by the Father’s glorious power, we too should
begin living a new life. (Rm 6:3-4).
Christ has structured the Christian life by
the way He lived, died, and rose from the dead. It is obvious, then, as Paul
tells us above, that the pattern of death-resurrection must be at the heart of
the Church’s life. Individually and collectively, we continually die with
Christ so that we may continually rise with Him. Thus we pass over in a process
of ongoing religious transition to a greater participation in Christ’s
resurrection. It is true that our participation in Christ’s resurrection will
reach its completion only in eternity. Nevertheless, we begin the life of
resurrection here upon the earth, in the here and now of human life, in the
midst of joy and pain; in the experience of success and failure, in the sweat of
our brow, in the enjoyment of God’s gifts. As Christians, we should have a
sense of dynamic growth concerning our here and now life of resurrection.
We cannot maintain the life of resurrection or
grow in it without a willingness to suffer. This does not mean that we need to
feel overwhelmed and heavily burdened in our lives. The greater portion of
suffering for most Christians seems to be an accumulation of ordinary hardships,
difficulties, and pains. At times, however, deep suffering, even suffering of
agonizing proportions, can enter into one’s life. Whether the sufferings one
encounters are of either the more ordinary variety or the more rare and extreme
type, Christians must convince themselves that to relate properly to the cross
is to grow in resurrection, and growth in resurrection means we will also have
an increased capacity to help give resurrection to others.
The Church invites us to share deeply in the passion of
Christ, in the cross of Christ. She does so that we might share deeply in His
life of resurrection—here and hereafter. The more we die with Christ, the more
we share in His life of resurrection—here and hereafter. Our ultimate goal
here below is not the cross, but resurrection—the newness of life the cross
leads to - here below as well as in eternity.
We are meant to share in all of the mysteries of Christ here
below—we are meant to relive them in our own lives. And all of these mysteries
are directed to the crowning mystery of Jesus, His resurrection: "As the
Church is ever re-enacting, during all the ages, the life story of her Divine
Spouse—undergoing in the Mystical Body what He suffered in His Natural Body,
so it must be too, in some measure, for every individual Christian that lives in
real unity with Christ. It was thus that the saints understood the life of the
Divine Master. They not merely contemplated it, they lived it. This was the
source of the immense sympathy they were capable of experiencing for Him in His
different states. They felt in a certain measure what He felt, and what is true
of Our Lord’s life considered as a whole must be true in no imperfect or
limited manner of that which was the supreme and crowning mystery in that life—namely,
the Resurrection. This must be, not merely a fact in Christian history, but a
phase of Christian experience …We do not readily perceive that, in God’s
plan, not only the Cross, but the Risen Life that followed it, is meant to be
part of our terrestrial existence. Christ did not pass from the Cross straight
to heaven. The Christian is not meant to do so either. In the case of Jesus the
Cross preceded, prepared and prefaced a risen life on earth. In the case of the
Christian the Cross is meant to play a somewhat similar role—that is, to be
the prelude to a risen life, even here below.
"The Cross cannot be completely
understood except it is viewed in the full light of the Resurrection. It is the
latter, not the former, that is the ultimate mystery for us…The Cross is a
means, not an end; it finds its explanation only in the empty tomb; it is an
entrance into life, not a mode of death. Any death that enters into God’s plan
must necessarily issue forth in life. If He lays upon us the necessity of dying
it is in order that we may live…In order that we may live as we ought, our
rebellious nature must be crucified. Crucifixion always remains the only mode of
salvation.
"God sends trials and crosses simply to
deaden in us the activity of the forces that make for the decay of the spiritual
life, in order that that spiritual life may develop and expand unimpeded.
According as the life of perverse nature ebbs away from us on our cross united
with Christ’s, the Divine Life that God has placed in all whom He has called
begins to make itself more manifest and to display increased vigour and vitality…It
is to that Resurrection, that life in death, that God directs all the
circumstances of our life—it is the object He aims at in His dealing with
us." 7
In his above words, Fr. Edward Leen, C.S.Sp.,
speaks about a special episode of our participation in the resurrection of
Jesus. He speaks of our Christ-life, our life of grace, in the highly developed
state. We should all strive for this state. We must realize, however, that all
those who live in the state of grace are, in an essential way, living the life
of resurrection. They are alive in Christ Jesus.
The following words of St. John Eudes remind
us of the glorious goal the Christian is called to: the most intimate union with
Jesus.
"I ask you to consider that our Lord
Jesus Christ is your true head and that you are a member of his body. He belongs
to you as the head belongs to the body. All that is his is yours: breath, heart,
body, soul and all his faculties. All of these you must use as if they belonged
to you, so that in serving him you may give him praise, love and glory. You
belong to him as a member belongs to the head. This is why he earnestly desires
you to serve and glorify the Father by using all your faculties as if they were
his.
"He belongs to you, but more than that,
he longs to be in you, living and ruling in you, as the head lives and rules in
the body. He desires that whatever is in him may live and rule in you: his
breath in your breath, his heart in your heart, all the faculties of his soul in
the faculties of your soul...
"You belong to the Son of God, but more
than that, you ought to be in him as the members are in the head. All that is in
you must be incorporated into him. You must receive life from him and be ruled
by him. There will be no true life for you except in him, for he is the one
source of true life. Apart from him you will find only death and destruction.
Let him be the only source of your movements, of the actions and the strength of
your life.
"Finally, you are one with Jesus as the
body is one with the head. You must, then, have one breath with him, one soul,
one life, one will, one mind, one heart. And he must be your breath, heart,
love, life, your all. These great gifts in the follower of Christ originate from
baptism. They are increased and strengthened through confirmation and by making
good use of other graces that are given by God. Through the holy eucharist they
are brought to perfection." 8
St. Ignatius of Antioch was deeply consumed
with love for Jesus: "At last I am well on the way to being a disciple. May
nothing, seen or unseen, fascinate me, so that I may happily make my way to
Jesus Christ! Fire, cross, struggles with wild beasts, wrenching of bones,
mangling of limbs, crunching of the whole body, cruel tortures inflicted by the
devil—let them come upon me, provided only I make my way to Jesus
Christ."9
Cardinal Newman tells us: "Everyone who
breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman, has
a mission, has a work. We are not born at random... God sees every one of us; He
creates every soul, He lodges it in a body, one by one, for a purpose. He needs,
He deigns to need, every one of us."10
Because of the uniqueness of each Christian's
existence, he or she presents Christ with a unique opportunity. Each Christian
has the vocation to offer Christ his or her humanity so that Jesus can live in
that individual in a special way. This Jesus is Priest, Prophet and King. To the
extent that an individual Christian offers his or her humanity to Jesus, that
person has an unique opportunity to help to continue the work of the
redemption--an opportunity that no one else can fulfill. Likewise, to the extent
that an individual fails to offer his or her humanity to Christ, Jesus loses the
opportunity to continue His redemptive work according to that person's
uniqueness.
Concerning the prophetic or teaching office
of Christ, each of us has the ever-present opportunity of witnessing to the
truth of Christ by the way we live. Mother Teresa gives a striking example of
this. She says: "I received a letter from a wealthy Brazilian man. He
assured me that he had lost his faith -- not just his faith in God but his faith
in humanity as well. He was fed up with his situation and everything around him.
He only thought about suicide.
"One day, walking on a busy street
downtown, he saw a television set in a store window. The program was about our
Home for the Dying in Calcutta, and it showed our Sisters taking care of the
sick and the dying.
"The man confessed that when he saw that,
he felt the urge to kneel and pray, after many years of not ever kneeling or
praying.
"From that day on, he recovered his faith
in God and in humanity, and he was convinced that God still loves him."11
St. Paul, one who loved Jesus so deeply, has
left us these words: "But we hold this treasure in pots of earthenware, so
that the immensity of the power is God’s and not our own. We are subjected to
every kind of hardship, but never distressed; we see no way out but we never
despair; we are pursued but never cut off; knocked down, but still have some
life in us; always we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus so that the
life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our body. Indeed, while we are still
alive, we are continually being handed over to death, for the sake of Jesus, so
that the life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our mortal flesh." (2 Cor
4:7-11).
Here are words from St. Claude La
Columbière, one of the great apostles of devotion to the Heart of Christ.
Speaking to Jesus, Claude says:
You share my burdens,
You take them upon yourself.
You listen to me fondly when I tell you my
troubles.
You never fail to lighten them.
I find You at all times and in all places.
You never leave me.
I will always find You wherever I go.
Old age or misfortune will not cause You to
abandon me.
You will never be closer to me than
When all seems to go against me.
No matter how miserable I may be,
You will never cease to be my friend.
You tolerate my faults with admirable
patience.
You are always ready to come to me, if I so
desire it.
Jesus, may I die praising you!
May I die loving you!
May I die for the love of you.12
The
Father's Will for Us - Our Source of Peace
-
Pope John Paul II instructs us: "The Church, as a
reconciled and reconciling community, cannot forget that at the source of
her gift and mission of reconciliation is the initiative, full of
compassionate love and mercy, of that God who is love (see 1 John 4:8) and
who out of love created human beings (see Wisdom 11:23-26; Genesis 1:27:
Psalms 8:4-8)…He created them so that they might live in friendship with
Him and in communion with one another.
"God is faithful to His eternal plan
even when man, under the impulse of the evil one (see Wisdom 2:24) and carried
away by his own pride, abuses the freedom given to him in order to love and
generously seek what is good, and (instead) refuses to obey his Lord and
Father. God is faithful even when man, instead of responding with love to God’s
love, opposes Him and treats Him like a rival, deluding himself and relying on
his own power, with the resulting break of relationship with the One who
created him. In spite of this transgression on man’s part, God remains
faithful in love.
"It is certainly true that the story of
the Garden of Eden makes us think about the tragic consequences of rejecting
the Father, which becomes evident in man’s inner disorder and in the
breakdown of harmony between man and woman, brother and brother (see Genesis
3:12 ff; 4:1-16). Also significant is the Gospel parable of the two brothers
(the parable of the ‘prodigal son’; see Luke 15:11-32) who, in different
ways, distance themselves from their father and cause a rift between them.
Refusal of God’s fatherly love and of His loving gifts is always at the root
of humanity’s divisions.
"But we know that God…like the father
in the parable (of the prodigal son), does not close His heart to any of His
children. He waits for them, looks for them, goes to meet them at the place
where the refusal of communion imprisons them in isolation and division. He
calls them to gather about His table in the joy of the feast of forgiveness
and reconciliation.
"This initiative on God’s part is
made concrete and manifest in the redemptive act of Christ, which radiates
through the world by means of the ministry of the Church." 13
-
In the evening of that same day, the
first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples
were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to
them, ‘Peace be with you,’ and, after saying this, he showed them his
hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord,
and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so
am I sending you.’ (Jn 20:19-21).
The world needs peace. Individual nations
need peace and families need peace. The Church needs peace. Each of us
individually needs peace. We must work for peace through prayer, fasting, and
other Christ-like activities.
And just what do we mean by peace? St.
Augustine says peace is the tranquility of order. God has put order into His
creation and this order must be respected and promoted if peace is to prevail.
To the extent that the human family lives according to God’s will—lives
according to the order or the plan God has established for creation—to that
extent does peace exist in the various segments of human society. To the
extent there are violations of God’s plan, of His will, to that extent peace
is absent.
If we are to be instruments of peace, we
ourselves must be at peace. Our personal peace is that tranquility of order
which results from our doing God’s will. The more we are united through love
with God in the doing of His will, the more we experience peace.
Sometimes the sense of peace we experience
is so strong that we can "feel" it pulsating throughout our being.
These are periods of what we may call the experience of extraordinary peace.
This type of peace usually is not an everyday occurrence.
Most of the time we live immersed in a more
subdued kind of peace which results from our daily attempts to do God’s will
in love. It is that peace which is a welcome and sustaining companion as we
walk the path of everyday life with its usual assortments of joys and
disappointments, successes and failures, laughter and tears.
Occasionally, very deep suffering may enter
our lives. It is during these times that we need special determination to
preserve ourselves in a basic peace of spirit despite the very significant
pain. One may wonder how a person can be at peace amidst the experience of
great suffering. St. Francis de Sales in one of his writings—and I have not
been able to locate the exact place—offers an analogy which I think is very
helpful. He asks us to picture an ocean body of water at the time of a violent
storm. The surface of the water becomes extremely turbulent. Francis asks us,
as we use our imagination, to descend beneath the surface of the water into
its depth. What do we find? The more deeply one descends away from the
turbulent surface, the calmer the water becomes. Likewise, says the saint and
doctor of the Church, should it be with us during times of profound suffering.
Although the surface of the spirit may be very agitated, one can still
maintain basic peace of spirit by going deep down to one’s center where God
is more directly experienced. Here the person experiences a calm, a basic
peace, although the suffering remains.
If we are trying to do God’s will in love,
God intends us to be at peace. The more we conform to God’s will, the more
we are living according to the order He intends for us. In turn, the more our
lives are in harmony with the order established by God, the more we experience
peace—peace being the tranquility of order. The more we ourselves live in
this manner, the more fit instruments we become for promoting God’s order
and consequent peace throughout the various segments of society.
-
St. Dominic was an outstanding witness to
the peace of the Lord: "Dominic possessed such great integrity and was
so strongly motivated by divine love, that without doubt he proved to be a
bearer of honor and grace. He was a man of great equanimity, except when
moved to compassion and mercy. And since a joyful heart animates the face,
he displayed the peaceful composure of a spiritual man in the kindness he
manifested outwardly and by the cheerfulness of his countenance."14
-
Shortly before he was to die from
cancer, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin left us these inspiring words about peace:
"It is the first day of November, and fall is giving way to winter.
Soon the trees will lose the vibrant colors of their leaves and snow will
cover the ground. The earth will shut down, and people will race to and from
their destinations bundled up for warmth. Chicago winters are harsh. It is a
time of dying.
"But we know that spring will soon come
with all its new life and wonder.
"It is quite clear that I will not be
alive in the spring. But I will soon experience new life in a different way…
"What I would like to leave behind is a
simple prayer that each of you may find what I have found—God’s special gift
to us all: the gift of peace. When we are at peace, we find the freedom to be
most fully who we are, even in the worst of times. We let go of what is
non-essential and embrace what is essential. We empty ourselves so that God may
more fully work within us. And we become instruments in the hands of the
Lord."15
"All that the beginner in prayer has to
do -- and you must not forget this, for it is very important -- is to labor and
to be resolute and prepare himself with all possible diligence to bring his will
in conformity with the will of God. As I shall say later, you may be quite sure
that this comprises the very greatest perfection which can be attained on the
spiritual road."16
Again she states: "...love consists ...
in the firmness of our determination to try to please God in everything."
17
The
Holy Spirit and Mary
The late Archbishop Luis M. Martinez of Mexico
strikingly speaks of the ongoing cooperation of Mary with the Holy Spirit
regarding the reproduction of Jesus within us: "Christian life is the
reproduction of Jesus in souls…
"Now, how will this mystical reproduction
be brought about in souls? In the same way in which Jesus was brought into the
world, for God gives a wonderful mark of unity to all His works. Divine acts
have a wealth of variety because they are the work of omnipotence; nevertheless,
a most perfect unity always shines forth from them because they are the fruit of
wisdom; and this divine contrast of unity and variety stamps the works of God
with sublime and unutterable beauty.
"In His miraculous birth, Jesus was the
fruit of heaven and earth…The Holy Spirit conveyed the divine fruitfulness of
the Father to Mary, and the virginal soil brought forth in an ineffable manner
our most loving Savior, the divine Seed, as the prophets called Him…
"That is the way He is reproduced in
souls. He is always the fruit of heaven and earth.
"Two artisans must concur in the work
that is at once God’s masterpiece and humanity’s supreme product: the Holy
Spirit and the most holy Virgin Mary. Two sanctifiers are necessary to souls,
the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, for they are the only ones who can
reproduce Christ.
"Undoubtedly, the Holy Spirit and the
Virgin Mary sanctify us in different ways. The first is the Sanctifier by
essence; because He is God, who is infinite sanctity; because He is the personal
Love that completes, so to speak, the sanctity of God, consummating His life and
His unity, and it belongs to Him to communicate to souls the mystery of that
sanctity. The Virgin Mary, for her part, is the co-operator, the indispensable
instrument in and by God’s design. From Mary’s maternal relation to the
human body of Christ is derived her relation to His Mystical Body which is being
formed through all the centuries until the end of time, when it will be lifted
up to the heavens, beautiful, splendid, complete, and glorious.
"These two, then, the Holy Spirit and
Mary, are the indispensable artificers of Jesus, the indispensable sanctifiers
of souls. Any saint in heaven can co-operate in the sanctification of a soul,
but his co-operation is not necessary, not profound, not constant: while the
co-operation of these two artisans of Jesus of whom we have just been speaking
is so necessary that without it souls are not sanctified (and this by the actual
design of Providence), and so intimate that it reaches to the very depths of our
soul. For the Holy Spirit pours charity into our heart, makes a habitation of
our soul, and directs our spiritual life by means of His gifts. The Virgin Mary
has the efficacious influence of Mediatrix in the most profound and delicate
operations of grace in our souls. And, finally, the action of the Holy Spirit
and the co-operation of the most holy Virgin Mary are constant; without them,
not one single character of Jesus would be traced on our souls, no virtue grow,
no gift be developed, no grace increased, no bond of union with God be
strengthened in the rich flowering of the spiritual life.
"Such is the place that the Holy Spirit
and the Virgin Mary have in the order of sanctification. Therefore, Christian
piety should put these two artisans of Christ in their true place, making
devotion to them something necessary, profound, and constant." 18
-
Scripture quotations are taken from
The
New Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday.
-
Archbishop Luis M. Martinez, The
Sanctifier, Pauline Books and Media, pp. 124-125.
-
Adolphe Janquery, S.S., The Spiritual
Life, Desclee & Co., p. 18
-
Archbishop Martinez, op. cit., pp. 67-68,
-
Jerusalem Catecheses, as in
The Liturgy of
the Hours, Catholic Book Publishing Co., Vol. II, p. 608.
-
Msgr. Robert Guste, The Gift of the
Church, Queenship Publications, pp. 22-23.
-
Edward Leen, In the Likeness of Christ,
Sheed and Ward, pp. 290-300.
-
St. John Eudes, from a treatise on the
Admirable Heart of Jesus, as in The Liturgy of the Hours, Catholic Book
Publishing Co., Vol. IV, pp. 1331-32.
-
St. Ignatius of Antioch, "Ignatius to
the Romans," as in The Treasury of Catholic Wisdom, Ignatius Press., p.
14.
-
John Henry Cardinal Newman, Discourses
Addressed to Mixed Congregations, Longmans, Green and Co., pp. 111-112.
-
Mother Teresa, In My Own Words, Liguori
Publications, p. 44.
-
St. Claude de la Columbiere, as published
by Apostleship of Prayer, Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus.
-
Pope John Paul II, as in Celebrate
2000!,
Servant Publications, pp. 140-141.
-
"From the Various Writings of the
History of the Order of Preachers," as in The Liturgy of the Hours,
Catholic Book Publishing Co., Vol lV, p. 1302.
-
Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, The Gift of
Peace, Loyola University Press, pp. 151-153.
-
St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle,
translated by E. Allison Peers, Doubleday and Co., "Second
Mansions", p. 51.
-
Ibid., "Fourth Mansions", p. 76.
-
Archbishop Luis M. Martinez, The
Sanctifier, op. cit. pp. 5-7.
the immanent expression of God's
fullness, the reflection of the Father. Likewise, from all eternity, the Father and the
Son bring forth the Holy Spirit in a perfect act of loving.
the Word made flesh, the life of the
Trinity has incarnationally manifested itself to mankind. The life of the Trinity centers
in the personal relationships between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; but God's life is also
his love gone out to the human race. The Incarnation projects this Trinitarian life into
the temporal sphere. Jesus has come to tell us about Trinitarian life, to give us a share
in it, to teach us that through grace we share in God's life—a life of
relationships—by entering into deepened personal relationships with God and other
persons. Redemption that is received and contributed to is the experience of these
relationships. In other words, as Jesus has told us, the Christian life is summed up in
love of God and neighbor. Out of these personalized love relationships flow many things;
for example, redemption continued is the loving abandonment to the love of God that
despite possible fear, allows a person to accomplish things that are totally beyond his or
her natural courage. Or again, redemption continued is loving those who are afar off whom
I will never see or know, but whom I know are my brothers and my sisters and whom my work
and prayer can reach out and touch. Or again, redemption continued is the Christian hope
and trust that allows man and woman to take the risk of the mutual self-giving that is
marriage. Or again, redemption continued is the black person who continues to relate to
his or her white neighbors in faith, hope, and love despite temptations to hatred and
bitterness. Or again, redemption continued is the ecstasy and the agony of loving and
being loved. Truly, the Incarnation visibly continued is our Christian faith, hope, and
love made alive in our personal relationships with God and man.
Copyright
© 2014 Shepherds of Christ.