II.

THE FOLLOWING OF CHRIST.

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SUMMARY. In consequence of sin, the "seeking after God" takes the character of a returning to God; " this is carried into effect by following Christ. I. Christ is the Way by His teaching and example. II. He is the supreme High Priest Who binds us to God. III. The Fountainhead of grace wherefrom we may draw the necessary help. IV. These truths apply to religious perfection: Christ is "the Religious" supereminently. — V. How the Rule of St. Benedict is permeated with these truths; its character is Christocentric ".

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HE object of our life is to seek God; " that is our destiny, our vocation. This vocation is incomparably high, because every creature, even the angelic creature, is of its nature infinitely far removed from God. God is the fulness of Being and of all perfection; and every creature, however perfect it may be, is only a being drawn out of nothing and possesses only a borrowed perfection.

Moreover, as we have said, the end of a free creature is, in itself, proportioned to the nature of this creature; as every created being is "finite, the beatitude to which it has a right by nature is necessarily limited. But God, in immense condescension, has willed to admit us to share His intimate life in the bosom of His Adorable Trinity, to enjoy His own Divine Beatitude. This Beatitude, placed infinitely beyond our nature, constitutes our last end and the foundation of the supernatural order.

You know that from the time when He first formed man, God has called us universally to this beatitude: Adam, the head of the human race, was created in supernatural "justice;" his soul, filled with grace, illuminated with divine light was entirely set towards God. He possessed the gift of integrity by which his lower faculties were fully subjected to reason while reason was fully subjected to the Divine Will: all, in the head of our race, was perfectly in harmony. Adam sinned, he separated himself from God, and drew all his descendants after him into his revolt and misery. All the Blessed Virgin Mary excepted are conceived with the imprint of his apostacy; in each one of us God beholds the trace of our first father's rebellion: that is why

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we are born children of wrath ", filii irae1, sons of disobedience, far removed from God, turned away from God. The consequence of this state of things is that seeking after God" takes for us the character of a "returning to God" Whom we have lost. Drawn into the original solidarity, we have all forsaken God by sin in order to turn to the creature; the parable of the Prodigal Son is but the picture of all the human race that has left the Heavenly Father and must return to Him. It is this character of a return deeply imprinted on the Christian life that St. Benedict teaches, as a master, from the first lines of the Prologue to whomsoever comes to him: "Hearken, O my son... incline the ear of thy heart... that thou mayest return to Him from Whom thou hast departed": Ausculta, o fili... et inclina aurem cordis tui ut AD EUM... REDEAS a quo... recesseras. This is the well-determined and precise end.

Now, by what path are we to return to God?" It is extremely important that we should know it. In fact if we do not take this path, we shall not come to God, we shall miss our end. For we must never forget that our holiness is a supernatural holiness, we cannot acquire it by our own efforts. If God had not raised us to the supernatural order, if He had not placed our beatitude in His intimate glory, we might have been able to seek Him by the light of reason, and attain, by natural means, a natural perfection and beatitude. God did not will this : He has raised man to a supernatural state, because He destined him for a beatitude which surpasses all the exigences and powers of our nature. Outside this destiny there is nothing but error and damnation.

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And what is true of the way of salvation, in general, is equally so of perfection and of holiness which are but a higher way of salvation: they likewise belong to the supernatural order; a man's most finished perfection in the merely natural domain has of itself no value for eternal life. are not two states of perfection for us nor two beatitudes, the one purely natural, the other supernatural, between which we may make our choice. Now, as God is the sole Author of the supernatural order, He alone "according to His good pleasure", secundum beneplacitum ejus 2, can show us the road whereby to arrive at it; hence we must seek God as God wishes us to seek Him, otherwise we shall not find Him.

This is one of the reasons why so many souls make such little progress in the spiritual life. They imagine a holiness

for themselves, they want to be the architects of their own perfection, built up according to their personal conceptions; they do not understand God's plan as it concerns them, or else they do not adapt themselves to it. These souls make some progress, certainly, because the goodness of God is infinite and His grace ever fruitful; but they do not fly in the way that leads to God, they go haltingly all their life. The more I come in contact with souls, the more assured I am that it is already a most precious grace to know this Divine Plan; to have recourse to it is a source of continual communication of divine grace; to adapt oneself to it is the very substance of sanctity.

But has God made known to us His Will? Yes, as St. Paul says, He has revealed to us the secret hidden from eternity": Sacramentum absconditum a saeculis. 1 And what is this secret? What are these Divine thoughts? St. Paul has disclosed to us the Divine Plan in four words: Instaurare omnia in Christo 2. God has willed" to re-establish all things in Christ or better, according to the Greek term to recapitulate all things in Christ."

The Christ, the Divine Word, Son of God, become Son of Adam by being born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is constituted the Head of the race of the elect in order to bring all those who believe in Him to God His Father. As Man-God, Christ will repair the sin committed by Adam, will restore to us the Divine adoption, re-open the gates of Heaven and bring us thither by His grace. This is in a few words the Divine Plan.

Let us contemplate for a few moments this plan of God for us and try to comprehend its height and depth, comprehendere... quae sit... sublimitas et profundum... ut impleamini in omnem plenitudinem Dei3, that we may be filled unto all the fulness of God. God wishes to give us all things, to give Himself entirely to us, but He only gives Himself by Christ, in Christ and with Christ: Per Ipsum, cum Ipso,in Ipso1. This is God's secret for us. Let us contemplate it with faith and reverence, for it infinitely surpasses all our conceptions. Let us also contemplate it with love, for it is itself the fruit of love: Sic Deus dilexit mundum 5. It is because God loved us that He has given us His Son, and through Him and in Him, every good.

What then is Christ Jesus for us?

He is the Way; He is the High Priest; He is the Fountain1. Cf. Eph. III, 9; Col. 1, 26. 2. Eph. I, 10. 3. Ibid. III, 18-19. — 4. Canon of the Mass. 5. Joan. III, 16.

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head of grace. He is the Way by His doctrine and example; He is the supreme High Priest, Who has merited for us, by His sacrifice, the power to follow in the way which He has established; He is the Fountain of grace where from we draw strength to persevere in the path that leads to "the holy mountain": Usque ad montem Dei1.

We will first of all listen to the very words of the Holy Spirit; next we will take up in respectful parallelism the corresponding teaching repeated by the one who was, according to St. Gregory, his first biographer," filled with the spirit of all the just 2.

I.

Christ is the Way.

God wills that we should seek Him as He is in Himself, in a way conformable to our supernatural end. But, says St. Paul, God" inhabiteth light inaccessible 3, " He dwells in very holiness: Tu autem in sancto habitas. How then are we to attain to Him? Through Christ. Christ Jesus is the Word Incarnate, the Man-God. He it is Who becomes our Way": Ego sum via 5. This way is sure, infallible, it leads to eternal light: Qui sequitur Me non ambulat in tenebris, sed habebit lumen vitae, but above all, never let us forget, this way is unique, there is no other. As Jesus says: No man cometh to the Father but by Me": Ñemo venit ad Patrem nisi per Me'. Ad Patrem, that is to say to life everlasting, to God loved and possessed in Himself in the intimate secret of His beatifying Trinity. So then in order to find God, to attain the end of our search, we have only to follow Christ Jesus.

And how is Christ the Way that leads us to God? By His teaching and His example: Coepit facere et doceres.

As I have said, God wills that we should seek Him as He is. We must therefore first know Him. Now Jesus Christ Who is in the Bosom of the Father ", in sinu Patris, reveals God to us: Unigenitus... ipse enarravit 10,God is made known to us by the word of His Son : Deus... illuxit in cordibus nostris ad illuminationem scientiae claritatis Dei in facie Christi Jesu 11. Jesus tells us : It is I Who reveal My Father, your God; I know Him, for I am His Son; "My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me 12; "... "I speak that which I. III Reg. xix, 8. — 2. S. Greg. Dialog, lib. II, c. VIII. 3. I Tim. VI, 4. Ps. XXI, 4. 5. Joan. XIV, 16.-6. Ibid. VIII, 12. - 7. Ibid. xiv, 6. 8. Act. I, I. 9. Joan. 1, 18. 10. Ibid. II. II Cor. IV, 6.

16.

VII, 16.

12. Joan.

I have seen with My Father": Ego quod vidi apud Patrem meum loquor1; I do not deceive you, for I“ have spoken the truth to you": Veritatem vobis locutus sum2; "I am the Truth": Ego sum veritas; those who seek God must do so "in spirit and in truth": In spiritu et veritate oportet adorare; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life 5 if you continue in My word... you shall know the truth" Si vos manseritis in sermone meo... cognoscetis veritatem ®.

"I have not spoken of Myself but the Father Who sent Me, He gave Me commandment what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting": Quia ego ex meipso non sum locutus, sed qui misit Me Pater, ipse mihi mandatum dedit quid dicam et quid loquor; et scio quia mandatum ejus vita aeterna est”.

The Father moreover confirms this testimony of the Son : Hear ye Him; " for He is My own Son in Whom I have placed all My delights: Ipsum audites.

Let us then hear this word, this doctrine of Jesus it is first of all through this doctrine that He is our Way; let us say to Him with ardent faith, like St. Peter: "Lord, to Whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life": Verba vitae aeternae habes9. We truly believe that Thou art the Divine Word, come down on our earth in order to teach us; Thou art truly God, speaking to our souls; for God "in these days, hath spoken to us by His Son": Novissime locutus est nobis in Filio 1o. We believe in Thee, O Christ, we accept all that Thou dost tell us of the Divine secrets, and because we accept Thy words, we give ourselves to Thee in order to live by Thy Gospel. Thou didst say that if we would be perfect, we must leave all to follow Thee 11 we believe this and we have come, having left all things to be Thy disciples. Lead us, Thou, Indefectible Light, for in Thee we have the most invincible hope. Thou wilt not reject us; we come to Thee that we may be brought to the Father. Thou hast declared: Him that cometh to Me, I will not cast out" : Et eum qui venit ad me non ejiciam foras 13.

Again Jesus is the Way by His example.

He is perfect God, the sole-begotten Son of God: Deum de Deo 14; but He is also perfect Man; He belongs authentically to our race. You know that from His two-fold nature flows a two-fold activity; a divine activity, and a human

1. Joan. VIII, 38. 2. Ibid, 40.

3. Ibid, xiv, 6. 4. Ibid, IV, 24. 5.

Ibid, vi, 64. 6. Ibid VIII, 31-32 7. Ibid. XII, 49-50. 8. Matth. xvII, 5.

9. Joan. vi, 69. 13. Joan. vi, 37.

10. Hebr. 1, 2. — II. Matth. XIX, 21.
14. Credo of the Mass.

— 12. Ibid, 27.