- In the earliest centuries, came the contemplative orders, whose ceaseless prayer and fierce penances were a powerful aid in the conversion of the pagan world. In the Middle Ages, the preaching orders sprang up, with the mendicant and military orders, and those vowed to the ransom of captives in the powers of infidels. Finally, modern times have seen the birth of crowds of teaching institutes, missionary societies, congregations of all sorts, whose mission is to spread abroad every kind of spiritual and material good.
- We see a multitude of works that were scarcely even heard of, a generation ago, rise up in opposition to evils of the most serious kind: Catechism classes for first communicants and converts, as well as for abandoned children, all types of Catholic societies, sodalities, and confraternities, laymen's retreats for young and old of both sexes, Apostleship of Prayer, the Work of the Propagation of the Faith, Catholic action in student and military circles, Catholic press association and other works of both general and local usefulness.
- May these humble pages go out to the soldiers of Christ...to fight against an excessive exteriorization through good works. St. Paul [wrote]: "Woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel" [which] does not entitle us to forget: "What does it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?"
- [We] will better understand the need not only of a pious, but of an interior life, if [our] zeal is to have any success.
2. GOD WILLS THAT THE LIFE-PRINCIPLE OF OUR WORK BE CHRIST HIMSELF
- Science is proud of its immense success, and justly so. And yet there has always been and always will be [something] impossible to it: to create life...God reserves for Himself the power of creating life.
(It would seem this is to be understood in the sense that you need the correct "matter" to create life. You can't make a tree from a piece of iron ore. You can't make a child, whether conceived in the womb or test tube baby, without a sperm and egg.)
- HE ALONE, JESUS, IS THE LIFE.
- Men, called to the honor of working with the Savior in transmitting the divine life to souls, ought to consider themselves mere channels, whose function is to draw from this one and only source.(Make me a channel of your peace...)
- If the apostle were to forget this truth in his actions and were to insult Jesus Christ by relying on his own powers, it would be a...disorder...insufferable in the sight of God. To reject the truth, or to ignore it in one's actions, always constitutes and intellectual disorder. (Pelagianism)
- Now, for a man, in his practical conduct, to go about this active works as if Jesus were not his one end only life-principle, is what Cardinal Mermillod has called the "HERESY OF GOOD WORKS." Feverish activity taking the place of God; grace ignored; human pride trying to thrust Jesus from His throne...in this age of naturalism.
3. WHAT IS THE INTERIOR LIFE?
- EVERYONE is obliged to accept the following principles as absolutely certain, and base his inner life upon them:
FIRST TRUTH
- Supernatural life is the life of Jesus Christ Himself in my soul, by faith, hope and charity...the presence of our Lord by this supernatural life is not the real presence proper to Holy Communion, but a presence of vital action like that of the action of the head or heart upon the members of the body.
- This life, begun in Baptism by the state of grace, perfected at Confirmation, recovered by Penance and enriched by the Holy Eucharist, is my Christian life.
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| St. Paul the Apostle |
- By this life, Jesus Christ imparts to me His Spirit...St. Paul wrote, "I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me."
- The state of activity of a soul which strives against its natural inclinations in order to regulate them, and endeavors to acquire the HABIT of judging and direction its movements in ALL THINGS according to the light of the Gospel and the example of Our Lord.
- The soul wishes in this way to be faithful to the grace which Our Lord offers to it at every moment.
THIRD TRUTH
- [We need] to strive after a precise and certain faith of Jesus with us, not merely a living, but an extremely vital reality. When Jesus in this manner becomes my light, my ideal, my counsel, my support, my refuge, my strength, my healer, my consolation, my joy, my love, in a word my life, I shall acquire all the virtues.
FOURTH TRUTH
- My supernatural life may increase at every moment by a new infusion of the grace of the active presence of Jesus in me; an infused produced:
1. By each meritorious act (virtue, work, suffering under all forms [such as privation of creatures, physical or moral pain, humiliation, self-denial], prayer, Mass, acts of devotion to Our Lady, etc.)
2. By the Sacraments especially the Eucharist.
- Thou, Jesus, dost present Thyself, objectively to me, at every instant of the day...and dost request my co-operation to increase Thy life in myself.
FIFTH TRUTH
- The triple concupiscence caused by original sin and increased by every one of my actual sins establishes elements of death that militate against the life of Jesus in me...Nevertheless, inclinations and feelings contrary to that life, and temptations, even violent and prolonged, can do no harm as long as my will resists them.
SIXTH TRUTH
- If I am not faithful in the use of certain means, my intelligence will become blind and my will too weak to co-operate with Jesus...I shall find myself slipping into tepidity of the will:(This tepidity is clearly distinct from the dryness and even disgust which fervent souls experience in spite of themselves...the soul that is poisoned with this kind of tepidity manifests two opposing wills: it avoids evident mortal sin...[but] it wants all the comforts of a free and easy life, and that is why it allows itself to commit deliberate venial sins.
- [In order to break out of this tepidity], I would have to revive fear of God in my soul by imagining myself, as vividly as possible, face to face with my last end, and to revive compunction by the sweet science of Thy wounds.
SEVENTH TRUTH
- I must seriously fear that I do not have the degree of interior life that Jesus demands of me:
1. If I cease to increase my thirst...I necessarily cease to increase this thirst if I no longer make use of the means for doing so: morning mental-prayer, Mass, Sacraments, and Office, general and particular examinations of conscience, and spiritual reading.
2. If I do not have a minimum recollection to watch over my heart and keep it pure and generous enough not to silence the voice of Lord when He warns me of the elements of death. I cannot possibly retain this minimum if I make no use of the means that will secure it: liturgical life, aspirations, especially in the form of supplication, spiritual communion, practice of the presence of God, and so on.
- Without this, my life will soon be crawling with venial sins, perhaps without my being aware of it, self-delusion will throw up a smoke screen of a seeming piety that is more speculative than practical...and my blindness will be imputed to me as sin...
EIGHTH TRUTH
- Custody of the heart is simply a HABITUAL or at least frequent anxiety to preserve in all my acts from anything that might spoil their motive or their execution. It is a peaceful, unexcited anxiety, without any trace of strain, yet powerful because it is based on childlike confidence in God.
- Quo vadam et ad quid? Where am I going and why? What would Jesus do? How would He act in my place?
- For the soul that goes to Jesus through Mary, this custody of the heart takes on a still more affectionate quality, and recourse to this dear Mother becomes a continual need for his heart.
NINTH TRUTH
- Jesus Christ reigns in a soul that aspires to imitate Him seriously. Following the example of Jesus, it seeks no other rule, in this, but the will of God: "I came down from Heaven not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent me." The soul shows more readiness in doing things that are contrary to its nature, and repugnant to it..."For Christ did not please Himself."
TENTH TRUTH
- If I am only willing to pray and become faithful to grace, Jesus offers me every means of returning to an inner life that will restore to me my intimacy with Him...my soul will not cease to possess joy...and the Lord will give me rest continually.
ELEVENTH TRUTH
- My efforts, by themselves, are nothing, absolutely nothing. "Without Me you can do nothing." They will only be useful, and blessed by God, if by means of a genuine interior life I unite them constantly to the life-giving action of Jesus. But then they will become all-powerful: "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me." But should they spring from pride and self-satisfaction, from confidence in my own talents, from the desire to shine, they will be rejected by God. This conviction...will make me really feel the need to pray that I may obtain humility, which is such a treasure for my soul, since it is a guarantee of God's help and of success in my labors.
- I must have the following:
1. My conviction of the nothingness of my own activity, left to itself
2. I am ruthless in stamping out all self-satisfaction and vanity, all self-admiration in my apostolate
3. I continue unwaveringly to distrust myself
4. I am praying to God to preserve me from pride.
- THE INTERIOR LIFE IS THE LIFE OF THE ELECT
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| St. Margaret Mary |
- Heavenly state! The soul becomes a living heaven. Then, like St. Margaret Mary, I can sing:
Je possède en tout temps et je porte en tout lieu et le Dieu de mon coeur et le Coeur de mon Dieu.
I ever possess, and take with me everywhere, the God of my heart and the Heart of my God.
Grace is the seed of heaven.
4. IGNORANCE AND NEGLECT OF THIS INTERIOR LIFE
(to be continued...)
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