Mortification. By W. Lawson, S.J

FRIGHT

The word has an unpleasant sound. It does not appear nowadays in popular medicine, but there used to be phrases like mortification has set in,’ which described a serious condition in a wound where the tissues were breaking down and would not heal. Today,people talk of being ‘mortified’ when they are affronted, shamed, tricked, or hurt. All the associations of the word mortification are distasteful and frightening. When the word is used of spiritual life it is no more attractive. There is a feeling that the virtue and the practice to which it refers are necessary to goodness and therefore have to be tried, but that they are painful and must always be painful. We read of some saints whose practice of mortification is terrifying. Learning of their extremes of penance, we are surer than ever that canonized sanctity is not for us. We have at once a friendly feeling towards saints who seem to have arrived at sanctity without fierce mortification, and who give us hope that we may rise to imitation of their goodness. But we know that mortification must have some place in our lives; and the thought nags at us.

SCRIPTURE

We are not reassured when we consult the Scriptures. They are uncompromising.
‘Every one that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be My disciple’ (Luke 14.33).
There is renunciation, the abandonment of the good things of this life. It can’t be anything but painful. ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily’ (Luke 9.23).
The cross is a burden. To carry it every day is a weariness. And to deny oneself, instead of asserting oneself, is to limit life and the joys of life.
‘Mortify your members’ (Col. 3.5).
‘If by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live’ (Rom. 8.13).
The word ‘mortify’ comes from the Latin word ‘mors’ which means ‘death.’ So we are enjoined to kill part of ourselves. Death is to be by crucifixion:
‘They that are Christ’s have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences’ (Gal. 5.24). And burial follows upon death:
‘You are dead: and your life is hid with Christ in God’ (Col. 3.3).
‘We are buried together with Him by baptism into death’ (Rom. 6.4).
The idea that is taught by those passages of Scripture, some of them in our Lord’s own words, is that Christian life means death of some kind-death which we are to inflict on ourselves by doing violence to our members, and which is to result in a hidden life that is equivalent to burial.

UNDERSTANDING

In part, we accept the words at their face value, just as we accept the words of one of the prayers said after Mass: ‘mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.’ After saying that prayer honestly and with understanding, Catholics go out of church, meet their friends as they come from Mass, and laugh and talk and are happy together-all the happier, in fact, for having been to Mass and said the prayer about ‘mourning and weeping.’ In the same way, Catholics read or hear the Scripture about self-denial, mortification, crucifixion, death, and burial, and yet continue to be cheerful and to enjoy life. There is no dishonesty in what may seem to be a contradiction. But the seeming contradiction does need to be explained.

NEGATIVES

Before we look into the subject of mortification, it will be helpful to notice how we talk and think rather about negatives than positives, and about the dark side rather than about the bright side. For many, ‘salvation’ means, primarily, avoiding Hell; with the attainment of Heaven coming as an afterthought. There is always a sermon on Hell in a mission; but sermons on Heaven are rare. Similarly, charity is narrowed to mean not speaking unkindly about people. In thought and good resolution it does not include, as it should, a whole world of kind, gentle, and helpful regard for others, which shows itself in words and actions. Temperance is made to mean abstinence from strong drink, but not the balanced, athletic power of a trained mind and will. The meaning of prudence is restricted to waiting, pausing, refraining from action, playing safe, and looking before leaping: it does not include, what is often a part of it, leaping quickly high and wide, running a risk, seizing opportunities, and taking time by the forelock. In just that way we fail to give to the idea and practice of mortification its positive side, which is by far the more valuable. No wonder we dislike mortification.

YOUR GREATEST ACT OF MORTIFICATION

What would you say was the greatest act of mortification in your whole life? Think it out for a while, before looking at the answer. Your greatest act of mortification . . . ?
It makes the question harder, to tell you that this mortification is the same for all Christians, that most Christians are not aware of the act until years after it happened, and that many of them, though they now know about the act, do not think about it as a mortification. The greatest act of mortification in your life was your baptism. That surprises you. And the reason why you are surprised is that you are not accustomed to think of the positive side of mortification, which is vivification.

SCRIPTURE AGAIN

Go back to the passages of Scripture which we have already examined, and see that far stronger than the idea of death is the idea of life. No matter what words are used to recommend mortification, what is urged is the gaining of life. The purpose of mortification is vivification. (The Creed calls the Holy Ghost spiritus vivificans, the Spirit who makes alive.) The virtue, like all virtues, is mainly positive.

VIVIFICATION

Mortification is not an end in itself -a practice to be adopted just for its own sake, and without regard to what it does for the soul. It is a means only : it is intended to produce life, and it is good only in so far as it does produce life.
We ought, therefore, to be clear about the two meanings of mortification. There is the narrow and negative meaning, the one that is usually thought of when the word is used ; and there is the wide and positive meaning, which is clearer when the word vivification is used for it. Mortification in the narrow sense is for the purpose of producing the blessing called vivification.
It follows that negative mortification must always be measured. It is not good in any and every amount, as though it were good in its own right. It is good only for the effect it has of making the soul more alive : and it is to be adopted only as it gives or increases life. It would be wrong and misleading to suppose that the greater the ‘mortification’ (or sacrifice, or suffering, or pain) the greater the virtue or merit, so that the greatest saint is the one who suffers most. To think in that way would be to fall into a common and mistaken idea that pain in itself is good, and that pleasure in itself is evil. We would reject that error in its grosser forms-when it says, for example, that if we are enjoying something it is probably wrong: and we may be free from the uneasy suspicion (which is Puritan) of enjoyment in general. But there are many Catholics who have a mistaken notion of the value of hardship, and who suppose that there is always more merit in a good action that is hard than in a good action that is easy. Children (and others) are prompted to make ‘sacrifices’: and, if they find them very hard,they are encouraged to make them because ‘the harder they are, the more merit they will win.’ Behind such a statement there is the truth that there can be more love of God in action for Him which is hard than in action for Him which is easy. But the statement, and others in the same sense, leads to a false valuation: pain is considered good in itself: penances are adopted, and sacrifices are made, according to the hardship they cause: and goodness is judged rather by difficulty in achieving it than by the love of God which makes it. Such teaching would make nonsense of the doctrine that ease in the practice of virtue is a special gift of God, and that the more we love God the more joy and happiness there is in doing His will. The virtue of fortitude enables us to undertake a good life and to persevere in it: but there is need, in its practice, of patience and endurance. But when the virtue of fortitude is completed by the fortitude which is one of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost there is a special ease in undertaking and persevering; and the hardship of patience and endurance is much diminished or is removed altogether. And that ease and pleasure in the practice of virtue are made possible by an extra help from the Holy Ghost, and they give the soul power for a greater love of God.
It is ‘vivification’ which is good in itself. ‘Mortification’ is good only because, and in so far as, it produces life.

LIFE

Our Lord says that He is come that we may have life, and may have it more abundantly. In the passages of Scripture already quoted, death is preached for the sake of life. ‘Renunciation’ means the abandonment of what-ever hinders us from being disciples of our Lord. We do not think of renunciation or of sacrifice when we pay money for a ticket home. What is in our minds is the joy of being amongst our own people-the positive, not the negative. So we do not think of loss when we give something to be our Lord’s friends. ‘Self-denial’ is a denial of ourselves only in order that Christ may live in us: and that is self-assertion of the best kind, because it makes our character and our personality, giving us a richness and permanence of individuality which can be acquired in no other way. ‘Mortify your members,’ says St Paul: but the inducement he holds out is: ‘You shall live,’ enlivening others as well as yourself. ‘Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit’ (John 12.24–25). He preaches the Cross, and death and burial, but only because they are the necessary prelude to life and resurrection.
‘For we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life.
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer.
So do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (Rom. 6.4, 6, 11).
What is to be killed-’mortified’-is your merely natural self: whatever in you does not share the super-natural life which our Lord gained for us by His life and death, and which is available for us in the Church. We are to have the life which our Lord came to give us: we want to have it fully-’abundantly,’ as our Lord says. Love of God is to fill our minds and hearts, and is to show itself in a great goodness of living-unselfishness, kindness, loyalty, courage, gentleness, joy, patience, and all the other ways in which we love God and love people and ennoble and enrich our souls. The work of rising to heights of goodness can be called ‘mortification’: but it is ‘vivification’; it is the satisfying, attractive work of filling your soul with the grace of God, and of using that supernatural life in full health and liveliness of spirit.

YOU ARE MORTIFIED

Mortification, for you, is not a manner of life that you may, in the vague future, adopt if you can screw up your courage to embrace hardship. It is already the state of life in which you habitually live.You are mortified. The ‘old Adam’ was killed and buried in your baptism, and you rose out of that sacrament into the new life of grace. Now, as you love God and worship Him and try to serve Him, you are constantly strengthening and developing your life. The great mortifications which you perform (and perform gladly, with joy and thankfulness) are your partaking of the sacraments, the chief means of supernatural life, your offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass, your prayers, when you raise your mind and heart to God, the goodness that you show in love of your family and your friends, your respect for them, your care and thoughtfulness for them, and all the other use that you make of grace in your daily life.
Once the main truth is established-that mortification in its full sense means vivification, the life of grace-we can think, to better purpose, of mortification in the narrow sense-penance of all kinds.

PENANCE

Like sanctifying grace, which is the essential mortification that makes us alive and keeps us living, this lesser mortification has life for its object. When we possess supernatural life, there can still be traces of death in us; just as, though we are physically alive, we can have undeveloped or stiff muscles; just as a living tree can have a dead branch, or fruit that is shrivelled and sour. The purpose of penance is to remove stiffness and decay, to make life run through our whole being, so that we are not only alive, which is the essential, but lively, which is getting on towards perfection.

LOVE OF GOD

The motives for this working towards full life are many, and they all come back to the root of all goodness, which is love of God. We sometimes choose hardship rather than ease, to show love of God, doing or suffering for Him at some cost to ourselves. That is love as we understand it well from our human happiness. What matters to us in sacrifices for those whom we love-family and friends especially-is not the price to ourselves but the joy which we give them and in which we then share. When we offer our sweet ration, we don’t say, as our friends in turn take a chocolate: ‘O Lord! There goes another one!’ It is a sacrifice to give up sweets: but the sacrifice is thought of not as pain but rather as ease to the loving heart. Loving your friends, you must be giving to them-your sweets, your thoughtfulness, your courtesy, your work. You take pains for them: and a most pleasant way it is of living.
Well, doing penance before God is just that: giving Him what we have and what we are, out of love. (Indeed, when our love of friends is part of our love of God, as it should be to have real worth, then we already do penance before God in unselfish devotion to friends.) You see how positive mortification is, even when it means penance. Before we examine the doctrine of mortification, we fear that it means: ‘Think of your dearest possession, and then give it up.’ But when we discover that it has its roots in love, we know that it means: ‘Think of God, whom you love, and of the friends you share with Him, and search your possessions for a present that will please Him and them.’

WORK FOR THE CHURCH

There are special reasons, at times, for our gifts to God out of love, as there are special reasons for sacrifices in our human relationships. A mother gives time and energy to making home clean and warm and welcoming for the children when they come in from the day’s work. A father does his work to provide a Catholic education for his family. So we, joined to our Lord in love, help Him with His work by our gift of energy, joy, and suffering.
He is concerned for the goodness of the world. We also, being in His company, have a share in His concern, and we take the part He gives us in the work of spreading goodness. In the Mystical Body of Christ, of which we are made members by grace, we give goodness to others by being good ourselves. We pass on to the Church the goodness we receive from our Lord. For the most part, our work is the pleasant activity of virtue-loving God and loving people, serving God and serving people. Sometimes we are allowed to share in the sufferings of our Lord, and our pain and penance then become a gift of love which we make to Him and to the Church, especially that part of it which we know and love best. It is, as a rule, penance which we accept, without choosing to have it. But on occasion we can choose to give when we are free not to give. Such penance makes yet another likeness between our Lord and His Mystical Body, the Church. St Paul says of himself:
‘I now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His body, which is the Church’ (Col. 1.24).
We also, members of the Body, fill up part of what is still to be suffered by the Church. Our suffering, sacrifice, pain, work, and all our penance, give us a greater share in the Sacrifice of our Lord, on Calvary and in the daily Mass. We offer them out of love for our Lord and love for human beings.

TRAINING

A further reason for penance is a common-sense and necessary training of the soul. Our possession of natural life and the faculties that go with it does not at once give us all the ease in living and in using our faculties that we need or would like to have. We may have aptitude for languages or sums or administration: but we need to learn grammar and tables and order. We may have the makings of an athlete: but the athlete has to learn to walk and to run. And in our learning we sometimes have to overcome weariness, laziness, boredom, and reluctance to exert ourselves.
St Paul explains that motive for penance: ‘The flesh lusteth against the spirit: and the spirit against the flesh. For these are contrary one to another: so that you do not the things that you would’ (Gal. 5.17).
‘I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man: but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and captivating me in the law of sin that is in my members’ (Rom. 7.22–23).
‘I chastise my body and bring it into subjection’ (1 Cor. 9.27).
We could all profitably follow his example.

PRACTICE

Lent and Advent are times indicated by the Church for penance more deliberately adopted. Both then and in the rest of our lives there is ample opportunity for using penance to show love, to help others, and to train oneself.
Is your penance to be regular? And, if it is, what form should it take? Will you give up sweets, snuff, or cinema?
Will you pain yourself by having tea without milk, or by having tea with milk, or by spoiling some other pleasure?
I suggest a form of penance which will make you do mortification regularly, and which will bring much goodness and happiness into your own life and the lives of others. It is a matter, not of looking round for some extra mortification, but of doing properly what you are already bound to do.

THE DAILY ROUND

In everyday life you are never short of opportunities for unselfishness. They come, not as special occasions, but as the continuous obligation of being good. Take those opportunities, and you will have a life filled with mortification and penance of the cheerful and effective sort, springing from love, and nourishing love. There is a saint, John Berchmans, S.J., with the gentleness and simplicity of character which are specially attractive, who said that life in community is the greatest mortification. He meant that living up to the ideal of family life (and other community life) requires constant sacrifice of yourself out of love for your own. You see, once more, that mortification is positive and pleasant. What a life of self-restraint, sacrifice, and hard work of mind and body, to ensure that you never hurt anyone, and that people are always warmer in heart and happier for your existence! But what a jolly life! It is never boring, never chill and dead with selfishness ; but full of interest and affection. Be mortified if you want to enjoy life.

MORTIFICATION BEGINS AT HOME . .

Begin, and continue, penance where charity begins and grows. Penance of that sort, and the love that makes it real, will extend outwards from your home into every part of your life.
You can measure how much self-sacrifice and unselfishness you will need, even if you do nothing more than your fair share of work at home. Take your turn at washing-up, and do your regular part of the other housework: save others trouble and annoyance by leaving the bathroom clean and not like an untidy swamp: have a kettle on, ready for a latecomer-you can work out the details for yourself. You see how you will need to think of others, to have care for them, to be interested in their work and play and to let them be interested in yours. All the time you will be loving your family in thought and word and deed, at the cost to yourself of continual thoughtfulness and sacrifice. It is penance: and you (and the family) will enjoy it.

. . . AND EXTENDS IN ALL DIRECTIONS

With all that practice at home, you will be in good form wherever you may be. You will be courteous in queues, cheerful and helpful at work, kind to the shy, patient with the forward, able to preserve a sense of humour (of proportion, that is) even with the selfish. Instead of afflicting someone with your moans during moods of depression, you will force yourself to look for one more miserable than yourself (if such there be: anyway, the search will be interesting) with whom you can share your slight advantage of good spirits. You will not be for ever peering at your own life and seeking your own interest, in self-centred narrowness; but you will have the wide view, the broad mind, and the good heart of unselfishness. When such growth is the result of cutting back your selfish shoots, then pruning is pleasant-not, perhaps, when the secateurs are snipping, but certainly as soon as the operation is over, and you grow in goodness for yourself, and for others who look to you for goodness and have a right to see it.
Whatever form your regard for others takes, it costs you the effort and pain of self-restraint and self-denial. Imposing restrictions on yourself, you make freedom for others: taking small account of yourself, you make much of others. It is a daily penance. It comes into your life at home and outside, in work and in play. It makes you cheerful and uncomplaining in sickness and other hardships; ready with pity for others but never for your-self. It makes you just and kind in your judgement and speech; tactful; sensitive to the feelings of others; alert to know their needs and quick to supply them. Mortification? So it is. But it is also the fun of Christian living.

LOOK ALIVE

At sight of our Lord, St John the Baptist said: ‘He must increase: but I must decrease’ (John 3.30). It is your formula for mortification. That is self-denial: to assert Christianity in you, to assert the life of Christ in yourself. That is mortification: to live, brightening and warming your world, with the life of Christ. Look alive!

Practical Exercises Of Prayer. AN EXPOSITION OF THE HOLY MASS. By The Very Rev. John Baptist Pagani.

The origin and signification of the different parts of the Liturgy and Ceremonial.

Two fundamental causes called into existence the liturgy of the Mass. The first, which we may call the physical cause, was the necessity of making use of certain material things, of certain persons, of prayers, and other things of a like nature, in the repeated offering of the sacrifice ordained by Christ. The second, or moral cause, was the fitting celebration, with such provisions and arrangements as should fill men's hearts with devotion, and impress them with the majestic dignity of that sacrifice.

Guided by this motive, the holy Church proceeded to invest and adorn the unchangeable substance of the sacred liturgy with various accidental additions, which, appealing sublimely to the senses, raised at the same time the mind to holy meditation, and brought forth the powers of devotion of the heart. It was to aid the faithful in this that the Church was accustomed to connect the various sensible rites and ceremonies of the Mass with certain mystical meanings, having for their especial object the mysteries of redemption and the virtues of the Christian life.

These principles will guide us in the explanation of the various mystic significations of the different parts of the sacred liturgy, and which are reduced to three heads, viz. the natural sense, the allegorical, and the moral.

Of the meaning of the altar and its ornaments.

The Church represents, 1, the upper chamber where Jesus first instituted, and celebrated with His disciples, this divine Sacrifice. 2. The most sacred body of Christ, the living temple of the Divinity (John ii.), and, by participation with Him, the whole body of the Church, and of each one of the faithful, as St. Paul declares. (1 Cor. iii.) 3. The union with God, or the spirit of prayer, according to those words, "My house is the house of prayer." (Matt, xxi.)

The altar signifies and represents, 1st, the table of the Last Supper; 2d, the cross on which the divine Lamb was immolated, as well as Christ Himself, by whom and through whom our sacrifice is presented and accepted by the Father; 3rd, the spirit of sacrifice and self-denial.

The linen cloths, corporals, purificatories, mundatories, &c, signify, 1st, the linen cloths covering the table used by our Lord and His disciples at the Last Supper; 2nd, the linen cloths in which His sacred body was embalmed when it was laid in the sepulchre; 3rd, the external and internal purity required in all Christians, but in priests more especially.

1. The chalice, paten, the wine and water, and the unleavened bread, signify the same things used at the Last Supper. 2. The consecrated bread represents, and is in very truth, the most pure and precious flesh of Christ, and the consecrated wine His most precious blood. The water represents that which flowed from His sacred side when it was opened by the lance; the chalice represents the sepulchre; the paten calls to mind the stone which closed its mouth. 3. The unleavened bread signifies sincerity and candour of mind; the wine, the fervour of charity.

The lights call to mind, 1st, the candles and lamps used in the chamber of the Last Supper; 2nd, Christ, the true Light of the world; 3rd, the light of faith in the soul of the Christian.

To the ornaments of the altar we may also add the chant, which shadows forth the joy of the heavenly Jerusalem ; and the incense, which is the symbol of the prayers of the faithful, of the good odour of their virtues, and the presence of God, who has exhibited His Majesty to men shrouded in clouds and mystery.

Of the meaning of the sacred garments.

The vestments of the priest represent, 1st, The garments worn by Christ,—as His seamless coat is represented by the alb, His girdle by the cincture, His napkin or handkerchief by the maniple, His cloak by the vestment or chasuble. 2nd, Those things with which He was clothed in derision at the time of His passion—the amice calling to our mind the veil with which they blindfolded Him; the alb representing the white robe with which He was clothed in derision by Herod; the cincture and maniple representing the ropes with which He was bound; the purple garment being represented by the vestment, and the cross by the stole. 3rd, So also do they symbolise certain virtues, as follows:—

The amice signified fortitude and watchfulness against temptation; and hence, in arranging it, the priest is directed to say, 'Give to my head, O Lord, the helmet of salvation, wherewith I may resist the assaults of the devil.'

The alb signifies innocence and grace in the soul; and hence, while vesting himself therewith, the priest says: ‘'Clothe me in white, O Lord, and purify my heart, that, being made white in the blood of the Lamb, I may attain to joy everlasting.'

The cincture is the emblem of chastity; and, in girding it, the priest says: 'Gird me, O Lord, with the girdle of purity, and extinguish within my loins the fires of concupiscence, that the virtue of continence and chastity may dwell within me.'

The maniple, the emblem of patient labour in good works; and hence the priest says, while fitting it to his arm: 'Make me worthy, O Lord, to bear the maniple of patience and of sorrow, that I may receive the wages of my toil with rejoicing.'

The stole is a symbol of immortal life, prepared for God's faithful servants in heaven; and hence, while placing it on his shoulders, the priest says: 'Restore unto me, O Lord, the stole of immortality, which I had lost through my first parents' transgression; and although I am not worthy to draw near Thy sacred mysteries, yet grant that I may partake of eternal blessedness.'

The vestment signifies the sweet yoke of the law of Christ, which is charity, wherein is fulfilled the whole law, the sum of all virtues; and in assuming it, the priest says: 'O my Lord, Thou who hast said, My yoke is sweet and My burden light, grant that I may so bear Thy yoke, that I may attain to Thy grace. Amen.'

The cope represents the impassibility of the body after its resurrection, and also the edification of good works. This vesture was originally a sacred garment or cloak, used as a defence from the weather during the performance of any sacred ministry outside the church.

The dalmatic, with which the deacon is vested on solemn feasts, and the tunic, used by the sub-deacon, have similar meanings, and typify the spiritual joy and freedom of heart with which we are to assist our neighbour, signified by the precious material and ample form of their vestments.

The different colours of the vestments indicate the different spirit and character of the various sacred functions and solemnities. White is the emblem of joy, and is used on all the joyful festivals. Red is the emblem of blood and of fire, and is used on the feasts of the Martyrs and at Pentecost. Green is the symbol of hope and peace, and is used on ferias or common days, and when there is no festival. Violet is the emblem of sorrow, used on days of penance and mourning. Black is the symbol of death, and is used for the service of the dead, in Masses of Requiem, and on Good-Friday.

Taken from - The Way to Heaven. A Manual of Devotion. By The Very Rev. John Baptist Pagani.

Practical Exercises Of Prayer. A SHORT HISTORY OF THE MASS By The Very Rev. John Baptist Pagani.

On the day which preceded the passion and death of our divine Redeemer, when, according to the requirements of the law of Moses, the Paschal lamb was killed and eaten, our Lord sent His apostles Peter and John from the neighbouring village of Bethany, where they were staying, into Jerusalem, directing them to a certain house, where they were to enter, and desire the master of the house, in His name, to shew them a room where He might keep the Passover with His disciples. The master of the house having shewn them a large upper chamber, furnished and prepared, they there made all things ready. As it drew towards evening, Christ came, and together with Him the twelve apostles sit down at table. He speaks to them of His burning desire to keep this Paschal Feast with them; He discourses of His passion and death, now just at hand,—of the fierce trials which awaited them, and of other similar things. After which, our Divine Master, in order to apply an effectual remedy to the spirit of ambition which He saw entering amongst the apostles, arose from supper, and having laid aside His upper garment, girded Himself with a linen cloth, and pouring water into a basin, began, like the humblest of servants, with His own divine hands, to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded, accompanying the act with a sublime instruction on the purity and cleanness of heart which were required, and on the humility which was necessary for those who desire to be His disciples and to have part in His blessed kingdom.

After this, our Lord returns to the table with His disciples, and as they were at supper, He took bread, He blessed, He broke it, and gave it to them, saying " Take, eat; this is My Body." And taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink ye all of this; for this is My Blood of the New Testament. Do this for a commemoration of Me. For as often as ye shall eat this bread and drink this chalice, ye shall shew forth the death of the Lord until He come again."

Afterwards, our Lord Jesus Christ discoursed at length with His beloved disciples of most exalted matters, concerning His heavenly Father, and concerning the Holy Ghost, whom He was about to send down upon His Church. Upon peace, and charity, and prayer; upon the persecutions they must endure from the world; concerning His incarnation and His glory. Lastly, lifting up His eyes to heaven, He prays His Eternal Father for Himself, for His Apostles, and for all the elect, and He ends by singing, together with His disciples, a hymn of thanksgiving.

In this brief account we see clearly three things: 1st, the celebration of this first eucharistic Sacrifice by our divine Redeemer Himself; 2nd, the power and the command given to the apostles to celebrate the very same sacrifice as long as the world shall last; 3rd, the type and model of the manner of its celebration; and on this latter point we may observe in a few words, from what has been said, that in the celebration of the first unbloody sacrifice, the following facts and circumstances may be clearly traced:

1. A large room, and well prepared.

2. A table fittingly adorned with cloths, plates, chalices, candlesticks, and other furniture.

3. Unleavened bread, wine, and water.

4. The Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech in tunic or under garment, girded with a girdle, with pallium or upper robe.

5. An ablution with water, wherewith the apostles were purified before partaking in the eucharistic Sacrifice and Sacrament.

6. Sacred discourses and instructions.

7. Prayers and sacred hymns.

8. The consecration of the bread into the Body, and of the wine into the Blood of our Redeemer.

9. The distribution and communion of the consecrated bread and wine.

The Apostles themselves began, after the day of Pentecost, to celebrate the eucharistic Sacrifice, as their Redeemer had commanded them, observing with the utmost care and fidelity all that belongs to the essence of the sacred act; and in those things which were merely accessory, either observing the same ceremonies and order, or else varying them according as they were taught by Christ Himself, or His Holy Spirit, which was given for their guidance. Accordingly, in the beginning, the blessed apostles celebrated in any place, provided it was decently adorned for the purpose, and furnished with all things required for the offering the Sacrifice, such as a table, unleavened bread, chalice, and vessels for the wine and water, napkins, lights, books, &c. In like manner, in imitation of our Lord, they made use of prayers, hymns, lessons, and discourses, before and after the Consecration, as well to instruct those who were present, as to excite greater reverence and fervour during the offering of the most Holy Sacrifice. For this purpose, by degrees, were introduced the various ceremonies and rites which the holy Church has made use of in succeeding ages; such as the variety of sacred vestments, the incense, the chant, and the different degrees of sacred ministers assisting.

The use of all those particular forms and rites which make up the sacred liturgy is to be explained and accounted for, moreover, by reference to two other causes. First, that the Christian Church succeeded immediately to the Jewish, wherein, by command of God Himself, from the time of Moses, it had been the custom to make use of great pomp and majestic splendour of external ritual in the public worship of God. And as this was also most conformable to the natural law and the constitution of man, it was fit that the Church of the New Covenant should shew herself superior even to that of the older dispensation, and thus bring out into its full development and perfection even the external part of the divine worship.

In the second place, as there is every reason to believe that very many of the ceremonies, rites, and other circumstances of the sacred liturgy were copied, so to speak, from the pattern shewn on the Mount of revelation to Moses; so that of the New Covenant, the Covenant of love, was exhibited to the Apostle and Evangelist St. John, when, in spirit, he was transported into heaven, and beheld those secret things which he recounts in the book of his Apocalypse; and there we read of the worship paid in the heavenly Jerusalem to the divine Lamb of God, of an altar of incense, of chants and prayers, the various ranks and orders of the Blessed, adorned with palms, and white garments, and sacred vestments, and crowns of gold, and all the splendour of a heavenly ritual.

Lastly, it is most probable that the apostles themselves did not use, at all times and under all circumstances, precisely the same forms in the offering of the divine Sacrifice, but employed one more or less solemn, according as the circumstances of time or place, of tranquillity or persecution in the Church, dictated.

~ And here we might recall the origin of the different liturgies for celebrating the eucharistic Sacrifice which have been in use in the various Churches, whether of the East or of the West, all which, within their own limits, are respected and allowed by the mother and mistress of all Churches, the holy Church of Rome and See Apostolic. But leaving these, as beside our present purpose, we will touch briefly on the liturgy which the Roman Church makes use of, as having more authority, and being of more universal usage.

From the days of the Apostles it was always the case that many Pagans and Jews were accustomed to be present at the functions of religion celebrated in the churches of the Christians; some drawn by curiosity to see what was there done, others by a desire of being instructed and admitted into the new religion. As it was necessary, on the one hand, to receive all, with the greatest charity to teach them to know their God and Redeemer Jesus Christ; so, on the other, it was requisite to exclude persons who were not yet instructed and baptised from being present at the celebration of the more august and profound mysteries of the altar, that they might not expose to derision or profaneness that of which they as yet knew or believed nothing. In order, therefore, to reconcile these two important objects, it was thought right to divide the sacred liturgy into two parts, at the celebration of the first of which all, whether faithful or unbelievers, might be present with propriety and advantage, whilst the second part was reserved for the faithful alone. The first part was called the Mass of the catechumens, or scholars in the faith; the second, the Mass of the faithful.

The sacred liturgy of the Mass of the catechumens consisted of three principal parts, viz. of the Confession of Sins, the Prayers, and the Instructions, which were directed chiefly to prepare the catechumens for receiving holy Baptism, whereby they were to be admitted into the class of the faithful. This first part of the Mass, therefore, was merely the remote preparation for the Sacrifice; and during this the prayers, the psalms, and other parts, sung or recited, were directed to implore the mercy of God on the catechumens and unbelievers, that they might obtain the grace of faith and of holy baptism, and to enlighten and instruct them by lessons taken from the holy Scriptures, and by sacred discourses. The Mass of the catechumens extended as far as the Offertory, at which part of the liturgy they were dismissed, and none remained but the faithful only.

The Mass of the faithful, or the Sacrifice, properly began now, and also consisted of three parts, viz. the Offertory, the Consecration, and the Communion. The Offertory consisted of an offering of bread and wine, and at times of other gifts also, which were carried by the faithful and presented at the altar; of these the sacred ministers took so much as was required for the Sacrifice, and for distributing the holy Eucharist to all those who desired to communicate—the remainder was set apart for the use of the poor. The portion of bread and wine set apart for the Sacrifice was then offered up and presented to God by the celebrating priest; and he, together with the whole people, offered up prayers over the oblation for himself, for the whole body of the clergy, for the civil powers of the state, and for the whole Church militant on earth and in the middle state of purgation. After the Offertory, which was succeeded by a preface, wherein the people were encouraged to offer thanksgivings and praises to God, in union with angels, and archangels, and all the company of heaven, the consecration of the bread and wine followed immediately; and then, once more, in the presence of our Lord under the sacramental veils, prayers, the same in substance as before, in behalf of the whole Church, were again recited. Last of all came the Communion, or dispensing of the body and blood of Christ to all the faithful who desired or were worthy of Communion. After which, and the recitation of certain other prayers called the Post Communion, or prayers after Communion, the deacon dismissed the people with the words, lie, missa est—' Go, you are dismissed,' and thus finished the Mass, or Missa; for so the sacred liturgy came to be called from this ceremony of dismissal performed by the deacon, first at the end of the liturgy of the catechumens, and afterwards at the end of the Mass of the faithful.

In process of time the distinction between the catechumens and the faithful ceased, as well on account of the Church's custom of baptising children in their infancy, as on account of the conversion of whole nations to the faith. The Mass of the catechumens was not, however, discontinued, but was retained in substance as most useful for the faithful themselves, forming a beautiful supplement and addition to the Mass itself, and serving excellently to prepare and dispose the souls of the worshippers for the offering of the mystic sacrifice.

There are three things which principally hinder us from assisting worthily, and from partaking in all the fulness of the inestimable blessing contained in these tremendous mysteries. These defects are, first, sin; secondly, our natural unworthiness and misery; and, thirdly, our ignorance of the things of God. It should, therefore, be our unceasing study to remove these hindrances, and to make this our principal preparation for assisting at the divine Sacrifice. Accordingly, it is to this end that the portion of the sacred liturgy of the Mass preceding the Offertory is directed. For here, in the first place, it is the intention of the Church that the priest, and the whole people together with him, should publicly acknowledge themselves guilty, and confess that they have sinned in the presence of God and of the whole court of heaven, and therefore implore His mercy and pardon. In the next place, she directs them to beseech Almighty God, through the intercession of the blessed Virgin and of all the Saints, that He would vouchsafe His grace to all present in an especial manner (as also to those who are absent, for whom prayer is likewise made); beseeching Him to supply, from the infinite abundance of His grace, all that is wanting through their vileness, misery, and unworthiness. Lastly, by the reading of the Prophecies, the Epistles, and Gospel, and the recitation of the Creed —the records of Divine revelation, she enlightens and instructs her children in the wisdom from above.

Taken from - The Way to Heaven. A Manual of Devotion. By The Very Rev. John Baptist Pagani.

The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett, O.P. part 19. Knowledge.

1. This gift of God illumines and perfects the intelligence. The purpose of the gifts, it has been already explained, is to make the soul more alive to, and more appreciative of, the whispered instinct of God; not to create new faculties, but to increase the power of those already existing. My mind, then, has to be supernaturalized and refined to that pitch of perception which will enable it to grasp and to understand God’s message. Now the mind itself works upon a great variety of subjects. It has whole worlds to conquer, planes of thought which are very clearly distinguishable; yet in its every activity it needs this divine refinement, so that in all four gifts are allotted to perform this complete enlightenment of the mind. Knowledge overcomes ignorance and is concerned with the facts, visible and sense-perceived, in creation; for by the council of the Vatican it is laid down as part of the deposit of faith that human reason can prove the existence of God altogether apart from the supernatural motives which grace supplies. The visible world is held to contain ample proofs which in themselves are adequate logically to convince human understanding of the existence of God. Individual reason may fail to satisfy itself. People may declare truthfully that they are not convinced; the Church insists only that it can be done.

2. Knowledge, however, in this sense is a gift of God whereby we discover Him in His own creation and in the works of man. It is here no mere task set to reason for detecting the Creator in His handiwork, but an actual vision by which the soul is supernaturalized and sees Him patently everywhere. The beauteous face of nature is merely seen as a veil, hiding a beauty more sublime. Things of dread as well as things of loveliness come into the scheme, things trivial and things tremendous, things majestic and things homely, all that God has made. Even man’s work, who is himself only one of the greater masterpieces of the Great Artificer, is affected by this new light with which the world is flooded. The delicate pieces of machinery constructed by human ingenuity, that gain in wonder and in power, are themselves still God’s work at one remove; they are the fruits of a mind that He has constructed, and they do not exhaust the capacity of that mind. They reveal hidden potentialities as well as express actual achievements. Weapons of destruction, with all the horror they rightly inspire, are yet witnesses again to that parent-intelligence whence was begotten man himself. All this, of course, as soon as considered, is admitted by every believer in God, but the gift of knowledge makes it realized and seen steadfastly.

3. Life, then, of itself is full of illusion. That is the cry, desolating and pitiful, which arises from the higher followers of every religious faith. Man is bound to the wheel, his mind is compassed with infirmity, he is born into ignorance. Desire tumultuously hustles all his days. He needs, therefore, some light whereby he may find the true inner meaning of all with which he comes in contact. Here, then, in the gift of Knowledge is such a true vision, understanding, vouchsafed him of the visible things of creation. He will realize as much, perhaps, even more than before the attraction of beauty, only it will be no snare, but a beckoning light. He will find in it now no illusion, but the perfect image of a greater beauty. The charm of the world about him will become greater, the wonders of nature, the intricate pattern of mechanical appliances, the fury of storms, the tumult of the wind, the terrific force of pestilence, the psychological facts of man’s mind, the construction of his frame, the grouping of his social instincts, all now will be alive with God, shot through with the divine splendour, elevated to His order of life, eloquent of His name—a deepening knowledge of God achieved through a knowledge of His creatures.

The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett, O.P. part 18. The Fruits Of The Spirit.

1. Besides the beatitudes there are other acts that follow from the gifts when properly used by the soul. The beatitudes are means which, under the light infused by God, are valued at their true worth as leading finally to happiness in its more complete sense. But when these are thus put into practice, for the soul understands the new meaning life gathers, they do not end the wonders of the action of grace. As a boy I met life and found it full of interest and dawning with the glories of success. The world in its aspect of nature had such manifest beauties that these quickly entranced and thrilled the soul. The sun and grass and flowers and woods and waters, make no secret of their kinship with their creator; Francis Thompson found them “garrulous of God,” so garrulous in our youth that we see that life is full of very good things. Then comes the reaction (to many even before full manhood), when life is found to be full of illusion. Life is now judged a melancholy business, apt to fail you just when the need of it is most discovered, hard to be certain of; it is the age of romantic melancholy when most people put into verse their sorrow at the disappointment to be found in all things of beauty. Every tree and flower and “dear gazelle” is no sooner loved than it is lost through death or misunderstanding.

2. Then, finally, the balance is set right. The two phases pass. They are both true only as half truths. There is no denying that life is good and beautiful and thrilling. The boy’s vision is correct. Yet it is equally true to say that there is sorrow and suffering and death and disappointment in all human things. But a new phase, blessedly a last phase, dawns upon the soul. Sorrow and pain are real, but the old happiness of boyhood is made to fit in and triumph over them by the sudden realization that strength is the lesson to be learned. Sorrow comes that discipline may be born in the soul, self-restraint, humility. Life is hard, but its very hardness is no evil, but our means of achieving good. That is the very atmosphere of the beatitudes, the message they bring, the teaching they imparted from the Sermon on the Mount. Poverty, cleanness of heart, mercy, meekness, are all things difficult to acquire; but they give a real, true blessedness to the soul that will see their value. Life is no longer a disappointment, but the training ground of all good.

3. Finally, there follow other acts, too many to number, though there are twelve usually given, which result from gifts and beatitudes. These are called the fruits of the Holy Ghost, for they represent in that metaphorical sense the ultimate result of the gifts. They are the last and sweetest consequences of the sevenfold habits infused by the Spirit. Indeed, just as trees are grown in an orchard because of their fruits, and, therefore, just as it can be said that the fruit is, from the gardener’s point of view, the purpose for which the tree is cultivated (for of the fruitless fig Our Lord asked why it cumbered the ground), so these fruits of the Holy Ghost (charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity—Gal. 5.22) can be looked upon as the very purpose for which the gifts were given, that I might, by seeing a new blessedness in life’s very troubles, begin to find joy and peace and patience and faith, where else I had found only sorrow. Endlessly could the list of these be extended, for St. Paul has chosen only a very few; but these that he names are what a man delights in when he has received the gifts, and has understood and valued the beatitudes. Sweetness is what they add to virtue, ease, comfort. I not only hunger and thirst after justice, but enjoy the very pain of the pursuit.

The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett, O.P. part 17. BEATITUDES

1. The possession of the sevenfold gifts results in the performance of certain virtuous acts, for it is perfectly obvious that if I am so blest by the gifts that I find my reason, will, emotions, made increasedly perceptive of divine currents previously lost to me, I can hardly help acting in a new way. I now discover the view about me, and the music, and, consequently, my manner of life must in some ways be different from before. The Vision has come; it cannot simply open my eyes to new things in life without thereby altering that very life itself. Not only shall I find that what seemed to me before to be evil now appears to me to be a blessing; but on that very account what before I tried to avoid, or, having got, tried to be rid of, I shall now accept, perhaps even seek. Similarly, whereas then I was weak, now I am strong; and increase of strength means new activities, new energy put into the old work and finding its way out into works altogether new. My emotions, finally, which perilled and dominated my life, slip now into a subordinate position, and while thereby as actively employed as before, are held under discipline. It is clear, therefore, that the gifts will not leave me where I was before, but will influence my actions as well as alter my vision.

2. I find, then, that these new habits will develop into new activities. But this means also that I have a new idea as to the means of achieving the full happiness of life. Once upon a time I thought happiness meant comfort, now I see that it means something quite different. My view of happiness has changed. I am therefore obliged to change also my idea as to the means and conditions whereby, and in which, happiness can be found. I had attempted to climb out of my valley over the hills in the west; I now attempt to climb out over the hills to the east. The steps by which once I clambered are useless to me. I must try new ones in the opposite hills. Just that is what Our Lord meant by promulgating His eight Beatitudes. These are just the new blessedness, so to say, which results from finding that happiness now means the knowledge and love of God. Things that previously I fled from, I now seek; things once my bugbear, are now the objects of my delight. Poverty, meekness, mourning, the hunger and thirst after justice, cleanness of heart, the making of peace, mercy, the suffering of persecution for justice’s sake, are now found to be the steps to be passed over, the conditions to be secured before happiness can be finally secured.

3. These things, then, are beatitudes to me. They are acts which I finally achieve by means of the new enlightenment gained through the gifts of God. Actively I am merciful and meek and clean of heart. I perform these actions, and they are the result of visions seen, and counsels heard, through the new sensitiveness to the divine instinctive guidance that of old passed me by without finding in my heart any response. To be forever pursuing now peace and sorrow, and, at whatever cost, justice, is an energizing state of life which is due entirely to the new perception of the value of these things, so that we are right in asserting that the beatitudes are nothing else than certain actions, praised by Our Lord and practiced by us as a result of the establishment in our souls of seven definite habits. But not only are they actions, they produce as an effect joy in the heart; for which reason it is that we call them beatitudes. They show me what is truly blessed and thereby give me, even here on earth, a foretaste of the bliss of final happiness.

The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett, O.P. part 16. Gifts Of The Holy Spirit.

1. To live the spiritual life to its fullness we need the instinctive governances of the Holy Ghost. All day long, and even all through the hours when consciousness is asleep, the Holy Spirit is speaking to us in many ways. He is offering us His heavenly counsel, enlightening our minds to an ever more complete understanding of the deep truths of faith, and generally imparting to us that deep knowledge without which we cannot make advance. Reason and common sense have their own contribution to make in opening our minds and hearts to a proper interpretation of all that is about us and within us; but reason and common sense have themselves also to be super naturalized, to be illumined by the light of a far higher plane of truth. Hence the need of this divine instinct is patent to anyone who considers the purpose and destiny of the soul. But it is difficult at times to understand and to grasp surely the words of divine wisdom, since by sin’s coarseness the refinement of the soul is dulled and rendered but little responsive; or, rather, it is not so much a matter of being responsive to a message as primarily of hearing and understanding it. It seems to be very obvious that God must be speaking to me almost without ceasing; it is equally obvious that very little of this is noticed.

2. Here, then, am I in the world and needing the governance of God’s instinct. Here, too, is this whispered counsel and enlightenment of God, perpetually being made to me. Yet, though made by God, and needed by me, this counsel and enlightenment, I can be certain, must frequently be entirely lost to me. It is as though I lived in a perfectly beautiful country, with stretching landscape about, and beautiful glimpses of hills and woodland, and yet never saw or appreciated the view; as though heavenly music were about me, to which I never paid the slightest attention; as though my best loved friend stood by me and I never lifted my eyes, and so did not know of his presence. Of course it is really a great deal worse than that, for I do not need with an absolute necessity the view, or the music, or the friend; whereas I do most certainly need this divinely offered help, guidance, enlightenment. Hence it is clear that neither my need nor God’s instinct suffice. Something else is required by means of which I am able to make use of that instinct, to hear its message, to discover its meaning, to apply its advice to myself; else am I no better than a general who possesses the full plan of his allies, in all its details, but written in a cypher that he cannot read.

3. To produce this reaction or perception is the work of the sevenfold gifts. They are habits infused into the soul, which strengthen its natural powers, and make them responsive to every breath of God and capable of heroic acts of virtue. By the gifts my eyes are made able to see what had else been hidden, my ears quick to catch what had else not been heard; the gifts do not, so to say, supply eye or ear, but make more delicate, refined, sensitive, the eye and ear already there. Their business is to intensify rather than to create powers established in me by grace. Less excellent necessarily than the theological virtues which unite me to God, they are yet more excellent than the other virtues, though, being rooted in charity and thereby linked up among themselves, they are also part of the dowry that charity brings in her train. On this account it is clear that from the moment of Baptism the sevenfold gifts are the possession of the soul, and whosoever holds one holds all; yet by the sacrament of Confirmation it would appear certain that something further is added, some more delicate perception, some livelier sensitiveness; or it may be, as other theologians point out, that by Confirmation they are more steadily fixed in the soul, more fully established, more firmly held. But in any case it is clear what they are to me, habits whereby I am perfected to obey the Holy Spirit of God.

The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett, O.P. part 15. Guidance in Spiritual Life.

1. I have God the Holy Spirit with me. He comes to me in order that I may surrender myself to Him. Of course I cannot merge my personality in His to the extent of having no power of my own, but God has such infinite dominion over the heart of man that He is able to move the will, without in any sense whatever violating its freedom. In the liturgy of the Church there are two or three prayers which speak about God “compelling our rebellious wills.” Now for anyone else to “compel my will” would be to destroy it as a will, since, as even Cromwell freely confessed, “the will suffereth no compulsion”; I cannot be made to will against my will. That would be a contradiction, though I can be made to act against my will, for my actions do not necessarily imply that my will is in them. Whereas, then, no one else can move my will without utterly destroying my moral freedom, God can, for He is intimate to the will and moves it, not really as an external but as an internal power. St. Thomas Aquinas repeatedly refers to this and says over and over again the same thing, namely, that God is so intimately united to man, and so powerful, that not only can He move man to will, but move him to will freely by affecting, not only the action of man, but the very mode of the action.
2. Such is man, whether in a state of grace or not, that his will is in the hands of God, to be moved by man freely, but not so as to exclude God’s movement. Naturally enough it is far easier to say this than to explain it. Indeed the mere statement is all that is actually binding upon faith, and the particular explanation favored by St. Thomas in his general acceptance of St. Augustine’s teaching, comes to us largely as of deep and abiding moment on account of the very clear reasons given and the great authority of his name; but in any case there is something far more special in the guidance of the Holy Spirit sought for by the soul in its endeavor to “live godly in Christ Jesus.” It has to yield itself to the promptings of God, be eager to catch His every whisper, and quick in its obedience to His every call. For this to be achieved, the first work is an emptying out of the soul. Every obstacle has to be got rid of; any attachment to creatures that obscures God’s light has to be broken through (though not every attachment to creatures, since unless I love man whom I see, I cannot possibly know what love means when applied to God, nor can I suppose myself to be able to understand or love God, whom I do not see). First, then, to cleanse my soul by leveling and smoothing and clearing its surface and depths.
3. Then I must yield myself into His arms. I shall not know very often the way He wishes me to go. It may be only one step at a time, and then darkness again; or I may be taken swiftly and surely and openly along a clear road. That is His business, not mine, only I must be prepared not to be able to follow always the meaning of what He wants of me. It is not necessary at all that I should know. If I am faithful and loyal and full of trust, things will gradually settle themselves, and I shall at least be able to look back and understand the significance and purpose of many things that at first appeared accidental, and even in opposition to the end I considered God had in view for me. Thus by looking back I can sometimes get a shrewd idea of what is to follow; but often it is only a guess, nothing more than that. Still, generally, it would seem that people who surrender themselves to God do get a sense or a feeling which leads them right and makes them sure. It is the divine tenderness stooping to poor muddled humanity and making it transfigured with God’s own glory. The advance, then, whether consciously grasped or not, is in due proportion to the purity and fidelity of the soul, purity in its act of cleansing, fidelity in its subjection to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett, O.P. part 14. Heirs of God.

1. One of the conditions of adoption is that the newly chosen son should become the legal heir of the new father. Without this legal result or consequence adoption has no meaning. Merely to get a boy to enter a family circle does not imply adoption, for this last has a distinct meaning with a distinct purpose. If, then, we are the heirs of God we are really possessed of a right to His Divine Inheritance. Heaven has been made indeed our home. We speak of it in our hymns as patria, which we can translate as the “land of our fathers.” We claim it thereby in virtue of our parentage, and our parentage is of God. If, then, He is our Father, not by nature, but by adoption, i. e., by grace, we are none the less His heirs and have some sort of right over His possessions and riches. A father cannot without leave of his adopted son alienate any of the family heirlooms; the adopted son now, by the father’s own free act acquires, not indeed dominion over the riches of the home, but, at any rate, an embargo on the father’s free exercise of those riches. He could even demand, as against his father, a legal investigation into the due use and investment of them. His signature is required for every document that relates to them. He has become almost a part-owner of his father’s possessions, since he is their legal heir. All this is implied by adoption in its true sense, and therefore it must be intended to apply to us when we are spoken of as God’s adopted sons.
2. I can, therefore, truthfully speak of myself as an heir of God. Of course I cannot mean that there is any possible question of “the death of the testator,” i. e., of God. That is quite clearly of no significance here. But adoption does give me some sort of claim to the heritage of God. Now the law defines a heritage as that by which a man is made rich. It includes not the riches only, but the source of the riches, so that if I have a claim to God’s riches, I have a claim also upon the source of those riches. For the heir is entitled not merely to a legacy, but to the whole of the fortune. I have a right to the whole fortune of God, to the whole universe. At once, as soon as I realize it, the whole of the world is mine. It is the doctrine of the mystics that, misunderstood, led astray the communists of the Middle Ages. These claimed a common ownership of the wealth of all the world, whereas what was intended was that we should look upon the whole world as ours. To me, then, in life, nothing can be strange or distant or apart. No places can there be where my mind cannot enter and roam at will and feel itself at home; no things can be profane, no people who are not tabernacles of God, no part of life that is not steeped in that living presence. The only possible boundary is the love and the grace of God. There will indeed come evil frontiers beyond which my soul could never dwell. But all else is of God and is therefore my right. All creation is mine; the wonder and beauty of it, life and death, pleasure alike and pain, yield up to me their secrets and disclose the hidden name of God.
3. Here, then, I can find that divine wealth, to inherit which has been the purpose of the adoption by God. Wherever I turn I shall find Him. Whether life has smooth ways or rough, whether she hangs my path with lights or hides me in gloom, I am the heir to all that earth or sea or sky can boast of as their possession. Indeed, these are only the rich things of God, whereas I have a claim upon even more. I have a claim upon the very source of this wealth, that is, upon God Himself, for He is the sole source of all His greatness. I have a right to God Himself. He is mine. He Who holds in the hollow of His hands the fabric of the world, Who with His divine power supports, and with His providence directs, the intricate pattern of the world, has Himself by creation entered deeply into the world; at the heart of everything He lies hid. But even more by grace He comes in a fuller, richer way into the depths of the soul. Here in me are Father, and Son, and Spirit. Dear God, teach me to understand the wonder of this indwelling, to appreciate its worth, to be thankful for its condescension, to reverence its place of choice, to be conscious of its perpetual upholding. By it I am an heir to the fullness of the divine riches. By it I, a creature, possess in His fullness my Creator, Redeemer, Lord.

The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett, O.P. part 13. Adopted Sonship

1. Here again we have to realize that the sonship of God is no mere metaphor, no mere name, but a deep and true fact of huge significance: “Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called and should be the sons of God!” (1 John 3). We become the sons of God. St. Paul very gladly quotes the saying of a Greek poet that men are the offspring of God, making use of a particular word which necessarily implies that both the begetter and the begotten are of the same nature. A sonship indeed is what Our Lord is Himself incessantly teaching the Apostles to regard as their high privilege, for God is not only His Father, but theirs: “Thus shalt thou pray, Our Father.” With the Gospels it is in constant use as the view of God that Christianity came especially to teach. The Epistles are equally insistent on the same view, for St. Paul is perpetually calling to mind the wonderful prerogatives whereby we cry, “Abba: Father.” We are spoken of as co-heirs of Christ, as children of God. St. John, St. Peter, and St. James repeat the same message as the evident result of the Incarnation, for by it we learn that God became the Son of Man, and man the son of God.

2. Yet it must also be admitted that this sonship of God, which is the common property of all just souls, and is the result of the indwelling of God in the soul, does not mean that we are so by nature, but only by adoption. Now adoption, as it is practiced by law, implies that the child to be adopted is not already the son, that the new relationship is entered upon entirely at the free choice of the person adopting, that the child becomes the legal heir to the inheritance of the adopting father. It is perfectly evident that all these conditions are fulfilled in the case of God’s adoption, for we were certainly no children of His before His adoption of us as sons; strangers we were, estranged indeed by the absence of grace and the high gifts of God. Naturally we were made by Him, but had put ourselves far from Him: “You were as sheep going astray.” Then this adoption of us by God was indeed and could only have been at His free choice, through no merits of ours, but solely according to the deliberate action of His own will, for “you have not chosen Me but I have chosen you.” “So that it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.” Finally, the inheritance is indeed ours by right and title of legal inheritance. We are co-heirs with Christ, and our human nature is lifted up to the level of God; not, of course, that we supplant Him who is by nature the true Son of God, but that we are taken into partnership with Him, and share in Him the wonderful riches of God.

3. Here, then, I may learn the worth and dignity of the Christian name. I am a true son of God, and what else matters upon earth? I have indeed to go about my life with its vocation and all that is entailed in it. I have to work for my living, it may be, or take my place in the family, or lead my own solitary existence. I have to strive to be efficient and effective in the material things of life that fall to my share to be done. But it is this sonship of God that alone makes any matter in the world. In our own time we have heard a very great deal about culture and the ultimate value of the world; but we have seen also to what evil ends so fine a truth may lead men. True culture is not a question of scientific attainments, or mechanical progress, or the discovery of new inventions of destruction, or even of medical and useful sciences; but it is the perfect and complete development of the latent powers of the soul. True culture may indeed make use of sciences and art; perhaps in its most complete sense science and art are needed for the most finished culture of which man is capable; but it is in its very essence the deepening of his truest desire, the full stretch of his widest flights of fancy, the achievement of his noblest ideals. What nobler ideal, or fancy, or desire, can a man have than to be called and to be the son of God; to know that he has been drawn into the close union of God; to feel within his very essence the presence of God; to have personal experience as the objects of his knowledge and love of the Father, Son, and Spirit?

The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett, O.P. part 12. Deification.

1. This very strong expression is used by St. Augustine and many of the Fathers to describe one of the effects of grace. By grace we are deified, i. e., made into gods. Right at the beginning of all the woes of humanity when, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve first were tempted, the lying spirit promised that the reward of disobedience would be that they should become “as gods.” The result of sin could hardly be that, so man, made only a little lower than the angels, can at times find himself rebuked by the very beasts. Yet the promise became in the end fulfilled, since the Incarnation really affected that transformation, and God, by becoming human, made man himself divine. St. Peter, in his second epistle (4.1), insinuates the same truth when he describes the great promises of Christ making us “partakers of the Divine Nature.” The work, then, of grace is something superhuman and divine. Creation pours into us the divine gift of existence and therefore makes us partakers in the divine being, for existence implies a participation in the being of God. The indwelling of the Blessed Trinity, then, does even more, for by it we participate not only in the divine being, but in the divine nature, and fulfil the prophecy of Our Lord: “Ye are gods.” Justification, therefore, is a higher gift than creation, since it does more for us.

2. This divine participation is what is implied in many texts which allude to the sacrament of Baptism, for the purpose of Baptism is just that, to make us children of God. The phrases concerning “new birth” and “being born again” all are intended to convey the same idea, that the soul by means of this sacrament is lifted above its normal existence and lives a new life. This life is lived “with Christ in God,” i. e., it is a sort of entrance within the charmed circle of the Trinity, or, more accurately, it is that the Blessed Trinity inhabits our soul and enters into our own small life, which at once therefore takes on a new and higher importance. In it henceforth there can be nothing small or mean. For the same reason Our Lord speaks of it to the Samaritan woman as “the gift of God,” beside which all His other benefactions fade into nothingness. Again, it is a “fountain of living water,” it is a “refreshment,” it is “life” itself. Not the stagnant water that remains in a pool in some dark wood, but a stream gushing out from its source, fertilizing the ground on every side, soaking through to all the thirsting roots about it, giving freshness and vitality to the whole district through which it wanders. Life indeed it bears as its great gift; and so does sanctifying grace carry within it the fertilizing power needed by the soul.

3. The participation in the Divine Nature is therefore no mere metaphor, but is a real fact. The indwelling of God makes the soul like to God. I find myself influenced by the people with whom I live, picking up their expressions, copying their tricks and habits, following out their thoughts, absorbing their principles, growing daily like them. With God at the centre of my life the same effect is produced, and slowly, patiently, almost unconsciously, I find myself infected by His spirit. What He loves becomes my ideal; what He hates, my detestation. But it is even closer than this, no mere concord of wills nor harmony of ideas, a real and true elevation to the life of God. Grace is formally in God, at the back, so to say, of His divine nature, the inner essence of Himself. By receiving it, therefore, I receive something of God, and begin to be able to perform divine actions. I can begin to know God even as I am known, to taste His sweetness, and by His favour to have personal, experimental knowledge of Himself. To act divinely is only possible to those who are made divine. This, then, becomes the formal union with God, its terms, its end, its purpose. Deified, therefore, we become in our essence by grace, in our intelligence by its light, in our will by charity.

The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett, O.P. part 11. Justification

1. There is something in the forgiveness of sin which implies an element of positive good, and this is called justification. It means that the attitude of God towards forgiven sin is believed by the Catholic Church to be no mere neglect or forgetfulness of its evil, but an actual and complete forgiveness. At the time of the Protestant Reformation a long controversy was waged over this very point, in which the Reformers took up the curious position that forgiveness implied nothing more than that God did not impute sin. He covered up the iniquities of the soul with the Blood of His Son, and no longer peered beneath the depths of that sacred and saving sign. The problem has probably hardly any meaning now, since the original doctrinal principles of Protestantism, the ostensible reasons for the sixteenth century revolt, have been abandoned long since as hopeless of defence. In fact all that was really positive in Protestantism has been ruined by its basic negative principle of private judgment. Against such a battering ram Christianity itself is powerless. But that long-forgotten discussion had this much of value, that it brought out in clear perspective the fullness of the Catholic teaching on the central doctrine of justification and showed its depth and meaning.

2. Briefly, then, it may be stated that it is not simply that God does not impute evil, but that He forgives it. It is as though a rebellion had taken place and its leader had been captured and brought before his offended sovereign. Now the king might do either of two things, if he wished not to punish the culprit. He might simply bid him go off and never appear again, or he might go even further by actually forgiving the rebellion and receiving back into favour the rebel. It is one thing to say that no punishment will be awarded, it is another to say that the crime is forgiven, and that everything is to go on as though nothing had happened. In the first case we might say that the king chose not to impute the sin, in the other that he forgave and justified the sinner. It is just this, then, that the Catholic Church means when she teaches justification as implied in the idea of forgiveness. It is just this, too, that Our Lord meant when He detailed His beautiful parable about the prodigal son. The boy’s return home does not mean merely that the father refrains from punishment, but rather that there is a welcome so hearty and so complete that the serious-minded elder brother, coming in from his long labour in the fields, is rather scandalized by its suddenness and its intensity. Such is indeed God’s treatment of the soul. He is so generous, so determined not to be outdone by any sorrow on the part of the sinner, that He overwhelms with the most splendid favours the recently converted soul.

3. But in this connection we must see in justification a process by which the Presence of God is again achieved by man. By sin grace was lost, and with grace went out the Divine Three in One, the temple was desecrated, the veil of the Holy of Holies was utterly rent. Then sin is forgiven and, once more, the Sacred home is occupied by God. Moreover, when God comes to the soul He comes with His full strength of love, and thereby gives a new energy and life to man. We love because of some beauty, goodness, excellence, that we see in others. We love, then, because of what is in them. It is their gifts that cause or ignite our love. But God, Who is the only cause Himself, creates excellences by love. We are not loved because we are good; we are good because we are loved, so that this indwelling itself fashions us after God’s own heart. “It is the love of God,” says St. Thomas (Summa theologica, i, 20.2), “that produces and creates goodness in things.” The divine presence, then, of God in the soul, effected by sanctifying grace, makes the soul more worthy a temple, more fit a home. God does not come to us because we are fit, but we are fit because God comes to us.

The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett, O.P. part 10. Forgiveness of Sin.

1. To understand this first and great effect of grace I must know what sin is, and to grasp sin in its fullness I must comprehend God. To see the heinousness of what is done against Him I must first realize what He is Himself. I have to go through all my ideas of God, my ideas of His majesty, His power, His tenderness, His justice, His mercy. I have got to realize all that He has done for man before I can take in the meaning of man’s actions against God. I have to be conscious of the Incarnation, of the story of that perfect life, the privations of it, the culminating horror of the Passion and Death, then of the Resurrection, the patient teaching of those forty days when He spoke of the Kingdom of God which He was setting up on earth, the Ascension, which did not mean an end, but only the beginning of His work for men on earth. At once there opened the wonderful stream of graces which flow through the sacraments, and which therefore make continuous upon the world till its consummation, His abiding presence, for the tale of the Blessed Sacrament only adds to the wonders of the tenderness and mercy of God. In Heaven, by ever trying to make intercession for us, on earth, by holding out through the sacraments countless ways of grace, It shows to us something at least of the perfect character of God. Now it is against one so perfect, so tender, so divine, that sin is committed, a wanton, brutal outrage against an almost over fond love. Ingratitude, treachery, disloyalty, united in the basest form.

2. God is just, as well as merciful, so that there had to be an immediate result of sin. Man might see no difference between himself before and after he had sinned; but for all that a great difference was set up. His soul had been on terms of friendship with God, for it had turned irresistibly to Him, as a flower growing in a dark place turns irresistibly to where the hardy daylight makes its way into the gloom. That friendship is at once broken, for sin means that the soul has deliberately turned its back upon God and is facing the other way, and thus it has been able by some fatal power to prevent God’s everlasting love having any effect upon it. God cannot hate; but we can stop His love from touching us. At once, then, by grievous sin the soul becomes despoiled of its supernatural goods: sanctifying grace, which is the pledge and expression of God’s friendship, naturally is banished; charity, which is nothing else than the love of God, the infused virtues, the gifts, are all taken away. Faith only and hope survive, but emptied of their richness of life. Externally no difference, but internally friendship with God, the right to the eternal heritage, the merits heretofore stored up—all lost. Even God Himself goes out from the midst of the soul, as the Romans heard the voice crying from the Temple just before its destruction: Let us go hence. Let us go hence.

3. Grace, then, operates to restore all these lost wonders. Sin itself is forgiven, all the ingratitude and disloyalty put one side; not simply in the sense that God forgets them, or chooses not to consider them, but in the sense that they are completely wiped away. It is the parable of the Good Shepherd where the sheep is brought back again into the fold, and mixes freely with the others who have never left the presence of their Master. It is the parable of the prodigal son taken back into his father’s embrace. That is what the forgiveness of sin implies. God is once more back again in the soul. He had always been there as the Creator without Whose supporting hand the soul would be back in its nothingness; but He is now there again as Father, and Master, and Friend. Not the saints only who have been endowed with a genius for divine things, but every simple soul that has had its sins forgiven, comes at once into that embrace. We are far too apt to look upon forgiveness as a merely negative thing, a removal, a cleansing, and not enough as a return to something great and good and beautiful, the triumphant entrance into our souls of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett, O.P. part 9. This Presence has certain effects.

1. It is very clear that so tremendous a presence as this indwelling implies must have tremendous results. If, as I believe, Father, and Son, and Spirit, are always within me by grace, the effect upon my soul should be considerable. To begin with, the very nearness to God which this indwelling secures must make a great difference to my outlook on life. To have within me the Ever Blessed Trinity is more than an honour, it is a responsibility; it is more than responsibility, for it is the greatest grace of all. To my faith, it makes the whole difference in my attitude to the Mother of God that within her womb for those silent months lay the Incarnate Wisdom. If to touch pitch is to ensure defilement, to be so close to God is to catch the infection of His Divinity. Or, again, I may have envied, times out of number, the wonderful grace whereby, upon the breast of his Master, St. John, the Beloved Disciple, could lovingly lay his head, the joy of so close and so familiar an intimacy with the most beautiful sons of men; or I may have pictured the charming scene when on His knees He took the dear children of His country and spoke to them and fondled them so that in His eyes they could see reflected their own countenances. How life ever after must have been transfigured for them by the memory of that glorious time! Great graces indeed for them all. But what if all life long, by grace, I too can be sure of a union even more splendid, an intimacy more lasting, a friendship surpassing the limits of faith and hope?

2. By grace, then, I receive this indwelling of the Spirit of God, and thereby come into a new and wonderful union with the Ever Blessed Trinity. Now such a union must have its purpose. Our Lord told us that He was going to send to our hearts the Holy Spirit, an embassy from Heaven to earth conducted by a Divine ambassador. The news of the Incarnation, the offer of the Motherhood of God, were made by means of an angel. But here, in my case, to no created official is this wonderful thing confided, only to God Himself. That just shows me the importance of the undertaking. In the political world the interests that turn on a diplomatic mission may be easily guessed to be very great, when the personnel of the staff is found to contain the highest personages in the country. What deep and abiding interests must then be in question when to my soul comes God, the Holy Ghost, sent as the messenger of the Three! I must consequently expect that the results of this indwelling are judged by God to be considerable, and that it is of much moment to me that, one by one, I should discover them. The Incarnation brought its train of attendant effects which I have to study: the redemption, the sacraments, the sanctifying of all immaterial creation by its union through man with the divinity. This indwelling also must therefore have its effects, the knowledge of which must necessarily make a difference to me in life.

3. By Baptism the beginning comes of this great grace. As a child, with my senses hardly at all awake to external life, I had God in my midst. Do I wonder now at the charm of early innocence, when a soul sits silently holding God as its centre? It is not that there are dim memories of a pre-existence before birth, but there are always haunting dreams of a true friendship on earth. Baptism then begins that early work. At the moment of conversion, when suddenly I was drawn into a tender realization of God’s demands and my own heart’s hunger, the indwelling of the Spirit became more consciously operative with its flood of light and love. Since then the sacraments have poured out on me fuller measures of God’s grace and that divine Presence therefore should assume larger proportions in my life. I am now the dwelling place of God. When, then, my heart is young, eager, enthusiastic, let me make Him welcome; nor wait till the only habitation I can offer is in ruins, leaking through an ill-patched roof. A dwelling place for God! How reverently, then, shall I treat and treasure my body and soul, for they must be as fit as I can make them for the great Guest. By reason we learn of Him, by faith we know Him, but by His indwelling we taste the sweetness of His presence.

The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett, O.P. part 8. The Presence Common to the Whole Trinity.

Luca Rossetti Trinità Chiesa San Gaudenzio Ivrea

1. So far it has been taken for granted that this indwelling is proper to the Holy Spirit, but it must now be added that indeed it is really an indwelling of the Blessed Trinity. It is true that very seldom does Scripture speak of the Three Persons as dwelling in the soul, still less of Their being given or sent. But every reason for which we attribute this to the Holy Ghost would hold equally well of the other Two Persons. By grace we are made partakers of God’s Divine nature; He comes to us as the object of our knowledge and our love. Why should we suppose that this Divine Presence applies directly only to the Spirit of God? The only reason, of course, is the impressive wording of the New Testament. But even here there are equally strong indications that more than the Holy Ghost is implied: “If any man will love Me he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him… . But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring all things to your mind whatsoever I shall have said to you.” Here, then, it is clearly stated that after Our Lord has died His teaching will be upheld by the Spirit, but that this indwelling will include also the abiding presence of Father and Son.

2. Why, then, is it repeated so often that the Holy Ghost is to be sent into our hearts, is to be given to us, is to dwell in our midst? It is for the same reason precisely that we allocate or attribute certain definite acts to the Blessed Persons of the Trinity so as the more easily to discern and appreciate the distinction between Them. In the Creed itself we attribute creation to God, the Father Almighty, though we know that Son and Spirit, also with the Father, called the world out of nothingness. Eternity is often, too, looked upon as peculiarly of the Father, though naturally it is common to the Trinity. Note how frequently in the liturgical prayers of the Church comes the expression, “O, Eternal Father.” So again to the Son we attribute Wisdom and Beauty, turning in our imagination to Him as the Word of God, the Figure of His substance, the brightness of His glory, and to the Holy Spirit we more often attribute God’s love and God’s joy. All these attributions are attempts to make that high mystery and the Three Persons of It alive and distinctive to the human spirit. It is not indeed wholly fancy, but it is the ever active reason endeavouring, for its own better understanding of sacred truths, to give some hint, or find some loophole, whence it shall not be overwhelmed with the greatness of its faith.

3. Consequently, it must be noted that this indwelling of the Spirit of God is not so absolutely and distinctly proper to God, the Holy Ghost, as the Incarnation is proper to God, the Son. There the Son, and He alone, became man. It was His personality alone to which was joined, in a substantial union, human nature. But in this present case there is no such unique connection between the soul and the Spirit of God, but it is rather the Ever Blessed Trinity itself that enters into occupation, and dwells in the heart. Of course that makes the wonder not less, but greater. To think that within the borders of my being is conducted the whole life of the Ever Blessed Three in One; that the Father is for ever knowing Himself in the Son, and that Father and Son are forever loving Themselves in the Spirit; that the power and eternity of the Father, whereby creation was called into being, and by whose fiat the visible world will one day break up and fall to pieces; that the wisdom and beauty of the Son, which catch the soul of man as in the meshes of a net, and drove generations of men to a wandering pilgrimage, at the peril of life, to rescue an empty tomb in the wild fury of a crusade; that the love of the Holy Spirit which completes the life of God, and was typified in the tongues of fire and the rush of a great wind at Pentecost; that the power and eternity of the Father, the wisdom and beauty of the Son, the love and joy of the Spirit, are for all time in my heart. O, what reverence for my human home of God, reverence alike for soul and body!