Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Everyday of the Year

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56. JESUS WELCOMES EVERYONE

THIRD WEEK AFTER THE EPIPHANY

PRESENCE OF GOD - O divine Savior, I, too, am a poor leper; receive me: “If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean!”


MEDITATION

1. Today’s Gospel (Mt 8,1-13) places before us two miracles of Jesus, two profound lessons in humility, faith, and charity.

Observe the humble faith of the leper: “ Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” He is so certain that Jesus can heal him that he feels nothing else is necessary for his cure other than the Lord’s will. Christian faith does not wander about in subtle reasonings; its logic is simple: God can do all that He wills; therefore, His will alone is necessary. Yet the leper does not insist; one who lives by faith knows that God always wills whatever is best for him, even if it brings him suffering. Therefore, instead of insisting, he prefers to abandon himself to God’s good pleasure.

Next comes the centurion. The strong, proud Roman soldier is not ashamed to personally beg Jesus, a Galilean, to help his paralyzed servant. Our Lord is touched by this humble, charitable act, and says at once, “I shall go and heal him!” But the centurion continues, “ I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed.” At this point humility becomes still more profound, and faith reaches its maximum : it is not necessary for the Lord to go; His power is so great that a word spoken from afar suffices to perform any miracle. Jesus Himself “ marveled and said: ‘Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel!’” Is this not a complaint against those who live so close to Him, who perhaps live in His own house, receiving constant favors from Him, while their faith remains very weak and therefore inefficacious?

2. According to Jewish law, lepers were kept apart from society and no one was allowed to go near them; likewise, the pagans were to be shunned because they did not belong to the chosen people. Jesus goes beyond the old law and in the name of universal charity He welcomes and heals the leper, listens to the foreign centurion and cures his pagan servant. Thus Christ teaches us to make no distinction of persons, not to despise sinners and infidels, but to welcome all with loving kindness. He does not wish the good to
enclose themselves in a little circle, but to open the doors to everyone, doing good to all without concerning themselves about the traits and opinions of others. All men are children of God; and our charity, like the mercy of our heavenly Father, should extend to all. This is the dominant thought of today’s Epistle (Rom 12, 16-21), where St. Paul exhorts us to practice charity, especially toward our enemies. “To no man rendering evil for evil.... If it be possible, as much as in you, have peace with all men. Revenge not yourselves ... but if thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat.... Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good.”

Jesus conquered evil, both physical and moral evil, by His mercy and love. This must be our strategy too. Whatever the evil around us, whatever the suffering it may cause us, we shall never overcome it by arguments and discussions or by taking a stand and adhering rigidly to it. This can only be accomplished by a delicate charity which understands intuitively the mentality, the tastes, and the needs of others, and which knows precisely when to intervene, to condescend and to sacrifice itself for the good of another, even if that other is unfriendly toward us—only such charity can triumph over evil.


COLLOQUY

“Being what we are and having our free will, when we do not receive what pleases us, we sometimes refuse what the Lord gives us, even though the gift might be the best one possible.... But no, my God, no, no more trust in anything which I can desire for myself : do You desire for me that. which You are pleased to desire; for that is my desire, since all my good consists in pleasing You. And, if You, my God, should be pleased to please me, by fulfilling all that my desire asks of You, I know that I should not be lost” (T.J. Way, 30 — Exc, 17).

O my Jesus, I trust You, I abandon myself to You, dispose of me, of my health and of all that concerns me, according to what You know is best for my spiritual advancement. I beg but one thing: heal my poor soul. I too, spiritually, am a poor leper, a poor paralytic. My pride and vanity are always ready to impair and vitiate the little good I accomplish. Sloth and inertia seek to paralyze my efforts toward perfection. Behold me at Your feet, O Lord; I need Your help like the leper and the paralytic servant. I too, O Lord, believe that, if You will, You can heal me.

“Miserable though I am, I firmly believe that You can do what You will; and the greater are Your marvels that I hear spoken of, and the more I reflect that You can work others still greater, the stronger grows my faith and the greater is the resolution with which I believe that You will hear my requests ” (T.J. Exc, 4).

O sweet Jesus, I beg for a little of Your overflowing charity, which is so universal, so kind. You well know the difficulties I sometimes encounter when practicing this virtue, especially toward those whose ways of acting and thinking are so different from mine. O Lord, fill my heart with warm, sincere kindness toward them. Only the charity which comes from You will give me strength to overcome all the conflicts which arise from differences in temperament, education and ideas. Only this charity can enable me to sacrifice myself generously for those who hurt me and to continue to act kindly toward those whom I naturally dislike.

O Jesus, You came on earth to enkindle the fire of charity: enkindle in me an ardent love for my neighbor.

57. “I AM THE WAY”

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, my beloved Master, take my hand and lead me to the Father: You alone are the way of salvation and sanctity.


MEDITATION

1. Jesus is not only the Master who teaches us how to attain to the perfection of His heavenly Father, but He is also the living model of that perfection. Men, on the other hand, are by their very nature so limited and imperfect that they can never serve as perfect models for us. At the same time, we cannot see God, who is holiness itself. But the Son of God, His living image, by becoming man, has made infinite perfection incarnate in Himself. In Jesus, we see, we know, we touch, so to say, the sanctity of God. The divine perfections, which were beyond our grasp and inaccessible to our senses, we find as a living, concrete, tangible reality in Christ Our Lord. The Father has presented Him to the world as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased, because He sees in Him His own perfect image and all His own infinite perfections. The Father gives Christ to us, not only as our Master, but as our Model, since from all eternity He predestinated us “to be made conformable to the image of His Son” (Rom 8,29).

Jesus Himself has told us that He is our only model: “I am the way.... Noman cometh to the Father but by Me” (Jn 14,6). By His example, He shows us how we can approach God’s perfection, and He says very definitely that we must imitate Him : “I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also” (ibid. 13,15). “ Learn of Me because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11,29). When we imitate Jesus, we are imitating our heavenly Father; when we endeavor to practice the virtues as He did, we are drawing nearer to God’s infinite perfection. When we become conformable to the image of Christ, we become conformable to the image of God.

2. In the Acts of the Apostles we are told that “Jesus began to do and to teach” (1,1). All His acts are the model for ours. All the virtues which Jesus recommended to us, He Himself practiced first, perfectly and in the highest degree. He then told us todo as He had done. His doctrine shows us exactly what our conduct should be in order to resemble His. Therefore, all Christian tradition declares that the way to attain sanctity is to imitate Christ. St. John of the Cross gives the following advice: “First, let us have a habitual desire to imitate Christ in everything that we do, conforming ourselves to His life; upon which life we must meditate, so that we may know how to imitate it and to behave in all things as Christ would behave” (AS I, 13,3).

This must not be a merely exterior and material imitation of Jesus’ acts; we must endeavor to enter into the interior dispositions of His soul, so as to make these dispositions our own, according to the counsel of St. Paul: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2,5). In this way, the imitation of Jesus is based on what is most profound and vital, that is, His intimate dispositions, which constitute the interior principle of all His actions. This putting on the “mind” of Christ is within the reach of all, whatever our state or condition of life, whereas the exterior imitation of the life of Jesus can never be complete, since it always varies according to the circumstances in which each one finds himself.


COLLOQUY

“O Christ, eternal Truth, what is Your doctrine? And by what path do You direct us to the Father? I can find no other way but the one which You have marked out in virtue of the fire of Your charity. The path, O eternal Word, which You have marked with Your Blood is the way.

“O loving, tender Word of God, You tell me: ‘I have marked the path and opened the gate with My Blood; do not be negligent in following it, but take the same road which I, eternal Truth, have traced out with My Blood.’ Arise, my soul, and follow your Redeemer, for no one can go to the Father but by Him. O sweet Christ, Christ-Love, You are the way, and the door through which we must enter in order to reach the Father ” (St. Catherine of Siena).

O Jesus, be truly my model, my way! All that You have revealed to us of the Father’s infinite holiness, all that You have taught us I see incarnate in Your life, in Your acts. What an excellent Master You are, and how well You adapt Yourself to my weakness, which needs not only to understand, but also to see concretely what it should do! If I find it painful to humble myself, You show Yourself to me as a poor, helpless Babe, lying in a manger, in a poor stable; You also show me the long years You spent in the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth, and Your humiliations before the tribunals and on the Cross. Is obedience repugnant to me? I behold You, my God, obeying Mary and Joseph, Your creatures, and submitting, with the meekness of a lamb, to Your judges and executioners. When I find it hard to practice charity toward my neighbor, I have but to contemplate You, showing the most loving solicitude to hardened sinners and to Your bitterest enemies. I can find everything in You, O Jesus: life, teaching, and example. In You, I see and possess my God; You are the Mediator who brings me to the Father, my Master and my model of holiness.

O Jesus, in You alone I find my pleasure. You are all I desire; You alone can captivate me.

Grant, O Lord, that Your image may always be imprinted on my mind and in my heart, that my interior glance may always be directed toward You, so that I may be conformed in everything to You, my Master, my Model, my Way!

58. “I AM IN THE FATHER”

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, grant that I may enter into the interior dispositions of Your soul, into its continual personal union with the Father.


MEDITATION

1. The intimate dispositions of Jesus toward God and His relations with Him are of the utmost importance to us. Jesus is the Son of God; herein lies all His greatness and holiness. By His very nature, He is the only Son of God; we, who are made to His image, have become children of God by His mediation. This divine sonship, which belongs to Him by nature, is communicated to us by grace; hence, like Him, all our greatness and holiness consist in our living as true children of God. Therefore, as far as is consistent with our human nature, we should try to reproduce in ourselves the interior attitude of Jesus toward His heavenly Father.

First of all, we note an attitude, or rather a state, of, intimate union. It is as the Word that Jesus declares. “The Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (Jn 10,38). He is referring, of course, to the substantial, incommunicable union of the Word with the Father, which no one can ever imitate; this union is the prerogative of the Son of God alone. But He also made the statement as Man, because, as Man, all His love is concentrated on the Father and dominated by the Father. His whole mind is directed toward Him in an effort to please Him. This union of Jesus with His divine Father is the model for our union, precisely because it is a union of grace. Grace in Jesus is “infinite,” in the language of the theologians, and in this respect it differs from ours; yet even the grace we possess enables us to keep our souls directed toward the Father and our affections centered in Him. Jesus gives us the example Himself, and asks of the Father this close union for us: “ As Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us” (ibid. 17,21).

2. The soul of Jesus is completely immersed in the Blessed Trinity. His human intellect enjoys the Beatific Vision, in which He sees God, whose nature He possesses; He knows the Person of the Word as the subject of all His human activity. He sees the Father and knows that He is His Son; He sees the Holy Spirit who dwells within Him. His heart is filled with created charity, as infinite as the grace which adorns His soul. This charity continually ascends toward His heavenly Father with a very rapid movement, thence to pour itself out upon our souls. Whether Jesus is busy in the workshop at Nazareth, walking the roads of Palestine, preaching, teaching, debating with the Pharisees, healing the sick, or talking with the multitudes—while giving Himself to all, He never interrupts that life of wonderful union with the three divine Persons which goes on in the depths of His soul.

By means of grace, our souls have become the temples of the Blessed Trinity. The three divine Persons are really present within us, continually offering and giving Themselves to us, so that we, even here on earth, may begin to know, love, and possess Them. It is by faith that we can know Them, by charity that we can love and live in union with Them. It was to enable us to possess this life of close union with God that Jesus merited for us the grace and charity which He is continually bestowing upon us. This grace and charity are identically the same as that which fills the soul of Jesus, although given to us in a lesser degree and with far less perfection. Jesus sees God face to face, in the Beatific Vision; we “see” Him through the obscure, yet certain, knowledge of faith.

In this way we, too, can have a share in Christ’s interior life which is completely immersed in the Blessed Trinity. Did not St. Paul say, “Your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3,3)? With St. Teresa Margaret, we can aspire to “emulate, by faith, insofar as it is possible for a creature, the hidden, interior life and activity of the intellect and will of the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ, hypostatically united to the Word” (Sp).


COLLOQUY

O Jesus, what great treasures are hidden in Your words: “As Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us!” It is not enough for us to imitate Your exterior life; You want more than that. You want us to imitate, as far as mere creatures can, Your interior life, Your intimacy and Your unceasing union with the Father! It would be folly and arrogant temerity even to think of doing this, had You not commanded us to do so. But You have commanded it, and these words of Yours are particularly sacred because they form part of Your last prayer to Your Father, a prayer which contains Your spiritual testament.

You, O Jesus, are indissolubly united to the Father by nature, and I may always be united to God by grace. Your most holy soul is always immersed in the Beatific Vision of the Most Blessed Trinity; and I by faith know that the Trinity lives within me. Under the motion of the Holy Spirit, an infinite love of charity is continually rising up from Your heart toward the Father; and in me the fire of charity, kindled and diffused by the divine Paraclete, desires only to grow, to expand, and to be seized by the Holy Spirit and drawn into His flame of love, so as to mount again toward the Father, toward the Blessed Trinity.

Aided by Your grace, O Jesus, I live in You and You live in me. But I do not live in You alone, for wherever You are, O Word, there are the Father and the Holy Spirit also. Thus You, O Christ, draw me to live in the Trinity and my poor human life remains hidden with You in God. O Lord, do not permit me to become so absorbed by exterior activities, even good ones, that I forget or neglect the wonderful life of union with God to which You are calling and inviting me. In the innermost depths of my heart, hidden from all human gaze, dwells the Trinity; help me to dwell with Them! Help me to be silent and recollected, to hide myself with God who is hidden within me! Grant that, like a true child of God, I may always live in union with my Father, always remain at His feet to love and adore Him, and to listen to His divine words.

59. THE PRAYER OF JESUS

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, grant that I may enter the sanctuary of Your most holy soul where You reveal to me the secrets of Your prayer.


MEDITATION

1. Although Jesus was always indissolubly united to His Father by the Beatific Vision and the plenitude of charity, He willed to consecrate to Him exclusively a part of His human activity : the time of prayer. The long years spent at Nazareth and the forty days in the desert were especially consecrated to prayer, and during His apostolic life Jesus usually prayed during the whole or part of the night. The Gospel clearly notes this prayer of Christ at the more solemn moments of His life: before He chose the twelve Apostles, Jesus “ went out into a mountain to pray, and He passed the whole night in the prayer of God” (Lk 6,12). He prayed before Peter’s confession, before the Transfiguration, at the Last Supper, in Gethsemane, on Calvary. Moreover, He frequently interrupted His apostolic activity to retire into the desert to pray, and St. Matthew tells us that, often, before performing a miracle, He would raise His eyes to heaven and call upon His Father; he also tells us that “having dismissed the multitude, He went into a mountain alone to pray” (Mt 14,23).

We cannot imagine a more intimate and profound prayer than the prayer of Jesus. Only in heaven, where it will be given us also to see God face to face, shall we be able to understand it and really participate in it. But even here on earth we can imitate the conduct of Jesus by readily interrupting any activity, even apostolic work, in order to devote to prayer the time assigned to it, leaving everything else to focus our attention on God alone.

2. Only the prayer of Jesus is perfect praise and adoration of the Trinity, perfect thanksgiving and always efficacious supplication; He alone can offer infinite homage to the Trinity. Our prayer has value only insofar as we unite it to that of Jesus and try to make it an echo and extension of His.

The prayer of Jesus was completed in sacrifice; sacrifice was its logical accompaniment as well as its culmination: the sacrifice of nights spent in vigil; the sacrifice of penance, which for forty days accompanied His prayer in the desert; the sacrifice of a laborious life, without having even a place to lay His head. This rhythm of sacrifice progressively increased, until it reached its maximum in His agony in the Garden and on the Cross. At this point, the prayer of Jesus became the total sacrifice of His life for the glory of the Father and the salvation of souls.

Our prayer must also be impregnated, substantiated with sacrifice; it must be based on a true generous offering of our whole being with Christ, until we become, with Him and in Him, a sacrifice of praise and of propitiation. While we are on earth, prayer, even contemplation itself, cannot consist solely in the enjoyment of God; it must always be united with sacrifice—only thus is it true. Authentic prayer and contemplation incite the soul to generosity, disposing it to accept for God any labor or toil, and to give itself entirely to Him. On this earth, the gift of self is always realized in sacrifice.

St. Teresa of Jesus says that the purpose of the graces of contemplation is “to strengthen our weakness, so that we may be able to imitate our Lord in His great sufferings” (Int C VII, 4).


COLLOQUY

O Jesus, how different Your prayer is from mine! Yours is so profound and intense; mine is so superficial, distracted, and hurried. How often, alas, I allow myself to be hurried on account of my work and to become so absorbed in my activity that I cannot put it aside!

But You make me understand that my activity is fruitless and my works sterile unless they are impregnated and imbued with prayer and union with God.

You also teach me by Your example that, if I really wish to live in union with God and to nourish that union, I must frequently pause in my occupations in order to concentrate all my powers on Him alone. O Lord, I want to follow Your example and to leave everything at the prescribed time to become recollected in prayer. You chose to go up on a mountain to pray, thus teaching me that in order to pray well, I must detach myself from the things of earth and rise above human thoughts and anxieties. When a soul is thus recollected in solitude far from creatures and from self, and desires nothing but to converse with You, O Lord, You do not delay in letting Yourself be found.

O my God, Most Holy Trinity, grant that, at least in time of prayer, I may be aware of Your presence in my soul and may make my union with You real. Grant that, at least in this hour, I may not leave You alone in the depths of my heart, but entering within, “returning home,” let me enclose myself in the temple of my soul where You are waiting for me!

O Jesus, teach me and grant me that intense prayer which immerses the soul in God and which, by living contact with Him, inflames and strengthens it. I desire to share in Your prayer, which is the only adoration worthy of God. Therefore, dear Lord, take my poor prayer; unite it to Yours and offer it to the Blessed Trinity. Only in this way can I too become one of those “ true adorers ...In spirit and in truth” (Jn 4,23) whom the Father seeks and desires.

That my prayer may be really like Yours, teach me how to nourish it by true, generous sacrifice—renouncing some well-earned repose, detaching myself from creatures, being silent and interiorly recollected. Grant that I may be faithful in performing my duties, that I may prove my love by little voluntary mortifications, and may joyfully accept Your will in all the circumstances of my life.

O Lord, grant that each day I may finish my prayer with dispositions of greater generosity and that I may be ready to accept, for love of You, every sacrifice that I find on my way.

60. JESUS AND HIS FATHER’S WILL

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, teach me to follow You in Your life of total, perfect adherence to the Father’s will.


MEDITATION

1. “ Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith [to the Father] : ‘ Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldst not; but a body Thou hast fitted to me.... Behold, I come... that I should do Thy will, O God °” (Heb 10,5-7). These words reveal the constant interior disposition of Jesus with regard to His Father’s will. When the Apostles begged Him to take a little food, the divine Master replied, “I have meat to eat, which you know not.... My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me” (Jn 4,32.34). The only desire of Jesus and the source of His strength is the fulfillment of His Father’s will. The human will of Jesus is so perfectly transformed and so completely lost in the will of God, that He acts only under the influence of this will. “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me” (ibid. 6,38). “I seek not My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me” (ibid. 5,30). In these words Jesus reveals the dispositions of His soul, the profound reason for all His acts and the rule which guided His whole life on earth, even to His sorrowful Passion, when He repeated, in spite of all the repugnance of His human nature, “Father...not My will, but Thine be done” (Lk 22,42).

2. For us also, the adopted children of God, the way to sanctity, the rule of our actions must be our heavenly Father’s will, Like Jesus we must be nourished by this holy, sanctifying will; we must feed on it at every moment, we must seek it and desire to live by it alone, making it the one great motive for all our actions. “We must fully conform our will to God’s,” so that, as St. John of the Cross says, “ there will be nothing in our thoughts or actions which is contrary to the divine will” (cf. AS J, 11,2).

Conformity to God’s will and the growth of grace in us are the two constituent elements of sanctity and of a life of union with God. ‘These two elements are inseparable, for one depends upon the other. Our increase in grace corresponds to our degree of conformity to God’s will. Jesus said, “If anyone love Me, he will keep My word...and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him” (Jn 14,23). “Keeping His word,” that is, obeying God’s will as manifested in the commandments, is the condition necessary for living in the state of grace and, hence, for enjoying the presence of the Blessed Trinity in our soul. The more complete our conformity to God’s will becomes, embracing not only the grave precepts, but also the smallest details of the divine law, so as to exclude not only mortal sins, but even venial sins and the slightest voluntary imperfection, and the more we try to seek God’s good pleasure in everything and accept all the circumstances of our lives as His will, the more the life of grace grows and develops within us. The three divine Persons, on Their part, give Themselves more and more to our souls, establishing their in-dwelling ever more fully and profoundly, thus drawing us to greater union with Themselves.

Then is fulfilled in us the word of Jesus: “He that sent Me is with Me, and He hath not left Me alone, for I do always the things that please Him ” (ibid. 8,29).


COLLOQUY

O Jesus, would that I could understand, however slightly, Your perfect union with Your Father’s will! It is a union, not only profound, but unchangeable, for I know that You, as God, can have no will but Your Father’s, and as Man, Your will does not depend on a human ego, but belongs directly to Your divine Person. Such union can exist only in You, the Incarnate Word; yet the more I contemplate it, the more I desire to reproduce in myself at least a few of its characteristics. O Jesus, it is You who fill me with this desire, for You became our Brother and Model, that we might become like You. Did You not teach us to say to the Father : “ Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven ?” Just as the divine will is realized perfectly in the heaven of Your holy soul, so may it also be accomplished in the little heaven of mine!

“O good Master, You know that nothing is of more profit to me than to consecrate my will to the Father’s. You teach me to do this, knowing that it will win Your Father’s heart, and You also teach me how to serve Him. You have made Yourself my intermediary and have even said in my name: ‘Thy will be done.'

“O Divine Father, after Your Son has consecrated to You my will, together with the wills of all, it would be unreasonable for me to refuse to give what He has offered.

“O Lord, what power there is in this gift of my will! If made with due determination, it cannot fail to draw You, Almighty God, to become one with our lowliness, to transform us into Yourself, and to unite the creature with the Creator.... O my God, the more You see by our actions that the words we use when speaking to You are not words of mere politeness, the more You draw us to Yourself and raise us above all petty earthly things. Not content with having made our soul one with Yourself, You begin to cherish it and to reveal Your secrets to it....

“At this very moment, O Lord, I consecrate my will to You, freely and unreservedly!” (cf. T.J. Way, 32).

61. THE WORKS OF JESUS

PRESENCE OF GOD - Grant, O good Jesus, that I may learn how to act as You did, with the one purpose of accomplishing the work entrusted to me by the Father, allowing Him to direct me in everything.


MEDITATION

1. “The works which the Father hath given Me to perfect, the works themselves...I do” (Jn 5,36). “I must do the works of Him that sent Me” (ibid. 9,4). Jesus has no other aim than to accomplish the mission entrusted to Him by the Father, and to accomplish this mission for the glory of the Father Himself and for the redemption of mankind. Burning with desire, “desiderio desideravi” (Lk 22,15), to perform this work perfectly, He goes to face His Passion and to embrace the Cross.

God has entrusted to each one of us a share in the great redemptive work of Jesus. As consecrated souls, we are especially called to cooperate in Christ’s work. First of all, we must cooperate with grace, so that the fruits of the redemption can be fully applied to our souls. This is the work of our own personal sanctification. It is not limited to this one aspect, however. We are called to sanctify ourselves in order to be able to bring others to sanctity. Each one of us has a mission to fulfill for the good of others and for their sanctification. We must collaborate with Christ in extending the fruits of the Redemption to as many souls as possible. This work is entrusted to us by the heavenly Father, and we must apply ourselves to it with the interior disposition of Christ: a total, generous, exclusive dedication, a dedication capable of making even the greatest sacrifices. All actions are of value only insofar as they help toward the accomplishment of this work. Anything that does not contribute to our own sanctification or to the sanctification of others is useless, a waste of time, and should be courageously eliminated. Let us repeat with Jesus: “I must do the works which the Father has entrusted to Me.”

2. “I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.” “ My Father worketh...and I work.... I cannot of Myself do anything.” “ I do nothing of Myself, but as the Father hath taught Me, these things I speak” (Jn 16,32 —5,17.30 — 8,28).

Jesus not only devoted Himself completely to the mission entrusted to Him by the Father, but in accomplishing this mission, and in every detail of it, He always acted in union with the Father and in perfect harmony with Him, always depending upon Him and regulating His whole life according to what He heard and saw in Him. His acts were but the human, tangible expression of the unceasing, invisible work of the Father: “What He seeth the Father doing.. .these the Son also doth in like manner” (ibid. 5,19). “ The things...that I speak,” affirms Jesus, “ even as the Father said unto Me, so do I speak ” (ibid. 12,50).

Every soul which is in the state of grace can say, “I am not alone, for the Trinity is in me: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Our attitude should mirror the attitude of Jesus: we must work in continual dependence upon God present within us, listening to His voice, to the interior motion of grace, and acting in accordance with it. We must conform our judgment to God’s will, trying to see everything in His light, and working in such a way that our actions will always be in harmony with His views, designs, and good pleasure. In all our actions we, too, should be able to say, “I do nothing by myself, I act according to God’s inspiration, in order to do what is most pleasing to Him.” Any work, no matter how exalted, which deviates from this line of conduct is, from a supernatural point of view, vain and sterile.


COLLOQUY

O Jesus, I place my poor soul before You. Fill me with the zeal which You had for the Father’s works, with Your wholehearted, unconditional dedication to the mission He gave You. Oh, that I could perform with Your zeal and love the small part assigned to me in Your great redemptive work! But I need You to teach me how to make this zeal genuine and fruitful!

You make me understand that I should strive for perfection, correcting my faults, and overcoming my evil tendencies; this is the first field for my zeal. Then You teach me to give myself generously for the good of souls. You offer me the same arms that You Yourself used: prayer and sacrifice. You will not be satisfied with vague dreams of helping souls who are far away; You wish me first of all to do good in a concrete way to those who are near me. O Jesus, give me the zeal and courage to sacrifice myself for my neighbor; give me the strength to renounce my own tastes in order to adapt myself to the tastes of others and place myself at their disposal and service. O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like Yours, for I can do no true apostolic work unless I am meek, humble, and patient.

You also tell me that You do not wish merely human works, undertaken more by natural activity than by the influence of grace. O Jesus, even as You, in all Your works, depended on the Father and acted according to what You heard and saw in Him, so make me depend on divine light and inspiration in all my works. I receive this light and inspiration from You, who, as the Word, are within me together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Being the Word, the utterance of the Father, You cannot remain silent but You are in me that I may listen to You. “O eternal Word, utterance of my God, I wish to spend my life in listening to You!” (E.T. II), listening to You in order to act according to Your instructions. O Word of God, You are the light in which I should judge all things, consider all things; You are the Word which should direct all my actions. You are the interior Master always ready to instruct me if I but listen to You! Oh! grant that even in the midst of my occupations I may listen to Your voice within me. I am not alone, for You are always with me and in me; do not permit me to act as if I were alone, but help me always to act with You, always depending on Your light and word.

O Jesus, I want to look at You always, to listen to You, and to act according to what I see in You and hear from You, even as You always listened to Your Father and kept Your eyes upon Him.

62. JESUS AND THE GLORY OF THE FATHER

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, increase within me Your love and Your zeal for the glory of the Father; teach me to despise all personal glory and to flee from it.


MEDITATION

1. “I honor My Father.. I seek not My own glory.” “I receive not glory from men” (Jn 8,49.50 — 5,41). Jesus ever sought His Father’s glory, and to this end He chose for Himself utter humiliation, even to becoming “ the reproach of men and the outcast of the people ” (Ps 21,7). Bethlehem, Nazareth, Calvary—the three great stages of the humble, hidden life of Jesus, in which He veiled His glory as the Son of God. Even during His public life, when His divinity was more openly manifested, Jesus tried to flee as much as possible from human glory. Many times after performing a miracle, He imposed silence on those who had witnessed it. He forbade the three Apostles who had been present at the Transfiguration “to tell any man what things they had seen, till the Son of Man shall be risen again from the dead” (Mk 9,8). After the first multiplication of the loaves, “ when He knew that they would come to take Him by force and make Him king [He] fled again into the mountain Himself alone” (Jn 6,15).

The glory of Jesus lies in the fact that He is the Son of God; He desires no other glory. It is as though He would relinquish this essential glory by accepting any other. Therefore He said : “ If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father that glorifieth Me” (ibid. 8,54). Jesus knows that after His death He will be glorified and acknowledged as the Son of God and the Savior of the world, but He desires that even this glory may be for the glorification of His Father : “ Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee” (ibid. 17,1).

2. Following Christ’s example, a Christian must seek only the glory of God. He must desire no other glory save that of being a child of God, a brother of Jesus Christ, and a member of His Mystical Body—a singular glory, indeed!

We must be on our guard against that tendency of pride which inclines us to seek a little satisfaction, praise, and personal glory even in our most spiritual actions. If we seek glory for ourselves, though it be only in insignificant matters, this glory is of no value; it elevates us in the eyes of men, but lowers us in God’s eyes; it lessens and may even endanger our glory as children of God.

Seeking human glory and taking pleasure in it hinder and blind us on our way to perfection. Jesus said to the proud, haughty Pharisees, “ How can you believe, who receive glory one from another, and the glory which is from God alone, you do not seek?” (ibid. 5,44). Only profound humility will enable us to overcome the allurements of pride, to silence the interior voices of self-esteem and vain complacency in order to seek always and in everything the glory of God. St. John of the Cross urges us to fix our eyes on the interior dispositions of Jesus and to renounce everything “which does not lead to the honor and glory of God, and this for the love of Jesus Christ, who sought no satisfaction in this life but the accomplishment of His Father’s will” (J.C. AS J, 13,4).


COLLOQUY

O Lord, give me Your love for Your Father’s glory, so that I too, wretched and poor though I am, may serve my God in some small way and give Him glory.

“May it be Your pleasure, my God, that the time may come when I shall be able to pay at least a small part of the immense debt I owe You; do You ordain it, Lord, according to Your pleasure, that I may in some way serve You. There have been others who have done heroic deeds for love of You; I myself am capable of words only; and therefore, my God, it is not Your good pleasure to test me by actions. All my will to serve You amounts to nothing but words and desires, and even here I have no freedom, for it is always possible that I may fail altogether. Strengthen and prepare my soul, Good of all good, my Jesus, and then ordain means whereby I may
do something for You, for no one could bear to receive as much as I have and pay nothing in return. Cost what it may, Lord, permit me not to come into Your presence with such empty hands, since a man’s reward must be according to his works! O Lord, here is my life, my honor, and my will! I have given it all to You; I am Yours; dispose of me according to Your desire. Well do I know, Lord, how little I am capable of, but keep me near You. I shall be able to do all things, provided You do not withdraw from me. If You should withdraw, for however short a time, I should go where I have already been—namely, to hell” (T.J. Life, 21).

Make me understand, O Lord, that if I wish to work for Your glory and the glory of Your Father, I must be entirely detached from every desire for personal glory; otherwise I shall deceive myself, thinking that I am working for You, whereas in reality I am but serving my own ego.

You know, O Jesus, that herein lies the greatest danger for me, that which I fear most in my good works, especially in the works of my apostolate. Therefore, I beg You, Lord, to use every means to save me from it. And if this requires humiliations, failure, criticism, use them, and use them abundantly. Do not consider my repugnance, pay no attention to my tears, for I do not want to lessen Your glory or ruin Your works by my pride.