Union with Our Lord is Our Only Happiness
To be united with Our Lord, to be as it were one with Him, is the only happiness in time and in eternity; so let us hasten to make Our Lord live within us."
(St. Madeleine Sophie.)
Is it not sad to see the benefits of a loving God so little appreciated or even entirely unsuspected?
The ecstatic love of God is revealed especially in the two-fold gift which comprises, on the one hand, the Incarnation and the blessed Eucharist, and, on the other, the Presence of God in the soul. The first gift is well-known and appreciated; the second is all but non-existent. Yes, we forget the God Who, in His Infinite Love, deigns to stand in need of our friendship, and Who, in order the more easily to secure it, gives Himself to us in the intimacy of our souls and makes of them His Heaven―His Living Tabernacles.
The realization of this Dogma would produce a life of unceasing prayer and continuous converse with God.
St. Jane Frances de Chantel says:―"The secret of the spiritual life is to keep ourselves close to God, and to walk in the continual presence of His Divine Majesty, by Faith, not by sentiment. This presence of God within us must be accompanied by the death of self. These two practices cannot be separated. To walk in the presence of God is to walk in the path of His good pleasure not according to the flesh or human understanding, or self-love; not in self-esteem or attachment to our own judgment and will, but according to the Divine Will; to lose our own interests and self-will in the Will of God." Yes, the final aim of all penance is our life in God. The soul who desires God to live in her, leaves nothing unfortified in herself which may be displeasing to the Divine Master. Her longing for Him is so great that she readily does violence to herself so as to die to herself that God may live eternally in her.
St. Paul says we should have the Mind of Christ. We could have the Mind of Christ, if we would. But the labour it entails! The constant care involved! The oft-repeated check on unkind thoughts, lest they slip out into words! The strain is great, at first, but none too great when, in exchange we put on the Mind of Christ. We may have much learning. We may be highly intellectual. We may have Degrees ad infinitum, but if we have not the Mind of Christ, to what does all the rest amount?
It amounts to this, (to be continued)
The realization of this Dogma would produce a life of unceasing prayer and continuous converse with God.
St. Jane Frances de Chantel says:―"The secret of the spiritual life is to keep ourselves close to God, and to walk in the continual presence of His Divine Majesty, by Faith, not by sentiment. This presence of God within us must be accompanied by the death of self. These two practices cannot be separated. To walk in the presence of God is to walk in the path of His good pleasure not according to the flesh or human understanding, or self-love; not in self-esteem or attachment to our own judgment and will, but according to the Divine Will; to lose our own interests and self-will in the Will of God." Yes, the final aim of all penance is our life in God. The soul who desires God to live in her, leaves nothing unfortified in herself which may be displeasing to the Divine Master. Her longing for Him is so great that she readily does violence to herself so as to die to herself that God may live eternally in her.
St. Paul says we should have the Mind of Christ. We could have the Mind of Christ, if we would. But the labour it entails! The constant care involved! The oft-repeated check on unkind thoughts, lest they slip out into words! The strain is great, at first, but none too great when, in exchange we put on the Mind of Christ. We may have much learning. We may be highly intellectual. We may have Degrees ad infinitum, but if we have not the Mind of Christ, to what does all the rest amount?
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