Apoc 247

[Alethia Tiell]

88. The supernatural life which, by virtue of the merits of JesusChrist, is a participation in God's life, is often called the life ofGod in us or the life of Jesus in us. Such expressions are correctprovided one takes care to explain them, so as to avoid anythingsavoring of pantheism. We have not a life identical with that of Godor our Lord; we only have a life similar to theirs, a finiteparticipation, yet most real.

#89. We see, then, that as regards our supernatural life God playsthe principal role, we a secondary one. It is the Triune God thatcomes Himself to confer it upon us, for He alone can make us share inHis own life. He communicates it to us in virtue of the merits ofChrist (n. 78), who is the meritorious, exemplary and vital cause ofour sanctification. It is perfectly true that God lives in us, thatJesus lives in us; yet, our spiritual life is not identical with thatof God or of our Lord. It is distinct from but similar to the one andthe other. Our role consists in making use of the divine gifts inorder to live with God and for God, in order to live in union withJesus and to imitate Him. But we cannot live this supernatural lifewithout a continual struggle against the threefold concupiscencewhich still remains in us (n. 83). And moreover, since God hasendowed us with a supernatural organism, it is our duty to make thatlife increase in us by meritorious acts and the fervent reception ofthe sacraments.

This is the meaning of the definition we have given, and this wholechapter is but its explanation and development. From it we shall drawpractical conclusions concerning devotion to the Most Holy Trinity,devotion to and union with the Incarnate Word, and even concerningdevotion to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, since all thesedevotions flow from their relations with the Word of God-made Flesh.

Although the action of God and that of the soul have paralleldevelopments in the Christian life, we shall for the sake ofclearness treat of them in two successive articles, one on the roleof God and the other on the role of man.

#90. The first cause, the primary, efficient cause and the exemplarycause of the supernatural life in us is no other than the BlessedTrinity, or by appropriation, the Holy Ghost. True, the life of graceis a work common to the Three Divine Persons, for it is a work adextra, yet, because it is a work of love, it is attributed especiallyto the Holy Ghost.

Now the Most Adorable Trinity contributes to our sanctification intwo ways: the Three Divine Persons come to dwell in our souls; therethey create a supernatural organism which transforms and elevatesthem, thus enabling them to perform Godlike acts.

#91. Since the Christian life is a participation in God's own life,it is evident that none but God Himself can confer it upon us. ThisHe does by coming to dwell in our souls and by giving Himself whollyto us in order that we may first of all render Him our homage, enjoyHis presence and allow ourselves to be led with docility to-thepractice of Christ's virtues and into the dispositions of His holysoul.2 Theologians call this uncreated grace. Let us then examinefirst how the Three Divine Persons live in us, and next, what ourattitude must be toward Them.

n1. St. THOM., I, q. 43, a. 3; FROGET, "Indwelling of the H. Ghost;"R. PLUS, "God within Us; MANNING, "Int. Mission," I; DEVINE, "Ascet.Theol.," p. 80; TANQUEREY, "Syn Theol. Dog.," III, 180-185.n2. It is upon this truth that Father OLIER bases his spiritualsystem. See "Catechism for an Interior Life," P. I, C. III: :Whodeserves the name of Christian? He who is possessed by the Spirit ofJesus Christ... that makes us live both interiorly and exteriorlylike Jesus Christ."--"He (the Holy Ghost) is there with the Fatherand the Son, and there infuses, as we have said, the samedispositions, the same sentiments and the same virtues of JesusChrist."

#92. God, says St. Thomas,1 is in all creatures in a threefoldmanner: by His power, inasmuch as all creatures are subject to Hisdominion; by His presence, because He sees all, even the most secretthoughts of the soul, "All things are naked and open to his eyes;"2by His essence, since He acts everywhere and since everywhere He isthe plenitude of being itself and the first cause of whatever is realin creation, giving continually to creatures not only life andmovement, but their very being: " In Him we live and move and are."3

Yet, His presence within us by grace is of a much higher and intimatenature. It is no longer the presence of the Creator and Preserver whosustains the beings He created; it is the presence of the Most HolyTrinity revealed to us by faith. The Father comes to us and continuesto beget His Word within us. With the Father we receive the Son equalin all things to the Father, His loving and substantial image, whonever ceases to love His Father with the same infinite love wherewiththe Father loves Him. Out of this mutual love proceeds the HolySpirit, a person equal to the Father and the Son and a mutual bondbetween Father and Son. The Three are withal distinct one from theother. These wonders go on continually within the soul in the stateof grace. The presence of the Three Divine Persons, at once physicaland moral, establishes the most intimate and most sanctifyingrelations between God and the soul. Gathering all that is found hereand there in the Scriptures, we can say that God through grace ispresent within us as a father, as a friend, as a helper, as asanctifier, and that in this way He is truly the very source of ourinterior life, its efficient and exemplary cause.

#93. A) By nature He is simply in us to give us natural endowments;by grace He gives Himself to us that we may enjoy His friendship andthus have a foretaste of the happiness of heaven. In the order ofnature God is in us as the Creator and the sovereign Master; we arebut His servants, His property. In the order of grace it isdifferent; here He gives Himself to us as our Father; we are now Hisadopted children; an unspeakable privilege and the basis of oursupernatural life. St. Paul and St. John repeat again and again: "For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear: butyou have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry Abba(Father). For the Spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit thatwe are the sons of God."1 God, therefore, adopts us as His childrenand in a way more thorough and more complete than men are adopted inlaw. By legal adoption men are, indeed, able to transmit to otherstheir name and their possessions, but they cannot transmit to themtheir blood and their life. "Legal adoption," says Cardinal Mercier,2"is a fiction." The adopted child is considered by its foster parentsjust as if it were their child and receives from them the heritage towhich their offspring would have had a right. Society recognizes thisfiction and sanctions its effects. Withal, the object of such fictionis in no wise changed. But the grace of divine adoption is by nomeans a fiction... it is a reality. God gives divine sonship to thosewho have faith in His Word, as St. John says: " He gave them power tobe made the sons of God, to them that believed in his name."3 Thissonship is not such merely in name, but in very truth: " that weshould be called and should be the sons of God."4 By it we come intothe possession of the divine nature, "partakers of the divinenature."5

#94. No doubt, this divine life in us is only a participation, asharing, "consortes," a similitude, an assimilation which does notmake us gods, but only Godlike. None the less, it constitutes nofiction, but a reality, a new life, a life not, indeed, equal butsimilar to God's and which, on the testimony of Holy Writ,presupposes a new birth, a regeneration: " Unless a man be born againof water and the Holy Ghost... by the laver of regeneration andrenovation of the Holy Ghost... he hath regenerated us unto a livelyhope... of his own will hath he begotten us by the word of truth."1All these expressions show us that our adoption is not merelynominal, but true and real, although distinct and different from thesonship of the Word-made-Flesh. By it we become heirs, by full right,to the kingdom of heaven and coheirs of Him who is the eldest-bornamong our brethren: " heirs indeed of God and joint heirs withChrist... that he might be the firstborn amongst many brethren."2 Isit not, therefore, most fitting to repeat the touching words of StJohn: " Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed uponus, that we should be called and should be the sons of God!"3

God has for us then the tenderness and devotedness of a father. DoesHe not compare Himself to a mother that can never forget the child ofher womb? "Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity onthe son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet will not I forgetthee."4 He has most assuredly given proof of this, since in order tosave His fallen children He hesitated not to give and sacrifice Hisonly-begotten Son: "For God so loved the world, as to give his onlyBegotten Son: that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but mayhave life everlasting."5 The same love prompts Him likewise to giveHimself wholly, and from now on, in a permanent manner to Hischildren by dwelling in their hearts: "If any one love me, he willkeep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him,and will make our abode with him."6 He lives in us as a most lovingand most devoted Father.

#95. B) He gives Himself also as a friend. Friendship adds to therelations between father and son a sort of equality: "amicitiaaequales accipit aut facit." It adds a kind of familiarity, areciprocity whence flows the sweetest intercourse. It is preciselysuch relations that grace establishes between us and God. Of course,when it is question of God on one side and man on the other, therecan be no real equality, but rather a certain similarity sufficientto engender true intimacy. In fact, God confides to us His .secrets.He speaks to us not only through His Church, but also interiorlythrough His Spirit: " He will teach you all things and bring allthings to your mind whatsoever I shall have said to you."1 At theLast Supper Jesus declared to His Apostles that from that time onthey would not be His servants, but His friends, because He would nolonger keep any secrets from them: "I will not now call you servants:for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called youfriends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, Ihave made known to you."2 A sweet familiarity will from now onpervade their intercourse, the same that exists between friends whenthey meet and speak heart to heart: " Behold that I stand at the gateand knock; if any man shall hear my voice and open to me the door, Iwill come into him and I will sup with him; and he with me."3 What anunspeakable familiarity is this! Never would man have dared dream ofit or aspire to it had not the Friend Divine taken the initiative!This very intimacy has been and is an everyday fact not only betweenAlmighty God and His Saints, but between Him and every man who byleading an interior life consents to throw open the gates of his soulto the Divine Guest. To this the author of the " Imitation " bearswitness when he describes the oft-repeated visits of the Holy Spiritto interior souls, the sweet converse He holds with them, theconsolations and the caresses He imparts to them, the peace Heinfuses, the astounding familiarity of His dealings with them: " Manyare His visits to the man of interior life, and sweet theconversation that He holdeth with him; plenteous His consolation, Hispeace and His familiarity."4 The life of contemporary mystics, of St.Theresa of the Child Jesus, of Elizabeth of the Blessed Trinity, ofGemma Galgani and of so many others, gives proof that the words ofthe Imitation are daily realized. There is no doubt that God doeslive in us as the most intimate of friends.

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