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

[Stone]

112. THE POWER OF JESUS

[THIRD WEEK OF LENT]

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, divine Strength, I come to You to seek support for my weakness, and infirmity.


MEDITATION

1. On the first Sunday in Lent, the Church showed us Jesus in His struggle with the devil, but while she presented Him to us then in an attitude of humble defense before the devil’s temptations, today we see Him in an attitude of attack which culminates in a glorious victory.

The Gospel (Lk 11,14-28) tells us that there was a poor man possessed by the devil and he “was dumb.” By a single act of His divine power Jesus “cast out the devil,” and when he went out, “the dumb spoke, and the multitudes were in admiration at it.” But the enemy, as if to avenge his defeat, insinuates into the minds of the Pharisees the shameful calumny: “He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils.” Jesus is accused of being possessed by the devil and of having received from the devil power to free the possessed man. Our Lord, however, wills to completely unmask the enemy and with clear logic replies that Satan cannot give Him such power, because thereby Satan himself would be helping to destroy his own kingdom. No, it cannot be so: Jesus drives out devils by “the finger of God,” by divine virtue. If Satan is powerful and his satellites join with him in the struggle to rule over man, Jesus is still more powerful and will overcome him and snatch away his prey. He has come to destroy the kingdom of Satan and to establish the kingdom of God.

If in these days God still permits the devil to carry on his evil work against individuals and society, Jesus by His death on the Cross has already paid the price of our victory. This treasure is at our disposal. Through the virtue and grace of Christ, every Christian has the power to overcome the enemy’s attacks. The triumph of evil should not disturb us, for it is only an apparent victory. The might of Jesus is stronger and He is the one and only victor.


2. We must work in union with Jesus that His victory over evil may be our own. In today’s Gospel the Master Himself shows us several aspects of this collaboration.

“Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation”; in these words Our Lord tells us that union is the secret of victory—union with Him above all, for without Him we can do nothing, but also union with our neighbor. If we would work for the triumph of good, let us collaborate — one heart and one soul — with our superiors and our fellow religious. We can often labor with much more efficacy in achieving good if we give up our own personal ideas and act in perfect harmony with others. It may even be necessary sometimes to renounce opinions, plans, and ways which are better in themselves. Let us not be deceived; unity is always to be preferred. Division never leads to victory.

“He that is not with Me is against Me,” Jesus adds. Christianity does not tolerate indifference. He who is not firmly on Christ’s side, working with Him for the extension of His kingdom, by this very fact is opposed to Him and to what is good. He is an enemy of Christ and a partisan of evil. To omit the good one could do and ought to do is evil, and is consenting to the extension of evil.

The first condition necessary for victory over evil is active cooperation in the work of Christ in union with our brethren. The second condition is vigilance. Jesus warns us that the enemy of good is lying in wait. Even after he leaves a soul, he is ready to return, more powerful than before, “with seven other spirits more wicked than himself” if he finds the soul empty and open to his snares. To halt the approach of evil we must watch in prayer, filling our heart with God so that there will be no place in it for the enemy. And there is no place when the soul is wholly united to God through the acceptance and observance of His word, of His will. In fact, Jesus answered to the woman who praised His Mother: “Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.” Of course, the Virgin Mary is blessed because she gave birth to the Redeemer, but she is still more blessed through her perfect union with Him in the observance of His word. This blessedness is not reserved for Mary alone; it is offered to every soul of good will and constitutes the greatest guarantee of victory over evil, for one united to God becomes strong with His strength.


COLLOQUY

“My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the snare. Look Thou upon me, and have mercy on me; for I am alone and poor. Keep Thou my soul and deliver me: I shall not be ashamed, for I have hoped in Thee” (Ps 24,15-20).

“O eternal Trinity, O most high and eternal Trinity, You give us the Word, full of sweetness and love. O sweet and loving Word, Son of God, if our nature is weak and capable of every evil, Yours is strong and disposed to good, because You have received it from Your eternal, all-powerful Father. O sweet Word, You have strengthened our weak nature by uniting it to Yourself. Our nature is fortified by this union, for the power of Your Blood takes away our weakness. We are also strengthened by Your doctrine, for he who follows it in truth, perfectly clothing himself with it, becomes so strong and capable of good, that he loses, as it were, the rebellion of the flesh against the spirit and can overcome every evil. So You, O eternal Word, substituted for our human weakness the strength of Your divine nature which You received from the Father; and this strength You have given to us by Your Blood and Your doctrine.

“O sweet Blood, You fortify and illumine the soul; in You it becomes angelic, because You cover it with the fire of Your charity so that it forgets itself entirely and can no longer see anything except You.

“O divine Truth, You give so much strength to the soul which clothes itself with You, that it never falters under the weight of adversity or beneath the burden of troubles and temptations, but in every struggle it gains a great victory. I am wretched because I have not followed You, O eternal Truth; hence I am so weak that in every least tribulation I fall” (St. Catherine of Siena).

113. THE LOWEST PLACE

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, You who said, “ The Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister” (Mt 20,28), teach me to love the lowest place.


MEDITATION


1. Jesus has proved to us not only in words, but also by example, that He came not to be ministered unto but to minister. This example He gave on the eve of His Passion, as if to leave it to us as a testament, together with His last and most precious instructions. Before instituting the Holy Eucharist, Jesus like a common slave, “began to wash the feet of the disciples,” and when He had finished, said: “I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also,” for “the servant is not greater than his lord; neither is the apostle greater than He that sent him” (Jn 13,15.16). The instruction is clear: to be true disciples of Jesus, we must humble ourselves as He did. Note that here it is not only a question of humbling ourselves before God, but also before our neighbor. To consider ourselves servants in our relations with God is not difficult, but to do so in dealing with others will call for real effort. It is harder still to let ourselves be treated like servants without any attention or consideration, and even by those who are our inferiors. Yet Jesus, infinitely superior to all, willed to be treated not only as a servant, but as a slave and even as a malefactor.

Just as humility makes us recognize our place of inferiority and absolute dependence before God, so too does it assign us to the “lowest place” in relation to our neighbor. “Woe to you, because you love the uppermost seats in the synagogues ” (Lk 11,43), said Jesus to the Pharisees, condemning their desire for the first places, for honorable duties and positions, and He added, “When thou art invited, go, sit down in the lowest place” (Lk 14,10). As far as we are able, wherever we are, we must seek the last place doing so with such simplicity and naturalness that no one who notices us will come and invite us to go up to the first place. We must expect that invitation only from God, and not in this life but in the next.


2. At the Last Supper, Jesus wanted to give the Apostles a further lesson in humility. While they were arguing about which of them should be considered the greater, He warned them: “He that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger; and he that is the leader, as he that serveth, since I also “am in the midst of you as he that serveth” (Lk 22,26.27). Whenever Jesus speaks of our relations with our neighbor, He always insists that each of us should take the place of him who ministers, considering himself the servant of the others. When He showed them a little child as a model of perfection He said, “If any man desire to be first, he shall be the last of all, and the minister of all” (Mk 9,34). This teaching He repeated when He put His disciples on guard, lest they imitate the proud attitude of the Pharisees: “He that is the greatest among you shall be your servant” (Mt 23,11). The idea is clear : for those who follow Christ the privileged place of honor is that of servant, and the divine Master insists that those who occupy important positions must be the most zealous to become the servants of all.

If we hold some authority, we must remember that it has been given not to honor us, but for the service of others. If we are not elevated above the common level, we should do nothing to exalt ourselves to a prominent position. Finally, if our status is an inferior one, we should occupy it gladly, never attempting to leave it. By assigning us to a lowly position, God Himself has taken care to make us practice humility, and this is one of the greatest graces He has given us. Let us try to correspond to it by exercising this virtue faithfully.

“The only thing for which you will not be envied," said St. Thérése of the Child Jesus, “is the lowest place; therefore, the lowest place is the only one where there is no vanity and affliction of spirit” ©.


COLLOQUY

“O Lord, when You were a pilgrim here below, You said, ‘Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.’ My soul finds its rest in seeing You, the powerful Monarch of the Heavens, clothed in the form and nature of a slave, humbling Yourself to wash the feet of Your Apostles. Then I recall the words You spoke to teach me how to practice humility: ‘I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also.... The servant is not greater than his lord.... If you know these things, you shall be blessed if you do them ’ (Jn 13,15-17). With the help of Your grace, O Lord, I understand these words which came from Your gentle, humble heart; and with the help of Your grace I wish to put them into practice. “I want to abase myself humbly and submit my will to others, not contradicting them nor asking if they have the right to give me orders. No one had this right over You and yet You were obedient, not only to the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph but even to Your executioners.

“O Lord, You could not humble Yourself any more in order to teach me humility. That is why I want to respond to Your love by putting myself in the lowest place and by sharing Your humiliations, so as to be able to share the kingdom of heaven with You hereafter. I beg You, divine Jesus, send me a humiliation every time I try to put myself above others. But Lord, You know my weakness; every morning I make a resolution to practice humility, and every evening I acknowledge that I still have many failures. I am tempted to be discouraged by this, but I know that discouragement also has its source in pride. That is why I prefer to put my trust in You alone, O my God. Since You are all-powerful, deign to create in my soul the virtue for which I long” (T.C.J.).

114. THE HIDDEN LIFE

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, hidden God, teach me the secret of the hidden life.


MEDITATION


1. During His life on earth, Jesus chose to conceal His divinity under the veil of His humanity. Except on very rare occasions—and this is especially true during the thirty years preceding His apostolate—He never allowed His greatness, His wisdom, or His omnipotence to be manifest. Later, during the years of His public life, He willed to adapt Himself to the Apostles’ imperfect way of living and acting, He who was infinitely superior to them. Jesus is truly the hidden God and teaches us by His example the value of the hidden life.

To imitate Jesus’ humility perfectly, we must share in His hidden life, veiling, as He did, everything, in us that might attract attention or praise from others, whatever might single us out or make us noticed, fleeing as far as we are able from every mark of distinction. “Ama nesciri et pro nihilo reputare,” love to live unknown and reputed as nothing (Imit. I, 2,3); by doing this we will become more like Jesus who, being God, willed to take “ the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man” (Phil 2,6.7). Jesus Himself has taught us how to practice the hidden life, insisting that we do our good works in secret, only to please God, and without ostentation. He tells us also to guard the secret of our interior life and our relations with Him: “When thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber and shut the door”; to conceal our mortifications and penances: “When thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face”; not to display our good works : “ When thou dost give alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth,” for those who do their good works before men, to be seen by them, “have received their reward ” and will receive no further one from their heavenly Father (cf. Mi 6,1-18).


2. “ Work for the sole end of pleasing God, never looking for any human praise” ($p). This was the program of St. Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus, the saint of the hidden life. Because she wanted to reserve for God alone the gift of her whole being, she tried to hide from the eyes of others the riches of her interior, her heroic virtues; and she succeeded in this to such an extent that her life was the perfect realization of the maxim: “To live alone with God alone.” The soul who is ever looking for approbation, praise, and the esteem of creatures does not live alone with God. Its interior life cannot be very profound, nor its relations with God very intimate. Such a soul is still living on the surface. Thus, preoccupied as it is with the effect it is producing and with what others may be thinking or saying about it, it easily lets itself be influenced in its actions by human respect and the desire to attract the good will and the esteem of others. As a result, simplicity will often be lacking in its conduct as well as a pure intention and perhaps even sincerity. The supernatural is still too bound up with the natural to be able to dominate its life, and indeed it very often acts not to please God and to give Him glory, but to please others, to win their affection, to gain a more or less honorable position.

When “we observe in ourselves a desire for something brilliant,” said St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, “let us humbly take our place with the imperfect and know that we are weak souls who must be sustained every instant by God” (cf. C). The Saint also asked: “O Jesus, grant that no one may think about me, that I be forgotten and trodden underfoot like a little grain of sand” (St, 8). The interior soul wishes to be known and loved by God alone; therefore, it hides itself from creatures.


COLLOQUY

“O Jesus who has said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world,’ You teach me that the only kingdom worth coveting is the grace of being ‘unknown and esteemed as naught’ and the joy that comes from self-contempt.... Ah! like You, I want my face to be hidden from all eyes; I want no one here below to esteem me! You wanted ‘ neither beauty nor comeliness.... Your look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed You not.’ I too, wish to be like You, without comeliness and beauty, unknown to every creature.

“Yes, all must be kept for You with jealous care, because it is so sweet to work for You alone! Then the heart is filled with joy and the soul with gladness! Grant that no one may think of me, that my very existence may be, as it were, unknown to all; only one thing do I desire: to be forgotten and counted for nothing. Yes, 1 want to be forgotten, not only by creatures, but even by myself, so as to be totally reduced to nothingness and to have no other desire than Your glory, my Jesus—that is all! My own, I abandon to You” (T.C.J. St, 7- NV - L).

O Lord, to be forgotten by people, to work without having my labor known, to spend in silence and self-effacement a humble life in which nothing appears great, nothing is worthy of attention—all this will thoroughly mortify my pride. This will be a powerful remedy for my innate desire to make myself important.

I confess, O Lord, and You already know, that unlike the saints, I am far from desiring to be forgotten and ignored. I often use little ways of drawing attention to myself and of putting myself forward. But You know, Jesus, that I am ill, and You also know that I wish to be cured by modeling my life on Yours. It is only in order to be like You that I can accept and love effacement; it is only to merit Your love, Your glance, Your intimacy, that I can renounce the good will and esteem of creatures. O Jesus, increase my desire to live for You alone, and I will find it sweet to live unknown to men.

115. TO BE HIDDEN FROM MYSELF

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, totally consecrated to the glory of the Father through complete forgetfulness of Yourself, teach me how to forget myself.


MEDITATION

1. In order to enter the fullness of the hidden life, it is not enough to hide oneself from the attention of others; we must also hide from ourselves, that is, forget ourselves, avoiding all excessive concern about ourselves. We can be preoccupied with self not only from a material point of view, but also from a spiritual point of view. To be overly concerned about one’s spiritual progress, about the consolations which God gives or does not give, about the state of aridity in which one may be—all this is often the sign of a subtle spiritual egoism, a sign that the soul is more occupied with itself than with God. We must learn to forget ourselves, to hide from ourselves, by refusing to examine too minutely what is happening within our soul, and by not attaching too much importance to it, renouncing even the satisfaction of wanting to know the exact condition of our own spiritual life. It is well to understand that God often permits painful, obscure states just because He wants the soul to live hidden from itself. This was the aim of St. Teresa Margaret’s program of self-effacement; she intended not only “to live, as it were, hidden and unnoticed” among her sisters, but “to be, in a certain manner, hidden and unknown to herself, to die to herself without knowing it and without feeling any pleasure in this mystical spiritual death, burying in Christ, in a very subtle way, every thought and personal reflection, even in the spiritual and eternal order.”

This is what complete forgetfulness of self explicitly proposes to one who renounces even the spiritual satisfaction of recognizing his own immolation. But in order to avoid turning one’s thoughts inward, the soul must focus its aspirations elsewhere; hence the negative exercise of not thinking of itself must accompany the positive exercise of fixing its center in Christ, of “burying in Christ” every thought, every preoccupation with self, even in the spiritual order. No one can succeed in turning away from himself unless he concentrates all his attention on the object of his love. St. Teresa Margaret completely forgot herself; her thoughts were absorbed “in Christ,” her one Well-Beloved.


2. A soul entirely oblivious of self is also completely disinterested. It no longer serves God in a mercenary spirit, with more regard for the reward which it may receive than for His glory, but it is “at His service,” according to St. Teresa’s beautiful expression, “gratuitously, as great lords serve their king” (L). This should be the attitude of an interior soul called by God to a life of intimacy with Him. Such a one should act not as a hireling, but as a daughter or a spouse. Here we have one of the most beautiful fruits of the hidden life. St. John of the Cross teaches that “more pleasing to God is one good work, however small it be, that is done in secret with no desire that it be known, than a thousand that are done with the desire that they be known to men. For he that with purest love does such works for God’s sake, not only cares nothing to have men see him, but does them not even that God Himself may see him. Such a man, even though God were never to know it, would not cease to render Him the same services, with the same joy and purity of love” (SMI, 20). We find this same delicate thought in St. Thérése of the Child Jesus: “If the good God Himself were not to see my good deeds (which is impossible), I would not be disturbed. I love Him so much that I would want to please Him, without His knowing that it is I who am doing it” ©.

This total purity of intention makes the soul act for God alone and never for personal interest, even of a spiritual nature. God will certainly reward our good works, but concern about this is wholly abandoned to Him as long as the soul is intent only on giving Him pleasure. The hidden life thus finds its culminating point in a complete disinterestedness, not only concerning human rewards and praises, but also in regard to spiritual consolations; our soul seeks God alone and God alone is sufficient for us. Even if, apparently unaware of our love and our services, He leaves us in aridity and abandonment, we do not worry nor stop on this account, since the one motive which actuates us is to please God alone.


COLLOQUY

O my God, teach me how to forget myself, to bury every preoccupation, all excessive care of myself in You. Why do I wish to serve You, O Lord? Why do I desire to love You and to advance in the paths of sanctity? Would it be for my own interest or foolish self-complacency? Oh! how mean the spiritual life which would have such vain and low aims! No, my God, You have created me for Your glory, and I humbly ask to be able to live for it alone, without personal interest or satisfaction!

Is not the honor You do me sufficiently great when You allow such a miserable, wretched creature to consecrate its life to glorifying You—-when a poor worm like me can procure glory for You, O God most high, O infinite Perfection? What more could I wish, O Lord? Would it be better to please creatures than the Creator, to satisfy myself rather than God? O Lord, I wish to serve and please You alone, to give pleasure to You alone; this will be my only satisfaction, the only reason for my joy. I understand that if You lead me by an obscure and arid road, if You often permit the darkness to deepen around me, it is only because You want to teach me to serve You with a pure intention, seeking nothing but Your satisfaction, not my own. If You allow me to continue to practice the interior life and virtue without seeing any results, if You veil my eyes to my slight progress, it is to establish my soul in humility. If I had more light, or if the workings of Your grace were
more evident in me, perhaps I would glorify myself and halt my progress toward You, the one object of my affection.

O Lord, how admirable are Your ways! Blessed be this interior obscurity which protects me from the dangers of spiritual pride! No, my God, I do not ask You to change my path; on the contrary, I beg You to continue to lead me in the same way, the road of complete self-effacement, veiled not only from the eyes of others, but even from my own. And if, by Your grace, there is anything good in me, it will be for Your pleasure and not mine; if I were to take satisfaction in it, everything could be ruined in a moment. Keep me, then, in the shadow of Your wings, teach me how to serve You out of pure love; show me how to forget myself entirely, to hide all concern for myself in You, to put my soul into Your hands with complete abandon. In order to gain it for You, I give it up to You, I want to lose it in You; in You I shall find it again clothed in Your beauty.

116. TO BE HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, help me to hide from creatures in order to enter into intimacy with You.


MEDITATION

1. When we speak of the hidden life of Jesus, we do not mean only His self-effacement in the eyes of men, from whom He concealed His divinity, thus avoiding their praise. Besides these exterior relations with creatures, we must penetrate into the secret places of His heart where, hidden from human eyes, another life goes on, a secret one of much greater sublimity. It is His interior life, a life of intimacy with the Trinity. Jesus’ sacred soul, personally united to the Word, unceasingly enjoys the Beatific Vision. It sees the Word, the subject of all its activity. It sees the Father, the cause of its Being. It sees the Holy Spirit, who dwells in it as “ His chosen temple,” and who, by covering it with the flame of His love, draws it toward God in the perfect accomplishment of His will. Exteriorly Jesus lives with men, deals with them as if He were one of them, but His real life, His existence as the Son of God, is lived hidden from all human sight, with the Trinity and in the Trinity. The imitation of Jesus’ hidden life has for its ultimate end the participation in His interior life; that is, to be hidden “with Christ in God,” in order to enter with Him the sanctuary of the Most Holy Trinity. St. Teresa Margaret expressed this in her ardent desire 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).

The practice of the hidden life has, therefore, two aspects: the first, negative and mostly exterior, consists in hiding ourselves from the eyes of others and even from our own and in dying to glory and worldly honors. The second, which is positive and entirely interior, consists in concentrating on God in a life of intimate relations with Him. The first aspect is the condition and measure of the second: the more a soul is able to hide from creatures, and even from itself, the more capable it will be of living “with Christ in God,” according to the beautiful expression of St. Paul: “ You are dead: and your life is hidden with Christ in God”
(Col 3,3).


2. “My God, I desire to enclose myself forever within Your most loving Heart, as in a desert, so that in You, with You, and for You I may live a hidden life of love and sacrifice.” In these words St. Teresa Margaret expressed her ideal of a life hidden with Christ. After long practicing the exterior, negative aspect of effacement, concealing itself from the eyes of creatures with constant fidelity, the soul is free and ready to hide itself with Christ in God. It no longer wastes its energy looking for esteem or human satisfactions; from this point of view creatures have become as nothing to it. It can say that “created things, its own as well as others’, no longer give it the least worry or trouble; it is just as if they did not exist” (T.M. Sp). Thus the soul arrives at that sovereign liberty of spirit which permits it to concentrate itself wholly upon God.  Exteriorly its conduct shows nothing extraordinary, or rather, the very care it takes to hide from the eyes of others makes it very often go unnoticed, and most people consider it a soul of little worth. But in its secret heart a very rich interior life, known only to God, is developing. United to Jesus—in Him, with Him, by Him—it participates in His Trinitarian life. This means that it attains the plenitude, the end of the Christian life—for grace has been given to us in order to make us sharers in the divine nature, in the life of the Triune God. To this end the Word became Incarnate.

By dying on the Cross, Jesus merited grace for us. He grafted us into Himself so that He could take us with Him into the bosom of the Trinity, from which sin had barred us. Not through our own merit or ability, but only through our union with Christ—our Mediator, our Bridge, our Way—can we penetrate with Him and by Him into the intimate life of God, into the life of the Trinity. Faith and charity which Jesus merited for us together with grace, enable us to enter into relations with the three divine Persons, to the extent that we can really live “hidden with Christ in God. ”

A life hidden in God is the great attraction of interior souls, and to attain it, they are very happy to hide from their own eyes and the eyes of others, fleeing every shadow of earthly glory. O blessed self-effacement which introduces the soul to the “vita abscondita cum Christo in Deo!”


COLLOQUY

“O Jesus, I wish to strive solely to become a perfect copy of You, and since You lived a hidden life of humiliations, love, and sacrifice, henceforth mine must be the same; therefore I now wish to enclose myself forever in Your most lovable Heart, as in a desert, so as to live there in You, with You, and by You, that hidden life of love and sacrifice.... Since You inspire me to become as much as possible like You, all my efforts will tend toward that end. I shall imitate You especially in those virtues which are most pleasing to Your most lovable Heart—humility and purity of intention, interior as well as exterior—always working with a spirit of simplicity ” (T.M. Sp).

O Jesus, deign to open Your loving Heart to me too, and permit me to take refuge in it, so that I may live hidden in God with You. Exterior things, fame, earthly glory, have no longer any attraction for me; is it not all vanity, a simple succession of circumstances which will soon cease to be? The only life which attracts me and which will last forever, beyond all earthly contingencies, is that of intimate union with You. And this is the great treasure which You offer me by the merits of Your Passion. I contemplate You on the Cross, O Jesus, Your side rent by the lance, as if to tell me that Your death has opened the door of Your Heart to admit me into the sanctuary of Your interior life. Your death has, in fact, grafted my poor human life onto Yours and made it share in Your divine life, a life of intimate relations with the Trinity. This is true living and life eternal! I aspire to it, not by my merits, but by those of Your Passion. O Jesus, grant that I may seek my joy, my good, only in this participation in Your interior life, and put all my glory in it. Yes, let all my glory be within, in the secrecy of my life hidden with You in God.

117. TRUE GLORY

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, who, for love of me, accepted the disgrace of death on the Cross, teach me what true glory is, and grant that for love of You I may learn how to overcome my desire for honor.


MEDITATION

1. St. Teresa of Jesus declares, “However slight may be our concern for our reputation," if we “wish to make progress in spiritual matters,” we must “ put this attachment right behind us,” for “if questions of honor” prevail, we “will never make great progress or come to enjoy the real fruit of prayer,” which is intimacy with God. The Saint also says that the reason why many people who have devoted themselves to the spiritual life, and are deserving on account of so many good works, “are still down on earth” and never succeed in reaching “the summit of perfection,” is “ punctiliousness about their reputation. And the worst of it is that this sort of person will not realize that he is guilty of such a thing, the reason being that the devil tells him that punctiliousness is incumbent upon him” (Life, 31 - Way, 12).

Attachment to our honor is expressed in all those susceptibilities, large or small, arising from our attitude of soul that wishes to affirm our personality, hold on to the esteem we receive from others and make our own point of view prevail. This shows up concretely in various schemes—more or less conscious and petty—to obtain or to keep certain privileged and honorable positions where our own views, which we always think are good, will prevail. By this means, we hope to make manifest our capabilities, our works, and our personal merits—so great and worthy of consideration in our own eyes. All this remains more or less disguised by the fact that we have—or think we have—the intention of acting with an eye to good. We decide, therefore, that what we do is legitimate. Yet we are not aware that this way of acting, though apparently done to defend the good, prevent scandals, and further good works, is only a defense of our own pride. This truth is made evident, for on similar occasions, when like circumstances have been resolved, we do not take as much trouble to defend the honor and the works of others as we would have done if these had been our own. A soul that allows itself to be preoccupied with such things is, as St. Teresa of Jesus says, bound to earth by “a chain which no file can sever. Only God can break it, with the aid of prayer and great effort on our part” (Life, 31).


2. To find out if we are really detached from sensitiveness about honor, we should not rely on the desires which sometimes come to us during prayer and make us think that we are ready to bear any kind of humiliation or scorn. Instead we must find out what our attitude is at the critical moment when something wounds our pride. Then it will be easy to see that “we refuse to be thwarted over the very smallest matter of precedence: apparently such a thing is quite intolerable” (T.J. Way, 16). These more or less sharp reactions of our sensitiveness show us clearly that we are very far from crushing underfoot our concern about honor. Our awareness of these failings will be the starting point for correcting them, for the greatest obstacle to acquiring the virtues is the belief that we have already gained them and that it is no longer necessary, therefore, to practice them.

“God, deliver us,” exclaims St. Teresa, “from people who wish to serve You yet who are mindful of their own honor” (ibid., 12). We are trying to serve two incompatible masters at the same time—God and our own pride. Everything that a soul does to serve its ego and to defend its honor is taken away from the service of God, from the pure, sincere seeking of His honor and glory. Even if we sometimes seem to have real rights, it is only by sacrificing them, at least as far as our own person is concerned, that we shall attain to the liberty of spirit necessary for a deep interior life. Preoccupation with the defense of our rights continually distracts us from our ideal of union with God, deprives us of interior peace, and finally, involves us in so many worldly cares that it will often be an occasion of failing in charity and even in justice toward our neighbor. For it is very difficult, if not impossible, to keep up the defense of our own rights without more or less injuring the rights of others.


COLLOQUY

“O Lord, art Thou our example and our Master? Thou art, indeed. And wherein did Thy honor consist, O Lord, who hast honored us? Didst Thou perchance lose it when Thou wert humbled even to death? No, Lord, rather didst Thou gain it for all.... God grant that no soul be lost through its attention to these wretched niceties about honor, when it has no idea wherein honor consists... . O Lord, all our trouble comes from not having our eyes fixed upon Thee, we stumble and fall a thousand times and stray from the way” (ibid., 36 — 16).

“We are trying to attain to union with God. We want to follow the counsels of Christ on whom were showered insults and false witness. Are we, then, really so anxious to keep intact our own reputation and credit? We cannot do so and yet attain to union, for the two ways diverge. When we exert our utmost efforts and try in various ways to forego our rights, the Lord comes to the soul” (T.J. Life, 31).

O Jesus, grant that my honor may consist solely in intimate union with You, in the effort to become more and more like You. Although You were God and had the right to be treated and honored as God, You willed to be treated like the lowest of men! You wished no other right than to fulfill the will of the Father, to die on the Cross for His glory and our salvation. In the light of Your example, I have a better understanding of the meanness of my pride which, in order to defend foolish rights, loses itself in so much confusion and so many fruitless discussions. O Lord, why should I confine myself to crawling on the ground among the thorny roots of my passions, when You have created me to soar in the heavens? Oh! help me to free myself from the vain pretenses of my ego which, like a heavy weight, continually try to drag me down; help me to get rid of this great load, and to rise toward You, my God, in a sure flight!

118. NOT EXCUSING ONESELF

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, who willed to be silent before him who condemned You to death, teach me the art of not excusing myself.


MEDITATION

1. In any failure, fault, or personal error, our ego instinctively tries to excuse itself. It is the tactic of pride—which is not willing to admit its mistakes and schemes—to hide them under more or less false pretexts, always finding some way to blame them on other people or on circumstances. Adam and Eve acted in this way after their sin; it is also the instinct of anyone who commits a fault. Herein lies great danger for the soul, because it is impossible for us to correct our faults if we are not willing to acknowledge them. It requires great courage to tear down these ingenious but inconsistent constructions of self-love, to expose our failings and look them squarely in the face, just as they are, without blaming them on anyone but ourselves. “When we commit a fault,” said St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, “we must not attribute it to a physical cause, such as illness or the weather, but we must attribute it to our own lack of perfection.... Occasions do not make man weak, but they do show what he is” ©.

Excusing our faults may satisfy our pride; but in reality, it is voluntarily blinding oneself and making oneself incapable of seeing the true situation. Thus our poor soul is not only unable to advance, but is condemned to grope in the dark with no possibility of escape. On the other hand, if we sincerely recognize our faults, we have already taken the first step toward correcting them. Yet it is not enough to avoid excusing ourselves interiorly; we must also guard against exonerating ourselves before others. In other words, after acknowledging our failings before God, we must also confess them before men, accept a correction humbly, and repair the bad example we may have given. At the same time, it would be of little value to receive an accusation or a reproach silently, if the soul—even at the cost of great struggle and effort—did not also avoid excusing itself interiorly.


2. Rebukes very often annoy us because we think they are not entirely in proportion to our faults and failings. We do not realize that this is one of the inevitable consequences of human limitations; only God who reads our hearts can judge our acts with perfect justice. Men see but the exterior, and therefore, even when it is their duty to correct us, they do not always evaluate correctly, but may often make mistakes either by excess or by deficiency. If we are willing to accept only the observations which perfectly correspond to our faults, we will very often be in danger of making excuses, protesting, giving explanations, and if we cannot do this outwardly, we shall do it at least interiorly. Thus we will lose the benefit we could have derived from the corrections, had we received them with humility of heart.

St. Teresa of Jesus urges souls eager to arrive at union with God to great generosity on this point, telling them to accept, without excusing themselves, every correction or rebuke, even if not wholly deserved, and even if wholly unjust. “It takes great humility,” said the Saint, “to find oneself unjustly condemned and be silent, and to do this is to imitate the Lord, who set us free from all our sins.... The truly humble person will have a genuine desire to be thought little of, and persecuted, and condemned unjustly, even in serious matters. For if we desire to imitate the Lord, how can we do so better than in this? And no bodily strength is necessary here, nor the aid of anyone save God.” And then she adds very shrewdly: “Properly speaking, we can never be blamed unjustly, since we are always full of faults.... If we are not to blame for the thing that we are accused of, we are never wholly without blame in the way that our good Jesus was” (Way, 15).

“But Jesus held His, peace” (Mt 26,63), says the Evangelist, in showing us Our Lord before the Tribunal. A soul who aspires to intimate union with Jesus must know how to unite itself to His silence even when accused most unjustly. When special reasons — such as avoiding scandal or causing displeasure to someone — require that excuses be made, they will be limited to what is strictly necessary, with careful weighing and pondering so that the grace of the humiliation may not be lost.


COLLOQUY

O Lord, I pray that Your light will be so abundant in me that it will disperse, like fog before the sun, all those excuses by means of which my self-love tries to cover my failings and faults. Enable me to recognize all my defects and to judge them as You do. Rule over my heart so that it will not try to find subtle reasons for manufacturing excuses for my faults. And if, because of my weakness, I fall easily, grant that I may at least confess it humbly to You and to others. Take away from my conscience the mask of vain, pitiful excuses which prevents me from seeing myself as You see me and know me, as I really am in Your eyes. Then, O Lord, give me the humility necessary to accept with good will the corrections of others. With Your gentleness extinguish my sensitiveness which is ever ready to burst into flame and to be resentful, and grant me the grace to imitate Your meekness and humility in the presence of Your judges.

“O Lord, when I think in how many ways Thou didst suffer, and in all of them undeservedly, I know not what to say for myself or what I am doing when I make excuses for myself. Thou knowest, my God, that if there is anything good in me it comes from no other hands than Thine own. Should I desire that no evil be spoken of a thing so evil as myself, when they have said such wicked things of Thee, who art good above all other good? It is intolerable, my God; nor would I that Thou shouldst have to tolerate anything displeasing to Thine eyes being found in Thy handmaiden. For see, Lord, I am blind, and I content myself with very little. Do Thou give me light and make me truly desire that all should hate me, since I have so often left Thee, who hast loved me with such faithfulness.

“What is this, my God? What does it matter to us if we are blamed by all, provided we are without blame in the sight of the Lord?” (T.J. Way, 15).