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

[Stone]

231. THE COMPASSION OF JESUS
SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, my Lord and Father, have pity on my poor soul and sustain it by Your grace.


MEDITATION

1. One thought emerges from today’s liturgy in a special way and dominates all: God is a merciful Father who takes pity on us and nourishes our souls. Our souls are always famished, we are always in need of nourishment to sustain our supernatural life.

God alone can give us the proper nourishment as the Church tells us in the beautiful prayer of the day: “O God of all power and might, the giver of all good things; implant in our hearts a deep love of Your name; increase in us true religion and sincere virtue; nourish us with all goodness and. . . keep us in Your loving care ” (Collect). The heavenly Father graciously hears our plea and answers by directing us to His divine, only-begotten Son whom He sent into the world that we might have life in Him. In the Epistle (Rom 6, 3-11), St. Paul reminds us that as “we are baptized in Christ Jesus...in His death...so we also may walk in newness of life,” that in Him we may “live unto God.” It is in Jesus and in His Redemption that we find everything we need for the nourishment and life of our souls; it is in Him that we shall find the grace, love, faith, and the encouragement to virtue which we have petitioned in the Collect. It is a great joy for us to hear again that we are reborn in Christ to “ newness of life”; it is a great comfort for our weakness. One point, however, remains obscure. How does it happen that we are always falling? Why are we always so miserable? A more attentive reading of the Epistle will reveal the reason : because we are not yet wholly “ dead ” with Christ, because the “old man” in us has not yet been “crucified” to the point of our no longer being “slaves of sin.” In a word, if we wish to live fully the life that Christ acquired for us by His death, we must first die with Him. As this does not mean material death of the body but spiritual death to our faults and passions, this death must be continually renewed: “Quotidie morior,” I die daily (I Cor 15,31). The weakness of our spiritual life is caused by the insufficiency of this death to self.


2. In the Gospel (Mk 8,1-9) we hear the words of Jesus, so full of kindness: “I have compassion on the multitude.” Jesus has compassion on us, our weakness, our cowardice, our unstable wills. He sees that our souls are weary, hungry, in need of help, and as He spoke to the crowds who gathered to hear Him, so He repeats to us: “I have compassion!” Jesus pities first of all our spiritual needs. Although His Passion and death have abundantly provided for them, He still continues to take care of us every day in the most direct and personal way—by offering Himself as food for our souls. The Gospel speaks to us about the second multiplication of the loaves. However, we are more fortunate than the people of Palestine; Jesus has reserved for us a bread infinitely more nourishing and precious: the Eucharist.

Fascinated by the words of Jesus, the crowd had followed Him, forgetting even their necessities; three days they remained with Him and had nothing to eat. What a lesson for us who are often much more solicitous for our material food than for our spiritual nourishment! And Jesus, after having provided abundantly for the needs of their souls, thought also of their bodily needs. His disciples, however, were astonished: “From whence can anyone fill them with bread here in the wilderness?” They had already assisted at the first multiplication of the loaves, but here they seemed to have no remembrance of it and remained distrustful. How many times have we too seen miracles of grace and the wonders of divine Providence! And yet, when we are placed in new, bewildering, or difficult circumstances, how often we remain hesitant; it seems as if we doubted God’s almighty power. Let us think, for example, of our spiritual life: there are still things to be overcome or surmounted...we have tried so many times, and perhaps we no longer have the courage to begin again. Oh! if our faith were only greater, if we would only cast ourselves upon God with more confidence! One good act of total abandonment might be all we need to win the victory! Jesus is looking at us and saying, “I have compassion on the multitude” and His compassion is not sterile, but is vital action, help, and actual grace for our soul: why, then, do we not have more confidence in Him?


COLLOQUY

“Ah! my Lord, Your help is absolutely necessary for me; without You I can do nothing. In Your mercy, O God, do not allow my soul to be deceived and to give up the work it has begun. Give me light to know that my whole welfare depends on perseverance.

“Make me understand that my faith in You must rise above my misery, and that I must never be alarmed if I feel weak and fearful. I must make allowance for the flesh, remembering what You said, O Jesus, in Your prayer in the garden: ‘The flesh is weak...’ If You said that Your divine and sinless flesh was weak, how can I expect mine to be so strong that it does not feel afraid? O Lord, I do not wish to be preoccupied with my fears nor to be discouraged at my weakness. On the contrary, I wish to trust in Your mercy, and to have no confidence whatever in my own strength, convinced that my weakness comes from depending on myself” (T.J. Int C I, 1 — Con, 3).

“In You, O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be confounded; deliver me in Your justice. Bow down Your ear to me; make haste to deliver me! Be unto me a God, a protector, and a house of refuge to save me. For You are my strength and my refuge; and for Your Name’s sake You will lead me and nourish me. Into Your hands I commend my spirit; You have redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth. I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy. For You have regarded my humility, You have saved my soul out of distress. And You have not shut me up in the hands of the enemy: You have set my feet in a spacious place. I have put my trust in You, O Lord, save me in Your mercy. Let me not be confounded, O Lord, for I have called upon You. How great is the multitude of Your sweetness, O Lord, which You have hidden for them that fear You, which You have wrought for them that hope in You. Have courage, and let your heart be strengthened, all you that hope in the Lord ” (Ps 30).

232. GOD’S INFINITE GOODNESS

PRESENCE OF GOD - O my God, You alone are good; deign to clothe me with Your goodness!


MEDITATION


1. When Moses asked God to show him His glory, God replied: “I will show thee all good” (Ex 33,109), as if to say that His glory is infinite goodness, the good that He possesses in such plenitude that all good is in Him and no good exists independently of Him. God possesses good, not because He has received it from anyone, but because He Himself is, by His nature, the sovereign good, because His Being is infinite goodness. If creatures are good, they are so, only because God has communicated to them a little of His goodness. Of itself, the creature cannot even exist, therefore it cannot possess any good of its own. That is why Jesus said to the young man who had called Him “Good Master,” “Why callest thou Me good? None is good but one, that is God” (Mk 10,18). Not even Jesus as man possessed goodness as His own; but He possessed it only because the divine nature, which was hypostatically united to His human nature, communicated it to Him.

Only of God can it be said that He is good, in the sense that He is goodness itself, that goodness belongs to Him by nature, as divinity belongs to Him by nature; and just as it is impossible for His divinity to be lessened, so it is impossible for His goodness to be lessened. Heaven, earth, and the ages will pass away, but the goodness of God will never pass away. Man’s wickedness may accumulate sin upon sin, evil upon evil, but over all, God’s goodness will remain unchangeable. The shadow of evil will not mar it; instead, God who is always benevolent, will bend over the evil to change it into good, and to draw a greater good from it. Thus infinite Goodness stooped over man, the sinner, and made an immensely superior good come from Adam’s fall : the redemption of the world through the Incarnation of His only-begotten Son. This is the distinctive character of God’s goodness: to will the good, only the good, even to the point of drawing good from evil.


2. God, who is supremely good in Himself, is also good in all His works; from Him, infinite Goodness, only good works can come. “And God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good” (Gen 1,31); thus Holy Scripture concludes the account of creation. Everything that has come from the hand of God bears the imprint of His goodness. The sun which illumines and warms the earth is good, the earth which brings forth flowers and fruit is good, the sea is good, the sky is good, the stars are good: everything is good because it is the work of God, who is essential, infinite, and eternal goodness. But God has willed that among His creatures there should be some, such as man, who besides being good because He created them so, might also be good because of the adherence of their free will to that goodness which He has diffused in them.

This is the great honor given by God to man: not only has He created him good, as He created heaven and earth good, but He has desired that man’s goodness should result from the free concurrence of his will, as if God made him owner of the goodness He had placed in him. This is just why God has given man the great gift of liberty. See, then, how far you withdraw from goodness when you use your free will to choose not good, but evil! Consider the enormous difference between you and God: God is infinite goodness to the extreme of drawing good even out of evil, whereas your profound malice is capable of changing even what is good into evil, of making use of the good of your liberty to follow your egoism, your pride, your self-love.

Yet, it would not be hard for you to be good if you adhered to that interior impulse toward good which God has placed within you, if you allowed the good He has infused into your heart to develop. God created you good; He desires you to be good. It is true that your malice—the consequence of sin—is great, but His infinite goodness immensely surpasses it. He can cure it or destroy it altogether, provided you want Him to do it and trust in His goodness.


COLLOQUY


“If a soul understood Your goodness, O God, it would be moved to work with all its strength to correspond to it; it would run quickly to meet You who are pursuing it and entreating, ‘Open to Me, My friend!’

“What advantage does a soul receive from understanding Your goodness? The advantage of being clothed with Your goodness. Oh! if we would only open our eyes and see how great it is! But sometimes we are blind and do not see. The precious Blood of Christ is the only remedy which can open, not only our eyes, but also our heart, and make our soul understand the immensity of God’s goodness.... O my God, You reveal Your infinite goodness to me as a great river flowing over the earth, into whose waters all creatures are immersed and nourished like the fish in the sea. I am absorbed in the contemplation of this great river; but when I look around and see human malice so opposed to Your goodness, I grieve exceedingly. O infinite Goodness, my soul desires to honor You in two ways; first by praise—recounting Your splendors, thanking You, blessing You unceasingly for all the gifts and graces You are always bestowing, and narrating all Your grandeurs; and then by my works—not spoiling Your image in me, but keeping it pure and spotless as You created it from the
beginning ” (cf. St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi).

“O Lord, I want to trust always in Your goodness which is greater than all the evil we can do. When, with full knowledge of ourselves, we desire to return to friendship with You, You remember neither our ingratitude nor our misuse of the favors You have granted us. You might well chastise us for these sins, but You make use of them only to forgive us the more readily, just as You would forgive those who have been members of Your household, and who, as they say, have eaten of Your bread. See what You have done for me, who wearied of offending You before You ceased forgiving me. You are never weary of giving and never can Your mercies be exhausted: let us not grow weary of receiving” (T.J. Life, 19).

233. GOD’S INFINITE GOODNESS IS DIFFUSIVE

PRESENCE OF GOD - O infinite Goodness, continually communicated to creatures, teach me how to imitate You.


MEDITATION


1. Goodness is not confined within itself; its characteristic is to diffuse itself, that is, to communicate itself to others, “bonum diffusivum sui,” good is diffusive of itself; the greater the good, the more it tends to diffuse itself. God is the supreme good; therefore, He diffuses Himself sovereignly. He diffuses Himself first in Himself, in the bosom of the Blessed Trinity: the Father communicates to the Son all His divinity—essence, life, goodness and divine beatitude; the Father and the Son together communicate this to the Holy Spirit. The mystery of the Blessed Trinity, the intimate life of God, consists precisely in this essential, total, unceasing, and absolute communication. In it we have the supreme expression of the axiom: “Bonum diffusivum sui.” Good is diffusive of itself.

But infinite Goodness wills to pour itself out exteriorly also; thus, God calls into existence an immense number of creatures to whom He communicates, in varying ways and degrees, some of His own goodness. God creates creatures, not because He has need of them, for they can add nothing to His beatitude and essential glory; but He creates them solely to extend His infinite goodness outside Himself. God wills creatures not because of any goodness or loveliness already in them, but because in creating them, He gives them a share in His own good and makes them lovable. God communicates Himself to creatures only because He is good and rejoices in sharing His good with other beings. His goodness is so great that it can communicate itself to an infinite number of creatures without being diminished; it is so diffusive that it makes all it touches good. This goodness is the cause of your being and of your life: when you were created, it left its imprint on you, and it is always and unceasingly penetrating and enveloping you. Has your heart retained the seal of the divine goodness? Examine your thoughts, feelings, actions and see if there shines in them the reflection of the infinite goodness of God.


2. God’s goodness is so gratuitous that it gives itself to creatures without any merit on their part; it is so liberal that it always precedes them and never fails to impart its light to them even when, by abusing their liberty, they show themselves unworthy of it. God’s goodness is so patient that it does not stop at the ingratitude, the resistance, or even the crimes of His creatures, but His grace always pursues them. God could, in all justice, requite man’s sins by depriving him of life and all the other good things He has bestowed upon him, but His infinite goodness prefers to shower upon man new gifts and new proofs of His kindness. Has He not said: “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live” (Ez 33,11)?

Consider now your goodness, and see how weak, narrow, calculating, and self-interested it is, when compared with the goodness of God. How often you act like the publicans of whom the Gospel speaks, “who love only those who love them” (cf. Mt 5,46). You are good to those who are good to you, you help those who will help you in return; but many times you are hard and miserly with your gifts to those from whom you can expect no recompense. Does it not often happen that you are sweet and benevolent toward those who approve of you and share your opinions, but harsh and unkind toward those who oppose you? In the presence of coldness, ingratitude, insults, or even a trifling lack of consideration, your good nature is offended, closes up, and withdraws into itself and you are no longer capable of benevolence toward your neighbor. See what need you have to meditate on the words of Jesus, inviting you to imitate His heavenly Father’s goodness: “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you, that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust ” (Mt 5,44.45).


COLLOQUY


“O eternal Father! O fire and abyss of charity! O eternal clemency, O hope and refuge of sinners! O eternal, infinite good! Have you any need of your creature? You must have, since You act as if You could not live without her, You, the life of every creature, without whom nothing lives. Why, then, do You act in this way? Because You are in love with Your work, and You delight in it, as if You were overcome with the desire of its salvation. Your creature flees from You and You go looking for her; she moves away, and You draw near. You could come no closer than You did when You took upon Yourself her humanity.

“What shall I say? I must cry with Jeremias: ‘Ah! Ah!’ because I cannot say anything else, my limited words cannot express the affection of my soul which so greatly desires You. I ought to repeat St. Paul’s words: ‘Tongue cannot tell, nor ear hear, nor eye see, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to know what I saw.’ What did I see? ‘Vidi arcana Dei,’ I saw the ineffable mysteries of God. And what can I say? I, with my dull feelings, can add nothing more; I only say to you, my soul, that you have tasted and have seen the abyss of the sovereign, eternal Providence. Now I thank You, O eternal, sovereign Father, for the unlimited goodness You have shown me, so wretched and unworthy of every grace.

“Can I ever thank You sufficiently for the burning charity which You have shown to me and to all creatures? No! But You, O sweet, loving Father, will be grateful for me, that is, the affection of Your charity itself will return thanks to You, for I am she who is not. If I said I could do something by my own power, it would not be true, for You alone are He who is. My being and all other good things have come from You, who give them to me unceasingly because You love me, and not because You owe me anything.

“O infinite goodness, inestimable love, wonderful are the marvels You have worked in Your rational creature!”
(St. Catherine of Siena).

234. INFINITE WISDOM

PRESENCE OF GOD - O my God, infinite Wisdom, enlighten my mind and teach me the secret of true wisdom.


MEDITATION

1. God is infinite wisdom who knows Himself and all things perfectly. In God wisdom is not distinct from being as it is in us, but it is the very Being of God. Therefore, God’s Being is supreme wisdom; it is a luminous, resplendent, eternally subsistent ray of intelligence which embraces and penetrates all the divine essence, and at the same time sees in it, as in their cause, all things which have existed or ever can exist. Divine wisdom, says Holy Scripture, “reacheth everywhere by reason of her purity.... She is a vapor of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God.... She is the brightness of eternal light, the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of His goodness” (Wis 7,24-26).

Divine wisdom is, before all, perfect knowledge of God. No creature, not even the angels or the blessed in heaven, can know God to the point of exhausting the depths of the infinite greatness of His Being : God alone knows Himself perfectly. Divine wisdom alone can exhaust the infinite profundity of His essence and of His mysteries. Although we are incapable of knowing God as He really is, it is an immense joy for us to contemplate the infinite wisdom which penetrates all the divine mysteries, and an immense comfort to invoke this infinite wisdom and entrust ourselves to it, that it may be our light and guide in the knowledge of God.

Divine wisdom is, therefore, a perfect knowledge of everything that exists; there can be no error in it, since it is eternal, immutable truth. Nothing is hidden from it nor can anything be a mystery to it : because it has created all things and it penetrates their inmost essence. ‘There is nothing new which it can learn because from all eternity it sees everything in an eternal present; nothing, however minute, can escape its most brilliant light. “The very hairs of your head are numbered ” (Mt 10,30), Jesus has said. God knows us much better than we know ourselves; the most secret movements of our hearts, even those which escape our control, are perfectly manifest to Him. Let us ask Him for the grace to know ourselves in His light, in His eternal truth.


2. Divine wisdom knows all things in God, in reference to Him, who is their first cause. It sees all things as depending upon God and ordained by Him to His glory; therefore, it does not judge them according to their outward appearances, but solely according to the value, place, and meaning they have in God’s eyes. Consequently, the judgments of divine wisdom are vastly different from our short human judgments which stop at the purely material aspect of things: “O the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” St. Paul exclaims, “How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways!” (Rom 11,33). They are all the more incomprehensible to us the more we are accustomed to judge them from a point of view opposed to that of divine wisdom.

To know created things in their relation to God, and to esteem them according to the value they have in His eyes, is true wisdom, which we should try to acquire in the reflected light of eternal wisdom. How far we are from it when we judge creatures and events only from a human standpoint, basing our judgment solely on the joy or displeasure they give us. This is the wisdom of the world and it is “foolishness with God” (1 Cor 3,19), precisely because it evaluates things according to their relation to man, and not to God, it judges them according to their appearances and not according to their reality. Only by accustoming ourselves to ignore our human view, which is too subjective and self-interested, will we be able to see beyond the appearances of things, to discover, in the light of faith, the significance and value they have in the eyes of God. Then we will clearly see that everything that the world greatly esteems—such as great talents, success, the esteem of creatures —are as nothing in the eyes of divine wisdom, which deems as far superior the slightest degree of grace, the least act of supernatural charity. Let us consider how wrong we are when we preoccupy ourselves more about our success in worldly affairs than about our progress in virtue. How mistaken we are when we judge our neighbor by his natural qualities, considering the feelings of congeniality or antipathy which he arouses in us, rather than his supernatural worth. May the humble consideration of our foolishness make us feel more keenly than ever the need of invoking divine Wisdom: “O Wisdom who camest forth from the mouth of the Most High, come and teach us the way of prudence” (RB).


COLLOQUY

“O divine Wisdom, in you is the spirit of understanding : holy, one, manifold, subtle, eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hindereth, beneficent, gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure, having all power, overseeing all things, and containing all spirits, intelligible, pure. You are more active than all active things: and reach everywhere and penetrate everything by reason of your purity. You are a vapor of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the glory of Almighty God, and therefore, no defiled thing comes into you. You are the brightness of eternal light and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty and the image of His goodness. And being but one, you can do all things; and remaining in yourself the same, you renew all things, and through nations you convey yourself into holy souls, and make friends of God and the prophets... . You are more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars; being compared with the light, you are found before it. For after this comes night, but you are never
overcome by evil. You reach, therefore, from end to end mightily, and order all things sweetly.

“God of my Fathers and Lord of mercy...with You is Your Wisdom who knows Your works, who also was present when You made the world, and knew what was agreeable to Your eyes, and what was right in Your commandments.... Send her out of Your holy heaven and from the throne of Your Majesty, that she may be with me and may labor with me, that I may know what is acceptable to You. She knows and understands all things, and shall lead me soberly in my works, and shall preserve me by her power.... O Lord...hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon earth; and with labor do we find the things that are before us. But the things that are in heaven, who shall search out? And who shall know Your thought, except You give wisdom, and send Your Holy Spirit from above?” (cf. Wis 7,22-30 — 9,1-17).

235. INFINITE LOVE

PRESENCE OF GOD - O my God, my only love, kindle in me the fire of Your charity.


MEDITATION

1. Sacred Scripture tells us: “God is charity” (1 Jn 4,16). God is love, eternal, infinite, substantial love. Just as everything in God is beautiful, good, perfect, and holy, so also everything in God is love—His beauty, wisdom, power, providence; even His justice is love. Love is perfect and holy when it turns with all its strength toward the sovereign good, and prefers it to every other good. This is the love with which God loves Himself, precisely because He is the one supreme and eternal Good, to which no other good can be preferred. The infinite love which God has for Himself is therefore, by its very nature, completely holy and has nothing in common with what we call self-love or egoism, that disordered love by which we prefer ourselves— more or less, and sometimes wholly—to God the supreme good. We are egoists because we have a tendency to love ourselves to the exclusion of every other affection, but God is so free from every shadow of egoism that, even though He loves Himself infinitely and is wholly satisfied with His infinite good, He tends by nature to diffuse His love outside Himself. It is thus that God loves creatures; He does not love them because there is some good in them which attracts Him, but it is He Himself who, loving them, creates good in them. “ The love of God,” says St. Thomas, “is the cause which infuses and creates good in creatures ” (I, q. 20, a. 2, co.).

See, then, how God loves us, with love entirely gratuitous and free, with love supremely pure, with love that is both benevolence and beneficence : benevolence which desires our good, beneficence which does us good. By loving us, God calls us to life, He infuses His grace in us, invites us to do good, urges us to be saints, draws us to Himself and gives us a share in His eternal happiness. Everything we are and have is the gift of His infinite love.


2. God “ first loved us,” exclaims St. John the Apostle (1 Jn 4,10); and, in fact, He has loved us from all eternity. Even when we were not yet in existence, we were already in the mind of God, and seeing us, He loved us and willed to call us into existence in preference to innumerable other beings. “I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore, have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee” (Jer 31,3). This is how God reveals to us the story of our life, which is simply the story of His love for us. This story, once begun, never ends, because God’s love has no end; sin alone has the sad possibility of interrupting it, but even then God never ceases to love us with an infinite, eternal, immutable, most faithful love. He loves us when He consoles us, but He loves us too when He sends us trials and leaves us in distress; He loves us when He gives us joy in abundance, as well as when He afflicts us with sorrow. His consolations are love; so too are His chastisements and trials.

In all the circumstances of our life, even the saddest and most painful, we are always encompassed by His love. God’s love can will nothing but good; even when He leads us by the harsh, rough road of suffering, He is infallibly willing our good. God “makes us die and makes us live.... He scourges us and He saves us” (cf. 1 Sm 2,6 — Tb 13,2), always because of His love. Thus it is not rare that He strikes hardest those whom He loves most, for, as the Holy Spirit says, “ . . . acceptable men [are tried] in the furnace of humiliation ” (Sir 2,5). St. Teresa of Jesus says : This suffering “ is what the Father gave to Him whom He loved most of all [Jesus].... These, then, are His gifts in this world. He gives them in proportion to the love He bears us. He gives more to those He loves most and less to those He loves least” (Way 32). To believe in God’s love, to believe in it strongly even when He strikes us in what we hold most dear: such is the program of the soul who wishes to entrust itself blindly to infinite love!


COLLOQUY

“Teach me, O Lord, how to love You; wretched as I am, I will love You with my whole heart and soul, because
You loved me first. I exist because You created me; You willed from all eternity to number me among Your creatures. Whence does this blessing come to me, O most benign Lord, Most High God, most merciful Father; for what merits of mine, what grace of mine, did it please Your Majesty to create me? I did not exist and You created me; I was nothing and from nothing You drew me and gave me being. Not the existence of a drop of water, of fire, a bird, a fish or any other irrational animal...but You created me a little lower than the angels, since, like them, I have been given reason by which I may know You, and knowing You, can love You. And I, O Lord, by Your grace, can become Your son, which is impossible to other creatures. Only Your grace, only Your goodness has done this, so that I may share in Your sweetness. Give me then, the grace to be grateful, O You who have created me out of nothing!” (St. Augustine).

“O my God and my infinite Wisdom, without measure and without bounds, high above all the understanding both of angels and of men! O Love, You who love me more than I can love myself or conceive of love! What amazes and bewilders me, considering what we are, is the love You had for us and still have. I am so astounded that I am beside myself.

“How could my will not incline to love You? O Lord, I have received from You so many signs of love and I want to repay You, at least in some small way. I am especially moved by the thought that You, because You truly love me, never leave me but go with me everywhere and give me being and life. I know that I can never have a better friend” (T.J. Exc, 17 — Con, 2 — Int C II, 1).

236. INFINITE MERCY

PRESENCE OF GOD - Teach me, O Lord, the secrets of Your mercy, that I may fully profit by them.


MEDITATION

1. God’s love for us assumes a very special character, one that is adapted to our nature as frail, weak creatures: the character of mercy. Mercy is love bending over misery to relieve it, to redeem it, to raise it up to itself. It almost seems that God, in loving us, is attracted by our weakness, not because it is lovable, but because being infinite goodness, His compassion stoops to compensate for it by His mercy. He wants to heal our imperfection by His infinite perfection, our impurity by His purity, our ignorance by His wisdom, our selfishness by His goodness, our weakness by His strength. God, the supreme, eternal good, wants to be the remedy for all our ills, “for He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust” (Ps 102,14).

Since our greatest evil—rather, the only real evil—is sin, infinite mercy would be the remedy. Assuredly, God hates sin, but, although He is forced to withdraw His friendship, that is, His grace, from the soul of the sinner because of the offense, His mercy still finds a way of continuing to love him. If He can no longer love him as a friend, He loves him as a creature, as the work of His hands; He loves him for the good that is still in him and which gives hope of his conversion. God’s mercy is so immense that no misery, however great,
can exhaust it; not even the most infamous sin, provided it is repented of, can halt it. This sad power is reserved to one thing only: the proud will of man by which he disdainfully shuts himself up in his wickedness, not wishing to admit how great is his need of God’s infinite mercy. In such a case, in spite of the immensity of divine mercy, the solemn words of the Gospel are fulfilled: “God hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart, He hath put down the mighty from their seats...the rich He hath sent empty away” (cf. Lk 1, 51-53).


2. There is no limit to God’s mercy. He never rejects us because of our sins, He never grows weary of our infidelities, He never refuses to forgive us, He is always ready to forget all our offenses and to repay our ingratitude with graces. He never reproaches us for our offenses, even when we fall again immediately after being forgiven. He is never angered by our repeated failures or weakness in the practice of virtue, but always stretches out His hand to us, wanting to help us. Even when men condemn us, God shows mercy to us; He absolves us and sends us away justified, as Jesus did the woman taken in adultery. “Go, and now sin no more” (Jn 8,11). By His words and example, Jesus has shown us the inexhaustible depths of God’s mercy: let us think of the prodigal son, the lost sheep, Magdalen, and the good thief. But He has also said to us: “Be ye therefore merciful, as Your Father also is merciful” (Lk 6,36). How far does our mercy go? How much compassion do we have for the faults of others? The measure of our mercy toward our neighbor will be the measure of God’s mercy toward us, for Jesus has said, “ With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again” (Mt 7,2).

God does not require us to be sinless that He may shower upon us the fullness of His mercy, but He does require us to be merciful to our neighbor, and moreover, to be humble. In fact, to be sinners is not enough to attract divine mercy; we must also humbly acknowledge our sins and turn to God with complete confidence. “What pleases God,” said St. Thérèse of Lisieux, “is to see me love my littleness and poverty; it is the blind hope I have in His mercy. This is my sole treasure” (L, 176). This is the treasure which supplies for all our miseries, weaknesses, relapses and _infidelities, because by means of this humility and confidence we shall obtain the divine mercy. And with this at our disposal, how can our wretchedness discourage us?


COLLOQUY

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and never forget all He has done for you. No, I shall never forget that You have forgiven all my faults, healed all my diseases, crowned me with mercy and compassion and satisfied my desire with good things.

“O Lord, You are compassionate and merciful, long-suffering and plenteous in mercy. You will not always be angry, nor will You threaten forever. You have not dealt with me according to my sins nor rewarded me according to my iniquities. For according to the height of the heavens above the earth, Your mercy surpasses my merits. As a father has compassion on his children so have You compassion on them that fear You. For You know our frame, You remember that we are dust. Everything will pass; but Your mercy, O Lord, is from eternity unto eternity to them that fear You” (cf. Ps 102).

“O Lord, since it has been given me to realize the love of Your heart, all fear has been driven from my heart. The remembrance of my faults humiliates me, leads me never to rely on my strength, which is only weakness; but this remembrance, O Lord, speaks to me still more of Your mercy and Your love. How could my sins fail to be consumed completely if I cast them with wholly filial confidence into the burning furnace of Your love?

“O Lord, even if I had committed every possible crime, my confidence would remain unshaken, for I should then feel—after sincerely repenting of them—that all the multitude of my offenses would vanish as a drop of water in a fiery furnace.

“O Jesus, would that I could tell all little souls of Your ineffable condescension! I feel that if, by any impossibility, You could find a soul weaker than mine, I believe You would take delight in showering upon it still greater favors, if it abandoned itself with perfect trust to Your infinite mercy ” (cf. T.C.J. L, 220 —- NV — St, 13).

237. INFINITE JUSTICE

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Lord, reveal to me the beauty of Your justice, teach me to love it ardently and trustfully.


MEDITATION

1. Although justice does not seem to resemble mercy, it is, like the latter, an aspect of the sanctity of God, of His goodness, and of His infinite perfection. Justice and mercy are, to be more exact, two different—but inseparable—aspects of that one love with which God loves His creatures. Mercy is love, infinite love of the good, and justice is equally so. Mercy and justice penetrate each other. “Precisely because He is just, God is also compassionate,” says St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus” (L, 203). God is merciful because He is just, and He is just because He is merciful; so, knowing our wretchedness, He bends down to us with infinite mercy. Nevertheless, justice is distinct from mercy, or better, justice is God’s love which gives us all we need for our good, for the attainment of our last end; and mercy, on the other hand, is God’s love which gives us much more than we need. But justice is never separated from mercy; it rather presupposes it. Could God, for example, provide for the needs of our life—and this is the work of justice—if He had not first created these needs in us when He called us into existence—this being the work of mercy? Justice, then, is always accompanied by mercy, for God invariably gives us much more than our due. As created beings, we are only entitled to a state of natural happiness, but God has willed to call us to a state of supernatural happiness. We could live as children of God with the help of grace alone, but God has given us in addition
the great gift of the Eucharist. One drop of the Blood of Jesus would have sufficed to redeem the world from sin, but He willed to die on the Cross. This is mercy, which ever accompanies and surpasses justice. ‘They are always inter-related, since God would not be infinite Justice if He were not infinite Mercy, and vice versa.


2. Mercy is the effusion of the sovereign Good who communicates His goodness to creatures; justice is zeal defending the rights of that sovereign Good who ought to be loved above all things. In this sense, justice intervenes when the creature tramples on God’s rights and offends Him instead of loving and honoring Him. The punishment of the sinner is the fruit of justice, but at the same time it is the fruit of mercy, for “whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth” (Prov 3,12). God does not punish a sinner in order to destroy him but to convert him. In this life the means used by divine justice are always directed by mercy, insofar as their purpose is always to put the sinner in such conditions as to profit by the divine mercy. Therefore, God is always merciful even when He punishes; His chastisements are not merely punishments, but they are also, and above all, remedies to cure our souls from sin, except in the case of those who refuse to be converted.

In our spiritual life, mercy and justice are continually alternating and intertwining. God’s mercy offers us His divine friendship; but, in justice, He cannot receive as an intimate friend anyone who retains the slightest attachment to sin and imperfection. Therefore He subjects us to purifying trials for a twofold purpose : to make us atone for our faults—which is the aim of justice—and to destroy in us the last roots of sin that we may be disposed for union with God—and this is the aim of mercy. Hence, we must accept our trials humbly, realizing that we deserve them. We must accept them with zeal and a love of justice, wishing to avenge in ourselves God’s rights, rights which we too often forget and ignore. We ought to accept them too with love, for every trial is a great mercy on the part of God, who wants to make us advance in the way of sanctity.


COLLOQUY

“O God, You have manifested to me Your infinite mercy, and in this resplendent mirror, I contemplate Your other attributes. There each appears radiant with love—Your justice perhaps more than the rest. What a sweet joy, O Lord, to think that You are just, that You take into account our weakness and know so well the frailty of our nature. What then need I fear? You, the God of infinite justice, who deigned to pardon lovingly the sins of the prodigal son, will You not also be just to me who am always with You?

“I know that one must be most pure to appear before You, the God of all holiness, but I know, too, that You are infinitely just; and it is this justice, which terrifies so many souls, that is the basis of my joy and trust. ... O Lord, I hope as much from Your justice as from Your mercy; precisely because You are just, You are compassionate and merciful, long-suffering and plenteous in mercy” (T.C.J. St, 8 — L, 203).

“What will become of me who have so many faults with which to reproach myself? But where sin abounds, grace also abounds. And as Your mercy, O God, is eternal, I shall sing Your goodness forever, Your goodness, Your justice, not mine. I have only Yours because You are my justice. Should I fear that it will not be enough for both of us? But Your justice is infinite and remains forever and it will cover both of us with its immensity. In me it will cover the multitude of my sins, while in You, O Lord, it will only conceal the treasures of Your goodness which await me in the wounds of Christ. Here I shall find Your infinite sweetness, hidden, it is true, and only for those who are willing to surrender themselves ” (cf. St. Bernard).