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Inner Life of a Catholic

The Profession of Faith 

CHAPTER ONE

Life In God

1. God And His Creature

I am asked to describe the Catholic mind; where am I to begin? Or what aspect of it, for there are many, shall I try to analyze? At all events, wherever my course may ultimately lead, I can begin with the fact of God. I know there is God, one and true, objectively real, containing in Himself all that I mean by the word personality and more. I know that He is beyond, and independent of, creation, that creation and all that is in it depends and must depend on Him; yet that He is near to it, and in every creature in it, that He is near to me, as near as I am to myself. I know that He is almighty, and that nothing is impossible to Him, that He is what the theologians call immense, intimately permeating all things so that nothing at all is hidden from Him, not even man's most secret thoughts, not the past, nor the future, nor any cause, nor any effect. I know my God is infinite in wisdom, and can never do other than that which is best in His own designs; that He is perfect in justice, even while His boundless mercy is above all His works; that He has a providential care of all the things that He has made, and, above all, of men, that they may be saved unto Himself.

I know my God is not only real, more real than I am myself, not only just, not only merciful, not only infinitely true, and faithful and secure; He is also a God of love. Infinitely loving, infinitely worthy of all love, is this God of mine, so loving, so lovable, that He is love itself; from Him all love comes, to Him all love returns. I cannot think of God, but my thought, if it be true, must be tempered by love; I cannot judge of His acts unless they are seen with the eyes of love; if I would discover anything at all about Him it must be sought entirely through love. I know that in this one God of mine there are three Persons, whom we little creatures call the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. We call them by these names because by love they have been so revealed to us, by love we have been shown their relations one with another; and when we grasp anything at all of the meaning of the Blessed Trinity, we find that it is no more nor less than the infinitely perfect expression of infinitely perfect love. The Father and the Son, the Father giving to the Son all He has, all He is, Himself; the Son and the Father, the Son giving back to the Father all He is, all He has; the Holy Spirit—how feebly we express Him!—the mutual love of the-Father and the Son, infinite and therefore one; such is my God, seen from this darkness after a dark manner, whom one day I trust I shall see face to face.

And if there is no other key to the knowledge of my God in Himself but that of love, neither is there any other key to the knowledge of His dealings with His creatures. He knows me, this God of mine, far better than I know myself, far better than anyone else can know me; and in spite of that He loves me. He knows my nothingness, my weakness, my sinfulness, yet for all that He looks on me with pity and with love. From all eternity—I can speak in human language only—He had me in His mind and loved me; and because of that love in time He made me, because He wanted me. That same love drove Him not only to make me a human being, but to make Himself man, for me and like me; having given me myself, love impelled Him to give me Himself as well.

He became man for me, but that was not enough. He must still go on giving; He must give me all He had. He must give me His life. He must die for me. For love of me, He lived for me; for love of me, He died for me; for love of me He rose again; having risen, having "passed out of this life to the Father," yet He loved me still. For love of me He ascended into heaven, as He said, to prepare a place for me; that where He was I might also be, when time shall be no more, for all eternity.

But even this was not enough for this tremendous lover. When He had gone from this earth He would not leave us orphans; He would still come to us. It was expedient that He should go, but He would return. So long as I remain in the valley of this death, He would abide as well. As for the means of His abiding, He would find it; and He found it in a little bread and a little wine. Love made Him pour Himself out once more; He gave Himself to me wholly and entirely in the Blessed Sacrament. And even this was not enough for this God of love. Had He willed merely to abide with me upon this earth as my companion He might have come to me in some other way. He might well have stood by my side as Man, transfigured perhaps, and in all His present glory; and I would have known Him and would have adored, lovingly adored, like the beggar born blind whom He healed in the lower city of Jerusalem. But He willed much more; love clamored for more, and it would not be denied. For love of me He united Himself to me. Through that same Blessed Sacrament He came into me; with His own life He fed my life:" He that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. He that eateth this bread shall live for ever."

Yet more, for love is never satisfied upon this earth; it must always be giving, it must always crave for a return. Therefore would He be still further one with me; as He had found the means by which He could come into me, so would He have me be drawn into Him. He would live on this earth in yet another way; His spirit, His life should dwell among men even as the life of the vine dwells in its branches, more than the heat of the fire dwells in the red-hot iron, as the very soul of man dwells in his body. He would dwell in a new body, a mystical body indeed but none the less real, which He would call His Church. He would have me a member of that body, a part of Himself, grafted in Him as the branch is grafted in the vine, and drawing my very substance from Him. He would have me live, no, not me, but He Himself would live in me, by means of His own living organism which is the Church. Thus, from beginning to end is the story of this God of love's dealing with me perfectly consistent; it is all just like God.

Granted love, granted the all-devouring and all-giving love of this infinitely loving God, who can do all things, to whom nothing is impossible or difficult, I see how His gifts to me follow one another, drawing Him down to me, and drawing me up to Him, till all else fades away and I am lost, if only I will have it so, in His fond embrace.

God loved me before I was, Therefore He made me.
God loved me after I was made, Therefore He became man for me.
God loved me after He had become man for me, Therefore He died for me.
God loved me after He had died for me, Therefore He rose again for me.
God loved me after He had risen for me, Therefore He ascended into heaven for me.
God loved me after His ascension, Therefore He came back to me.
God loved me after He had come back to me, Therefore He entered into me.
God loved me after He had entered into me, Therefore He made me one with Himself
A member of His own body "Which is the Church."

This and more is my God to me, even here and now in this life; what He will be to me when we shall meet face to face, "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." Or at least this and more He would be to me if I would allow Him. For here is another manifestation of His love. He has left it to me to accept that love, or to reject it. For perfect love, as we know, has three functions; it longs to possess its beloved, it longs to give to its beloved, it longs for its beloved to return this love. And that this may be done, that it may be perfect, love must be voluntary, the beloved must be free. God loves all the creatures He has made, and in return they tell unceasingly His glory. <Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei, et opera manuum suarum annuntiat firmamentum.> But they cannot do otherwise, their love is not their own, any more than the reflection in the mirror belongs to the mirror that reflects it.

The other creatures of earth are the mirror of God; they are beautiful because they reflect Him, lovable because, and in so far as, they reflect His love; but in themselves they are only His creatures, the work of His hands, with no will or choice of their own by which they may give Him that voluntary love which makes of love a perfect consummation.

To man alone on this earth has this power to choose freely, and to give freely, been given. That He may have that consummation, that He may have the glory of love freely returned to Him, by His own creature, for His own sake, my God of love if I may use the word with reverence, has run the risk. He has made a creature that should be under no compulsion; He has given to me, His beloved, the power to say whether I will love Him or not. He has shown me much of His beauty. He has made the heavens tell me His glory, He has told me the secret of Himself, in a thousand ways He has bribed me and allured me. Plainly He has asked me for my love; He has even demanded it as a commandment, as His one and only -commandment, leaving me to eat of the fruit of all the other trees in His garden. But still He has left me free. In spite of all the attractions, in spite of the cords with which He has bound me about and drawn me, I have the power within me to refuse Him, to deny Him, to say I will not love Him, but will love some other thing, even myself, in His place.

And free man has failed Him. I have failed Him. He has tested me, He has put me on my trial that I might prove my love, for love is not content with words; and I have failed. I have said to Him: "Lord, Lord," but I have not entered into the kingdom. I have preferred myself to Him, I have put some glittering trifle, some passing satisfaction, before His infinite golden love. The very power of loving, which was His unique gift to me, in which I was most like Him, of which He alone was wholly worthy, I have taken away and given to other things, and have wasted it on them. This is what I mean by sin. I have cut myself off from the love of God as far as I have been able; I have told Him to His face that I do not want Him but prefer another. I have offered Him the injury and insult not only of putting Him in the second place, but of giving Him no place at all, behind me and out of my sight. I have turned my back upon Him, I have despised Him, and I have said that I would be willing to abide by the consequences.

This I have done, deliberately done. Whatever excuse I may make for myself, my abysmal ignorance, my blindness, my weakness, my fascination at the moment the pressure of circumstances against me, there have been times when I have known full well what I was choosing. I have felt His loving eyes upon me, and His hands outstretched to help me, yet I have preferred to go my own way, and to leave Him for my own desire. And having left Him, having deliberately made my choice, obviously now it was impossible for me to undo it of myself. What I have so deliberately surrendered I cannot of myself take back. From the beginning I had no claim to it, it was His own free gift to me; much less therefore now, when I have rejected it. I could not even ask for it again; I had sinned against heaven and against my Father. At most I could only plead, because I know that Father's abiding love, that I should be taken as one of His hired servants. 

But my God was still the God of love, and He loved me still with an everlasting love. Though I had turned away and had gone into a far country to escape Him, yet He pursued me with pity; He could not change. I had robbed Him of His rights, not only of those due from one beloved for whom He had done so much, but also of those due to Him from His creature; still He would not strike. Had another done to me what I had done to Him, I might justly have cast him off. He would not so treat me. Even if repentance had been possible, I had nothing with which to repay Him; I had offended the Infinite, I had committed an infinite offense, and that no finite creature could put right. I had thrown away my own powers of loving, and had no right to any other lot but that of my own choice. Yet He found a solution, to Himself as well as to me; infinite in mercy and goodness, infinite and constant in love, He devised a way by which this debt should be paid. Full justice should be done to Himself, at the same time love should be given back to me if I would have it. If I would, I should be forgiven; I should be restored to the rank I had lost; out of the ruin of myself I should be remade; I should be given a new and clean heart, nay, one with a greater power of loving than ever my heart had before.

How was this to be done? Again I must speak in human language, for I know no other. I must express the truth in the only way in which I see it, "as in a glass after a dark manner", nevertheless I know that the shadow which I see is real, though but the shadow of a reality still greater. One day this too I shall know even as I am known. God the Father looked down on His beloved creature, wayward as he was; He still looked on him and loved him. God the Son, the Mind, the Word of the Father looked down on His creature likewise; for "through Him all things were that were made, and without Him was made nothing." He saw the injury done by man to the Father, which man himself could never set right. God the Holy Ghost, the love of the Father and the Son, saw the injustice; and injustice must be atoned. It could not be that for all eternity this discord should remain; though a divine atonement were needed, yet would a loving and almighty God find the means. In spite of himself man should be saved, if he would but accept the salvation offered to him. God Himself would save him, though He would need to become man to pay the price, though it would cost Him the last drop of His blood to convince man of His sincerity.

This, in substance, is what the Christian means by the doctrine of the Atonement and the Redemption. Looked at from the human side alone, and with only human vision to fathom it, it seems incredible, perhaps even fanciful, a poetic dream and no more; St. Paul himself at times seems staggered by the wonderful thing that has been done. But looked at from the side of God, with the vision and love of God to guide us, we recognize in that outpouring of Himself the completest expression of His nature. We say it is just like God to do such a thing, in such a magnificent way. He is essential love, and if ever there was done an act of love the Redemption was such an act. It was an act beyond the dream of man; yet was it worthy of, in complete keeping with the infinite love of an infinitely loving God, bestowing Himself in an infinitely loving manner.

Man could never have conceived it; hearing of it, measuring it with his natural concepts alone, he doubts whether such an extremity of love is possible. Accepting it, because God Himself has said it is so, on the authority and assurance of Him who has done it, man is driven to declare that only a God of love could have conceived it, only a God of love would have done it. It is a deed worthy of God.

"God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son" (John iii, 16).
"Christ loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. ii, 20).
"In this we have known the charity of God because he hath laid down his life for us" (I John iii, 16).

"By this hath the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him. In this is charity; not as though we had loved God, but because he hath first loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins (I John iv, 9, 10).

And yet love has not yielded one whit of the debt of honor due to God Himself. For it has to be remembered that besides being infinitely loving and merciful God is also infinitely just, just to all His creatures, just to Himself, and the work of the Son of God made man, besides being an act of infinite love is also an act of infinite justice. The offense of sin committed against an infinite God is, because of Him who has been offended, an offense infinite in its consequences; yet by the satisfaction of the Man God the reparation is complete, infinite for infinite. Nay more, when we consider the Person who has made the reparation, it is superabundant; the homage of the infinite Man God gives to the Father far greater glory than the sin of finite man has tarnished.

"Where sin abounded grace did more abound, that as sin hath reigned to death, so also grace might reign by justice unto life everlasting, through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. v, 20, 21).

Thus at once the infinite mercy of God has been given the fullest scope, even while infinite justice has been fully satisfied.

"Mercy and truth hath met each other; justice and peace have kissed. Truth is sprung out of the earth; and justice hath looked down from heaven" (Ps. lxxxiv, 11, 12).

The Word of God made flesh, truly God and truly Man, the one Person, the Person of the Word, the Eternal Son of God, the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, Man and God: on that essential truth Christianity is founded, to secure it she fought for centuries and her children died in thousands, by it and upon it she built our civilization, without it she is not. Modify it, and at once the essence of Christianity is modified. Explain away the Godhead, and Christianity loses all that vision, and hope and love, and driving power, all that glory in suffering and energy to die, all that straining after an ideal which, since the days of Jesus Christ, has given a new meaning to life, and has been the character stamped upon its growth. Without this foundation Christianity, and the civilization which still bears its name, differs in nothing from any other civilization or creed. It can claim no priority, it can give no explanation of its own effect on the history of mankind; when the infidel says in contempt that it excels in battleships and guns and nought else, it has nothing to reply. But once the belief is accepted, and becomes a basis of life, all is at once made clear. For this we need not go beyond our natural experience; even here on earth the effects are seen easily enough. The first, as is obvious, is the ennobling of human nature itself. Because God the Son became Man, man himself has received a nobler status. That the Word of God, the true Son of God, out of love for mankind, should have so wedded Himself to it, and should have given His life for it, at once raises human nature to a rank akin to His own. Out of love the Incarnate Word has given to human nature His own personality, He has raised it unto Himself; and if that is the measure of the love of God for man, how much more must the love of man for his fellow man be raised above anything it had been before!

"My dearest, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.... If we love one another, God abideth in us, and his charity is perfected in us.... Let us therefore love God, because he hath first loved us. If any man say I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for how can he hate his brother, whom he seeth, and love God whom he seeth not?" (I John iv, 11-20).

In these words St. John sums up the practical result of the Incarnation and Redemption on the life of man in this world. In doing so he gives us the key to the history of Christendom. But, secondly, not only is human nature as a whole, in the Person of Jesus Christ our Lord, so ennobled and praised; we, too, every human being who is a partaker of that human nature, is also ennobled in himself. For this Jesus Christ, who is God, is also our Brother in the flesh; in some sense, however remote, every man is related to Him. Not only that, as we hope to see at greater length in another chapter, He has left on earth His mystical body. Into that body He has incorporated those who believe in and love Him. He has made them partakers of His own divine nobility.

Through Him and in Him we become the adopted sons of God, we share in the life divine. Even as the Word of God has given Himself to, and lives in, the human Jesus Christ, even so, as we shall see, though in a lower order, has Jesus Christ our Lord given Himself to us, and made us one with Him. St. Paul never tires of repeating it. We are members of that living, mystical body; as such we have been given the right to claim His satisfaction for our own, His merits for our own, His very prayer for our own, that as our own we may offer them to God, in expiation for our misdeeds and to win from Him His mercy and favors restored. Thus do our feeble, human petitions, the paltry acts of reparation we are able to make, the little sacrifices we may offer, become of value in and "through Jesus Christ our Lord"; for the Father will not ignore prayers and sacrifices, however small, that are steeped in the blood and instinct with the life of His own well-beloved Son.