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Inner Life of a Catholic

The Profession of Faith 

CHAPTER ONE

Life In God

3. The Man Christ Jesus

For one who believes all that has here been said, and more, of Jesus Christ his Lord, and the Catholic believes it with all his heart and soul, can it be strange that Jesus Christ and His Passion occupy so prominent a place in all his thoughts and words, indeed in all his life? "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain," says St. Paul; and the Catholic understands exactly what the Apostle means. "I know nothing but Jesus Christ; and him crucified." So once more St. Paul sums up his mind; and the saints have repeated the summary again and again, with an emphasis that rings true in every word. "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me," he says in another place; and the Catholic would gladly call it the expression of his own ideal. Others may wonder and doubt; to some He may be a stumbling block, to others a scandal and a folly; nevertheless there are those who know, and to them He is "Christ the power of God and the glory of God."

Jesus Christ, the Son of God from all eternity, yet also truly the Son of man in time; born into this world of a woman of our race; remaining truly God, for that He could not alter, yet also becoming truly Man; this Jesus Christ has come among men, because as God He loved man, loved me, with an everlasting love. He has lived a man's life for me, He has risen again from the dead. Because as God and Man He continues to love me, He lives for me now; in heaven before His Father and mine, "ever living to make intercession for me"; here on earth, ever renewing the oblation of Himself that He has made once for all. He lives within me even as I am within myself; He feeds my life with His own life, if I will have Him, every day. He calls me His own brother, the son of His own Father, His intimate friend, between whom and Himself there is no inequality. He gives me a share in His own inheritance, pleads to His Father for me "His own," that "where He is I also may be," let the handwriting against me be what it may. He turns all my sorrow into joy, all my joy into still greater rejoicing, for His sake more than for my own. He proves to me, by methods and evidences and arguments far more convincing and final than those of human reason, yet which my human reason everywhere confirms, that all this is real and true, that it is a work which only God could accomplish, a love which only God could show; yet which, when accomplished and shown, is found to be wholly worthy of Him. "God is faithful."

Jesus Christ is all this and more to me, how then can He be other than the ultimate object of my thoughts, the captor of my affections? Jesus Christ, who has made Himself so much to me, what shall I not be to Him? Jesus Christ, who has done so much for me, what shall I not do for Him? Who has endured so much for me, what shall I not endure for Him? It is true that so long as I live this life on earth I must needs occupy myself with other things. I must take my place among men, I must do that duty which it belongs to me to do. My love must needs go out to others, indeed, let it go out to as many as it may, and as fully as they will let me give it, for that does but make me the more akin to Him, the Lover of all mankind. Still must my thoughts, and my aims, and my affections not stop with them; they must pass through and beyond them all, if they are to find their rest and satisfaction. For they have discovered Him, and He transcends all else. He has revealed Himself, and now they must hunger after Him, as the hart panteth after the waters. They have found Him and they can never again let Him go; mind and heart can henceforth find their final peace in Him alone.

Indeed, Jesus Christ, once He is known, is all in all. Other things there are in life, beautiful, good, desirable, worthy of a man's natural love and ambition; we can appreciate and cherish them all. Other men and women there are, admirable, noble, lovable, worthy of the best we can give them, worthy of our lives. Love of country is ours, no less than it is that of other men, perhaps it is more; the evidence of blood and of service has proved it in every ordeal. Nevertheless, behind all these things, transcending them all, giving to them all a still greater lustre by reason of the light He pours upon them, stands the figure of our Lord and Beloved, Jesus Christ. The believing Christian reads his Gospels. Others may, if they will have it so, excel him in technical knowledge. They may know quite possibly better than he knows, the land of Palestine. the ways and manner of the Pharisees and Scribes, the shape of the stones on which Jesus trod, even here and there the reading of a word of a phrase in the sacred text itself. But Him who walks through those Gospels and comes out of them, who passes down from them through the ages, who is among us now, "yesterday, today and the same forever"; Him the believing Christian knows, or can know, for his very own, better than he knows his own mother, and his mother who has taught him rejoices to yield her place.

And knowing Him he follows. He listens to his Christ's every word, and gives to it Christ's meaning, not his own. He meditates upon His sayings, looks for the meaning He gave them, not the meaning he himself desires, or a self-occupied and sophisticated generation suggests. He counts His virtues, and sees in them the ideal of true manhood, whether he himself can rise to that ideal or not. Or when he must act, when in the business of life he must pass a judgment or come to a decision of his own, instinctively, almost unconsciously, he looks towards that Ideal and asks himself: what would the Master wish me to do? How would He have me to act? What advice does He give me for my guidance? How in this special case would He Himself have spoken or acted?

For He is the infallible Truth, and human judgment is then most true when it is most in harmony with the judgment of Jesus Christ. If again, the Christian would pray, if he would escape for a moment from the valley of this death, and would lift up his eyes to the mountains whence cometh help; if he would raise his mind and heart to God, and find communion with Him, instinctively he reaches towards Jesus Christ our Lord. "No man cometh to the Father but by me." His thoughts unite themselves with the thoughts of Jesus Christ; together, "through the same Jesus Christ our Lord," as the liturgy never tires of repeating, they rise to the throne of the Father who is in heaven, praying that His name may be hallowed, that His kingdom may come, that His will may always and everywhere be done. In the company of Jesus Christ hands raised with His hands, voice joined to His voice, we may sing the glory of God, even we His puny creatures, as He deserves that He should be glorified; we may adore Him, we may thank Him, we may ask of Him our daily bread, our forgiveness, protection from whatever may befall, with the trust of a child and a son.

Or when prayer is ended, and the Christian must set himself to his daily task, be it for God or man, he has before him the model working man, the Carpenter of Nazareth to His thirtieth year, earning His livelihood like any other man, serving and obeying and cherishing His mother, serving the villagers about Him. Or he may see the travel-worn teacher of the hill-side, who knew hunger and thirst, who had not where to lay His head, who at times was weary and overcome with sleep, who was so beset that He could not take His food, who, once at least, was "sorrowful unto death." When he has occasion to meet other men, to speak with them, to deal with them, while he does not in the least forget all that belongs to them as men, still may he also remember that Jesus Christ lives or longs to live in the hearts of these His creatures even as He lives in his own. When he speaks and acts with them, when he serves them, he deals with Him.

"As often as you do it to the least of these, you do it to me," is an incentive which has created the long line of martyrs of charity, the lasting armament of the Church of God. Thus is Jesus Christ, his Lord and his Ideal, the focus of the Christian's thoughts; He is no less, as we have just said, the focus of his affections. For if among ourselves, among men of goodwill, to know a good man is to love him, how much more must this be true of Jesus Christ, of Him whom no man could accuse of sin, whom the crowd that looked on could only describe as the one "who did all-things well," whom His very enemies were driven to call "Good Master!" He is the All-beauty, the All-goodness, the All-truth; meek and humble as He is, so that all may approach Him as being like themselves, yet in Him are united all the perfections of the Godhead, with all the fascinations of the perfect man. He has proved it in His life on earth, and in every action of it; He proves it for us now every day, if only we will read the signs aright.

"Which of you shall convince me of sin?"
"I am the light of the world. He that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life."
"I am the way and the truth and the light."
"Come to me all ye that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart; and you shall have rest for your souls."

"If any man come to me he shall not thirst." These cries have echoed through the centuries, as much as they echoed through the Temple court, or down the lanes of Judaea. Now, as then, every charge brought against Him has fallen to the ground, convicted of falsehood in its very utterance. The witnesses have not agreed; the only charge that has been found sufficient for His condemnation has been that He has "made Himself the Son of God." Now, as then, the multitudes have followed Him; while a few have been drawn more closely, and have found every word of His promise true to overflowing.

Indeed He has kept His word. He has not left us orphans, He has come to us; He is with us all clays even to the consummation of the world. Those who know the secret of His strong attraction alone can tell of it; those who do not know, who have never so much as conceived what the name of Jesus Christ means—how can they venture to deny or repudiate that of which they know nothing? Let men of other learning keep to their lore, and we will respect them for it; we will sit at their feet as their disciples. But do not let them, on the strength of that learning, presume to lay down dogma on that of which, by their own confession, they do not know anything at all. <Ne sutor ultra crepidam>. For there are those who do know Jesus Christ, not about Him only, and they are of every degree, from the lowest to the highest, the dullest to the keenest intellects, the most ignorant to the most learned; if variety of appeal and acceptance is a test of truth, then does the truth of Jesus Christ, and of the Church He has founded, stand out conspicuously above every other. These are they who have experience of His love and return it; who have Him always present before their eyes; who feel His hand guiding their own, and know they are under no delusion.

And these are they whose one word about Him is alone worth more than all denials, and all the shallow proofs of those denials, coming from those who know not what they say, and therefore are to be forgiven; who have never come near Him, and therefore are to be pitied; who are separated from Him by two thousand years of time, for they have failed to find Him as He is, if indeed He is to them more than a myth. The Christian who is worth the name knows "in whom he has believed," and he lives in His presence and in His company. Listen to St. Bernard, one chance witness out of many, for he was one who knew:

"Lord, by Thy help may we follow Thee, by Thee may we come to Thee, for Thou art the Way, the Truth and the Life. Thou art the Way by Thy example, the Truth by Thy promise, the Life by the gifts Thou dost bestow. Thou hast said, I am the Way in which to walk, the Truth to be sought, the Life in which to dwell; the Way that has no deviation, the Truth that has no error, the Life that has no death; the straight Way, the Truth infallible, the unending Life; the wide and spacious Way, the strong and universal Truth, the Life delectable, ever glorious."

Or again, hear St. Theresa; though her language goes beyond the experience of most, yet the Catholic understands and responds to every word she says. She is in trouble in her work for God; every hand seems to be turned against her; but the fact of Jesus Christ, as objectively real to her as she is to herself, is a lasting consolation in distress, and encouragement and source of strength. In language such as this she tells us what Jesus Christ is to her and to every Catholic, each in his own degree: "Alone as I was, without a single friend to give me a word of counsel, I could neither pray nor read, but as I remained for hours and hours together, uneasy in mind and afflicted in spirit, on account of the weight of my trouble, I began to fear that, perhaps after all I was being tricked by the devil, and wondered what on earth I could do for my relief. Not a gleam of hope seemed to shine upon me, from earth or from heaven; except just this, and this only, that in the midst of my fear. and dangers I never forgot how Jesus Christ my Lord must certainly see the burdened of all I endured.

"O my Lord Jesus Christ! What a true friend you are, and how powerful! For when you wish to be with us you can be, and you always do wish it so long as we will give you welcome. May everything created, O Lord of all the world, praise you and bless you I If only I could tramp the whole world over, proclaiming everywhere with all the strength that is in me, what a faithful friend you are to anyone who will be a friend with you!

My dear Lord, all else fails and passes away; you, the Lord of them all, never fail, you never pass away. What you allow those who love you to endure for you is all too little.

O my Lord, how kindly, how nobly (literally—how like a gentleman), how tenderly, how sweetly you succeed in handling and making sure of your own! If only one could secure that one would love nothing but just you alone! You seem, my own dear Lord, to put one who loves you to the test with rods and agonies, only that, just when you have brought her to her last extreme, she may understand all the boundless limits of your love."