| Chapter 30. The End And Purpose Of The Divine Governance | ||||
We have said it is the divine governance that presides over the execution of the providential plan, its purpose being to manifest the divine goodness, which bestows upon the just and maintains within them forever a life that is eternal. Concerning this end and purpose, let us see what the Old Testament with its incomplete revelation has to tell us, and then we shall be able to appreciate better the full light given us in the Gospels. This was the method used by St. Augustine, particularly in his work on providence or the divine plan: the City of God, its progressive building up here on earth and its full development in eternal happiness. The incomplete intimation In the Old Testament the ultimate purpose of the divine governance was expressed in a manner as yet imperfect, often merely symbolic. The Promised Land, for instance, was the symbol of heaven. The whole system of worship with its sacrifices and varied rites, and in a greater degree the prophecies, proclaimed the coming of the promised Redeemer, who was to bring light and peace and reconciliation with God. The announcement of the future Redeemer thus contained in a vague way the promise of eternal life, which was to be given us through Him. That in the Old Testament, prior to the fullness of light contained in the Gospels, so little enlightenment should have been given on this matter of eternal beatitude, is easily explained; it was because, until Christ had suffered and died, the souls of the just had to wait in limbo for the gates of heaven to be opened to them by their Savior.204 Nevertheless, as we have already seen, the Prophets occasionally contain sublime and most significant passages on the magnificent reward God has in store for the just in the next life, passages that state more clearly what was already said before them.205 Thus the psalmist said: "As for me, I will appear before Your sight in justice: I shall be satisfied when Your glory shall appear." Job spoke in a similar strain.206 Speaking of the New Jerusalem, Isaias said (60: 19) : "The Lord shall be to you for an everlasting light, and your God for your glory. Your sun shall go down no more. For the Lord shall be to you for an everlasting light: and the days of your mourning shall be ended." Daniel wrote (12:3) : "But they that are learned [in the things of God, and are faithful to His law] shall shine as the brightness of the firmament: and they that instruct many to justice, as stars for all eternity." Nor is it a question here of the just who will appear on earth in the years to come; the reference is to those still living or who have already died: the reward promised them is eternal. More explicit still, as we have seen, is the Second Book of Machabees (7: 9), where we are told how with his last breath one of the martyrs addressed his executioners: "You, indeed, O wicked man, destroyest us out of this present life: but the King of the world will raise us up, who die for His laws, in the resurrection of eternal life." Again, it is of eternal bliss that the Book of Wisdom speaks when it says: The souls of the just are in the hands of God: and the torment of death shall not touch them.... The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds. They shall judge nations, and rule over people: and their Lord shall reign forever... for grace and peace is to His elect.... The just shall live for evermore: and their reward is with the Lord, and the care of them with the most High (3: I; 5: I ff.). Eternal life according to the New Testament In the fullness of revelation contained in the New Testament, eternal bliss is spoken of in terms within the reach of all. Indeed, Christ has now been given us. Whereas everything that preceded Him pointed to His coming, henceforth He Himself proclaims to all peoples the establishment of the kingdom of God and leads souls to eternal life. This is expressed again and again in our Savior's sermons recorded in the first three Gospels. There it is said of the reward in store for the just: "Neither can they die any more: for they are equal to the angels and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection" (Luke 20: 36) ; "The just shall go into life everlasting" (Matt. 25: 46; Mark 10: 30). It is not merely the future life spoken of by philosophers like Socrates and Plato, but an everlasting life, a life participating in God's eternity, transcending time, past, present, and future. Elsewhere, in a passage recalling the prophecy of Daniel (12: 13), Jesus exclaims: "Then shall the just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matt. 13: 43)." Then shall the king [the Son of man] say to them that are on His right hand: Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Here we have truly the ultimate purpose of the divine governance." For I was hungry, and you gave Me to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave Me to drink: I was a stranger, and you took Me in: naked, and you covered Me: sick, and you visited Me" (Matt. 25: 34). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had said: "Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.... Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven" (Matt. 5: 8-12). Here indeed is the true Promised Land of which the Old Testament scarcely spoke except in symbols. The souls of men were too conscious of their profound need of redemption to be ready for the full enlightenment. In the Gospel of St. John, Christ speaks of eternal life more frequently still. Thus to the Samaritan woman: "If you didst know the gift of God.... He that shall drink of the water that I will give him shall not thirst forever. But the water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of living water, springing up into life everlasting" (John 4: 10-14). Several times in the Fourth Gospel Jesus repeats the phrase: "He that believeth in Me haseverlasting life" (cf. 3: 36; 6: 40, 47). That is, one who believes in Me with living faith combined with the love of God has already within him the beginnings of eternal life. And why? Because, as He tells us later in His sacerdotal prayer, "this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent" (John 17: 3) ; "Father, I will that where I am, they also whom You have given Me may be with Me: that they may see My glory which You have given Me, because You have loved Me from the creation of the world" (ibid., 17: 24). To look upon Christ in His glory we must be there where Christ was even then present in the higher regions of His holy soul: that is, in heaven, as He Himself said: "No man hasascended into heaven, but He that descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven" (John 3 :11-13). In the same sense Jesus said: "Amen, amen, I say to you: If any man keep My word, he shall not see death forever" (John 8: 51). And again at the tomb of Lazarus He said: "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, although he be dead, shall live: and everyone that liveth and believeth in Me shall not die forever" (John 11: 25-26). Here is the fullness of that revelation heralded in the distant past by Job and the psalmist, by Isaias, by Daniel, in the Book of Machabees, and again in the Book of Wisdom. Then it was no more than a little stream; now it is a vast river moving onward and losing itself in the infinite ocean of the divine life. Elsewhere Jesus speaks of the narrow gate and the strait way (of self-abnegation) that leads to life,207 that immeasurable way that leads to God. The Lord calls all men to labor in His vineyard, giving them as recompense, even to the laborers of the eleventh hour, His own eternal happiness (Matt. 20: 1-6). The recompense He gives is Himself, though according to the merits and degree of charity each one has attained, for "in His Father's house there are many mansions" (John 14: 2). Our Lord's teaching is still more clearly expounded in the Epistles of St. Paul and of St. John. St. Paul refers to eternal happiness when he says (I Cor. 2:9) : "Eye hasnot seen, nor ear heard: neither hasit entered into the heart of man, what things God hasprepared for them that love Him. But to us God hasrevealed them, by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." Still more distinctly St. Paul says in another passage of the same Epistle (13: 8) : Charity never falleth away: whether prophecies shall be made void or tongues shall cease or knowledge [imperfect knowledge] shall be destroyed. For we know in part, and prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.... We see [God] now through a glass in a dark manner: but then face to face. Now I know in part: but then I shall know [Him] even as I am known [by Him] , with a knowledge that is immediate and perfectly distinct; I shall behold Him as He beholds Himself, face to face, and no longer as in a mirror, obscurely, confusedly. St. John speaks in the same sense in his First Epistle (3: 2) : "Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God: and it hasnot yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when He shall appear we shall be like to Him: because we shall see Him as He is." The Church has defined that this revealed teaching must be understood of an immediate vision of the divine essence with no created thing intervening as medium previously known. 208 In other words, through intellectual vision we shall see God more clearly than we see with our bodily eyes the persons with whom we are conversing, for we shall see Him distinctly as something more intimately present to us than we are to ourselves. Here on earth our knowledge of God is in the main confined to what He is not. We say that He is not material, not subject to change, not limited or confined. Hereafter we shall see Him as He really is, in His Deity, in His infinite essence, in that intimate life of His, common to the three Persons, of which grace, and especially its consummation in glory is a participation, since it is through grace that it will be granted to us to see and love God as He sees and loves Himself, and thus we shall live by Him eternally. Such is the teaching of revelation on eternal life as the manifestation of the divine goodness and the ultimate purpose of God's governance. Let us now glance briefly at what theology has to add, haltingly always, in an endeavor to give us a better understanding of the mystery. The beatific vision and the love for God of which it is the source Theology throws a certain amount of light on this subject by contrasting a purely natural happiness with that happiness which only grace in its consummation can bring. Had God created us in a purely natural state, with a mortal body and an immortal soul but without the supernatural life of grace, our final destiny, our happiness, would still have consisted in knowing God and loving Him above all things, for our intellect was made to know truth and above all the supreme truth, our will was made to love and desire the good and beyond all else the sovereign good. Had we been created without the supernatural life of grace, the final reward of the just would indeed have been, so to say, from without, through the reflexion of His perfections in creatures, as the great philosophers of antiquity knew Him. This would have been a knowledge more certain than theirs, and without any admixture of error, but still an abstract knowledge, obtained through the medium of things, in the mirror of things created. We should have had a knowledge of God as the first cause of spiritual and corporeal beings, we should have numbered His infinite perfections as they are known analogically from their reflexions in the created order. Our ideas of the divine attributes would still have been like tiny bits of mosaic, incapable of reproducing without hardening the spiritual features of God. Similarly we should have loved God as the author of our nature, doubtless with a love of admiration, reverence, and gratitude, but without that gentle, simple familiarity which God's children experience in their hearts. We should have been the servants of God, not His children. Such a destiny, however, would still have been of a very high order. It could never have palled upon us any more than our eyes can ever tire of beholding the blue skies. It would have been a spiritual destiny, moreover, and unlike material things the spiritual can be enjoyed fully by each one without detriment to the enjoyment of others and the consequent risk of jealousies. But in this abstract and indirect knowledge of God, many obscurities would have remained, particularly as to the manner in which the divine perfections are reconciled with one another. We should always have been asking how an omnipotent goodness can be reconciled with the divine permission of evil, how infinite mercy can be intimately harmonized with justice. The human mind would have been forced to exclaim: "Would that I might behold this God, the fount of all truth and of all goodness, whence steals forth the life of creation, the life of intellect and of will!" But what reason even at its highest cannot discover, has been made known to us through revelation. Here we are told that our final destiny consists in beholding God immediately, face to face, and as He really is, in knowing Him no longer simply from without, but intimately, even as He knows Himself; that it consists also in loving Him even as He loves Himself. It tells us that we are now predestined "to be made conformable to the image of His Son: that He might be the first-born among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). In creating us, God was not bound to have us partakers with Himself in His intimate life, to invite us to this immediate vision of Him, but it was in His power to do so by making us His adopted sons, and this out of pure loving kindness He has willed to do. It is our destiny therefore to see God not merely as mirrored in creatures, no matter how perfect, not even in that radiation of Him in the angelic world, but to behold Him immediately, without any creature intervening, and more distinctly than we behold ourselves with the eyes of sense. Being wholly spiritual, God will be intimately present to our intellect, illuminating and invigorating it and so giving it strength to look upon Him. (Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 12, a. 2.) This exclusion of any intermediary between God and ourselves extends even to the idea. No created idea could ever represent, as it really is, that purely intellectual and eternally subsisting flash which is God. No word of ours, not even an interior word, will be adequate to express what we are contemplating: thus even now when we are absorbed in gazing at some sublime spectacle, we cannot express what we see. Only one word can utter what God really is in Himself-His own eternal, substantial Word. This vision of God face to face infinitely surpasses the most sublime philosophy. No longer will there be mere concepts of the divine attributes, these concepts reminding us of tiny bits of mosaic. Part of the destiny to which we are called is to behold all the divine perfections intimately reconciled, nay, identified in their common source, the Deity, the intimate life of God; to behold how the tenderest mercy and an absolutely inflexible justice proceed from one and the same infinitely generous and infinitely holy love that possesses a transcendent quality in which these apparently conflicting attributes are in fact identified; to behold how justice and mercy combine in all the works of God. Part of our destiny is to behold how this love, even when the freest good pleasure, is yet identified with pure wisdom, how in this love there is nothing that is not all-wise and in this wisdom nothing that is not transformed into love. Our destiny is to behold how this same love is identified with the sovereign good forever loved from all eternity, how divine wisdom is identified with the supreme truth forever known, and how all these perfections are but one with the essence of Him who is. Our destiny is to contemplate in God this transcendent simplicity of His, absolute in its purity and holiness; to behold the infinite fecundity of the divine nature flowering in three Persons; to contemplate the eternal generation of the Word, "the brightness of the Father's glory and the figure of His substance" (Heb. 1: 3) ; to behold the ineffable spiratio of the Holy Ghost, the term of the mutual love between Father and Son, uniting them eternally in this most exhaustive outpouring of themselves." Goodness is essentially diffusive of itself" in God's interior life, and freely it scatters its riches abroad. No one can express the joy begotten of such a vision, or the love that will spring from it, a love so mighty, so perfect, that nothing henceforth shall be able to weaken, far less destroy it. It is a love born of admiration and reverence and gratitude, but of friendship most of all, with all the simplicity and holy familiarity that friendship implies. Filled with this love, we shall rejoice first and foremost that God is God, with His infinite holiness, His infinite justice, His infinite mercy; we shall adore every decree of His providence, whose sole purpose is the manifestation of His goodness. And in all things we shall be subject to Him. Wholly supernatural, such a knowledge and love will be made possible only through grace sublimating our faculties, and there at the very root of them, in the very essence of the soul, remaining a divine engrafting that can nevermore be lost to us. This consummation of grace, which we call glory, will in very truth be an enduring participation in the very nature of God, in His intimate life, since it will enable us to behold Him and to love Him even as He beholds and loves Himself. Such, though very imperfectly expressed, is eternal life, a life to which we may all aspire, since through baptism we have already received it in germ, in sanctifying grace, which is the semen gloriae. Herein lies the purpose of the divine governance, to show forth that divine goodness which is one day to bestow an eternal happiness upon us and maintain it forever within us. Then indeed will these words be realized: "God haspredestined us to be made conformable to the image of His Son: that He might be the first-born among many brethren" (Rom. 8: 29), that He who is Son by His very nature might be the first-born among many brethren, the children of God by adoption. It will be the perfect fulfilment of these words of Jesus: "Father, I will that where I am, they also whom You have given Me may be with Me: that they may see My glory which You have given Me, because You have loved Me before the creation of the world" (John 17: 24). Christ's glory is the supreme manifestation of the divine goodness, for Him and for us unending happiness, the measure of which is the measure of God's own happiness, which is something transcending time, being no less than the unique instant of changeless eternity. Let us conclude with St. Paul: "For which cause we faint not: but though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (II Cor. 4: 16-17)209 | ||||
| Endnotes. | ||||
1. God, His Existence and His Nature, tr. by Dom Bede Rose, O.S.B., 2 vols. | ||||
2. Dictionnaire de thologie catholique, articles: "Providence", "Predestination", "Premotion". | ||||
3. Sertillanges, Les Sources de la croyance en Dieu, p. 65. | ||||
4. We here reproduce the substance of a study we have developed at greater length in another work entitled: Le Ralisme du Principe de Finalit, Part 11, chap. 5, "La finalit de la volont: le dsir naturel du bonheur prouve-t-il l'existence de Dieu? | ||||
5. St. Thomas, la, q. 3, a. 7, and De Potentia, q. 3, a. 5. | ||||
6. Cf. Summa Theologica, Ia IIae, q. 2, a. 8. 7 Cf. ibid., la IIae, q. 1, a. 4: "Is there an ultimate end to human life?" "Absolutely speaking, it is impossible in a series to continue to infinity in any direction.... Were there not an ultimate end, nothing would be desired, no action would have a term, nor would the inclination of the agent find repose. | ||||
8. If, instead of considering simply the end of this natural desire, we consider its ordering to that end;and this demands an efficient, regulating cause (ordinans vel imperans movet ut agens, non ut finis);then the argument pertains to the fifth way of St. Thomas, which is that based upon the presence of order in the world: "All design presupposes a designer." In this sense the passive ordering of our will to the bonum honestum or moral good, superior alike to the delectable and to the useful, presupposes a supreme regulator. Or again, moral obligation, which is displayed in remorse of conscience and in the peace that comes from duty accomplished, presupposes a supreme lawgiver. Of this we will speak in the next chapter. | ||||
9. Cf. Cajetan, Commentary on Ia IIae, q. 2, a. 7. | ||||
10. In favor of this view it is said that since sanctifying grace is a participation in the divine nature ordered essentially to the beatific vision, it is a participation in that nature in so far as it is intellectual life. It would seem, then, that the divine nature is fundamentally the supreme intellectual life, eternally subsistent thought, rather than being itself. To this we reply that sanctifying grace is a participation in the divine nature as it is in itself and not simply as our imperfect mode of knowledge conceives it. It is a participation in the Deity, whose formal signification transcends even that of being and intellection. Conceived simply as subsistent being, God contains only implicitly, actu implicite, the rest of the divine perfections deducible from it; whereas the Deity as it is in itself and as contemplated by the blessed in heaven contains all the divine attributes explicitly, actu explicite. The blessed behold them immediately in the Deity and have no need to deduce them. | ||||
11. See preceding note. | ||||
12. Pascal, Pensees (Havet Ed.), art. 18. | ||||
13. It must be noted, however, that the act of creation, being a free act, cannot be deduced from the divine nature; neither can the exercise of mercy and justice with respect to creatures. | ||||
14. Although our happiness in heaven will have a beginning, it will be rightly called eternal life, for it will have as its measure a participated eternity. The beatific vision, in fact, is an ever-unchanging act, far transcending the continuous time of our earthly life, and that discrete time marking the thought succession of the angel. This is the element of truth in Plato's allegory of the cave. | ||||
15. This is the element of truth in Plato's allegory of the cave. | ||||
16. Scripture more often speaks of that lower darkness in which the soul perishes; but it also speaks of the higher obscurity of faith, corresponding to the "light inaccessible" where God abides. Of the lower darkness it is said: The wicked man "shall not depart out of darkness" (lob 15: 30). The nations before the coming of Christ "sat in darkness and in the shadow of death" (Ps. 106:10). It was in the midst of this darkness that the Light of salvation descended from on high: "To the righteous a light is risen up in darkness" (Ps. 111: 4) ; "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light', (Is. 9: 2; Matt. 4: 16) "For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord" (Eph. 5: 8; "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness" (I John 1: 5). But sometimes, relatively to us, God is spoken of as a divine darkness: "Clouds and darkness are round about Him.... His lightnings have shone forth in the world" (Ps. 96: 2, 4) ; "And the glory of the Lord dwelt upon Sinai, covering it with a cloud six days: and the seventh day He called him out of the midst of the cloud', (Ex. 24:16: cf. Ex. 19: 9; 20: 21). | ||||
17. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 12, a. 4; q. 56, a. 3. | ||||
18. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 12, a. 2. | ||||
19. Cf. St. Thomas. Ia. q. 12, a. 1. | ||||
20. Cf. Comment. 5. Thomae in Job, chaps. 4, 6, 8. | ||||
21. John 8:12. | ||||
22. Cf. St. Thomas. Ia. n. 12. a. 1. | ||||
23. Cf. John 8:12. | ||||
24. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 19, a. 9. | ||||
25. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 19, a. 11, 12. | ||||
26. Cf St. Thomas, Ia, q. 19, a. 11. | ||||
27. Treatise on the Love of God, Bk. VIII, chap. 3; Bk. IX, chap. 6. | ||||
28. Etats d'Oraison, Bk. VIII, 9. | ||||
29. See Part I. chap. 2: "On the order in the world." | ||||
30. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 79, a. 1, 2. | ||||
31. Physical evils, sickness, for instance, are not willed by God directly, but only in an accidental way, insomuch as He wills a higher good of which physical evil is the necessary condition. Thus the lion depends for its existence on the killing of the gazelle, patience in sickness presupposes pain, the heroism of the saints presupposes the sufferings they endure. (Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 19, a. g; q. 22, a. 2 ad 2um.) | ||||
32. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 83, a. 1 ad 3um: "God, by moving voluntary causes, does not deprive their actions of being voluntary, but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them." Cf. also, Ia, q. 103, a. 5-8; q. 105, a. 4, 5; q. 106, a. 2; Ia IIae, q. 10, a. 4 ad Ium et ad 3um; q. 109, a. 1, etc. | ||||
33. The free mode in our choice consists in the indifference that rules our will in its actual process of tending to a particular object presented as good under one aspect and not good under another, and consequently as unable to exert an invincible attraction upon it (Ia IIae, q. 10, a. 2). This free mode in our choice is still within the sphere of being, of reality, and as such comes under the adequate object of the divine omnipotence. On the contrary, this cannot be so with the disorder of sin. God, in His causation infallible, can no more be the cause of sin than the eye can perceive sound (Ia IIae, q. 79, a. 1, 2). | ||||
34. Cf. also Daniel 13: 42: The prayer of Susanna. | ||||
35. Ps. 36: 10-15: "Yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: and you will seek his place, and shalt not find it. But the meek shall inherit the land: and shall delight in abundance of peace. The sinner shall watch the just man: and shall gnash upon him his teeth. But the Lord shall laugh at him: for He foresees that His day shall come. The wicked have drawn out the sword: they have bent their bow. To cast down the poor and needy, to kill the upright of heart. Let their sword enter into their own hearts: and let their bow be broken." Ps. 33: 22: "The death of the wicked is very evil: and they that hate the just shall be guilty." | ||||
36. In certain difficult problems presented by the spiritual life in a concrete case to decide, for example, whether one who at times is in close union with God but is gravely ill, is being inspired by God in certain courses;the outcome of the enquiry will be obscure, but whether the obscurity is from above or from below will depend upon the method pursued. | ||||
37. One of the councils of the Church says the same with St. Prosper: "That some are saved is the gift of Him who saves; that some perish is the fault of them that perish" (Council of Chiersy, Denzinger, n. 318). 38 Cf. Dictionnaire de la Bible, art. Job. The brief summaries given of the long discourses of lob and his friends are taken from Crampon's translation. 39 Cf. the Commentary of St. Thomas on the Book of Job, chaps. 4, 6, 8, 9 (lesson in its entirety), 19, 28. Again St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 87, a. 7, 8; De Malo, q. 5, a. 4; and the Commentary on St. John, 9: 2. | ||||
40. The author has followed Crampon's translation of the discourses of Job and his friends. The reading of Job 3: 26 is that of the Revised Version. The Douay Version, following the Vulgate, has: "Have I not dissembled? Have I not kept silence? Have I not been quiet?" [Tr.] | ||||
41. Dictionnaire de la Bible, art. Job, col. 1560 42 Le Hir. | ||||
43. Cf. Dictionnaire de la Bible, art. Job, col. 1574. | ||||
44. Some of the expressions God uses here to describe the strength with which He has endowed these monsters recall what theology has to say about the nature of the devil. As nature, as reality and goodness, he is still loved by God, for he is still His work. We are reminded, too, that, as St. Thomas says, the devils continue of their nature to love existence as such (as prescinding from their unhappy condition), and life as such; and therefore they continue of their very nature to love the author of their life, Him whom as their judge they hate. Nevertheless, rather than exist in their miserable state they would prefer not to exist at all. (Cf. St. Thomas. Ia. q. 60 a. 5, ad sum.) | ||||
45. We are reminded of Moses rescued from the waters and the constant assistance given to him by the Lord. | ||||
46. After the death of the just of the Old Testament, they had to await in limbo the coming of the Redeemer who was to open to them the gates of paradise. | ||||
47. This is explained by St. Thomas, Ia, q. 22, a. 2: "We must say, however, that all things are subject to divine providence, not only in general, but even in their own individual selves. This is made evident thus. For since every agent acts for an end, the ordering of effects toward that end extends as far as the causality of the first agent extends.... But the causality of God extends to all being, not only as to the constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles; not only of things incorruptible, but also of things corruptible. Hence all things that exist in whatsoever manner are necessarily directed by God toward some end; as the Apostle says: 'Those things that are of God are ordained by Him' (Rom. 13: 1). Since providence is nothing less than the type of the order of things to an end, we must say that all things are subject to it. ', St. Thomas also says, Ia, q. 22, a. 3: "God has immediate providence over everything, even the smallest; and whatsoever causes He assigns to certain effects, He gives them the power to produce these effects. As to the execution of this order of providence, God governs things inferior by superior, not on account of any defection in His power, but in order to impart to creatures (especially to those of the higher order), the dignity of causality." | ||||
Thus to men has been given dominion over domestic animals which, by their docile obedience, are of assistance to him in his labors. What St. Thomas says in the Ia, q. 22, a. 4, may be summed up as follows: Providence does not destroy human liberty, but has ordained from all eternity that we should act freely. The divine action not only directs us to act, but directs us to act freely; it extends to the very free mode of our acts, which it produces in us and with our co-operation, insomuch as it is more intimately present to us than we are to ourselves. Cf. Ia, q. 19, a. 8. | ||||
48. That is the mystery St. Paul speaks of in the Epistle to the Romans, 9: 6. | ||||
49. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 20, a. 3: "Since God's love is the cause of goodness in things, no one thing would be better than another, if God did not will a greater good for it than for the other." | ||||
50. Treatise on the Love of God, tr. by Mackey, O.S.B., Bk. VIII, chap. 3: "How we are to conform ourselves to the divine will which is called the signified will." Again, chaps. 4-7 and chap. 14: "A short method to know God's will"; Bk. IX, chap. 1: "Of the union of our will with that divine will which is called the will of good pleasure." Again, chaps. 2-6 and chap. 15. See also Spiritual Conferences, tr. by Mackey, O.S.B., Conference II, "On Confidence," and Conference XV, "On the Will of God." | ||||
51. Discours sur l'acte d'abandon a Dieu; also Etats d'oraison, Bk. VIII, chap. 9. | ||||
52. Le plus parfait, ou Des voies intrieures la plus glorifiante pour Dieu et la plus sanctifiante pour l'ame, published in 1683, new edition with notes by Pere Noble, O.P. The author shows how this interior way involves the practice of the liveliest faith, the most confident hope, and the purest love; he shows, too, that it is a way which is suited to every interior soul. | ||||
53. Abandonment to divine providence, new edition, including the letters of the author and revised with the addition of appendices by Pere H. Ramiere, 2 vols. Abridged Ed.. I vol. English translation E. J. Strickland. | ||||
54. By the gift of fear, hope is prevented from turning to presumption, as magnanimity is prevented by humility from degenerating into pride. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 19, 10; q. 160, a. 2; q. 161, a. l; q. 129, a. 3 ad 4um. They are complementary virtues which, by their interconnection, balance and strengthen one another, and thus they increase together. | ||||
55. Cf. St. Francis de Sales, The Love of God, Bk. VIII, chap. 5: "Of the conformity of our will with that will of God which is made known to us by His commandments"; Bk. IX, chap. 1: "Of the union of our will with that divine will which is called the will of good pleasure." So also chaps. 2-6. Bossuet, Etats d'oraison, Bk. VIII, chap. 9, says: "Christian indifference being out of the question where the expressed will of God is concerned, we must restrict it, as St. Francis de Sales does, to certain events controlled by His will of good pleasure, whose sovereign commands determine the daily occurrences in the course of life." Dom Vital Lehodey, Holy Abandonment, tr. by Luddy, O. Cist., p. 123, says: "In short, the good pleasure of God is the domain of abandonment, His expressed will, of obedience." | ||||
56. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 19, a. 11, 12: "On the will of expression in God." Certain events, such as the death of another, have great significance. As St. Thomas points out (ibid.), sins also are permitted by God;personal sins, like the threefold denial in St. Peter's life, which God permitted so as to make him more humble; sins also that others commit against us, acts of injustice which God permits that we may derive spiritual profit from them, as He permitted the persecutions against the Church. | ||||
57. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 19, a. 10: "Whether it is necessary for the human will, in order to be good, to be conformed to the divine will, as regards the things will?" | ||||
58. Pere de Caussade, L'abandon, Vol. II, App. I, p. 279 | ||||
59. Rom. 8: 31-39 | ||||
60. Cf. St. Francis de Sales, The Love of God, Bk. VIII, chap. 5; Bk. IX, chaps. 1-7 | ||||
61. Cf. St. Francis de Sales, loc. cit., and Spiritual Conferences, II, XV; De Caussade, Abandon, II, 279 (App. 2). Cf. also Dom Vital Lehodey, Holy Abandonment, Part III: "On abandonment in the natural goods of the body (health and sickness)", pp. 166 ff. ; "on abandonment of those of the mind (the unequal distribution of these gifts)", pp. 19l ff.; "on abandonment of one's own good estimation in others (humiliations and persecutions)", pp. 207 ff.; "on abandonment in the spiritual varieties of the common way (failures and faults, trials and consolations)", pp. 244 ff. ; "abandonment in the spiritual varieties of the mystical way," pp. 244 ff. | ||||
62. There are instances where a life has been completely changed by trials, as may be seen from the biography of Abb Girard, entitled, Vingt-deux ans de martyr After receiving the diaconate, this saintly priest contracted tuberculosis of the bones and for twenty-two years was confined to his bed in the cruelest suffering, which he offered up each day for the priests of his generation. Here was one who to his great grief was never able to celebrate mass, and yet he was daily united to our Lord's sacrifice perpetuated on the altar. Far from breaking up his vocation sickness transfigured it. | ||||
63. Cf St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 72, a. 3; q. 73, a. 3 ad 3um. | ||||
64. Cf. St. Thomas, "On the degrees of humility, " IIa IIae, q. 161, a. 6. | ||||
65. Cf. St. Francis de Sales, The Love of God, Bk. IX, chap. 5, and Bossuet, Etats d'oraison, Bk. VIII, chap. 9. | ||||
66. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 60, a. 5. | ||||
67. That such is the teaching of St. Thomas, we have shown at length elsewhere. Cf. L'Amour de Dieu et la Croix de Jesus, I, 77-150. | ||||
68. Certain authors have spoken of the virtue of self-abandonment. In reality the act of self-abandonment has its source not in a special virtue, but in the three theological virtues combined with the gift of piety. | ||||
69. Cf. Piny, Le plus parfait. chap. 7. | ||||
70. Ibid. | ||||
71. In the lives of many saints we see how the appalling calumnies they had to endure became, by God's permission, the occasion of a marvelous increase in their love for Him. | ||||
72. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 129, a. 6 | ||||
73. We are especially reminded of this, the formal motive of hope, in the name of Jesus, which means Savior, and in various titles given to the Blessed Virgin: Help of Christians. Refuge of Sinners. Our Lady of Perpetual Help. | ||||
74. Cf. Pinv. Le plus parfait chap. 8 | ||||
75. Read, for instance, the life of Blessed Cottolengo. There it will be seen what a tender love God had for this soul so admirably resigned to providence, and how almighty God blessed his piccola casa in Turin, where assistance is given daily to ten thousand poor. Here is one of the most striking instances of God's goodness to us. If the stars in the heavens chant the glories of God, much more do works of mercy such as this. | ||||
76. St. Francis de Sales, Spiritual Conferences, tr. by Mackey, O.S.B., Conference n, p. 25. The interior conviction expressed in this passage, as proceeding from the theological virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, far surpasses any theological speculation. | ||||
77. In the Second Book of Kings it is related how Semei, a kinsman of Saul, reviled the prophet David, casting stones at him and cursing him. When one of David's officers would have gone out to slay the reviler, David said: "Let him alone and let him curse: for the Lord hasbid him curse David. And who is he that shall dare say, Why hashe done so?... Let him alone that he may curse as the Lord hasbidden him. Perhaps the Lord may look upon my affliction and the Lord may render me good for the cursing of this day" (II Kings 16: 6 ff.) This reminds us of our Lord's words during His passion when, counseling Peter to be calm, He allowed Himself to be led away by the armed soldiery with Judas at their head and healed Malchus, whom Peter had wounded with his sword. We meet with many such incidents in the lives of the saints, where the unforeseen opportunity is seized upon so soon as it presents itself. | ||||
78. See I Kings 2: 6; Deut. 32:39; Tobias 13:2; Wis. 16: 13 | ||||
79. Abandonment to Divine Providence. Bk. 1. chap. 2. p. 25. | ||||
80. Herein is the explanation of all that supernatural good which saints like the Cur of Ars have done for souls. With no great theological learning, he nevertheless had the deepest insight into God's dealings with souls of every condition, and thus, with very little time for reflection, he would in one day give to hundreds of persons the sound counsel which their immediate needs required. | ||||
81. Ibid.. p. 27. | ||||
82. Abandonment to Divine Providence, Bk. I, chap. 2, sec. 5, p. 23. | ||||
83. Ibid. sec. 3, p. 26. At least this is often the case, though an act that is in no way disagreeable may often be very meritorious, such as the prayer of a saint in times of consolation. | ||||
84. Ibid. sec. 3, p. 19 | ||||
85. Ibid. | ||||
86. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 24, a. 6 ad 2um. | ||||
87. Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, chap. 1: "Opportunity is seldom given for the exercise of fortitude, magnanimity, or munificence but meekness temperance, modesty, and humility are virtues wherewith all the actions of our life should be tempered. There are other virtues more excellent, it is true, but the practice of these is more necessary. Sugar is more excellent than salt, but salt is more necessary and more general in its use. Therefore we should always have a goodly supply of these general virtues ready to hand, since we need them almost continually." In the exercise of the virtues we should always prefer that which is most conformable with our duty, not that which is most agreeable to our taste.... Each one should practice those virtues in particular which are most required for the state of life to which he is called." Of the virtues that have no immediate connection with our particular duty, we must prefer the more excellent to the more ostentatious. Comets usually appear greater than stars and to our eyes occupy far greater space, whereas in reality they are not to be compared with the stars either in magnitude or quality.... Hence it is that the ordinary run of men usually prefer corporal alms to spiritual... bodily mortifications to meekness... modesty and other mortifications of the heart, though these are far more excellent." Ibid. chap. 2: "Yea, Philothea, the King of glory does not reward His servants according to the dignity of the offices they hold, but according to the love and humility with which they exercise them." | ||||
88. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 18, a. 9. | ||||
89. If by God's grace such a soul recovers itself and begins to follow the way of true humility, it may resume its upward course from the point it had already reached, without being obliged to start again from the beginning. The reason is that even after mortal sin, the soul whose repentance is proportionate to the offense will recover the grace it has lost in the same degree as it had reached before the fall. Cf. St. Thomas, IIIa, q. 89, a. 2, c. et ad 2um; a. 5 ad 3um. | ||||
90. Abandonment to Divine Providence, Bk. I chap. 2, sec. 12, p. 35. | ||||
91. Matt. 6: 34 | ||||
92. Luke 16: 10 | ||||
93. S. Thomas, in Joann. 8: 12 | ||||
94. See I Cor. 2: 6. 95 Abandonment to Divine Providence, pp. 81-83. 96 Comment. in Epist. ad Philipp. 1:21. 97 See 3e Entretien, chaps. 8 ff 98 The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena, tr. by Algar Thorold, pp. 22-23 99 In us an act of the love of God, being the act of a creature, must always be finite, but is infinite by reason of its object and motive. | ||||
100. Dialogue, chaps. 5 and 7; pp. 10, 13, 14. | ||||
101. Ibid. chaps. 3 and 4: pp. 4, 8 | ||||
102. Ibid, chap. 1; p. 2. | ||||
103. Ibid., chap. g; p. 20 | ||||
104. Ibid., chaps. 6, 7, 89, 90; pp. 10, 13, 16, 169 f. | ||||
105. Ibid, chap. 64; p. 117 | ||||
106. Ibid., chaps. 85 and 96; pp. 158-160, 186 f. | ||||
107. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 184, a. 3, c. et ad 2um. | ||||
108. Ibid. | ||||
109. Dialogue, chap. 11; p. 25 | ||||
110. Ibid., chap. 47; p. 89 | ||||
111. It is in this spirit that St. Francis drank in the beauty of an Umbrian landscape; thus, too, the great contemplatives of the Netherlands, like Ruysbroeck, delighted in the indefinable charm of Flanders and its wide, silent plains with their tender and varied verdure, to be seen nowhere else, and their avenues of poplars waving in the breeze. Thus do the people of the East delight in the beauty of the starry skies at night and follow the course of the planets among the fixed stars, counting out the hours on this great clock of the skies." The heavens show forth the glory of God" (Ps. 18: 1). | ||||
112. Dialogue, chaps. 2, 110; PP. 3, 218 | ||||
113. Ibid., chaps. 76, 77, 140; PP. 142, 144, 319 | ||||
114. Ibid., chap. 65; p. 120. | ||||
115. Ibid., chap. 66; PP. 121, 125 | ||||
116. Ibid., chap. 66; p. 122 | ||||
117. Ibid., pp. 124 f. | ||||
118. Ibid., chap. 84; p. 157 | ||||
119. This does not mean that St. Thomas acquired through prayer a knowledge of new conclusions, new theses; it means that among the principles he habitually contemplated there were some that stood out in prayer in all their transcendence as the crown and summit of doctrine illuminating all the rest. It was in prayer, for instance, that he saw clearly the transcendence and universality of the principle he formulates in Ia, q. 20, a. 3: "Since the love of God is the cause of goodness in creatures, none would be better than another, were it not more beloved of God." In this principle is virtually contained the whole treatise on predestination and grace, which is no more than a corollary drawn from it. | ||||
120. St. John of the Cross, Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 14 (init.) : "Progressives and proficients are in the illuminative way; there God nourishes and strengthens the soul by infused contemplation." | ||||
121. Dialogue, chap. 85; pp. 158-159. | ||||
122. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 68, a. 5. : There is a connection between the gifts and charity, and thus they develop together. Especially intimate is the relation between the gift of wisdom and charity (cf. IIa IIae, q. 45, a. 2-5). | ||||
123. Dialogue, chap. 85; p. 160 | ||||
124. Ibid., chap. 28; p. 54 | ||||
125. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 24, a. 3 ad 2um. | ||||
126. Dialogue, chaps. 89, 4, 72; pp. 166, 6, 135 | ||||
127. Ibid.,. chap.. 89; p. 166 | ||||
128. Ibid., chaps. 60 and 61; pp. 111-112 | ||||
129. Ibid., chaps. 43, 59, 146; pp. 78, 108, 336 | ||||
130. Ibid., chaps. 24, 45; pp. 47, 85 | ||||
131. Ibid., chap. 95; p. 183 | ||||
132. Cf. Dialogue, chap. 89; pp. 166f. Cf also chap. 91 on the tears of fire, those wholly interior tears the saints shed at the sight of souls being lost; they cannot weep sensible tears, which would bring them some relief. There are thus five sorts of tears (cf. chap. 88; p. 164) : (a) the tears of worldlings over the loss of the things of this world; (b) the tears of slaves who are wholly dominated by servile fear and weep over the chastisement they have incurred; (c) the tears of mercenary servants who do indeed weep over sin, but also over the loss of consolations; (d) the tears of the perfect who weep over the offense given to God and the loss of souls; (e) the tears of the absolutely perfect who weep besides over their exile, which deprives them of the vision of God and an indissoluble union with Him. | ||||
133. Cf. St. Thomas, IIIa, q. 46, a. 8 | ||||
134. The reference here is to an individual call, not merely a general one. For many, however, the call remains remote; it becomes an immediate call only for those who are prepared to listen | ||||
135. Cf Dialogue, chaps. 53, 54; pp. 100-103 | ||||
136. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q45, a. 2 | ||||
137. Ia, q. 21, a. 4 | ||||
138. Cf. The Canticle of Anna, I Kings 2:1-10, and the Magnificat | ||||
139. We have an instance of this in recent years in the saintly Abb Girard of Coutances, whose life of suffering is described by Miriam de Girard in Vingt-deux ans de martyr. In other cases, atrocious calumnies have been the occasion of immense spiritual progress. During the pontificate of Pius X there lived in Rome a deeply Christian man, Aristides Leonori, an architect, who was responsible for a number of beautiful churches in various countries. In Rome he had established a work for the protection of young orphans. One of them falsely accused him before the civil courts of a most vile offense, having been bribed to do so by those hostile to this charitable work. Leonori, his hair whitened in a single night, appeared before the court and listened to the accusation now made publicly against him by this youth for whom he had done so much. When he had ended, Leonori looked steadily at him and simply said: "What could have induced you to say such things, my friend, after all I have done for you since you were a child?" At this the youth could no longer restrain his emotion and burst into tears, confessing that he had been paid to bring this lying charge against Leonori and thus destroy his work. There most decidedly Leonori found the royal road of the cross. He was a great friend of Pius X and died in the odor of sanctity | ||||
140. Dialogue, chap. 36; p. 67. | ||||
141. Ibid., chap. 132; p. 288 | ||||
142. Ibid., p. 290. | ||||
143. Ibid., chap. 131; p. 284 | ||||
144. See II Cor. 5: 10 | ||||
145. Phil. 1: 23 | ||||
146. See II Tim. 4: 8 | ||||
147. Heb. 9: 27 | ||||
148. Immediately after the death of Gerontius, Newman puts these words into the mouth of the angel guardian: "When thenif such your lotyou see your Judge, The sight of Him will kindle in your heart All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts. You will be sick with joy, and yearn for Him That one so sweet should e'er have placed Himself At disadvantage such, as to be used So vilely by a being so vile as you. There is a pleading in His pensive eyes, Will pierce you to the quick, and trouble you, And you will hate and loathe yourself; for, though Now sinless, you will feel that you have sinned As never you didst feel; and wilt desire To slink away, and hide you from His sight; And yet wilt have a longing eye to dwell Within the beauty of His countenance. And those two pains, so counter and so keen-The longing for Him, when you see Him not; The shame of self at thought of seeing Him Will be your veriest, sharpest purgatory. It is the face of the Incarnate God Shall smite you with that keen and subtle pain; And yet the memory which it leaves will be A sovereign febrifuge to heal the wound; And yet withal it will the wound provoke, And aggravate and widen it the more." The Dream of Gerontius, 710-39. | ||||
149. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 87, a. 3 | ||||
150. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 65, a. 1-3 | ||||
151. Then will be realized those words from the Canticle of Anna, I Kings 2: 1-lo: "The bow of the mighty is overcome: and the weak are girt with strength. The Lord killeth and maketh alive: He bringeth down to hell and bringeth back again. The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich: He humbleth and He exalteth.... He lifteth up the poor from the dunghill: that he may sit with princes, and hold the throne of glory." Here in the Old Testament is the prelude to the Magnificat | ||||
152. A young Jew, the son of an Austrian banker, who knew little of the Gospel beyond the Our Father, was one day given an opportunity of revenging himself on an enemy. But at the very moment the opportunity presented itself, there came to his mind the words, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Instead of carrying out his revenge, he forgave his enemy completely with all his heart, and immediately his eyes were opened: he saw the Gospel ill all its majesty and most firmly believed. He became a good Catholic and afterwards a priest and religious of the Order of St. Dominic. The kingdom of God was revealed to him the very moment he forgave. | ||||
153. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 21, a. 4 | ||||
154. James 2:13 | ||||
155. Loc., cit. | ||||
156. Cf. St. Catherine of Siena, Dialogue, chap. 30 | ||||
157. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui abundantia pietatis tuae et merita supplicum excedis et vota; effunde super nos misericordiam tuam: ut dimittas quae conscientia metuit, et adjicias quod orationem praesumit, Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium, etc. | ||||
158. Life, chap. 7 (Bollandists, April 30, p. 918). | ||||
159. Letters of 5t. Catherine of Siena, tr. by Scudder, p. 113 | ||||
160. See St. Thomas, Ia, q. 21, a. 4 ad Ium | ||||
161. Dialogue, chap. 30 | ||||
162. Dialogue, chap. 32. | ||||
163. Ps. 88: 2 ff. ; Ps. 102: 8-17 | ||||
164. Tr. by Irons; cf. The Hymns of the Breviary and Missal | ||||
165. In that fine book of his, Le Docteur Angelique, J. Maritain has set down this profound reflection: "How reconcile two apparently contradictory facts: the fact that modern history appears to be, as Berdyaev says, on the threshold of new Middle Age in which the unity and universality of Christian culture will be recovered and extended this time to the whole universe, and the fact that the general trend of civilization seems to be toward the universalism of Antichrist and his iron rod rather than toward the universalism of Christ and His emancipatory law, and in any event to forbid the hope of a unification of the world in one universal Christian empire." As far as I am concerned, my answer is as follows: I think that two immanent tendencies intersect at every point in the history of the world... one tendency draws upward everything in the world which participates in the divine life of the Church, which is in the world but not of the world, and follows the attraction of Christ, the head of the human race." The other tendency draws downward everything in the world which belongs to the prince of the world.... History suffers these two internal strains as it moves forward in time, and human affairs are so subjected to a distension of increasing force until the fabric in the end gives way. So the cockle grows up along with the wheat; the capital of sin increases throughout the whole course of history and the capital of grace increases also and superabounds. Christian heroism will one day become the sole solution for the problem of life.... Then we shall doubtless see coincident with the worst condition in human history a flowering of sanctity." English tr. by J. F. Scanlan, St. Thomas Aquinas, Angel of the Schools, p. 86 | ||||
166. Chap. 43, n50. | ||||
167. Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, n. 804 | ||||
168. Aliqua Dei praecepta hominibus justis volentibus et conantibus, secundum praesentes quas habent vires, sunt impossibilia, deest quoque illis gratia qua possbilia fiant. Denzinger, n. 1092 | ||||
169. Sess. VI, cap. 13, and canon 16: Denzinger, nn. 806, 826 | ||||
170. The Council of Trent defined, Sess. VI, can. 22 (Denz. n. 832) : "If anyone says that the justified either is able to persevere without the special help of God in the justice received; or that with that help he is not able: let him be anathema." (Cf. nn. 804, 806.) The terms of the Council;"the grace of final perseverance is a special assistance";must be rightly understood if all ambiguity is to be avoided. There is no necessity for a new action on the part of God, for, as will be pointed out shortly, conservation in grace is simply the continuation of its original production, not a new action. So also from the point of view of the soul, it is enough for the habitual grace to be preserved; there is no need for even one new actual grace, as happens in the case of the child that dies soon after baptism without ever making an act of the love of God. But, according to the Councils of Orange and Trent, what is a special gift, one granted to some and not to others, is the coincidence of the state of grace with death: the fact that grace is preserved up to that moment instead of God's permitting a fall. This coincidence of the state of grace with death is a great favor and is from God: when it is granted, it is the divine mercy that grants it, and in this sense it is a special gift. | ||||
171. The Council of Trent says again, Sess. VI, cap. II, 13 (Denzinger, nn. 804, 806) : "God commands not impossibilities.... All ought to place and repose a most firm hope in God's help. For God, unless men be themselves wanting to His grace, as He has begun the good work, so will He perfect it (in them), to will and to accomplish" (Phil. 2: 13). | ||||
172. Adjutorium Dei etiam renatis et sanctis semper est implorandum, ut ad finem bonum pervenire vel in bono possint opere perdurare (Denzingce, n. 183). | ||||
173. Quod quidem (donum) aliunde habere non potest, nisi ab eo qui potens est eum qui stat statuere ut perseveranter stet, et eum qui eadit restituere (Denzinger n. 806). | ||||
174. Because of their exalted character, in the things of God the simplest are at the same time the most profound; but it is a simplicity wholly different from that which Voltaire spoke of when he said: "I am limpid as a brook because I have little depth." | ||||
175. It is a matter of discussion among theologians whether the gift of final perseverance can be the object of this congruous merit, which is founded not in justice but in the charity uniting us with God, in jure amicabili, in the rights of friendship existing between God and the just. The best commentators of St. Thomas, relying on the principles formulated by him, state in reply that final perseverance cannot be the object of strict congruous merit, since the principle of this merit is a continued state of grace, and the principle of merit, as we have seen, cannot be merited. Moreover, congruous merit strictly so-called, founded as it is in the rights of friendship, in jure amicabili, obtains infallibly the corresponding reward. God never refuses us what we have merited in this way, at any rate for ourselves personally. From which it would follow that, once come to the use of reason, all the just by their acts of charity would merit the gift of final perseverance and would in fact persevere to the end, which is not the case. Nevertheless it remains true that the grace of a happy death may be the object of congruous merit understood in a wide sense, this being simply the impetratory value of prayer, which is founded not in justice or the rights of friendship, but in the liberality and mercy of God | ||||
176. Since the grace of final perseverance is not merited, it is not because God has foreseen our merits that He bestows it upon us; from which it follows that predestination to glory is also gratuitous: it is not ex praevisis meritis as St. Thomas says (Ia, q. 23, a. 5). If anyone wishes to maintain that it is ex praevisis meritis, then at least he must say that it is not "from merits foreseen as persisting to the end apart from a special gift", ex praevisis meritis absque speciali dono usque in finem perdurantibus. | ||||
177. Nevertheless, if many of us are praying for the conversion of the sinner, or if our prayer continues not merely for days but for months and long years, it becomes more and more probable that God desires to hear us, since it is He who makes us persevere in our prayer | ||||
178. This point is well brought out in an excellent work recently published Sept retraites de la Mere Elizabeth de la Croix (foundress of the Carmelite convent at Fontainebleau). In these retreats, the subject is simply the union of the soul that has consecrated itself to Jesus crucified for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Constantly we meet with such passages as these: "Our Lord revealed to me the sentiments of His Sacred Heart and communicated them to me.... He said to me: 'The two chief motives that led Me to acquiesce in Pilate's condemnation of Me were the will and glory of My Father and a hunger for the salvation of men. Your whole life, in its smallest details, should be dominated by these two sentiments. Take upon yourself My own sufferings.... During this retreat, for yourself nothing, all for Me. My cross is to be found in pride, in sin; give Me a little help in carrying that cross. The fruit of My carrying the cross for you is that you desire nothing here below, that you be prepared to suffer always, that you desire all that the divine will desires, that you make expiation for the sins of men, of My priests and spouses especially, that you complain of nothing, that you keep your soul fast to My own, that your heart be occupied solely with love for Me' (pp. | ||||
181. ff.). 'In this (when loaded with the cross) I am your model. '... At the offering of the bread and wine at mass our Lord Jesus Christ said to me: 'I offer you to My Father as victim embracing all that I intend in your regard... the needs of My Church... the perils in which souls are plunged and the ardor of My appeals. ' At holy communion He said: 'I shall be your strength always. ' My cross: that is the sign and token of the love I have for souls, of the love also that souls have for Me. You I have invited to share in the folly of the cross, to refuse to be bound to earth by a single thread... to follow Me through pain, insults, and ignominy... to be My spouse crucified to death. ' Again He said to Me: 'It was through calumny that I was condemned to be crucified.... The more your sufferings closely resemble Mine, the happier will you be:... it is the proof that you are loved more than others. Be kind of heart toward those who will bring or have already brought the cross to you. '... 'Suffer with Me in reparation for the glory of My Father and for the ransom of souls' " (pp. I 84 ff.). | ||||
179. We recommend on this point two books by Adolphe Rett: Jusqu'a la fin du monde, a living commentary on that sentence of Pascal's: "Jesus will continue in His agony until the end of the world, ', and Oraisons du silence, This latter work, from the fine passages it contains on solitude, poverty, detachment, suffering, peace, and the love of God, will prepare us for a happy death. It closes with these words: "May the rhythm of the hours yet remaining in my life here below be regulated solely by the sacred doxology, Gloria Patri et Filio.... Invocation full of strength, which makes me glad to have suffered and to go on suffering in Your service, O Lord. Each time that I utter it with a contrite heart and with a right mind, I know that Your grace will flow in upon my soul.... Grant that I may be crucified like the good thief on Your right hand. Remember me, too, in Your kingdom of heaven as You didst remember him." That prayer was heard. Adolphe Rett died a holy death. | ||||
180. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 20, a. 3: Cum amor Dei sit causa bonitatis rerum, non esset aliquid alio melius, si Deus non vellet uni majus quam alteri. Ibid., a. 4: Ex hoc sunt aliqua meliora, quod Deus eis majus bonum vult. Here is the principle of predilection. | ||||
181. Council of Quiersey, A. D. 853 (Denzinger, 318) : Deus omnipotens omnes homines sine exceptione vult salvos fieri (I Tim. 2: 4), licet non omnes salventur. Quod autem quidam salvantur, salvantis est donum; quod autem quidam pereunt, pereuntium est meritum | ||||
182. By their very nature both human souls and angels participate in the intellectual life and as such bear an analogical resemblance to God in so far as He is intelligent. Sanctifying grace, however, is a resemblance to God not simply as He is intelligent, but precisely as God; it is a participation in the Deity as such, or, if you will, in the divine intellectuality as it is divine. This is our reply to a question put to us by Pre Gardeil in his excellent work, La structure de l'ame et I'exprience mystique, (I, 388), where he treats of the relation between sanctifying grace and the formal constituent of the divine nature. Sanctifying grace is a participation in the divine nature considered not simply as being or as intellectual, but as strictly divine; grace is a physical and formal, though analogical participation in the Deity as such, whose formal concept transcends in its absolute eminence the concepts of being, unity, etc., in all of which it is possible for creatures to participate naturally. So also says Cajetan in his commentary on Ia, q. 39, a. 1 (n. 7) : Deitas est super ens et super unum, etc. We have explained ourselves at some length on this point elsewhere (God, His Existence and His Nature, tr. by Dom Bede Rose, O.S.B., Vol. II, chap. I, n. 42; chap. 3, n. 54). Pre Gardeil himself speaks in the same sense (I, 246, 287). | ||||
183. Lettres de direction (Oeuvres, XI, 444). | ||||
184. "La volont salvifique chez S. Augustin", in Revue Thomiste, 1930, pp. 473-487. Also Dictionnaire de thologie catholique, art." Prdestination", conclusion. | ||||
185. See in the Summa of St. Thomas (IIa IIae) the two great questions 25 and 26 on the extent of charity and the order it should observe. They will be summed up in what follows | ||||
186. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 26, a. 8 | ||||
187. This is the place to recall those words of Pascal's to be found equivalently in St. Augustine and St. Thomas: "The infinite distance between matter and mind symbolizes the infinitely more infinite distance between mind and charity; for charity is supernatural.... The whole universe of matter and mind, with all their products, cannot equal in value the least movement of charity, which belongs to an order infinitely more exalted." Penses, Ed. E. Havet, pp. 266, 269 | ||||
188. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 22, a. 3 | ||||
189. Matt. 3: 2. | ||||
190. Matt. 10: 40 | ||||
191. Matt. 12: 28 | ||||
192. Matt. 6: 9 | ||||
193. Matt. 5: 44 | ||||
194. John 15: 5 | ||||
195. John 17: 20 | ||||
196. Rom. 12: 4, 5; I Cor. 12: 12-27; Ephes 1: 22; Col. 1: 18; 2: 19 | ||||
197. If we ask holy persons here on earth to pray for us, as people used to ask the Cur of Ars, then surely, whatever Protestants may say, it is right to ask the saints in heaven to intercede for us. These are now in the fullness of light and know better than we do what may rightly be asked on our behalf | ||||
198. See I Cor. 12: 4-6 | ||||
199. Ephes. 4: 4-6 | ||||
200. See I Cor. 12: 14, 26-27 | ||||
201. Gal. 6: 2-10. | ||||
202. Oevres completes, XII, 417 | ||||
203. In connection with Providence and the communion of saints, we should notice that in order to undertake any sort of work in the Church it is necessary to have a mission and to preserve the spirit of that mission, a point well brought out by Pre Clerissac, O.P., in that excellent work, Le Mystere de l'glise, chap. 7, "La Mission et l'esprit." Thus it was with the founders of the religious orders. A striking example of this law in the order of grace is to be found in the Life of Mother Cornelia Connelly, Foundress of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, 1809-1879. Formerly a Protestant, married to a Protestant, and the mother of a family, she was converted to Catholicism at the same time as her husband. When later on her husband recognized that he had a vocation to the priesthood and was ordained, Mother Connelly herself, following the advice given her by Gregory XVI, founded a religious congregation in America. Unfortunately her former husband took it for granted that he would have the direction of this congregation, a task for which he had no mission whatever. This lost him the grace of his own vocation and he left the Church, while Mother Connelly, in the midst of incredible difficulties, finally succeeded in carrying through the work almighty God had entrusted to her. | ||||
204. Cf. St. Thomas, IIIa, q. 52, a. 5. | ||||
205. Gen. 5: 24; 17: 8; 26: 24; 35: 29; 47: 9; 49: 18, 29-33; Num. 20: 24; 27: 13; Deut. 25: 8, 17; 32: 50 | ||||
206. Job. 14: 13-25; 19: 25-27; cf. also Ps. 11: 7; 15: 10-12; 48: 15 ff. ; 72: 24; Prov. 10: 30; 11: 7; Ecclus. 1: 11: 11: 28; 18: 24, etc | ||||
207. Matt. 7: 14 | ||||
208. Benedict XII (Denzinger, n. 530) : "we define... that... even before the resurrection of their bodies and the general judgment... the souls of all the saints... in whom, when they departed this life, there was nothing to be cleansed... behold the divine essence with intuitive vision, face to face, in such wise that nothing created intervenes as object of vision, but the divine essence presents itself to their immediate gaze, unveiled, clearly and openly." Cf. also the Council of Florence (Denzinger n. 693). | ||||
209. In times of great affliction not a few interior souls have found peace and even joy, though circumstances continued to give immense pain, when through God's inspiration they have conceived the idea of making a vow of self-abandonment to Providence. When a soul is prompted by grace to make such a vow and is firmly resolved not to divorce self-abandonment from fidelity to daily duties, the following form may be used. It should be renewed daily during the prayer of thanksgiving: "Whenever the will of God is expressed in a cross, I will yield myself to it entirely and with a note of joy, paying no regard to what was instrumental in bringing it about. In difficulties that in any way distress me I will avoid all self-probing, introspection, and idle preoccupations; I will steep myself more deeply in confidence, and seek to solve my difficulties through the action of grace. I will take up this attitude of mind and heart and plunge myself in God the instant something occurs to wound me. And all this I will do with an exceeding great love." This self-abandonment should be accompanied by close fidelity to grace and the illuminations received in prayer. | ||||