"Be Mindful of your dignity, O Christian." - St. Leo

God was made man that man might be made god (St. Augustine, Serm. 13 de Temp.).





Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness (Genesis 1:26).





"Show me a penny. Whose image and inscription hath it?" They answering, said to him, "Caesar's." And he said to them: "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's: and to God the things that are God's" (Luke 20: 24-25).





Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19).





Few there are who know the privilege of such a dignity; fewer still who ponder it with the gravity it deserves. We are living temples of God, we carry God Himself in their hearts, and that therefore we should walk divinely with God and converse in a manner befitting such a guest (Cornelius a Lapide, In Os. 1:10).





"Contemplate Me in the core of your heart and you will see that I am your Creator and you will be happy" (Said by Jesus Christ to St. Catherine of Siena, recorded in her Life, I, chap. 10).





If God humbled Himself to become man, it was in order to exalt men and to make them gods (St. Augustine, Serm. 166).





We are called gods, not only because we have been raised to supernatural glory, but because we now possess God dwelling and abiding in us. Otherwise, how are we temples of God, according to Paul, possessing the Spirit dwelling within us, unless the Spirit be God by nature? (St. Cyril, In Joan., I, 9).





Only the indwelling of God makes a soul a temple of God (St. Thomas, In 1 Cor., 3:16, lec. 3).





That which the most exalted creatures never could have been able to say, that which would fill the loftiest heavenly powers with terror and consternation, we say confidently every day: "Our Father, who art in heaven." A marvelous fellowship. (St. Peter Chrysologus, Serm. 72).





"Ah, daughter, how few are they who love Me in truth! If people loved Me, I should not hide My secrets from them" (Said by Jesus Christ to St. Teresa of Avila, recorded in her Life, chap. 40).





To unite us to God Himself; to establish a vital relationship between our soul and the inner life of God, such is in very deed the the love of God as manifested. It was to make possible this union, these vital relations with God Himself, that [Jesus Christ] desired to unite Himself to human nature (Sauve, Le culte du Coeur de Jesus, 24).





The profound submission of a holy humility, the disdain of self, and the awareness of our own baseness do not debase us, but rather they enable us to fly to the height of perfect union with God (Blessed Henry Suso, Union).





By simple attention in watching our own interior, we perform excellent acts of virtue and make prodigious advances in perfection; whereas, on the contrary, by neglecting our interior we incur incalculable losses (Lallemant, Spiritual Doctrine, V, chap. 3; art. 1).










Likewise the great supernatural facts, such as the fact of Lourdes, are rather easily grasped by the clean of heart. They quickly see the supernatural origin, meaning, and import of these facts. Then, while learned men discourse endlessly without being able to reach a conclusion, God does His work in the clean of heart. Finally, [after humbly engaging in more profound learning,] the soul delights in returning to the simplicity of faith of the patriarchs, to the words of the psalms, to the parables of the Gospel (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life).








When we do everything wholeheartedly, love increases continually (St. Therese of Lisieux).








Once we are convinced that God dwells within us, we abandon ourselves with sweet truth into His hands, we confide all our interests to His care, and thus we enjoy perfect peace and serenity: "Thou makest a tranquil heart, great peace, and festive joy" (The Imitation). Now, there is no disposition more favorable for spiritual growth than inward peace: "In silence and in solitude the devout soul maketh progress" (The Imitation) (A. Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life, no. 1223).

04 March 2011

"The Christian Lives for Christ"

Christ Himself said: “I am the true vine … you are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing” (John 15:1-5). Nothing at all—not a single salutary act, and therefore no act which merits eternal life. Even the beginning of belief is due to the antecedent grace of Christ—contrary to the teaching of the Semi-Pelagians.
St. Paul preached a similar doctrine: We have been planted together in Christ (Rom. 6:5), who is so to speak the root of all holiness, “and if the root be holy, so are the branches” (Rom. 11:16). The same truth is expressed in another metaphor: “You are the body of Christ, and members of member” (1 Cor. 12:27), and this St. Paul often repeats.
Through our Baptism we have “died like him” to sin, we have been “buried with him,” and “come to life again with him” (cf. Rom. 6:4). In writing to the Galatians, the Apostle says: “For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). And so “for me, to live is Christ: and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). St. Thomas explains that just as the hunter lives for the chase, the soldier for war and military service, the student for study, so also the Christian—and especially the saint—lives for Christ, who ardently desires to live in him, and he in his turn lives in an atmosphere of faith and trust in Christ and of love for Him. “The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring all things to your mind, whosoever I shall have said to you” (John 14:26). By the gifts of wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, piety, fortitude and even fear, He will recall to your minds everything I have said to you, so that the words already spoken in the Gospel may become for you “words of eternal life,” since they are “spirit and life.”
We could not desire any clearer witness to the truth of Christ’s life within us. “And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20).

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Priest in Union with Christ, p. 33-34; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)
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