The Madness of the cross - 2 - Abbé Anselme Longpre

 

N/B of the webmaster

Because of the length of the pages this book will be put on 2 pages.
1 - chapter 1 to the chapitre10 to the ties 289
2 - chapter 11 to the chapter 15 + 2 appendix to the ties 290

Contained of the site-continuation 2

XI chapter: Don't like the world
XII chapter: The Relapses
XIII chapter: Conflicts of civilization
XIV chapter: The Madness of the Cross and The Eucharist
XV chapter: Saint Jean of the Cross, doctor of the Madness of the Cross,
Appendix 1: The adversaries of the Madness of the Cross
Appendix 2: Texts to meditate

XI chapter: Don't like the world

Let's stop ourselves to this so delicate and so important topic: our frequent relapses in the sin. In this matter, it is necessary to not to be afraid of the truth on the one hand, to really look at us in the face, and on the other hand to avoid the discouragement. Lord, facts me to see the misfortune of the continual relapses in the sin, and that your Mind-Saint shows of it to me causes them. That your grace descends in my soul, that it binds me forever to you.

1 - misfortune of the relapses in the sin.

Our Lord tells us, in the gospel these bass tones words: '' When the bad mind the demon has been hunted of the soul of someone that has just made up with God, he wanders right and left; then, furious of have been hunted thus of this soul that was his by the sin, he/it is going to look for seven other meaner demons than him, together they make the new the seat of this soul; if they succeed in seizing himself again of it, the state of this soul becomes worse than it was before. ''

Jesus saw far in the history of the souls: we often fall again in the same mistakes. During years, there are not any notable improvements in the life of a big number. Out of the confessional, they fall again, the week, the very day, sometimes some heurs after. They renew to their feet the heavy boletus of the deadly sin that they will drag again until their next confession: drunkards, they return to their bottle: blasphemers, they restart their injuries against God and the saints; immodest, they run again to their pleasures, the thieves, they return to their squalid profession. And life passes like that…

1. these continual relapses in the deadly sin decrease the mind of faith considerably.

They often cause a state of indifference with regard to the religion; and can drag even with them the loss of the faith. It is sufficient to observe to realize that the abandonment of the religious practice is customarily the fruit of some confirmed habits of sin tale the what one didn't react sufficiently. The apostle holy Paul wanted to make us seize this truth, when he writes those that fall again continually in the same mistakes.. that loser all faith and all expectation, they happen to from it to more to live only for the corruption: desperantes semetipsos tradiderunt impudicitiae (Eph.IV)

2 - these continual relapses irritate the religious sense, deaden lull it the conscience.

One comes to make itself/themselves an idea that is not so serious after all the deadly sin that that. One lives in itself of it. Is one able alas, indeed to get used to live to the blackness? Can one get used to the odor of the cadavers? And yet that arrives…

The writing Saint gives us on this point a striking example, in the person of the famous Samson. He/it had taken for wife one woman who was not of his/her/its race and that, envy him, tried to make perish him. Several times she/it had bound it to deliver it to the Philistines, his/her/its fierce enemies, but thanks to his/her/its stupendous strength, Samson had succeeded in breaking his/her/its ties. He/it flattered himself/itself that whatever she/it makes, he/it would know well how to clear itself/themselves: '' egrediar sicut ante, I would triumph well again. '' one day yet, this lying and artful woman succeeds in cutting him hair where resided the secret of his/her/its strength. The Philistines learn it, they throw themselves in crowd on him, he/it wants to stand up as once, but he/it is crushed. It is the sinner's picture that falls again continually in the serious sin. I will leave this state, says itself him, as I already left from it; egrrediar sicut ante, I will break my irons, I will make an effort on myself, I will deliver myself of this passion that results from me captive…

However will always becomes corrupted, and the same relapse that weakens it for the good, give him new strengths for the pain. When will he/it want to go upstream, in will have he/it forces it?

3 - these relapses cause other disasters that we will only make enumerate.

The mind becomes as stupefied, the hard heart as the stone and closed to all generous and delicate feeling; the soul became as numb, without vigor, without energy, without impetus for the things of the eternity,: often same the eternal salute is compromised. It is the speech of the gospel that achieves itself then '' Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how many times I wanted to attract you to me, as the hen attracts its chicks under his/her/its wings, and you, you of it didn't want it. Will come on you of days where your enemies will surround you of all parts, and they won't let of you stone on stone, because you didn't recognize the day where I visited you. ''

4 - these relapses in the sin are often an opportunity of scandal for the other and throw the discredit on the religious practices.

How much, while seeing the bad conduct of a such or one as they meet however at the church, say themselves: '' To what good the religion? '' Probably, these people make a bad reasoning, They should rather say themselves: so in spite of so many devotion practices, do they always fall again in the sin, that this would be if they entrenched them? and not to impute to the religion herself what is not attributable that to the bad disposition of the cœurses. He/it doesn't remain less of them that we must think of the duty of the good example.

II Allons to the reasons

1 - we add some injureds.

The original sin has us all wounded. Him friends in our souls and in our senses the inclination toward the pain, a sort of sickly appetite of the mess, of the emptiness, of the absurd. It is in us and that will remain there until the death. Only the Virgin Saint, among the creatures, has not been reached by this leprosy.

From then on, all man carries of it him the three concupiscences of which speaks holy Jean, THREE INCLINATIONS that are the source of all sins,:

- The inclination toward goods of the earth.
- The pride or the love of oneself.
- The vehement thirst of the sensual pleasures.

The Saint Baptism healed these wounds. But germs of death remain again in us. These bad germs, it is necessary to mortify them. It is what makes Paul saint tell: '' If you lived according to the flesh, you will die: but if, by the mind, you make die the works of the flesh, you will live. '' (Rom. VIII,13.)

In the soul of the saints and the good Christian that applies to this mortification, the grace ends up dominating all inclinations of the fallen nature. God himself often intervenes by interior and outside tests to assist the good will and to help us to uproot our bad inclinations.

2 - our few of contrition and firm subject.

Saint Alphonse of Ligouri, the most famous missionary and confessor of the eighteenth century dared to write '' that a big number of confessions is bad for lack of contrition. ''

The contrition of the sins is God's big grace. It is necessary to ask for it with process, before confessing, to excite itself/themselves of it since the moment where one had the misfortune to fall in the sin until the one where one can finally confess: and especially to put some acts contrary to the sin that one committed. You sinned against the charity; while waiting to be able to receive the sacrament of penitence, repair your default to the charity, increase in surveillance on this point. You fell in the impurity, don't go continue until you presented yourselves at the confessional, in what illusion live to the big number of Christian! Fight, make acts of penitences, of regret, to prepare your confession.

Let's add that often contrition is strictly sufficient to erase the sin, but NOT INTENSE ENOUGH to operate the reform of life. This intensity of contrition is the special fruit OF A BIG DEVOTION MARIE'S and to THE PASSION OF NOTRE-SEIGNEUR. Impossible to like Marie and to keep some affinities with the sin. Also the first disposition that the Virgin Saint makes be born in the soul of the one that gives itself to Her, it is a QUICK HORROR of the sin. In the same way, he/it is by the way when one can it, to make the PATH OF THE CROSS, before approaching of the court of the Penitence to arrange his/her/its soul, by the contemplation in love with the Christ's sufferings, to the regret and to the serious effort to amend his/her/its life.

3 - our lack of seriousness.

If you are reached of a deadly illness, that he/it fails you to undergo a serious operation, with what care you are going to choose your physician, the most favorable hour where he/it will be able to give you his/her/its cares. You won't like that he/it acted to the hurry, that he/it makes a superficial exam, that he/it prescribes you any treatment.

And you want that the physician of the souls to whom you expose infinitely more serious illnesses, of which depend your eternity, you want that in one minute, one second if it was possible, he/it applies you the most delicate remedy that either. Don't you find when you have a really important confession to make that that is worthwhile to disturb you and to make a special journey to confess you in the best possible conditions and your part and on behalf of the physician of the soul?

It is for this reason that a confession made a RETIREMENT FERNÉE is often worth some of the hundreds of others, because the brought CONDITIONS are well different. The all is not to receive the Sacrament of penitence, but of the good to receive. In his/her/its beautiful preparatory prayer to the Communion, holy Thomas of Aquin, with his/her/its plain penetration, demand,: '' Grant me, please but also the effect and the virtue of this Sacrament. '' Such must be our demand before receiving the Sacrament of Penitence.

4 - our weakness to escapes the opportunities of sin.

I suppose that you come out of a serious illness and you fear a relapse: what doesn't make us to warn it? To what don't you reduce yourselves point? What subjection to the régime that the physician prescribed! If it is the excess of food that lost you, you agree to the deprivations gladly, if the exaggerated sport tired your heart, you suppress it, etc.. etc.. The sinner is a matter for the worse illness, it is necessary to follow a régime if he wants to avoid the relapses. Non any régime, that serves to all safe but régime adapted to the illness. And as in this century, the mind of enjoyment that it is necessary to trim. Feel you lose you by the research of the impure pleasures, tame them by the mortification and the deprivation of that that satisfy them. You cannot fast because of your work or your health, deprive yourselves to smoke, sacrifice sport, the theater, let of side perfumes, the red to the lips and to the nails. Etc. The wrong, for example that the cigarette made us, to the moral viewpoint, is incredible. Our smokers and our smokers of cigarettes came from it to such a weakness of will and character that it is not astonishing to see to capitulate them before all demands of the flesh and the requirements of the state duty. And to say that the demon succeeded in making some swallow that the use of the cigarette can be an efficient condom against the dangers of the solitude and the boredom! The devil is not what us can make swallow?

Our Lord gave us this maxim, in his/her/its Gospel,: If your œil shocks you, it doesn't say: close it, it would be a half-means, but pull it; if your hand carries you to the pain, it doesn't say: put - the behind the back, it would be again a middle half, but cut it. It indicate clearly with some energy us must break with the opportunity of sin.

He/it would be very by the way that we imposed ourselves, after our mistakes most notorious some personal penitences, in addition to the sacramental penitence. The sacramental penitence that our receive in confession has a special efficiency, louse to remit the due temporal pain sinned, but the personal penitence has for particular goal to warn the relapses.

5 - the flightiness in the ways of the salute.

The flightiness ace the ways of the salute, as expresses itself Massillon, in a very beautiful sermon that carries this title, has the big reason of our relapses finally. Flightiness that makes that our want and that we don't want, that we would like a`condition well that that soft costs to some not too much, that we are ready to live in Christian without stopping living in worldly.

This flightiness is the fruit of the lightness and the love of the world. To take a soul of the sin, God starts with illuminating it, while making him see the world and the eternity as they are such that they are and as her had seen them never. Then the veil falls of the eyes and the soul seizes in a new light the emptiness, and the nothing of the things created, the deep vanity of the pleasures and the whole tam tam of the earth, nothing in short of all what is not God, and the soul in rebate also of his/her/its own excellence. We see the action of the grace under this shape, in particular in the conversion of Augustin saint: '' I knew you too late, I liked you too late, OH old and always new Truth. '' But this resource of salute makes defect to the superficial, light soul, taken by the love and the fascination of the trifles.

The flightiness and the lightness, said Massillon, are of God's characters least clean to kingdom: no is aptus Dei regno. It is that the Christian piety to suppose a mature mind, capable of a resolution, that knows how to take his/her/its party, and that, the right way once known, there between and doesn't divert itself comfortably of it. She/it supposes a strong soul, that knows how to be above the disgust, of an obstacle, of a peril, of his/her/its own weakness,; a judicious soul that doesn't behave by taste nor by feeling but by rules of faith and prudence. ''

While continuing the picture of the fickle and inconsequent soul in the ways of the salute, Massillon adds these words that we shoe to meditate well:

'' One doesn't see that you began to avoid these interviews, these places, these pleasures that constantly nourish your confessions,: you don't always cultivate month of the links of it fatal to your innocence: You won't fold back anything of the game of it (of sport), that st become the most important occupation of your life…. You don't entrench anything to a sleep where, in the softness of a bed and in the idleness of your thoughts, you let rest your mind always on pictures dangerous to your soul: nothing to one useless life that condemns you. The fastings, the eves, the tears, the steepings and all this device of the penitence, you don't even know them. (Notice that Masillon doesn't address to religious, but to the society people.) The prayer, the contemplation, the retirement and all these means so necessary to the piety, you disregard them. In a word, you are again the same, and the penitent of it perfectly looks you like the sinner ''…

Knowing the vause denos relapses, let's take the resolution to apply the remedy that invites.

1

All creatures are samples of the divine perfections. They exist to show us one or the other of the invisible perfections that are in God, according to this speech of the Saints Books,: '' God's invisible perfections, his/her/its eternal power, his/her/its divinity is, since the creation of the world, made visible, to intelligence, by the middle e his/her/its works. '' (Rom. 1,20) such is even the last end of the creatine: God's re glory, by the demonstration of the his/her/its infinite perfections. So all created beings that surround us are indeed means to drive us to the contemplation of the invisible God whose perfections reflect themselves in the œuvres of his/her/its right. According to the formula of Saint Bonaventure, they are the itinerary of the soul God's.

We must consider the universality of the beings therefore like a continuation marvelous of degrees which way the soul rises to the knowledge and God's contemplation. The consideration of the outside and sensitive Verb must drive us to the contemplation of God's invisible Verb. The creation all whole, the angels, the men, the animals, the plants, the inanimate things the intelligible world of the ideas, the new and sublime production of the supernatural world with his/her/its ineffable riches, all these beings are as transparent mirrors that let glimpse the divinity. Because all thing, because she/it relates to God as to his/her/its efficient reason, to his/her/its exemplary idea or to his/her/its principle of supernatural elevation, made us enter in communication with God. Similar to Jacob's scale, everybody of contigencies is like a luminous scale that drives until God's throne.

Well more, the soul would not know how to arrive to God's knowledge without passing by the creature. We don't know God, on earth, that of an analogical knowledge. If we want to rise toward God by the natural knowledge that we can have, the analogical process is strictly necessary. Because, according to the thought of Maritain, '' philosophy brings up some creatures and reaches God as it is demonstrated in the reflections and the analogical involvements that offer us it the created something. '' If we want to go up toward God by the supernatural knowledge of the faith, we will have again resort to the analogy. The faith reaches God in his/her/its intimate life, but it uses analogical concepts as means, putting the object of the faith accessible to the mode human of our knowledge, and the analogy becomes for the contemplative a means to express itself/themselves to himself the object of his/her/its contemplation and to translate his/her/its ideas. Also the divine Contemplative, Christ he/it doesn't stop in the gospel borrowing to the creatures of the analogies to express to the men the mysteries of the divine life.

The beings don't have all same faculty however to drive the soul toward God. The some are bodily and sensitive, the other are spiritual. It is obvious that these last enjoy a bigger faculty to put the soul in communication with God. But of all beings whose consideration can drive the soul to God's knowledge, no one is comparable to Jesus' holy humanity. Jesus is indeed the way that leads to God. He/it is the abridged way, understanding and transcendent that leads to the divine contemplation. Indeed, '' of it lives him the whole fullness of the divinity corporally. '' (Collar. 11,9.) he/it is the picture of the invisible God '', (Col.1.15) and he/it contains in him all things, in ipso constant omnia, because, '' it is in him that all things have been created, those that are in the heaven and those that are on the earth, the visible things and the invisible things. (Collar. 1,16.)

11

Let's add that God's knowledge by the creatures is the only one really convenient and efficient to improve our life. Why so much Christian, to pagan mentality, do they walk constantly toward the hell? do They have the knowledge of the hell: but this knowledge is merely theoretical, it doesn't have an influence on their life. The knowledge convenient of the hell will be the one that will come us by the creatures. The faith affirms the existence of the hell, and describes the nature of it. This knowledge by the faith becomes convenient when the soul, seizing the affirmations of the faith, tries to understand them by the analogy of the creatures. That the Christian considers all tests therefore, the sufferings, fatigues, the pains of his/her/its daily life as samples of the hell, that he/it inflicts to his/its flesh the whip and the cilice, the hunger, the cold weather, the deprivations, and that he/it exercises himself/itself thus, in expiration of his/her/its sins, to suffer a few something here below from what is the sharing of the damned, and he/it will arrive well more quickly by this way, to a knowledge convenient of the hell that the way of the treated and of the analyses and this knowledge in some leaves experimental of the hell will divert it of the sin and will make be born in him God's fear. It is an example. It is necessary to say as much the whole of it supernatural, and in particular of God's knowledge, the saints knew it, Saint Bernard said: '' I have learned more on God, while cutting the beeches of the forest down that in the books of the Doctors. '' That all the beings speak us, that all enjoyments, all sensitive or intellectual pleasure is for us the opportunity to raise us to the eternal happiness of the sky, and we will arrive quickly to the contemplation usual of God. A conversation with a friend causes us joy, let's tell ourselves: that will be this this when I will hear God's life and that I will converse with during the eternity! A good meal is served us: instead of delighting us in this sensitive enjoyment, let's raise our minds, toward this celestial food that will intoxicate us at the Table of the celestial Father. That all created things are for us the opportunity to raise us toward God and to contemplate his/her/its perfections adorable qu the faith shows of it to us him So the immensity of the sea, the majesty of the installations, the riches varied of the nature, while providing us some analogies, will sustain the impetus of contemplative. By this way, the convenient soul at the same time the universal detachment of the creatures, because the true detachment that deserved the praises of the Mr., it is not the physical separation, the effective deprivation of all creates it, this true detachment consists on the contrary in using of all creates it, without stopping some him, to rise until God, That is the difference between the Christian and the pagan. The pagan stays shut in in creates it, the Christian uses some to go up toward God. The reading of the gospel especially, the consideration of the perfections, the excellences and the œuvres of the man-God gives us an idea as exact as possible the perfections, the excellences and God's œuvres, and us can read on the Christ's face beauty and the burst of God's very face. And more that toue other knowledge of the gospel, life and the Christ's acts, duct the soul to a sort of experimental knowledge of God appearing in the Christ and by Him. The Seraph of Patmos expressed this thought in a sublime way: '' What was since the beginning, this that we heard, this that we saw of our eyes this that we contemplated and what our hands touched, of the life Verb, because Life has been demonstrated, and did we see it, and do we return testimony and ourselves to him announce to Mention it eternal, who was in the heart of the being and that has been demonstrated us this that we saw and heard, do we announce it to you. '' (1, Jean 1,1.13.) Reason holy Jean and holy Paul did they penetrate the mysteries of God's life so deeply? "Because they had seen the Christ. .. Philippe, said Notre-Seigneur, the one that sees me, also sees my Father. '' (Jean XIV,(9)

III

For us that didn't see the Christ of our eyes, the Sacrament of the Eucharist appears as the means par excellence to drive the soul to the contemplation of the divine perfections. The Eucharist keeps the sensitive element that affects our senses and can guide our eyes in God's research. As her falls under our senses, under the shape of a food, and of a detached, divided sign, présentatif of the Christ's death, she/it provides the sufficient foundation to the analogy. visible Extension of the Christ. The Eucharist contains the synthesis of the means that offer us the natural world and the supernatural world to route us toward God. The Eucharist, it is the Christ is essentially God's outside and sensitive demonstration, and from then on life that leads to the contemplation of God's invisible perfections, so the eucharistie prolongs in the middle of us the outside and sensitive demonstration of the divine perfections. Insofar as we consider the Eucharist as the supreme demonstration of the divine perfections, in this same measures us give to God the glory that he/it waits for nons, because of the grant of the Eucharist, because the Eucharist exists above all for God's glory. God's extrinsic glory consists in what the creatures recognize, proclaim, sing the divine perfections. To provoke us to this praise, God threw in the universe and especially in the supernatural world of innumerable samples of his/her/its perfections. But in order to avoid us the fatigue of multiplicity, he/it synthesized in the Eucharist his/her/its marvels: '' memoriam fecit mirabilium suorum. '' The almighty divine explodes well more in the mystery of the Transubstantiation that in the creation of the worlds. The Communion eucharistique shows us that God has indeed for the soul, the strongest love that either, the one of the spouse and the wife. Happy the one that looks for, in the action of graces to the Communion, to penetrate the secret of the infinite love! God God's kiss, to kiss that falls under the sense, thanks to the sacramental cash, and that occurs to one moment determined the length, the soul gets lost, as the wife of the Hymns, in the contemplation of the kindness of his/her/its Beloved, and taste the sweetness of this speech: '' That he/it kisses me to kiss them of his/her/its mouth. '' (cant.!. 1.)

The consecration separated, what the Christ's death is represented on the altar by the and done sacramentally, in a sensitive way, let us glimpse the depths of the redeeming love, expressed by Jean saint,: '' Sic Deus dilexit mundum ut filium suum unigenitum daret. ''

It would be easy to show how the Eucharist drives the soul to the contemplation of all divine perfections and the divine being. But his/her/its will understand it better in applying itself/themselves of it in the prayer that in the reading of the pages that we could write.

The Eucharist contemplated thus. God seen through the veil eucharistique, becomes thus object of imitation, under the special modes of which he surrounds the demonstration of be and of the his/her/its perfections in the Eucharist. The Eucharist appears as the shape of life of the Christian, the model that he must express in his/its life. Such is the true devotion towards the Eucharist. And by an admirable game of causality, not only the Eucharist offers itself to the soul as object of contemplation and imitation, but she is in us efficient principle of grace and holiness, achieving herself in us the desires that she inspired us. She/it doesn't dig the abyss of the desires even, the thirst of the infinity, that in order to fill these desires, the thirst of the infinity, that in order to fill this lust, to stem this thirst! Oh res mirabils! Can us, in the prayer, to apply us to understand the grant of the Eucharist better.

IV

The Eucharist, sensitive sign, duct the soul to the analogical knowledge of the man-God and by Him of the adorable Trinidad. Let's try to seize better now, how the Eucharist, efficient sensitive sign, achieves in the Christian soul life and the state of contemplation, according to this speech, of Note-Seigneur,: '' The one that eats my flesh and drinks my blood stays in me and me I stay some him… as I live by my Father, so the one that eats me will also live for me… (Jean, VI, 56-57. )

According to the common teaching of the theologians, the innate contemplation is a simple knowledge and magnetize God, whom can get itself by our personal activity, even assisted of the grace, but that requires an inspiration and an illumination special of the Holy spirit. She/it is in us the admirable work of the grants of the Holy spirit and the operating grace. She/it proceeds more especially from the grant of Wisdom that makes us to taste the mysteries of the divine life and to contemplate all things in a way in God, their copy, their principle and their end, as the metaphysical wisdom endeavors all to judge in light of the first principles.

This knowledge in love with God, fruit of the wisdom grant, is well different from the speculative knowledge she supposes, with the special illumination of the Holy spirit, a living '' connaturalité to the divine things ''. Founded on the innate charity, God's emotional knowledge becomes of as much more discerning and tasty that the charity and the grants of the Holy spirit grow more in the soul. Indeed the supernatural organism the sanctifying grace, the virtues théologales and the grants of the Holy spirit are destined, by The one that makes us the grant of it, to prepare and to make possible the entering into possession of of the beyond by a real possession and initial enjoyment since here below; ', Per donum gratiae gratum facientis, writing holy Thomas, perficitur creaturea rationalis ad hoc quod free non solum iposo donon cretao utatur, sed ut ipsa persona divina fruatur. '' (1 q.43,3.3.) To him - over of what one could call the utilitarian aspect beyond g^race, he/it imports to consider his/her/its radial ordination to the contemplation.

As increases the supernatural perfection of the soul, the Divine People give themselves more completely: and at the same time, our capacity increases by the development of the virtues, especially of the charity, completed by the grant of wisdom that establishes this connaturalité of love between the soul and God. The starting point of the spiritual ascensions is therefore in the culture of the virtues théologales and the grant of the sanctifying grace that is there that ignites the mystical life, the contemplative state is only the supreme bursting of this supernatural life. On the trunk of l sanctifying grace has bloom the virtues and the grants, as as many immediate principles of operation or spiritual enjoyment, according to the very high requirements of life inside, indicated by these words of Notre-Seigneur,: '' Are perfected like your Father is perfected. '' (Mat. V. ,48) By his/her/its internal requirements, the supernatural organism aims to the highest perfection, and possess the means and the principles normally required to reach the passive state, summit of the spiritual life, The action of the cooperating grace and the innate virtues perfect the soul and orient it toward this summit. But as the soul, in this state, keeps its clean world again to act, it can acquire a new perfection that will allow him to move therefore as spontaneously in the occult. Under the action of the operating grace and in the ardent rays of the grants of the Holy spirit takes himself the direction of life, the world human to act lets place to the divine mode and the soul arranges itself among those of which speaks the writing Saint: '' ii that aguntur has Spiritu Sancto. '' In this state, the liberty however intact home, since the will of his/her/its full will, although without liberation, continuation blows it of 'Mind. Upstart on these heights, the soul can say with the Apostle and can experiment the realism of this speech: '' No, it is not anymore I that live, it is the Christ who lives in me. '' So elevated in a way to God's height, by the effect of an ineffable love, propertied by the grace of the virtues and grants this connaturalité, this resemblance of nature with God, the soul penetrates the divine mysteries by a very superior experimental knowledge in depth and in beatitude to toue other knowledge.

Before arriving to these summits, the soul must exercise itself to the mortification of his/her/its passions and his/her/its appetite, it must cross the obscure night '' of the passive purifications of the senses and the mind. '' The obscure night of the senses, writing holy Jean of the Cross, give to the soul his/her/its purity, while stripping it according to his/her/its sensory part and while accommodating the sense to the mind. '' This spoliation spreads as well to the outside appeals of the world, to the concupiscence of the flesh, that to the tastes and to the appetites of will: It is the death in the world and to ourselves. The night of the mind finishes this blissful and necessary death, while even stripping us of our fashion human to know, to hope and to like, to clear in us the for formal motive of the virtues théologales. This spiritual death is the condition indispensable of the transforming union of the soul with God, where this one begins to taste since here below something of the joys of the sky.

V

The Eucharist, efficient sensitive sign, achieves in the soul life and the state of contemplation. Œuvre of the infinite Wisdom, she/it is ordered to produce the mystical life in the souls that e doesn't put an obstacle to his/her/its acton.

The sacrament is essentially a sign: ', specialiter nunc loquimur of Sacrementis secundum quod importing habitudinem signi, '' says Saint Thomas. (III.q.LX.a.1.) Every sacrament even possesses a triple power of significance of by the will of The one that has them s instituted. It is necessary to mention here this text of Thomas saint that projects a quick light on our question: Repondeo dicendum quod sacramentum proprie dicitur quod ordinatur ad significandam nostram sanctificationem in qua sorted out possunt considerari: videlicet ipsa caused sanctificationis nostrae quae is Christi passio: and formed nostraesanctificationis quae consistit in gratia and virtutibus: and ultimus finished sanctificationis nostrae that is vita aetera. And haec omnia per sacrameta significantur; unde sacramentub is signum rememorativum ejus quod praecessit, cilicet Christ passionis, and demonstrativum ejus quod in nobis efficitur per Christi passionem, scilicet gratiae, and prognosticum idest praenuntiativm futurae. '' (III.q.LX,a.3.) This text is of a supreme importance in the theology of the sacraments. Every sacrament is a sign of the past, of the present, of the future. It means the Christ's death, the supernatural transformation of the soul, and the future glory. Let's not limit the power of significance therefore a sacrament to the grace, it is - to say the transformation of the soul and the term of the grace, the eternal life.

However this signs are efficient signs; they cause, they produce what they mean; '' Sacramenta vonae legis simul sunt causae and signed and inde is quod, sicut communiter dicitur, efficiunt quod representing. '' (III,q.LXII.a.!.) He/it would be inopportune to justify here the doctrine of Thomas saint on the instrumental causality of the sacraments. All serious theologians admit it and this doctrine is part of the heritage of the Catholic thought. Only note that these two aspects of sign and reason are united and strictly inseparable indissolublement in the question of the sacraments. All sacrament is at a time a sign and a reason producer of that that it means.

Why the Eucharist, '' sacrament par excellence '' she would make exception? He/it is true that of the numerous modern theologians one lamentably tangled the treaty of the Eucharist, as there introducing these vain divisions of the Eucharist, considered like sacrament, as food of the soul, as sacrifice. These divisions all accidental, taking in the modern theology an unknown importance to the big scholastic theologians, made impossible the deep intelligence the of the Mass and the communion, and given place to a literature eucharistique deprived of all dogmatic foundation. Let's say it highly and let's hold ourselves of it to it: '' The Eucharist is a sacrament, she is only it, she is all it. The merit of Thomas saint was to study the Eucharist without ever himself départir one instant of the sacramental concept of the Eucharist. Similar to the canopy fringed of gold that covers the entire Tabernacle, the term '' sacrament '' covers the whole question of the Eucharist also. from then on the Eucharist is an efficient sign, producing, doing, achieving that that she means.

VI

The Eucharist first means and essentially the Christ's death. The detached consecration means and operate sacramental the Christ's immolation on the altar, and the manducation of the Victim sacramentally immolated, by the Communion, integral part of the sacrament - sacrifice, made us enter in arrangements of Jesus-Victim. How the Communion produces in us this spiritual death of which speaks the apostle to understand well: '' You died and your life is hidden in God with the Christ, '' it is not necessary to separate these inseparable: presence of Jesus under the cash eucharistiques, sacramental immolation of Jesus on the altar, and the communion to the divine Victim. These three things are only three aspects of one only and same Sacrament. And if he/it is true that the church permits to keep the Real Presence in the Tabernacle, even after the supporters received communion, it doesn't remain less true than these dedicated Hosts to some keep their real relation to the communion. The Eucharist means the Christ's death therefore and operate this death sacramentally on the altar in order to make this mystery participate the Christian, she causes therefore in us the Christ's spiritual death analogous to the physical death in cross and to Jesus' sacramental immolation. And like all reason produces his/her/its effect according to the clean modes of be, he/it follows that Jesus-Host while uniting to the communicant made it participate in his/her/its victim's state. However this spiritual death is the condition fundamental of the mystical life. Insofar as we will die to us same and to all things of here below, in this same measures us walk toward the mountain of the Carmel. It would be interesting to consider how the Blissful Father Eymard was submitted to this spiritual death and how the divine Eucharist the opera progressively in his/her/its soul, until this whole immolation of himself that opened him the door of the highest holiness.

The Eucharist means, in second place, the production of the grace, and she causes what she means effectively. For Thomas saint, the word grace means here the sanctifying grace, the innate virtues and the Saint's grants - Mind, related to the grace in their existence and in their progress, or as expresses itself the holy Doctor himself, '' the grace of the virtues and grants ''. The Eucharist is ordered to the progress of the supernatural organism the grace, the virtues and the grants therefore. Received in the wanted arrangements, she/it causes in our a continual increase the grace, the virtues and the grants. She/it pushes the perfection of the supernatural organism, until his/her/its highest degree of capacity, being herself an infinite reason only knowing the limits of the topic. However the supernatural organism, considered like an all, is the principle radical of the contemplation, and the virtues théologales and the grants that make part of it are the immediate and next principles. From where he/it follows that the Eucharist, ordered to the constant progress of the supernatural organism until his/her/its highest degree of development, stretches has drive the soul in the summit of the mystical life.

Finally the Eucharist means and reason of it us the eternal life, according to Jesus' speech,: '' The one that eats my flesh and drinks my blood to the eternal life. '' (Jean VI.54.) The Eucharist causes of it to us an increase of the sanctifying grace, and the sanctifying grace is the beginning of the eternal life, '' inchoatio vitae aeternae ''. But it is not only in this sense that the Eucharist means and reason of it us the eternal life, bus if the eternal life has for principle the grace and the light of glory, it is not the grace or the light of glory. The eternal life essentially consists in a knowledge full of God love, in God's enjoyment, '' Dei fruitio ''. And it is more precisely in this sense that the Eucharist means and reason us the eternal life. The prayer of Bonaventure saint, '' Transfige me', for the action of graces to the Communion, let us glimpse how the Eucharist causes, in the soul of the saints, in a transient way but very quick, something of the beatitude of the sky. However God's enjoyment, in a knowledge full of love, is precisely the summit of the contemplative life.

The Catholic mind comes in the church up against several adversaries 1 there is first the natural mind

The Christ's mind is a supernatural mind. The Christian charity substitutes for the human prudence another higher prudence, that is, if St Paul is necessary again, madness to the eyes of the world. The madness of the cross, the wisdom of the Beatitudes. The Christ's wisdom makes splice in consideration in our judgments the supernatural elements. The Christ gave us the example of it in his/her/its Passion: the saints followed it; and there is there something that one can qualify irrational again, but that is actually supra rational.

This opposition between the Christ's wisdom and the wisdom of the world explodes in the passage according to the gospel: ‘' In that time, Jesus began to discover to his/her/its disciples that him him faillait to go to Jerusalem, that he endured a lot of the part of the old, of the Scribes, of the Princes of the priests, that he was put to death.. Pierre taking it to part started taking it, while saying: ‘' TO God pleases, Lord, it won't happen to you. ‘' But Jesus turning around tells to him. ‘' Retire you of me, Satan, you I am a scandal, because you don't have the intelligence of God's things, you don't have that of the human thoughts. ' ' (Matt, XVI.21-23).

It is necessary to recognize that Pierre in this episode, is expressed itself as we will be ourselves all expressed, that he/it speaks according to the human wisdom that will never consist of the death voluntary of Jesus, nor all sacrifices, the luxury of the sacrifices of those that follows it according to his/her/its mind.

Among the Christian, and especially among those that have been raised to the faith since the childhood and it is the big mass of our time the Christian faith wins often with an absence of taste for what is the most cleanly Christian in Christianity, that means for c that is cleanly supernatural and for the heroism of the charity.

They become attached of preference to the natural wisdom, that Christianity to suppose and dedicate natural religion, natural morals,: Prayer, respect of life, of goods, of the marriage and tie sometimes without giving himself account of it themselves to minimize in Christianity everything that is action of the grace or grant of oneself.

He/it doesn't deny the law of the charity, but as they are interested in goods of the earth more that to the Christ's charity, they insist on the legitimacy of all human rights, they carry all their reflection on this human, and by dint of reasoning, they arrive practically, to undermine everything that, in Christianity, pass the human wisdom.

They believe themselves Christian because they don their life of a Christian coat; their p.ex prayer, accept the Christian shapes; they go to the Mass, they receive the sacraments of the church: they profess the ‘' Creed ‘, without giving out contradictions. But they don't see that, when one professes that the Christ died for us, it entails some convenient consequences that must make themselves feel in our reports with the other men, all, of some people or some social class, that they are, or in the use of our goods.

The relative questions to our reports with our similar, for example, to the reports between social classes or to the reports between nations are complicated so that when one wants to justify his/her/its selfishness or his/her/its pride, one always finds for it of the obvious reasons. The nuns of this noble abbey of the 17th century that had each three maids to their continuation had probably succeeded in giving itself/themselves a justification that satisfied them as well as our Catholic nationalistic contemporaries or usurers.

To adopt in these matters, a really Christian solution, the Christian mind is necessary first, and this Christian mind made us like all our similar. Insofar as we like them indeed, we feel the reluctance for the class separations himself or of nations; I say well, for the separations of classes no for the fact that there are the classes or nations, but for the fact that they separate the men. From then on we understand, that we are not able to, being Christian, to accept the exclusivismes and the contempts and we react against them. One is there on a moral plan (superior i.e. supernatural) very different from the social plan, but reverberating on the social.

He/it is some in the same way for the disposition of goods. If one is indeed Christian, one won't be able to accept to be rich when there is so many poor persons without making everything that one is able to make that the fortune of which one arranges serf to decrease misery, and if a social order that encourages the misery of some classes exists, one will react against this social order. The one that has the Christian sense sees that our attitude in these matters cannot be the same that if it was not Christian.

(Effect of the natural mind: a rationalism)

The natural mind that dissolves the Christ's charity in a way in the human wisdom produced in the church a dangerous rationalism to the blossoming of the Christian life in measures it even he/it bet entirely reasonable.

(The victims of this rationalism)

The danger of this Christian rationalism doesn't even save the theologians; he/it explains a lot of heresies that want to bend the Christ to the human wisdom; he/it explains in morals, as very certain laxity that certain rigorism; and he/it also explains that the church requires the holiness of those that it recognizes as his/her/its doctors. The one that has the ambition to make itself/themselves the interpreter of the doctrine or the Christ's morals must before all to aim to be a saint, c.a.d. to be united to the church and the Christ in the church, as closely and as intimately as possible.

Other shape of the natural mind

It is necessary to challenge itself/themselves of a certain religious cérébralisme that is enthusiastic mentally of the Christian faith without feeling a desire therefore equals to unite to the Christ by the holiness of life.

An example of cérébralisme

Our time knew an example of this cérébralisme pushed until the extreme in M.Maurras, that declared enthusiast of all the Catholicism, defending the church and all respects them all, without any distinction, because to distinguish, it would be necessary to think. And the routine doesn't distinguish the essential of the accessory; she/it tries merely to make as one made until there.

Life opposed to the routine, inconsiderate innovative mind.

To the routine, oppose an inconsiderate innovative mind that is pleasing to the distresses and that believes to show evidence of mind liberty while changing to change.

The Catholic mind and the routine.

The Christian mind is between these extremes, it becomes attached to the Tradition of the church that is continuous and in which therefore one finds a permanence; but he/it distinguishes this tradition of the secondary importance habits that can disappear when the reasons that made them be born, disappear. As the Catholic mind develops itself, it dissolves the routine; as the Catholic mind decreases in a country, or even on the whole of the church, to one time data, the routine spreads, the church freezes and the Christ's face fades away.

The routine: obstacle of the reformers.

All reformers had to fight against this routine mind. Every time that a saint wanted to found an audacious work, he has been fought by the routine that pretended to be the tradition. Every time that the church wants to correct an abuse, it comes up against the taken habits. We never made like that! either '' We saw to make always thus '' is for the Christian routine, the decisive argument… (Excerpt of an article appeared in '' The intellectual Life. '' January 1938.)

 

 

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