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THE INTERIOR LIFE. (2)

Oblation

"Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldest not, but a Body Thou hast fitted to Me. Holocausts for sin did not please Thee. Then said I: Behold I come. In the head of the book it is written of Me, that I should do Thy Will, O God."

(Heb. x. 5-7).

1st. Prelude. "Thy holy Tabernacle, which Thou hast prepared from the beginning" (Wisdom ix. 8).

2nd. Prelude. Grace to be generous.

Point I. The oblation of JESUS

As soon as the Word had taken possession of His earthly home, He began to live His new life – a life in all its fulness of knowledge and of grace and which will ever remain at its highest point, a life of infinite worth, a life lived for others, a life abounding in merits and satisfactions, a life of contemplation and yet of activity, a life to be studied carefully by all who seek to live an interior life and specially by those who for the love of their Incarnate God hide themselves in the cloister.

This new life was before everything else a life of oblation. The first act of the Word Incarnate was to offer Himself to His Father: Here I am; I have come to do Thy Will and I have come to do it not for Myself but for all creation; I offer Myself to do what it cannot do and to satisfy Thy claims. He made Himself, then, from the first moment of His existence a Victim– a Victim laid on the altar. This was His first posture, and He will keep it not only during this first stage of His life, but all through His life and all through His Sacramental life, whether the Host is offered to God at the Holy Mass or is living Its life of a Victim in the Tabernacle; and in Heaven He will still be "the Lamb as it had been slain."

With the oblation of Himself, so acceptable to the Father, the Victim offers all that concerns Him, all for which He has come to this earth, all His designs for man's salvation. He submits all His plans for His great building, the Holy Catholic Church, of which He offers Himself to be the Chief Corner-stone, dwelling in it as its life throughout all time. He offers Himself also to bear all the effects of His oblation and to drink the chalice to the dregs. He offers Himself as a Surety for the whole human race and for it He offers all His merits and satisfactions. He keeps nothing back – the whole of the life just begun is offered for the glory of God and the salvation of the world. It is a whole burnt-offering, a holocaust offered at its very beginning to Him Who "spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all." (Rom. viii. 32).

Point II. The Oblation of Mary

Mary lived her life with her Son and to her He communicated His secrets. It is impossible to imagine that He did not reveal to her His plans and designs which were the reason of His coming to this earth, and how He was going to carry them out. She knew, then, that she was the Mother of a Victim; and when He offered Himself to God, she joined in, offering herself and her Son for all that He wished. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord!" Here I am, I offer myself to Thee, do what Thou wilt with me. This was Mary's attitude all through her life from the time when her Fiat was a sign for the Incarnation to take place, till she stood on Calvary's Hill assisting at the offering of the Victim. Truly had the Mother of Sorrows caught the spirit of her Son; all through her life she regarded Him as a Victim. When He was forty days old she formally offered Him to God, and her life though bound up with His was nevertheless detached from Him, as from something given to another. Now at this early stage of His life, Mary is learning her lesson and gaining her strength. She is doing it by leading an interior life, hidden with her Son.

O my Mother, as I come to-day to the holy Tabernacle "prepared from the beginning" where the Sacred Victim lies hidden, help me to make my life one with His as thou didst, help me to detach myself from everything for His sake and to say my Fiat whenever He asks for it.

Point III. Learn of Me

If I want to live an interior life, I must model it on the life of Jesus hidden in the womb of His Mother. He wants me to lead it for He is ever saying: Learn of Me Who led this life for you. An interior life must be essentially a life of oblation. This is its foundation: the offering of the soul as a holocaust to God and then regarding itself as a victim, all it has and does and is and thinks and plans, belonging not to itself but to God. It lies on the altar waiting to be consumed; it is not surprised when it is treated as a victim and feels the flames, not surprised, that is, when it is forgotten and thought nothing of; its life is hidden, how should people remember it! If it has to suffer, it considers it the most natural thing in the world for a victim. If its plans are all frustrated, it knows that it is lying there on the altar to do God's Will, not its own, and that this is only the fire consuming the victim; if it did not happen thus the victim might indeed be surprised and anxious, wondering whether God had accepted its sacrifice. "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service" (Rom. xii. 1). The sacrifice is ever living, and ever being consumed. The victim feels keenly all the many processes by which God shows that He has accepted the offering, but if it copies its Model, there will be no complaint, no drawing back of the offering, no wishing that it had chosen an easier course, no wondering whether it had made a mistake in its vocation; rather will there be joy in its heart because in its humble way it is like its Master, and each fresh touch of the fire will be to it a fresh proof that God has not forgotten it, but has taken it at its word and counts on it to be all that it promised to be. What is necessary for all this? Only one thing: Love. If I love, I can do it. "Walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and given Himself an oblation for us."

O my little Jesus, hidden there for me and offering Thyself for me, teach me to be generous, teach me to love Thee as Thou deservest; help me to lie quietly and unresistingly on the altar. I am not alone. Thou art there, bearing all with me and giving me the necessary strength to bear all for Thee. Help me to sacrifice willingly all my cherished desires and tastes, all my will. Thou didst withhold nothing from me, help me to withhold nothing from Thee. So shall I make Thee some reparation for all the time wasted in the past, for all the sins committed against Thy love; so only can I obey Thy command: "Learn of Me," and make some little return for Thy infinite love.

Colloquy with Jesus and His blessed Mother.

Resolution. To offer myself as a victim to-day.

Spiritual Bouquet. "Walk in love as Christ also hath loved us, and hath delivered Himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God." (Eph. v. 2).

THE INTERIOR LIFE. (3)

Imprisonment

"I was in prison and you came to Me." "Lord when did we see Thee … in prison?"

(St. Matt. xxv. 36, 39).

1st. Prelude. Turris Davidica.

2nd. Prelude. Grace to visit Him in His prison.

Point I. Dependence

Our blessed Lord's life, during the nine months, was a life of imprisonment. He chose for Himself a position of dependence, helplessness and inability. He Who was the Light of the world chose to live in darkness; He Whom the Heavens cannot contain chose a more cramped position than any prisoner has ever had to endure; He Who was infinite allowed Himself to be confined; He Who was immortal took a mortal body. He endured all the sufferings that helplessness and inability and immobility entail; and we have to keep reminding ourselves that He was fully alive to all His sufferings. We are not making an imaginary picture, but trying to realize what were the actual facts of those nine months. His Mother understood, let us try to do the same. Let us go to the "Tower of David" where Our Lord is kept a prisoner and let us remember that He is there for us. Let us not be amongst those to whom He will have to say sadly: "I was in prison and you did not visit Me." Later on, at the end of His life, He will allow His own people to take Him prisoner and will stand still while they put the chains on His wrists and will allow Himself to be dragged where they wish. Later on still He will choose to be imprisoned in the little Host and to make Himself to the end of time our Prisoner of Love.

Thy imprisonments were all voluntary, my Jesus, they were all suffered out of love and out of love for me. Oh, may these visits that I am paying Thee during the blessed season of Advent result in my imbibing more of the spirit of my imprisoned Master. Mine too is a voluntary imprisonment; I am His captive because I said: I will be His servant, "I will not go out free" (Ex. xxi. 5). I gave up my liberty, preferring to be His prisoner rather than the devil's free man. Naturally He takes me at my word, but oh, sometimes prison-life is very hard to bear! He chains me to a bed of sickness, where I must lie still and see the work I long to do left undone or, what is perhaps harder still, badly done; He gives me great desires and no means of fulfilling them; He fills me with plans and schemes for His glory and then seems to make it impossible for them to be realized; He trains me, as I think, for some particular position and then detains me in another for which it seems to me I have not the least aptitude; He sets limits to my strength; He seems to keep me always in the background; He appears to use everybody else except me for His work; He seems to cramp my efforts and allow me no scope for the talents He has given me.

The Divine Prisoner Himself answers my plaints: My child, all these things only prove that you are My prisoner, that I have taken you at your word and that I do with you as I wish. Your time is not lost any more than Mine was. By doing My Will, however inscrutable it may seem to you, you are doing far more for Me than if you were doing your own. Trust me, be patient, bear and suffer all for Me, Who am a Prisoner for you. I love you to be dependent on Me, I love you to walk by faith, I love you to trust Me, and so I am constantly doing little things to remind you that you are My prisoner. Strive to be a prisoner of love as I am, that is (1) one who is in prison for love of another, (2) one who loves his chains, (3) one whose every act in prison is done to please Me.

Point II. Darkness

How much darkness adds to the sufferings of prison life! It was a suffering which Jesus living in Mary endured for me; and yet while He, the Light of the world was there, her blessed womb was flooded with light, with the light of Heaven itself.

What light this thought throws on my interior life! The suffering of darkness! It is a suffering which He inflicts upon many of His prisoners of love. "Who is there among you that feareth the Lord, that heareth the voice of His servant, that hath walked in darkness and hath no light? Let him hope in the name of the Lord and lean upon his God." (Is. l. 10). If only I can make myself believe that the darkness is permitted by Him there will be a ray of light at once in the darkness because God is there, "Surely God is in this place." But how can I be sure that the darkness is permitted by Him? If I am living the interior life, if my intention is to please Him in all that I do, and if, however badly I succeed, I never willingly take back that intention, then I am pleasing God; and if I am pleasing God, I am one of His own dear children, just as really as was His Son Who did always the things that pleased Him. If I am one of His children I know, for He has told me so, that nothing can happen to me without His knowledge and His permission, yea His arranging. So if I have to walk in darkness rather than in light, if desolation is my spiritual lot and consolation is almost unknown to me, if a veil hides God's face and my continual cry is: "Oh, that I might know and find Him" (Job xxiii. 3), if prayer seems impossible, if I have a distaste, almost a repugnance for all spiritual things, if even Our Lady seems to desert me, if at times I am on the brink of despair, tempted even to think that my soul will be lost, if, in short, darkness, thick darkness has settled down on my soul – what then? "Let him hope in the name of the Lord and lean upon his God." But how can I hope in darkness, how can I lean upon Someone Who is not there? By faith, that is by saying all the time: This darkness is His doing, therefore it is what He wants for me. "I, the Lord create darkness!" That makes all the difference.

Faith, as it always does, lets a streak of light into the darkness; God is there and it is only to make the soul more sure of this that He permits the darkness. If the soul can find and recognize God in the darkness then it knows Him very intimately and this is what God wants – a love so great that it detects the Beloved One at once. Does darkness make any difference to the intercourse of those who love? They rather prefer it, so that all may be shut out except each other. This is what God wants from those whom He is teaching to be interior – He puts them into prison and leaves them in the dark. Are they going to be unhappy, to repine and complain, longing for consolation and all the sweet things with which God fed them when they hardly knew Him? Not if they have faith; and if their faith is strong, they will hardly be able to distinguish desolation from consolation, God's absence from His presence, yea the very darkness itself from the light! For is it not their God who is the cause of all that is happening to them, and is not that enough for those who love? They only want His Will, not their own, and His Will is to keep them in prison and in the dark and so to unite them more closely to Himself Who for their sake faced for nine months the darkness of the womb. In the terrible moments when despair seems so near us, let us hold on to the fact that we want to please God and therefore that we are His children and that He loves us and is arranging everything – this is the little ray of hope in the darkness, the line of light, and in it we read the words: "I give them life everlasting and they shall not perish for ever; and no man shall pluck them out of My Hand." (St. John x. 28).

Colloquy with Jesus, the Light of the world, imprisoned in darkness for me.

Resolution. To lean upon my God in times of darkness.

Spiritual Bouquet. "I form the light and create darkness." (Is. xlv. 7).

THE INTERIOR LIFE. (4)

Hiddenness

"Verily, Thou art a hidden God, the God of Israel the Saviour."

(Is. xlv. 15).

1st. Prelude.Jesus hidden in Mary.

2nd. Prelude. Grace so to find Him that I may live the hidden life.

Point I. "Thou art a hidden God."

He was hidden in the womb of His Mother; all through His life and death on earth, His Divinity was hidden except to a very few; in His Eucharistic life He will hide Himself to the end of time in the little Host. He seemed to love hiding when He was on earth and when He did reveal Himself, it was something like a child playing at hide and seek. He hid Himself from the Samaritan woman till He had heard all her story and then said suddenly: "I am He (the Messias) Who am speaking with thee" (St. John iv. 26). The blind man whom He cured had not the least idea Who He was till Jesus, hearing that he had been reviled and cast out of the Synagogue, went and talked to him about the Son of God and then said in the middle of the conversation: "Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee" (chap. ix. 37). From Mary Magdalen at the sepulchre He deliberately hid Himself under the form of a gardener that He might have the joy of suddenly surprising her with His presence. Perhaps the most touching story of all is that of the two disciples going to Emmaus; out of His very love for them, He blindfolded them and then made them look for Him, while He put them off the scent by pretending that He knew nothing about all the things that had been happening in Jerusalem; and then when His moment was come "their eyes were opened and they knew Him." (St. Luke xxiv. 31). He treats His children in the same way still, He constantly hides Himself from them, leaves them alone to fight and struggle in desolation, solitude and spiritual darkness, and then sometimes shows by His sudden presence how near He has been all the time.

Let me consider two questions:

1. How does He hide Himself? (1) Behind obstacles that He makes: suffering, desolation, darkness, temptation, scruples, failure (spiritual as well as temporal), uncongenial people and surroundings – all those many forms of the cross which the true disciple knows so well. Let us remember that He is hidden in them, it will make all the difference. (2) Behind obstacles that we ourselves make. This is not so consoling. He has every right to hide Himself from me, but I have no right to make His coming to me difficult by obstacles that I put in His path, and yet how often I do it! Self is the great obstacle. I am taken up with myself, with my own shortcomings and miseries and failures and weaknesses, with my imagination (how it runs away with me, away from Him!) and my fears, my introspection – uselessly looking into myself to see how I am advancing. What are all these but obstacles which keep God at a distance? The soul that attracts Him is the soul that is occupied with Him, not with self.

2. Why does He hide Himself? Why does He deliberately set up obstacles which prevent the soul from seeing Him? Why does a mother hide from her child? Is it not for the joy of seeing it look for her and for the consolation she is going to give it in letting herself be found? It is the same with our God Who hides Himself. He wants to make us look for Him, He wants to increase our love, our desire and our merit, He wants to make us strong in faith and confidence, while acknowledging our helplessness and dependence and nothingness without Him.

Point II. "Your life is hid with Christ in God."

Though Jesus was hidden in Mary, He was never hidden from her. This was (1) because Mary never put any obstacle between herself and Jesus – her thoughts were all with Him and never with herself, and (2) because her faith and love and desire were so strong that she at once overcame all obstacles, which He in His love and desire for her merit put in her way as was the case during the three days' loss. Jesus and Mary are the models of my interior life. Like Mary I must try to surmount all obstacles, welcome every sword that pierces, leave self and seek Him. Like Jesus in Mary I must strive to lead a hidden life.

How is it to be done? There is only one way – to have God always before my eyes, and self only there to be sacrificed. If I make this my rule, it will simplify my life and be the quick solution of many problems. Why this dryness in prayer? To bring God to my mind and to give me an opportunity of sacrificing self with its love of spiritual consolation and sensible enjoyment. The very dryness makes me thirst after God: "As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God. My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?" (Ps. xli. 1-3). This is what God wants – to see the soul longing and thirsting for Him. That is why He puts the obstacle of dryness between Himself and the soul, and hides Himself behind it while He watches the soul struggling to forget itself and saying: "O my soul why dost thou disquiet me? Hope thou in God, for I will still give praise to Him" (verse 12). This is how the faithful soul overcomes the obstacles – not by praying to have them removed, but by a firm faith that God is in them. So with temptations – why these terrible temptations, when God could so easily remove them? Because He is the Master and He knows what is best. If the temptations were removed, the soul would soon be wrapped up in self-complacency and self-satisfaction. Temptations properly used keep the soul close to God, it sees God hidden in them and forgetting all about its treacherous self, it turns to Him Who alone can save it from falling, it keeps God only in view and makes the sacrifice of self. The same principle holds good for all the many obstacles behind which God hides. If they are properly used they are no longer obstacles, but stepping-stones by means of which we pass to Him. God everywhere and self nowhere! God everything and self nothing! God, not self, the object of all I do and think and plan! And that not because I can feel Him and see Him and enjoy Him, but because my faith tells me that though hidden He is there. This was the principle of Mary's life hidden with her Son. He was the cause, the direct cause, of all her troubles, of all the many swords that pierced her most pure heart, yet never was there a life hidden with Christ as was Mary's and the reason was that she forgot herself and saw Jesus only.

"Your life is hid with Christ in God." Are these words of St. Paul true about me? Let me read the whole verse and then I shall know: "For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." When self is dead, then I shall be able to say God only, and till then, God be thanked, I can hide my miserable self in Him and tell Him that I want it to be sacrificed though I so seldom have the courage to do it.

Colloquy with Jesus hidden in Mary.

Resolution. To see my hidden God everywhere and self nowhere.

Spiritual Bouquet. "Why hidest Thou Thy Face?" (Job xiii. 24).