1. God is intimate with all creation because He made it, for creation implies that God remains within, supporting, upholding. God is within everything, and therefore He is everywhere. But while we thus believe that God is wholly everywhere, we also believe something which seems the exact opposite, for we believe that God is more in some places than in others, more in some people than in others. How is it if God is wholly everywhere that He can be more here than there? To understand this we must also understand that every created thing shares somehow in God's being. He communicates Himself to it in some fashion, for apart from Him it could have no perfections. We have a way of saying that we reflect God's greatness and that we are "broken lights" of Him. But that is far short of the truth; we do more than reflect, we actually have some participation in God, so that St. Thomas boldly takes over a saying of Plato: "The individual nature of a thing consists in the way it participates in the perfections of God" (Summa1, 14.6). Not, of course, that there is any community of being, but a direct participation.
2. Now since everything participates in God and since some things are more excellent than others, it stands to reason that some things express God better than others. The eyes of a dog often are pitiful to see, because we can note its evident desire and yet its impossibility to express its feelings. The whole of nature has to seeing minds the same pitifulness. It is always endeavoring to express God, the inexpressible. Yet the higher a thing is in the scale of being the more of God it expresses, for it participates more in God's being. The more life a thing has and the more freedom it acquires, then the nearer does it approach to God and the more divinity it holds. Man, by his intelligence, his deeper and richer life, his finer freedom, stands at the head of visible creation, and, in consequence, is more fully a shrine of God than lower forms of life. He bears a closer resemblance to the Divine intelligence and will and has a greater share in them. It is then in that sense that we arrange in ascending order inanimate creation, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, and man.
3. Consequently we can now see in what sense God is said to be more in one thing than in another. He is more in it because He exercises Himself more in one thing than in another; one thing expresses more than another the perfections of God because it shares more deeply than another that inner being of God. The more nearly anything or anyone is united to God the more does His power exercise itself in them, so that, since God's gifts are variously distributed and are of various degrees, we are justified in saying that though He is wholly everywhere, He may be more fully here than there, just as, though my soul is in every part of my being, it is more perfectly in the brain than elsewhere, because there it exercises itself more fully and with more evidence of expression. Thus we say God is more in a man's soul than anywhere else in creation, since in a man's soul God is more perfectly expressed. It is therefore with great reverence that I should regard all creation, but with especial reverence that I should look to the dignity of every human soul.
1. While God is in everything in creation, He dwells in the just by grace. Scripture quite noticeably uses the worddwellingwhen it wishes to express the particular way in which God is present in the souls of the just. He is in all things; in the just He dwells. The same word actually is applied to the presence of God in the souls of those in grace as is used when speaking of God's presence in the Temple. But here again it is necessary to say that God's dwelling in the Temple never implied He was not elsewhere, but did imply that somehow His presence in the Temple was quite different from the way in which He was present elsewhere. Just then the same kind of difference between the presence of God in all created nature and His presence in the souls of the just is intended by the careful use in Scripture of the word dwelling, viz., that God has, over and above His ordinary presence in every single created thing, a further and especial presence in the hearts of those in friendship with Him by grace, and this new presence is a fuller and richer presence whereby God's excellencies and perfections are more openly displayed.
2. Another way in which the same idea is pressed home in the New Testament is by the wordsentorgiven. Frequently, in the last discourse of Our Lord on the night before He suffered, He spoke to the Apostles of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Comforter who was to be sent or given. Now, ordinarily, by using the expression, "sending some one," we imply that now the person sent is where he was not before, that he has passed from here to there. Obviously Our Lord cannot really mean that only after His crucifixion and ascension would the Holy Ghost be found in the hearts of the Apostles, for we have already insisted that in every creature there must be, by virtue of its very creation, the Holy Spirit at the heart of it. Hence the only possible meaning is that the Holy Spirit will descend upon the Apostles and become present within them after some new fashion in which He was not before. "Because you are His children God has sent into your hearts the spirit of His Son whereby you cry Abba: Father" (Gal. 4.6). From the beginning the Holy Ghost had been within them; now His presence there is new and productive of new effects.
3. By God's indwelling, then, effected by grace, the Holy Spirit now is present in the soul differently from the way in which He is present by creation. By creation He is wholly everywhere, yet more in the higher forms than in the lower, for He is able to express more of Himself in them. Among these highest forms of visible creation, namely, man, there are again degrees of His presence, so that even among men He is more in one than in another. This gradation is in proportion to their grace. The more holy and sanctified they become, the more does the Holy Spirit dwell in them, the more fully is He sent, the more completely given, while the Book of Wisdom says expressly that God does not dwell in sinners. As soon as I am in a state of grace the Holy Ghost dwells in me in this new and wonderful way, takes up His presence in me in this new fashion. It is precisely, then, by our faith and hope and love that this is effected, so that the individual soul under God's own movement does help on this union of God and man. In all the rest of creation God is present by His action; in the souls of the just it is true to say that He is present by theirs.
1. We have taken it for granted that God then is present somehow in the soul by grace. We have now to consider what sort of a presence this really is. Do we mean absolutely that God the Holy Ghost, is truly in the soul Himself, or do we, by some metaphor or vague expression, mean that He is merely exerting Himself there in some new and especial way? Perhaps it is only that by means of the sevenfold gifts He has got a tighter hold of us and can bring us more completely under the sweet dominion of His will. All that is true, but all that is not enough, for we do absolutely mean what we say when we declare that by grace the Holy Spirit of God is present within the soul. Scripture is exceedingly full of the truth of this and is always insisting on this presence of the Holy Ghost. St. Paul, especially, notes it over and over again, and in his epistle to the Romans repeats it in very forcible language: "But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you" (Romans 8.9), and he goes on in that same chapter to imply that this presence is a part of grace.
2. To some it will seem curious to find that the Fathers of the Church in earliest ages were not only convinced of the fact of this presence, but appealed triumphantly to it as accepted even by heretics. When, in the early days, a long controversy raged as to whether the Holy Ghost was really God or not, the Fathers argued that since this indwelling of the Spirit was acknowledged on all hands, and since it was proper to God only to dwell in the heart of man, the only possible conclusion was that the Holy Ghost was Divine. The value of the argument is not here in question, but it is interesting to find that this presence was so generally believed in as part of the Christian Faith. In the acts of the martyrs, too, there are frequent references to this, as when St. Lucy declared to the judge that the Spirit of God dwelt in her, and that her body was in very truth the temple and shrine of God. Again, Eusebius relates in his history that Leonidas, the father of Origen, used to kneel by the bedside of the sleeping boy and devoutly and reverently kiss his breast as the tabernacle wherein God dwelt. The child in his innocence and grace is indeed the fittest home on earth for God.
3. This presence, then, of God in the soul is a real, true presence, as real and as true as the presence of Our Lord Himself in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. We look on all that mystery as very wonderful, and indeed it is, that day by day we can be made one with God the Son by receiving His Body and Blood; we know the value to be got out of visits to His hidden presence, the quiet and calm peace such visits produce in our souls; yet so long as we are in a state of grace the same holds true of the Holy Spirit within us. We are not indeed made one with the Holy Ghost in a substantial union such as united together in the Sacred Incarnation God and man; nor is there any overpowering of our personality so that it is swamped by a Divine Person, but we retain it absolutely. The simplest comparison is our union with Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, wherein we receive Him really and truly and are made partakers of His divinity. By grace, then, we receive really and truly God the Holy Ghost and are made partakers of His divinity. If, then, we genuflect to the tabernacle in which the Blessed Sacrament is reserved and treat our Communions as the most solemn moments of our day, then equally we must hold in reverence every simple soul in a state of grace, the souls of others and our own.
1. The fact, then, of this presence has been established and its nature explained. It is a real presence, a real union between the soul and God the Holy Ghost. We have, however, a further point to elucidate, the mode whereby this presence is effected. Now this is twofold in so far as this presence of the Spirit affects the mind and heart of man. First, then, we take the knowledge of God that by this presence is generated in the soul. By natural knowledge we can argue not only to the existence of God, but in some way also to His nature. Not only do we know from the world which He has made that He certainly must Himself have a true existence, but we can even, gradually and carefully, though certainly with some vagueness, argue to God's own divine attributes. His intelligence is evident, His power, His wisdom, His beauty, His providence, His care for created nature. The pagans merely from the world about them painfully, and after many years and with much admixture of error, could yet in the end have their beautiful thoughts about God, and by some amazing instinct have stumbled upon truths which Christianity came fully to establish. The writings of Plato and Aristotle, of some Eastern teachers, of some of the Kings and priests of Egypt, are evidences of the possibility of the natural knowledge about God.
2. Faith, then, came as something over and above the possibilities of nature, not merely as regards the contents, but also as regards the kind of knowledge. Reason argues to God, and, therefore, attains God indirectly. It is like getting an application by letter from an unknown person and guessing his character from the handwriting, the paper, the ink, the spelling, the style. Possibly by this means a very fair estimate may be formed of his capacities and his fitness for the position which we desire him to fill. But faith implies a direct contact with the person who has written the letter. Before us is spread what Longfellow has called "the manuscript of God," and from it we argue to God's character. Then faith comes and puts us straight into connection with God Himself. Theological virtues are the names given to faith, hope, and charity, because they all have God for their direct and proper object. Faith then attains to the very substance of God. It is indeed inadequate in so far as all human forms of thought can only falteringly represent God as compared with the fullness that shall be revealed hereafter, still for all that it gives us, not indirect but direct knowledge of Him. I do not argue by faith to what God is like from seeing His handiwork; but I know what He is like from His descriptions of Himself.
3. Now the indwelling of the Spirit of God gives us a knowledge of God even more wonderful than faith gives, for even faith has to be content with God's descriptions of Himself. In faith I am indeed listening to a Person Who is telling me all about Himself. He is the very truth and all He says is commended to me by the most solemn and certain of motives; but I am still very far from coming absolutely into direct and absolute experience of God. That, indeed, fully and absolutely, can be achieved only in Heaven. It is only there in the beatific vision that the veils will be wholly torn aside and there will be a face to face sight of God, no longer by means of created, and therefore limited, ideas, but an absolute possession of God Himself. Yet though absolutely I must wait for Heaven before I can achieve this, it is none the less true that I can begin it on earth by means of this indwelling of the Spirit of God. This real presence of God in my soul can secure for me what is called an experimental knowledge of God, such as undoubtedly I do have. It is not only that I believe, but I know. Not only have I been told about God, but, at least, in passing glimpses, I have seen Him. We may almost say to the Church what the men of Sichar said to the woman of Samaria, "We now believe, not for thy saying, for we ourselves have heard and know" (John 4.42). "For the Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God" (Romans 8.16).
1. There is something that unites us more closely to our friends than knowledge does, and this is love. Knowledge may teach us about them, may unlock for us gradually throughout life ever more wonderful secrets of their goodness and strength and loyalty. But knowledge of itself pushes us irresistibly on to something more. The more we know of that which is worth knowing, the more we must love it. Now love is greater than knowledge whenever knowledge itself does not really unite us to the object of our knowledge, so that St. Paul can deliberately put charity above faith, since faith is the knowledge of God by means of ideas which are themselves created and limited and inadequate, while charity sweeps us up and carries us right along to God Himself. Hence it was an axiom among the mediæval theologians that love is more unifying than knowledge, so that in the real indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our hearts we must expect to find not only that He is the object of our intelligence, but also that He has a place in our hearts. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive any experimental knowledge which does not also include in it the notion of love.
2. This love or friendship between ourselves and the Holy Spirit, if by friendship we mean anything like that of which we have experience in our human relations, implies three things. First of all, friendship implies that we do not love people for what we can get out of them, for that would be an insult to a friend, for it would mean selfishness or even animal passion. Friendship implies that we come for what we can give far more than that we come for what we can get. We love because we have helped is more often the true order of the origins of friendship than we help because we have loved. Secondly, friendship to be complete must be mutual. There may indeed be love when some poor, forlorn soul is here never requited in its affection, but that is not what we mean by a friend or by friendship. Friendship implies action, a fellow feeling, a desire for each other, a sympathy. Thirdly, friendship also implies necessarily a common bond of likeness, or similarity of condition or life, some equality. Of course it is evident from classic instances that friendship may exist between a shepherd lad and the son of a king (though perhaps Jonathan's princedom was very little removed from shepherd life), yet the very friendship itself must produce equality between them. Said the Latin proverb: "Friendship either finds, or makes men equal."
3. Now, therefore, to be perfectly literal in our use of the word, we must expect to find these things reproduced in our friendship with the Spirit of God; and, wonderful as it is, these things are reproduced. For God certainly loves us for no benefit that He can obtain from His love. He certainly had no need of us, nor do we in any sense fill up anything that is wanting to His life. Before we were, or the world was created, the Ever Blessed Three in One enjoyed to the full the complete peace and joy and energy of existence. We are no late development of His being, but only came because of His inherent goodness that was always prodigal of itself. He is our friend, not for His need, but for ours. He is our friend, not for what He could get, but for what He could give—His life. Again, His friendship is certainly mutual, for as St. John tells: "Let us therefore love God because God first hath loved us" (John 4.19). There is no yearning on our part which is not more than paralleled on His. I can say not only that I love God, but that He is my friend. Thirdly, I may even dare to assert that there is a common bond of likeness and equality between myself and Him. He has stooped to my level only that He may lift me to His own. He became Man that He might make man God, and so, equally, the Holy Spirit dwells in me that I may dwell in Him. "Friendship either finds, or makes men equal." It found us apart, it makes us one. He came divine, perfect, to me, human, imperfect. By grace I am raised to a supernatural level. I know Him in some sort as He is; I am immediately united to Him by the bond of love.
1. This union, then, between God and my soul, effected by grace, is real and true. It is something more than faith can secure, a nearer relationship, a deeper, more personal knowledge, a more ardent and personal love. Indeed, so wonderful is the union effected that the teaching of the Church has been forcibly expressed in Pope Leo XIII'sEncyclical, by saying that the only difference between it and the Vision of Heaven is a difference of condition or state, a difference purely accidental, not essential. Heaven, with all its meaning, its wonders of which eye and ear and heart are ignorant, can be begun here. Moreover, it must be insisted upon, that this is not merely given to chosen souls whose sanctity is so heroic as to qualify them for canonization; it is the heritage of every soul in a state of grace. When I step outside the confessional box after due repentance and the absolution of the priest, I am in a state of grace. At once, then, this blessed union takes effect. Within me is the Holy Spirit, dwelling there, sent, given. As the object of knowledge He can be experienced by me in a personal and familiar way. I can know Him even as I am known. As the object of love He becomes my friend, stooping to my level, lifting me to His. At once, then, though still in a merely rudimentary way, can dawn upon me the glories of my ultimate reward. Even already, upon earth, I have crossed the threshold of Heaven.
2. In order for me to enjoy that ultimate vision of God, two things will be necessary for me. First, I shall need to be strengthened so as to survive the splendor and joy of it. No man can see God and live, for like St. Paul on the road to Damascus, the splendor of the vision would wholly obscure the sight. Just as a tremendous noise will strain the hearing of the ear, or an overbright light will dazzle the eyes to blindness, or an overwhelming joy will break the heart with happiness, so would the vision of God strike with annihilation the poor weak soul. Hence the light of glory, as it is called by the theologians, has to be brought into use. By this is meant that strengthening of the human faculties which enables them without harm to confront the Truth, Goodness, Power, Beauty of God. Secondly, this vision implies an immediate contact with God. It is no question simply of faith or hope, but of sight and possession, so that there should be no more veils, no more reproductions or reflections of God, but God Himself. Those two things sum up what we mean by the Beatific Vision. Now, then, if there is a similarity of kind between that union in heaven and the union that can be reflected on earth, then grace in this life must play the part of the light of glory in the next, and I must be able in consequence to enter into personal relations and immediate contact with God.
3. Such, then, is the likeness between the indwelling of the Spirit on earth, and the beatific vision. Wherein comes the difference? The difference one may say is largely a difference of consciousness. Here on earth I have so much to distract me that I cannot possibly devote myself in the same way as then I shall be able to do. There are things here that have got to be done, and there is the body itself which can only stand a certain amount of concentration and intensity. If strained too much it just breaks down and fails. All this complicates and hampers me. But in heaven I shall take on something (of course a great deal intensified) of the consciousness and alertness of youth. A child can thoroughly enjoy itself, for it has got the happy faculty of forgetting the rest of life, all its troubles, anxieties, fears. Heaven, then, means the lopping off of all those menaces, and the consequent full appreciation of God in knowledge and love. Hence I must not be disturbed if here on earth all these wonderful things which I learn about concerning the indwelling of the Holy Spirit do not seem to take place. It is very unfortunate that I do not appreciate them, but it is something at least to know that they are there. It is a nuisance that I do not see Him, but it is something at least to be certain He is within me.
1. So far it has been taken for granted that this indwelling is proper to the Holy Spirit, but it must now be added that indeed it is really an indwelling of the Blessed Trinity. It is true that very seldom does Scripture speak of the Three Persons as dwelling in the soul, still less of Their being given or sent. But every reason for which we attribute this to the Holy Ghost would hold equally well of the other Two Persons. By grace we are made partakers of God's Divine nature; He comes to us as the object of our knowledge and our love. Why should we suppose that this Divine Presence applies directly only to the Spirit of God? The only reason, of course, is the impressive wording of the New Testament. But even here there are equally strong indications that more than the Holy Ghost is implied: "If any man will love Me he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him. . . . But 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 whatsoever I shall have said to you." Here, then, it is clearly stated that after Our Lord has died His teaching will be upheld by the Spirit, but that this indwelling will include also the abiding presence of Father and Son.
2. Why, then, is it repeated so often that the Holy Ghost is to be sent into our hearts, is to be given to us, is to dwell in our midst? It is for the same reason precisely that we allocate or attribute certain definite acts to the Blessed Persons of the Trinity so as the more easily to discern and appreciate the distinction between Them. In the Creed itself we attribute creation to God, the Father Almighty, though we know that Son and Spirit, also with the Father, called the world out of nothingness. Eternity is often, too, looked upon as peculiarly of the Father, though naturally it is common to the Trinity. Note how frequently in the liturgical prayers of the Church comes the expression, "O, Eternal Father." So again to the Son we attribute Wisdom and Beauty, turning in our imagination to Him as the Word of God, the Figure of His substance, the brightness of His glory, and to the Holy Spirit we more often attribute God's love and God's joy. All these attributions are attempts to make that high mystery and the Three Persons of It alive and distinctive to the human spirit. It is not indeed wholly fancy, but it is the ever active reason endeavoring, for its own better understanding of sacred truths, to give some hint, or find some loophole, whence it shall not be overwhelmed with the greatness of its faith.
3. Consequently, it must be noted that this indwelling of the Spirit of God is not so absolutely and distinctly proper to God, the Holy Ghost, as the Incarnation is proper to God, the Son. There the Son, and He alone, became man. It was His personality alone to which was joined, in a substantial union, human nature. But in this present case there is no such unique connection between the soul and the Spirit of God, but it is rather the Ever Blessed Trinity itself that enters into occupation, and dwells in the heart. Of course that makes the wonder not less, but greater. To think that within the borders of my being is conducted the whole life of the Ever Blessed Three in One; that the Father is for ever knowing Himself in the Son, and that Father and Son are forever loving Themselves in the Spirit; that the power and eternity of the Father, whereby creation was called into being, and by whose fiat the visible world will one day break up and fall to pieces; that the wisdom and beauty of the Son, which catch the soul of man as in the meshes of a net, and drove generations of men to a wandering pilgrimage, at the peril of life, to rescue an empty tomb in the wild fury of a crusade; that the love of the Holy Spirit which completes the life of God, and was typified in the tongues of fire and the rush of a great wind at Pentecost; that the power and eternity of the Father, the wisdom and beauty of the Son, the love and joy of the Spirit, are for all time in my heart. O, what reverence for my human home of God, reverence alike for soul and body!
1. It is very clear that so tremendous a presence as this indwelling implies must have tremendous results. If, as I believe, Father, and Son, and Spirit, are always within me by grace, the effect upon my soul should be considerable. To begin with, the very nearness to God which this indwelling secures must make a great difference to my outlook on life. To have within me the Ever Blessed Trinity is more than an honor, it is a responsibility; it is more than responsibility, for it is the greatest grace of all. To my faith, it makes the whole difference in my attitude to the Mother of God that within her womb for those silent months lay the Incarnate Wisdom. If to touch pitch is to ensure defilement, to be so close to God is to catch the infection of His Divinity. Or, again, I may have envied, times out of number, the wonderful grace whereby, upon the breast of his Master, St. John, the Beloved Disciple, could lovingly lay his head, the joy of so close and so familiar an intimacy with the most beautiful sons of men; or I may have pictured the charming scene when on His knees He took the dear children of His country and spoke to them and fondled them so that in His eyes they could see reflected their own countenances. How life ever after must have been transfigured for them by the memory of that glorious time! Great graces indeed for them all. But what if all life long, by grace, I too can be sure of a union even more splendid, an intimacy more lasting, a friendship surpassing the limits of faith and hope?
2. By grace, then, I receive this indwelling of the Spirit of God, and thereby come into a new and wonderful union with the Ever Blessed Trinity. Now such a union must have its purpose. Our Lord told us that He was going to send to our hearts the Holy Spirit, an embassy from Heaven to earth conducted by a Divine ambassador. The news of the Incarnation, the offer of the Motherhood of God, were made by means of an angel. But here, in my case, to no created official is this wonderful thing confided, only to God Himself. That just shows me the importance of the undertaking. In the political world the interests that turn on a diplomatic mission may be easily guessed to be very great, when the personnel of the staff is found to contain the highest personages in the country. What deep and abiding interests must then be in question when to my soul comes God, the Holy Ghost, sent as the messenger of the Three! I must consequently expect that the results of this indwelling are judged by God to be considerable, and that it is of much moment to me that, one by one, I should discover them. The Incarnation brought its train of attendant effects which I have to study: the redemption, the sacraments, the sanctifying of all immaterial creation by its union through man with the divinity. This indwelling also must therefore have its effects, the knowledge of which must necessarily make a difference to me in life.
3. By Baptism the beginning comes of this great grace. As a child, with my senses hardly at all awake to external life, I had God in my midst. Do I wonder now at the charm of early innocence, when a soul sits silently holding God as its centre? It is not that there are dim memories of a preexistence before birth, but there are always haunting dreams of a true friendship on earth. Baptism then begins that early work. At the moment of conversion, when suddenly I was drawn into a tender realization of God's demands and my own heart's hunger, the indwelling of the Spirit became more consciously operative with its flood of light and love. Since then the sacraments have poured out on me fuller measures of God's grace and that divine Presence therefore should assume larger proportions in my life. I am now the dwelling place of God. When, then, my heart is young, eager, enthusiastic, let me make Him welcome; nor wait till the only habitation I can offer is in ruins, leaking through an ill-patched roof. A dwelling place for God! How reverently, then, shall I treat and treasure my body and soul, for they must be as fit as I can make them for the great Guest. By reason we learn of Him, by faith we know Him, but by His indwelling we taste the sweetness of His presence.
1. To understand this first and great effect of grace I must know what sin is, and to grasp sin in its fullness I must comprehend God. To see the heinousness of what is done against Him I must first realize what He is Himself. I have to go through all my ideas of God, my ideas of His majesty, His power, His tenderness, His justice, His mercy. I have got to realize all that He has done for man before I can take in the meaning of man's actions against God. I have to be conscious of the Incarnation, of the story of that perfect life, the privations of it, the culminating horror of the Passion and Death, then of the Resurrection, the patient teaching of those forty days when He spoke of the Kingdom of God which He was setting up on earth, the Ascension, which did not mean an end, but only the beginning of His work for men on earth. At once there opened the wonderful stream of graces which flow through the sacraments, and which therefore make continuous upon the world till its consummation, His abiding presence, for the tale of the Blessed Sacrament only adds to the wonders of the tenderness and mercy of God. In Heaven, by ever trying to make intercession for us, on earth, by holding out through the sacraments countless ways of grace, It shows to us something at least of the perfect character of God. Now it is against one so perfect, so tender, so divine, that sin is committed, a wanton, brutal outrage against an almost overfond love. Ingratitude, treachery, disloyalty, united in the basest form.
2. God is just, as well as merciful, so that there had to be an immediate result of sin. Man might see no difference between himself before and after he had sinned; but for all that a great difference was set up. His soul had been on terms of friendship with God, for it had turned irresistibly to Him, as a flower growing in a dark place turns irresistibly to where the hardy daylight makes its way into the gloom. That friendship is at once broken, for sin means that the soul has deliberately turned its back upon God and is facing the other way, and thus it has been able by some fatal power to prevent God's everlasting love having any effect upon it. God cannot hate; but we can stop His love from touching us. At once, then, by grievous sin the soul becomes despoiled of its supernatural goods: sanctifying grace, which is the pledge and expression of God's friendship, naturally is banished; charity, which is nothing else than the love of God, the infused virtues, the gifts, are all taken away. Faith only and hope survive, but emptied of their richness of life. Externally no difference, but internally friendship with God, the right to the eternal heritage, the merits heretofore stored up—all lost. Even God Himself goes out from the midst of the soul, as the Romans heard the voice crying from the Temple just before its destruction:Let us go hence. Let us go hence.
3. Grace, then, operates to restore all these lost wonders. Sin itself is forgiven, all the ingratitude and disloyalty put one side; not simply in the sense that God forgets them, or chooses not to consider them, but in the sense that they are completely wiped away. It is the parable of the Good Shepherd where the sheep is brought back again into the fold, and mixes freely with the others who have never left the presence of their Master. It is the parable of the prodigal son taken back into his father's embrace. That is what the forgiveness of sin implies. God is once more back again in the soul. He had always been there as the Creator without Whose supporting hand the soul would be back in its nothingness; but He is now there again as Father, and Master, and Friend. Not the saints only who have been endowed with a genius for divine things, but every simple soul that has had its sins forgiven, comes at once into that embrace. We are far too apt to look upon forgiveness as a merely negative thing, a removal, a cleansing, and not enough as a return to something great and good and beautiful, the triumphant entrance into our souls of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
1. There is something in the forgiveness of sin which implies an element of positive good, and this is called justification. It means that the attitude of God towards forgiven sin is believed by the Catholic Church to be no mere neglect or forgetfulness of its evil, but an actual and complete forgiveness. At the time of the Protestant Reformation a long controversy was waged over this very point, in which the Reformers took up the curious position that forgiveness implied nothing more than that God did not impute sin. He covered up the iniquities of the soul with the Blood of His Son, and no longer peered beneath the depths of that sacred and saving sign. The problem has probably hardly any meaning now, since the original doctrinal principles of Protestantism, the ostensible reasons for the sixteenth century revolt, have been abandoned long since as hopeless of defence. In fact all that was really positive in Protestantism has been ruined by its basic negative principle of private judgment. Against such a battering ram Christianity itself is powerless. But that long-forgotten discussion had this much of value, that it brought out in clear perspective the fullness of the Catholic teaching on the central doctrine of justification and showed its depth and meaning.
2. Briefly, then, it may be stated that it is not simply that God does not impute evil, but that He forgives it. It is as though a rebellion had taken place and its leader had been captured and brought before his offended sovereign. Now the king might do either of two things, if he wished not to punish the culprit. He might simply bid him go off and never appear again, or he might go even further by actually forgiving the rebellion and receiving back into favor the rebel. It is one thing to say that no punishment will be awarded, it is another to say that the crime is forgiven, and that everything is to go on as though nothing had happened. In the first case we might say that the king chose not to impute the sin, in the other that he forgave and justified the sinner. It is just this, then, that the Catholic Church means when she teaches justification as implied in the idea of forgiveness. It is just this, too, that Our Lord meant when He detailed His beautiful parable about the prodigal son. The boy's return home does not mean merely that the father refrains from punishment, but rather that there is a welcome so hearty and so complete that the serious-minded elder brother, coming in from his long labor in the fields, is rather scandalized by its suddenness and its intensity. Such is indeed God's treatment of the soul. He is so generous, so determined not to be outdone by any sorrow on the part of the sinner, that He overwhelms with the most splendid favors the recently converted soul.
3. But in this connection we must see in justification a process by which the Presence of God is again achieved by man. By sin grace was lost, and with grace went out the Divine Three in One, the temple was desecrated, the veil of the Holy of Holies was utterly rent. Then sin is forgiven and, once more, the Sacred home is occupied by God. Moreover, when God comes to the soul He comes with His full strength of love, and thereby gives a new energy and life to man. We love because of some beauty, goodness, excellence, that we see in others. We love, then, because of what is in them. It is their gifts that cause or ignite our love. But God, Who is the only cause Himself, creates excellences by love. We are not loved because we are good; we are good because we are loved, so that this indwelling itself fashions us after God's own heart. "It is the love of God," says St. Thomas (Summa theologica, i, 20.2), "that produces and creates goodness in things." The divine presence, then, of God in the soul, effected by sanctifying grace, makes the soul more worthy a temple, more fit a home. God does not come to us because we are fit, but we are fit because God comes to us.
1. This very strong expression is used by St. Augustine and many of the Fathers to describe one of the effects of grace. By grace we are deified, i. e., made into gods. Right at the beginning of all the woes of humanity when, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve first were tempted, the lying spirit promised that the reward of disobedience would be that they should become "as gods." The result of sin could hardly be that, so man, made only a little lower than the angels, can at times find himself rebuked by the very beasts. Yet the promise became in the end fulfilled, since the Incarnation really affected that transformation, and God, by becoming human, made man himself divine. St. Peter, in his second epistle (4.1), insinuates the same truth when he describes the great promises of Christ making us "partakers of the Divine Nature." The work, then, of grace is something superhuman and divine. Creation pours into us the divine gift of existence and therefore makes us partakers in the divine being, for existence implies a participation in the being of God. The indwelling of the Blessed Trinity, then, does even more, for by it we participate not only in the divine being, but in the divine nature, and fulfill the prophecy of Our Lord: "Ye are gods." Justification, therefore, is a higher gift than creation, since it does more for us.
2. This divine participation is what is implied in many texts which allude to the sacrament of Baptism, for the purpose of Baptism is just that, to make us children of God. The phrases concerning "new birth" and "being born again" all are intended to convey the same idea, that the soul by means of this sacrament is lifted above its normal existence and lives a new life. This life is lived "with Christ in God," i. e., it is a sort of entrance within the charmed circle of the Trinity, or, more accurately, it is that the Blessed Trinity inhabits our soul and enters into our own small life, which at once therefore takes on a new and higher importance. In it henceforth there can be nothing small or mean. For the same reason Our Lord speaks of it to the Samaritan woman as "thegift of God," beside which all His other benefactions fade into nothingness. Again, it is a "fountain of living water," it is a "refreshment," it is "life" itself. Not the stagnant water that remains in a pool in some dark wood, but a stream gushing out from its source, fertilizing the ground on every side, soaking through to all the thirsting roots about it, giving freshness and vitality to the whole district through which it wanders. Life indeed it bears as its great gift; and so does sanctifying grace carry within it the fertilizing power needed by the soul.
3. The participation in the Divine Nature is therefore no mere metaphor, but is a real fact. The indwelling of God makes the soul like to God. I find myself influenced by the people with whom I live, picking up their expressions, copying their tricks and habits, following out their thoughts, absorbing their principles, growing daily like them. With God at the centre of my life the same effect is produced, and slowly, patiently, almost unconsciously, I find myself infected by His spirit. What He loves becomes my ideal; what He hates, my detestation. But it is even closer than this, no mere concord of wills nor harmony of ideas, a real and true elevation to the life of God. Grace is formally in God, at the back, so to say, of His divine nature, the inner essence of Himself. By receiving it, therefore, I receive something of God, and begin to be able to perform divine actions. I can begin to know God even as I am known, to taste His sweetness, and by His favor to have personal, experimental knowledge of Himself. To act divinely is only possible to those who are made divine. This, then, becomes the formal union with God, its terms, its end, its purpose. Deified, therefore, we become in our essence by grace, in our intelligence by its light, in our will by charity.
1. Here again we have to realize that the sonship of God is no mere metaphor, no mere name, but a deep and true fact of huge significance: "Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called and should be the sons of God!" (1 John 3). We become the sons of God. St. Paul very gladly quotes the saying of a Greek poet that men are the offspring of God, making use of a particular word which necessarily implies that both the begetter and the begotten are of the same nature. A sonship indeed is what Our Lord is Himself incessantly teaching the Apostles to regard as their high privilege, for God is not only His Father, but theirs: "Thus shalt thou pray, Our Father." With the Gospels it is in constant use as the view of God that Christianity came especially to teach. The Epistles are equally insistent on the same view, for St. Paul is perpetually calling to mind the wonderful prerogatives whereby we cry, "Abba: Father." We are spoken of as co-heirs of Christ, as children of God. St. John, St. Peter, and St. James repeat the same message as the evident result of the Incarnation, for by it we learn that God became the Son of Man, and man the son of God.
2. Yet it must also be admitted that this sonship of God, which is the common property of all just souls, and is the result of the indwelling of God in the soul, does not mean that we are so by nature, but only by adoption. Now adoption, as it is practiced by law, implies that the child to be adopted is not already the son, that the new relationship is entered upon entirely at the free choice of the person adopting, that the child becomes the legal heir to the inheritance of the adopting father. It is perfectly evident that all these conditions are fulfilled in the case of God's adoption, for we were certainly no children of His before His adoption of us as sons; strangers we were, estranged indeed by the absence of grace and the high gifts of God. Naturally we were made by Him, but had put ourselves far from Him: "You were as sheep going astray." Then this adoption of us by God was indeed and could only have been at His free choice, through no merits of ours, but solely according to the deliberate action of His own will, for "you have not chosen Me but I have chosen you." "So that it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." Finally, the inheritance is indeed ours by right and title of legal inheritance. We are co-heirs with Christ, and our human nature is lifted up to the level of God; not, of course, that we supplant Him who is by nature the true Son of God, but that we are taken into partnership with Him, and share in Him the wonderful riches of God.
3. Here, then, I may learn the worth and dignity of the Christian name. I am a true son of God, and what else matters upon earth? I have indeed to go about my life with its vocation and all that is entailed in it. I have to work for my living, it may be, or take my place in the family, or lead my own solitary existence. I have to strive to be efficient and effective in the material things of life that fall to my share to be done. But it is this sonship of God that alone makes any matter in the world. In our own time we have heard a very great deal about culture and the ultimate value of the world; but we have seen also to what evil ends so fine a truth may lead men. True culture is not a question of scientific attainments, or mechanical progress, or the discovery of new inventions of destruction, or even of medical and useful sciences; but it is the perfect and complete development of the latent powers of the soul. True culture may indeed make use of sciences and art; perhaps in its most complete sense science and art are needed for the most finished culture of which man is capable; but it is in its very essence the deepening of his truest desire, the full stretch of his widest flights of fancy, the achievement of his noblest ideals. What nobler ideal, or fancy, or desire, can a man have than to be called and to be the son of God; to know that he has been drawn into the close union of God; to feel within his very essence the presence of God; to have personal experience as the objects of his knowledge and love of the Father, Son, and Spirit?