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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abiding Presence of the Holy Ghost in
+the Soul, by Bede Jarrett
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Abiding Presence of the Holy Ghost in the Soul
+
+Author: Bede Jarrett
+
+Release Date: January 5, 2011 [EBook #34855]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABIDING PRESENCE OF HOLY GHOST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michael Gray, Diocese of San Jose
+
+
+
+
+  THE ABIDING PRESENCE
+
+  OF
+
+  THE HOLY GHOST IN THE SOUL
+
+
+
+  BY
+
+  BEDE JARRETT, O.P.
+
+
+
+  THE NEWMAN BOOKSHOP
+  Westminster, Maryland
+
+
+
+NIHIL OBSTAT
+
+  A. R. P. RAPHAEL MOSS, O.P., S.T.L.
+  R. P. AELRED WHITACRE, O.P., S.T.L.
+
+NIHIL OBSTAT
+
+  ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, D.D.
+  _Censor Deputatus_
+
+IMPRIMATUR:
+
+  JOHN CARD. FARLEY
+  Archbishop of New York
+
+March 21st, 1918
+
+
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+In English-speaking countries the Church has been at a
+disadvantage in the way in which she has had to expound her
+doctrine, for she has been forced for many years to limit her
+attention just to those parts of her teaching wherein the
+Protestant bodies parted company from her. Without any desire to
+stir up barren controversy, she has naturally in self-defence been
+at pains most precisely to define those portions of her gospel
+most likely to be misunderstood. This has resulted, unfortunately,
+in her leaving in the background the other mysteries of faith,
+often richer in themselves, more helpful to her children. Now,
+however, that she is becoming more able to realize herself to the
+modern world, an opportunity opens for explaining hidden
+doctrines, of which the value to the Catholic in the development
+of his inner life is considerable.
+
+It is to further this development that these meditations have been
+drawn up, since hardly anything can render us more sensible of our
+worth and Christian dignity than does the teaching of Our Lord on
+the indwelling of the Spirit of God. Cardinal Manning has indeed
+made this the subject of two volumes, _The Internal Working of the
+Holy Ghost_ and _The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost_, which
+are still obtainable, and there are also such books as _Sermons on
+the Holy Ghost_ (Cathedral Library Association).
+
+But as yet in English there is no such direct exposition of
+Catholic teaching as Pere Barthelemy Froget, O. P., has attempted
+in his _De l'Inhabitation du S. Esprit dans les ames justes_
+(Lethielleux, Paris, 1890). Like nearly all the doctrinal works of
+French origin, this treatise seems at times to suppose among the
+laity a deeper knowledge of the rudiments of scholastic philosophy
+than usually obtains among us, though the author has endeavored to
+help this out by occasional notes or explanations. To avoid this
+difficulty (which a mere translation would not lessen, but
+increase), the material of the book has been rearranged in a
+series of meditations which will, it is hoped, bring out in an
+easier form what might otherwise be too abstruse to be of general
+interest.
+
+The wonderful beauty of the Church's teaching on this abiding
+presence of the Holy Ghost, while it deepens our acquaintance with
+His mysterious governance of the universe and discovers to us the
+hidden beauties of our soul's life, should bring also its measure
+of comfort, for whatever makes us conscious of the intimacy of
+God's dealing with us lessens life's greatest trouble, its
+loneliness.
+
+          BEDE JARRETT, O. P.
+
+  THE RECTORY OF OUR LADY OF LOURDES,
+
+  _New York, February_ 11, 1918
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+
+  PREFACE
+  ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF LEO XIII, 9TH MAY, 1897
+  GOD'S PRESENCE
+  DEGREES OF GOD'S PRESENCE
+  GOD'S SPECIAL PRESENCE IN THE JUST
+  NATURE OF THIS PRESENCE
+  MODE OF THIS PRESENCE, KNOWLEDGE
+  MODE OF THIS PRESENCE, LOVE
+  THIS PRESENCE IS OF THE SAME NATURE AS THAT IN HEAVEN
+  THIS PRESENCE COMMON TO THE WHOLE TRINITY
+  THIS PRESENCE HAS CERTAIN EFFECTS
+  FORGIVENESS OF SIN
+  JUSTIFICATION
+  DEIFICATION
+  ADOPTED SONSHIP
+  HEIRS OF GOD
+  GUIDANCE IN SPIRITUAL LIFE
+  GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
+  BEATITUDES
+  FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT
+  KNOWLEDGE
+  UNDERSTANDING
+  WISDOM
+  COUNSEL
+  FORTITUDE
+  PIETY
+  FEAR OF THE LORD
+  GRACE
+
+
+
+  THE ABIDING PRESENCE
+  OF THE HOLY GHOST
+  IN THE SOUL
+
+ENCYCLICAL LETTER FOR PENTECOST, 1897 [1]
+
+  TO OUR VENERABLE BRETHREN,
+  THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS,
+  BISHOPS, AND OTHER LOCAL ORDINARIES
+  HAVING PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE
+  HOLY SEE
+
+LEO XIII, POPE
+
+
+[1] This translation is the official form that appeared in the
+London _Tablet_, June 5, 1897.
+
+
+VENERABLE BRETHREN,
+HEALTH AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION
+
+That divine office which Jesus Christ received from His Father for
+the welfare of mankind, and most perfectly fulfilled, had for its
+final object to put men in possession of the eternal life of
+glory, and proximately during the course of ages to secure to them
+the life of divine grace, which is destined eventually to blossom
+into the life of heaven. Wherefore, our Saviour never ceases to
+invite, with infinite affection, all men, of every race and
+tongue, into the bosom of His Church: "Come ye all to Me," "I am
+the Life," "I am the Good Shepherd." Nevertheless, according to
+His inscrutable counsels, He did not will entirely to complete and
+finish this office Himself on earth, but as He had received it
+from the Father, so He transmitted it for its completion to the
+Holy Ghost. It is consoling to recall those assurances which
+Christ gave to the body of His disciples a little before He left
+the earth: "It is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the
+Paraclete will not come to you: but if I go, I will send Him to
+you" (1 John 16.7). In these words He gave as the chief reason of
+His departure and His return to the Father, the advantage which
+would most certainly accrue to His followers from the coming of
+the Holy Ghost, and, at the same time, He made it clear that the
+Holy Ghost is equally sent by--and therefore proceeds from--
+Himself and the Father; that He would complete, in His office of
+Intercessor, Consoler, and Teacher, the work which Christ Himself
+had begun in His mortal life. For, in the redemption of the world,
+the completion of the work was by Divine Providence reserved to
+the manifold power of that Spirit who, in the creation, "adorned
+the heavens" (Job 26.13), and "filled the whole world" (Wisdom
+1.7).
+
+THE TWO PRINCIPAL AIMS OF OUR PONTIFICATE
+
+Now We have earnestly striven, by the help of His grace, to follow
+the example of Christ, Our Saviour, the Prince of Pastors, and the
+Bishop of our Souls, by diligently carrying on His office,
+entrusted by Him to the Apostles and chiefly to Peter, "whose
+dignity faileth not, even in his unworthy successor" (St. Leo the
+Great, Sermon 2, On the Anniversary of his Election). In pursuance
+of this object We have endeavored to direct all that We have
+attempted and persistently carried out during a long pontificate
+towards two chief ends: in the first place, towards the
+restoration, both in rulers and peoples, of the principles of the
+Christian life in civil and domestic society, since there is no
+true life for men except from Christ; and, secondly, to promote
+the reunion of those who have fallen away from the Catholic Church
+either by heresy or by schism, since it is most undoubtedly the
+will of Christ that all should be united in one flock under one
+Shepherd. But now that We are looking forward to the approach of
+the closing days of Our life, Our soul is deeply moved to dedicate
+to the Holy Ghost, who is the life-giving Love, all the work We
+have done during Our pontificate, that He may bring it to maturity
+and fruitfulness. In order the better and more fully to carry out
+this Our intention, We have resolved to address you at the
+approaching sacred season of Pentecost concerning the indwelling
+and miraculous power of the Holy Ghost; and the extent and
+efficiency of His action, both in the whole body of the Church and
+in the individual souls of its members, through the glorious
+abundance of His divine graces. We earnestly desire that, as a
+result, faith may be aroused in your minds concerning the mystery
+of the adorable Trinity, and especially that piety may increase
+and be inflamed towards the Holy Ghost, to whom especially all of
+us owe the grace of following the paths of truth and virtue; for,
+as St. Basil said, "Who denieth that the dispensations concerning
+man, which have been made by the great God and our Saviour, Jesus
+Christ, according to the goodness of God, have been fulfilled
+through the grace of the Spirit?" (Of the Holy Ghost, c. 16, v.
+39.)
+
+THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF THE BLESSED TRINITY
+
+Before we enter upon this subject, it will be both desirable and
+useful to say a few words about the Mystery of the Blessed
+Trinity. This dogma is called by the doctors of the Church "the
+substance of the New Testament," that is to say, the greatest of
+all mysteries, since it is the fountain and origin of them all. In
+order to know and contemplate this mystery, the angels were
+created in Heaven and men upon earth. In order to teach more fully
+this mystery, which was but foreshadowed in the Old Testament, God
+Himself came down from the angels unto men: "No man hath seen God
+at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the
+Father, He hath declared Him" (John 1.18). Whosoever then writes
+or speaks of the Trinity must keep before his eyes the prudent
+warning of the Angelic Doctor: "When we speak of the Trinity, we
+must do so with caution and modesty, for, as St. Augustine saith,
+nowhere else are more dangerous errors made, or is research more
+difficult, or discovery more fruitful" (_Summ. Th._ 1a, q. 31. _De
+Trin._ 1. 1, c. 3). The danger that arises is lest the Divine
+Persons be confounded one with the other in faith or worship, or
+lest the one Nature in them be separated: for "This is the
+Catholic Faith, that we should adore one God in Trinity and
+Trinity in Unity." Therefore Our predecessor Innocent XII
+absolutely refused the petition of those who desired a special
+festival in honor of God the Father. For, although the separate
+mysteries connected with the Incarnate Word are celebrated on
+certain fixed days, yet there is no special feast on which the
+Word is honored according to His Divine Nature alone. And even the
+Feast of Pentecost was instituted in the earliest times, not
+simply to honor the Holy Ghost in Himself, but to commemorate His
+coming, or His external mission. And all this has been wisely
+ordained, lest from distinguishing the Persons men should be led
+to distinguish the Divine Essence. Moreover, the Church, in order
+to preserve in her children the purity of faith, instituted the
+Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, which John XXII afterwards
+extended to the Universal Church. He also permitted altars and
+churches to be dedicated to the Blessed Trinity, and, with the
+divine approval, sanctioned the Order for the Ransom of Captives,
+which is specially devoted to the Blessed Trinity and bears Its
+name. Many facts confirm this truth. The worship paid to the
+saints and angels, to the Mother of God, and to Christ Himself,
+finally redounds to the honor of the Blessed Trinity. In prayers
+addressed to one Person, there is also mention of the others; in
+the litanies after the individual Persons have been separately
+invoked, a common invocation of all is added: all psalms and hymns
+conclude with the doxology to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;
+blessings, sacred rites, and sacraments are either accompanied or
+concluded by the invocation of the Blessed Trinity. This was
+already foreshadowed by the Apostle in those words: "For of Him,
+and by Him, and in Him, are all things: to Him be glory for ever"
+(Rom. 11.36), thereby signifying both the Trinity of Persons and
+the Unity of Nature: for as this is one and the same in each of
+the Persons, so to each is equally owing supreme glory, as to one
+and the same God. St. Augustine, commenting upon this testimony,
+writes: "The words of the Apostle, _of Him, and by Him, and in
+Him_, are not to be taken indiscriminately; _of Him_ refers to the
+Father, _by Him_ to the Son, _in Him_ to the Holy Ghost" (_De
+Trin_. 1. vi, c. 10; 1. i, c. 6). The Church is accustomed most
+fittingly to attribute to the Father those works of the Divinity
+in which power excels, to the Son those in which wisdom excels,
+and those in which love excels to the Holy Ghost. Not that all
+perfections and external operations are not common to the Divine
+Persons; for "the operations of the Trinity are indivisible, even
+as the essence of the Trinity is indivisible" (St. Aug. _De
+Trin_., 1. 1, cc. 4-5); because as the three Divine Persons "are
+inseparable, so do they act inseparably" (St. Aug., _ib_). But by
+a certain comparison, and a kind of affinity between the
+operations and the properties of the Persons, these operations are
+attributed or, as it is said, "appropriated" to One Person rather
+than to the others. "Just as we make use of the traces of
+similarity or likeness which we find in creatures for the
+manifestation of the Divine Persons, so do we use Their essential
+attributes; and this manifestation of the Persons by Their
+essential attributes is called _appropriation_" (St. Th. 1a, q.
+39, xxxix, a. 7). In this manner the Father, who is "the principle
+of the whole God-head" (St. Aug., _De Trin_., 1. iv, c. 20), is
+also the efficient cause of all things, of the Incarnation of the
+Word, and the sanctification of souls; "of Him are all things":
+_of Him_, referring to the Father. But the Son, the Word, the
+Image of God, is also the exemplar cause, whence all creatures
+borrow their form and beauty, their order and harmony. He is for
+us the Way, the Truth, and the Life; the Reconciler of man with
+God. "By Him are all things": _by Him_, referring to the Son. The
+Holy Ghost is the ultimate cause of all things, since, as the will
+and all other things finally rest in their end, so He, who is the
+Divine Goodness and the Mutual Love of the Father and Son,
+completes and perfects, by His strong yet gentle power, the secret
+work of man's eternal salvation. "In Him are all things": _in
+Him_, referring to the Holy Ghost.
+
+THE HOLY GHOST AND THE INCARNATION
+
+Having thus paid due tribute of faith and worship owing to the
+Blessed Trinity, which ought to be more and more inculcated upon
+the Christian people, we now turn to the exposition of the power
+of the Holy Ghost. And, first of all, we must look to Christ, the
+Founder of the Church and the Redeemer of our race. Among the
+external operations of God, the highest of all is the mystery of
+the Incarnation of the Word, in which the splendor of the divine
+perfections shines forth so brightly that nothing more sublime can
+even be imagined, nothing else could have been more salutary to
+the human race. Now this work, although belonging to the whole
+Trinity, is still appropriated especially to the Holy Ghost, so
+that the Gospels thus speak of the Blessed Virgin: "She was found
+with child of the Holy Ghost," and "that which is conceived in her
+is of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 1.18, 20). And this is rightly
+attributed to Him who is the love of the Father and the Son, since
+this "great mystery of piety" (1 Tim. 3.16) proceeds from the
+infinite love of God towards man, as St. John tells us: "God so
+loved the world as to give His only begotten Son" (John 3.16).
+Moreover, human nature was thereby elevated to a _personal_ union
+with the Word; and this dignity is given, not on account of any
+merits, but entirely and absolutely through grace, and therefore,
+as it were, through the special gift of the Holy Ghost. On this
+point St. Augustine writes: "This manner in which Christ was born
+of the Holy Ghost, indicates to us the grace of God, by which
+humanity, with no antecedent merits, at the first moment of its
+existence, was united with the Word of God, by so intimate a
+personal union, that He, who was the Son of Man, was also the Son
+of God, and He who was the Son of God was also the Son of Man"
+(_Enchir_., c. xl; St. Th., 3a, q. xxxii, a. 1). By the operation
+of the Holy Spirit, not only was the conception of Christ
+accomplished, but also the sanctification of His soul, which, in
+Holy Scripture, is called His "anointing" (Acts 10.38). Wherefore
+all His actions were "performed in the Holy Ghost" (St. Basil _de
+Sp. S_., c. xvi), and especially the sacrifice of Himself:
+"Christ, through the Holy Ghost, offered Himself without spot to
+God" (Heb. 9.14). Considering this, no one can be surprised that
+all the gifts of the Holy Ghost inundated the soul of Christ. In
+Him resided the absolute fullness of grace, in the greatest and
+most efficacious manner possible; in Him were all the treasures of
+wisdom and knowledge, graces _gratis datae_, virtues, and all
+other gifts foretold in the prophecies of Isaias (Is. 4.1, 11.23),
+and also signified in that miraculous dove which appeared at the
+Jordan, when Christ, by His baptism, consecrated its waters for a
+new sacrament. On this the words of St. Augustine may
+appropriately be quoted: "It would be absurd to say that Christ
+received the Holy Ghost when He was already thirty years of age,
+for He came to His baptism without sin, and therefore not without
+the Holy Ghost. At this time, then (that is, at His baptism), He
+was pleased to prefigure His Church, in which those especially who
+are baptized receive the Holy Ghost" (_De Trin_., 1. xv, c. 26).
+Therefore, by the conspicuous apparition of the Holy Ghost over
+Christ and by His invisible power in His soul, the twofold mission
+of the Spirit is foreshadowed, namely, His outward and visible
+mission in the Church, and His secret indwelling in the souls of
+the just.
+
+THE HOLY GHOST AND THE CHURCH
+
+The Church which, already conceived, came forth from the side of
+the second Adam in His sleep on the Cross, first showed herself
+before the eyes of men on the great day of Pentecost. On that day
+the Holy Ghost began to manifest His gifts in the mystic body of
+Christ, by that miraculous outpouring already foreseen by the
+prophet Joel (2.28-29), for the Paraclete "sat upon the apostles
+as though new spiritual crowns were placed upon their heads in
+tongues of fire" (S. Cyril Hier. _Catech_. 17). Then the apostles
+"descended from the mountain," as St. John Chrysostom writes, "not
+bearing in their hands tables of stone like Moses, but carrying
+the Spirit in their mind, and pouring forth the treasure and the
+fountain of doctrines and graces" (_In Matt_. Hom. I, 2 Cor. 3.3).
+Thus was fully accomplished that last promise of Christ to His
+apostles of sending the Holy Ghost, who was to complete and, as it
+were, to seal the deposit of doctrine committed to them under His
+inspiration. "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot
+bear them now; but when He, the Spirit of Truth, shall come, He
+will teach you all truth" (John 16.12-13). For He who is the
+Spirit of Truth, inasmuch as He proceedeth both from the Father,
+who is the eternally True, and from the Son, who is the
+substantial Truth, receiveth from each both His essence and the
+fullness of all truth. This truth He communicates to His Church,
+guarding her by His all powerful help from ever falling into
+error, and aiding her to foster daily more and more the germs of
+divine doctrine and to make them fruitful for the welfare of the
+peoples. And since the welfare of the peoples, for which the
+Church was established, absolutely requires that this office
+should be continued for all time, the Holy Ghost perpetually
+supplies life and strength to preserve and increase the Church. "I
+will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that
+He may abide with you for ever, the Spirit of Truth" (John 16. 16,
+17).
+
+By Him the bishops are constituted, and by their ministry are
+multiplied not only the children, but also the fathers that is to
+say, the priests to rule and feed the Church by that Blood
+wherewith Christ has redeemed Her. "The Holy Ghost hath placed you
+bishops to rule the Church of God, which He hath purchased with
+His own Blood" (Acts 20. 28). And both bishops and priests, by the
+miraculous gift of the Spirit, have the power of absolving sins,
+according to those words of Christ to the Apostles: "Receive ye
+the Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven
+them, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained" (John
+20.22, 23). That the Church is a divine institution is most
+clearly proved by the splendor and glory of those gifts with which
+she is adorned, and whose author and giver is the Holy Ghost. Let
+it suffice to state that, as Christ is the Head of the Church, so
+is the Holy Ghost her soul. "What the soul is in our body, that is
+the Holy Ghost in Christ's body, the Church" (St. Aug., _Serm_.
+187, _de Temp_.). This being so, no further and fuller
+"manifestation and revelation of the Divine Spirit" may be
+imagined or expected; for that which now takes place in the Church
+is the most perfect possible, and will last until that day when
+the Church herself, having passed through her militant career,
+shall be taken up into the joy of the saints triumphing in heaven.
+
+THE HOLY GHOST IN THE SOULS OF THE JUST
+
+The manner and extent of the action of the Holy Ghost in
+individual souls is no less wonderful, although somewhat more
+difficult to understand, inasmuch as it is entirely invisible.
+This outpouring of the Spirit is so abundant, that Christ Himself,
+from whose gift it proceeds, compares it to an overflowing river,
+according to those words of St. John: "He that believeth in Me, as
+the Scripture saith, out of his midst shall flow rivers of living
+water"; to which testimony the Evangelist adds the explanation:
+"Now this He said of the Spirit which they should receive who
+believed in Him" (John 7.38, 39). It is indeed true that in those
+of the just who lived before Christ, the Holy Ghost resided by
+grace, as we read in the Scriptures concerning the prophets,
+Zachary, John the Baptist, Simeon, and Anna; so that on Pentecost
+the Holy Ghost did not communicate Himself in such a way "as then
+for the first time to begin to dwell in the saints, but by pouring
+Himself forth more abundantly; crowning, not beginning His gifts;
+not commencing a new work, but giving more abundantly" (St. Leo
+the Great, Hom. iii, _de Pentec_.). But if they also were numbered
+among the children of God, they were in a state like that of
+servants, for "as long as the heir is a child he differeth nothing
+from a servant, but is under tutors and governors" (Gal. 4.1, 2).
+Moreover, not only was their justice derived from the merits of
+Christ who was to come, but the communication of the Holy Ghost
+after Christ was much more abundant, just as the price surpasses
+in value the earnest and the reality excels the image. Wherefore
+St. John declares: "As yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus
+was not yet glorified" (John 7.39). So soon, therefore, as Christ,
+"ascending on high," entered into possession of the glory of His
+Kingdom which He had won with so much labor, He munificently
+opened out the treasures of the Holy Ghost: "He gave gifts to men"
+(Eph. 4.8). For "that giving or sending forth of the Holy Ghost
+after Christ's glorification was to be such as had never been
+before; not that there had been none before, but it had not been
+of the same kind" (St. Aug., _De Trin_., 1. iv, c. 20).
+
+Human nature is by necessity the servant of God: "The creature is
+a servant; we are the servants of God by nature" (St. Cyr. Alex.,
+_Thesaur_., 1. v, c. 5). On account, however, of original sin, our
+whole nature had fallen into such guilt and dishonor that we had
+become enemies of God. "We were by nature the children of wrath"
+(Eph. 2.3). There was no power which could raise us and deliver us
+from this ruin and eternal destruction. But God, the Creator of
+mankind and infinitely merciful, did this through His only
+begotten Son, by whose benefit it was brought about that man was
+restored to that rank and dignity whence he had fallen, and was
+adorned with still more abundant graces. No one can express the
+greatness of this work of divine grace in the souls of men.
+Wherefore, both in Holy Scripture and in the writings of the
+fathers, men are styled regenerated, new creatures, partakers of
+the Divine Nature, children of God, godlike, and similar epithets.
+Now these great blessings are justly attributed as especially
+belonging to the Holy Ghost. He is "the Spirit of adoption of
+sons, whereby we cry: Abba, Father." He fills our hearts with the
+sweetness of paternal love: "The Spirit Himself giveth testimony
+to our spirit that we are the sons of God" (Rom. 8.15, 16). This
+truth accords with the similitude observed by the Angelic Doctor
+between both operations of the Holy Ghost; for through Him "Christ
+was conceived in holiness to be by nature the Son of God," and
+"others are sanctified to be the sons of God by adoption" (St. Th.
+3a, q. xxxii, a. 1). This spiritual generation proceeds from love
+in a much more noble manner than the natural: namely, from the
+uncreated Love.
+
+The beginnings of this regeneration and renovation of man are by
+Baptism. In this sacrament, when the unclean spirit has been
+expelled from the soul, the Holy Ghost enters in and makes it like
+to Himself. "That which is born of the Spirit, is spirit" (John
+3.6). The same Spirit gives Himself more abundantly in
+Confirmation, strengthening and confirming Christian life; from
+which proceeded the victory of the martyrs and the triumph of the
+virgins over temptations and corruptions. We have said that the
+Holy Ghost gives Himself: "the charity of God is poured out into
+our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us" (Rom. 5.5). For
+He not only brings to us His divine gifts, but is the Author of
+them and is Himself the supreme Gift, who, proceeding from the
+mutual love of the Father and the Son, is justly believed to be
+and is called "Gift of God most High." To show the nature and
+efficacy of this gift it is well to recall the explanation given
+by the doctors of the Church of the words of Holy Scripture. They
+say that God is present and exists in all things, "by His power,
+in so far as all things are subject to His power; by His presence,
+inasmuch as all things are naked and open to His eyes; by His
+essence, inasmuch as He is present to all as the cause of their
+being" (St. Th. 1a, q. viii, a. 3). But God is in man, not only as
+in inanimate things, but because He is more fully known and loved
+by him, since even by nature we spontaneously love, desire, and
+seek after the good. Moreover, God by grace resides in the just
+soul as in a temple, in a most intimate and peculiar manner. From
+this proceeds that union of affection by which the soul adheres
+most closely to God, more so than the friend is united to his most
+loving and beloved friend, and enjoys God in all fullness and
+sweetness. Now this wonderful union, which is properly called
+"indwelling," differing only in degree or state from that with
+which God beatifies the saints in heaven, although it is most
+certainly produced by the presence of the whole Blessed Trinity--
+"We will come to Him and make our abode with Him" (John 14.23)--
+nevertheless is attributed in a peculiar manner to the Holy Ghost.
+For, whilst traces of divine power and wisdom appear even in the
+wicked man, charity, which, as it were, is the special mark of the
+Holy Ghost, is shared in only by the just. In harmony with this,
+the same Spirit is called Holy, for He, the first and supreme
+Love, moves souls and leads them to sanctity, which ultimately
+consists in the love of God. Wherefore the apostle, when calling
+us the temple of God, does not expressly mention the Father or the
+Son, but the Holy Ghost: "Know ye not that your members are the
+temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God?"
+(1 Cor. 6.19). The fullness of divine gifts is in many ways a
+consequence of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the souls of
+the just. For, as St. Thomas teaches, "when the Holy Ghost
+proceedeth as love, He proceedeth in the character of the first
+gift; whence St. Augustine saith that, through the gift which is
+the Holy Ghost, many other special gifts are distributed among the
+members of Christ" (Summ. Th., 1a, q. xxxviii, a. 2. St. Aug., _de
+Trin_., 1. xv, c. 19). Among these gifts are those secret warnings
+and invitations, which from time to time are excited in our minds
+and hearts by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Without these
+there is no beginning of a good life, no progress, no arriving at
+eternal salvation. And since these words and admonitions are
+uttered in the soul in an exceedingly secret manner, they are
+sometimes aptly compared in Holy Writ to the breathing of a coming
+breeze, and the Angelic Doctor likens them to the movements of the
+heart which are wholly hidden in the living body. "Thy heart has a
+certain hidden power, and therefore the Holy Ghost, who invisibly
+vivifies and unites the Church, is compared to the heart" (_Summ.
+Th_., 3a, q. vii, a. 1, ad 3). More than this, the just man, that
+is to say, he who lives the life of divine grace, and acts by the
+fitting virtues as by means of faculties, has need of those seven
+_gifts_ which are properly attributed to the Holy Ghost. By means
+of them the soul is furnished and strengthened so as to be able to
+obey more easily and promptly His voice and impulse. Wherefore
+these gifts are of such efficacy that they lead the just man to
+the highest degree of sanctity; and of such excellence that they
+continue to exist even in heaven, though in a more perfect way. By
+means of these gifts the soul is excited and encouraged to seek
+after and attain the evangelical beatitudes, which, like the
+flowers that come forth in the spring time, are the signs and
+harbingers of eternal beatitude. Lastly, there are those blessed
+_fruits_, enumerated by the Apostle (Gal. 5.22), which the Spirit,
+even in this mortal life, produces and shows forth in the just;
+fruits filled with all sweetness and joy, inasmuch as they proceed
+from the Spirit, "who is in the Trinity the sweetness of both
+Father and Son, filling all creatures with infinite fullness and
+profusion" (St. Aug. _de Trin_., 1. vi, c. 9). The Divine Spirit,
+proceeding from the Father and the Word in the eternal light of
+sanctity, Himself both Love and Gift, after having manifested
+Himself through the veils of figures in the Old Testament, poured
+forth all His fullness upon Christ and upon His mystic Body, the
+Church; and called back by His presence and grace men who were
+going away in wickedness and corruption with such salutary effect
+that, being no longer of the earth earthy, they relished and
+desired quite other things, becoming of heaven heavenly.
+
+ON DEVOTION TO THE HOLY GHOST
+
+These sublime truths, which so clearly show forth the infinite
+goodness of the Holy Ghost towards us, certainly demand that we
+should direct towards Him the highest homage of our love and
+devotion. Christians may do this most effectually if they will
+daily strive to know Him, to love Him, and to implore Him more
+earnestly; for which reason may this Our exhortation, flowing
+spontaneously from a paternal heart, reach their ears. Perchance
+there are still to be found among them, even nowadays, some who,
+if asked, as were those of old by St. Paul the Apostle, whether
+they have received the Holy Ghost, might answer in like manner:
+"We have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Ghost" (Acts
+19.2). At least there are certainly many who are very deficient in
+their knowledge of Him. They frequently use His name in their
+religious practices, but their faith is involved in much darkness.
+Wherefore all preachers and those having care of souls should
+remember that it is their duty to instruct their people more
+diligently and more fully about the Holy Ghost--avoiding, however,
+difficult and subtle controversies, and eschewing the dangerous
+folly of those who rashly endeavor to pry into divine mysteries.
+What should be chiefly dwelt upon and clearly explained is the
+multitude and greatness of the benefits which have been bestowed,
+and are constantly bestowed, upon us by this Divine Giver, so that
+errors and ignorance concerning matters of such moment may be
+entirely dispelled, as unworthy of "the children of light." We
+urge this, not only because it affects a mystery by which we are
+directly guided to eternal life, and which must therefore be
+firmly believed; but also because the more clearly and fully the
+good is known the more earnestly it is loved. Now we owe to the
+Holy Ghost, as we mentioned in the second place, love, because He
+is God: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart,
+and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength" (Deut. 6.5).
+He is also to be loved because He is the substantial, eternal,
+primal Love, and nothing is more lovable than love. And this all
+the more because He has overwhelmed us with the greatest benefits,
+which both testify to the benevolence of the Giver and claim the
+gratitude of the receiver. This love has a twofold and most
+conspicuous utility. In the first place, it will excite us to
+acquire daily a clearer knowledge about the Holy Ghost; for, as
+the Angelic Doctor says, "the lover is not content with the
+superficial knowledge of the beloved, but striveth to inquire
+intimately into all that appertains to the beloved, and thus to
+penetrate into the interior; as is said of the Holy Ghost, Who is
+the Love of God, that He searcheth even the profound things of
+God" (1 Cor. 2.19; _Summ. Theol_., 1a, 2ae, q. 28, a. 2). In the
+second place, it will obtain for us a still more abundant supply
+of heavenly gifts; for whilst a narrow heart contracteth the hand
+of the giver, a grateful and mindful heart causeth it to expand.
+Yet we must strive that this love should be of such a nature as
+not to consist merely in dry speculations or external observances,
+but rather to run forward towards action, and especially to fly
+from sin, which is in a more special manner offensive to the Holy
+Spirit. For whatever we are, that we are by the divine goodness;
+and this goodness is specially attributed to the Holy Ghost. The
+sinner offends this his Benefactor, abusing His gifts; and taking
+advantage of His goodness becomes more hardened in sin day by day.
+Again, since He is the Spirit of Truth, whosoever faileth by
+weakness or ignorance may perhaps have some excuse before Almighty
+God; but he who resists the truth through malice and turns away
+from it, sins most grievously against the Holy Ghost. In our days
+this sin has become so frequent that those dark times seem to have
+come which were foretold by St. Paul, in which men, blinded by the
+just judgment of God, should take falsehood for truth, and should
+believe in "the prince of this world," who is a liar and the
+father thereof, as a teacher of truth: "God shall send them the
+operation of error, to believe lying" (2 Thess. 2.10). "In the
+last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to
+spirits of error and the doctrines of devils" (1 Tim. 4.1). But
+since the Holy Ghost, as We have said, dwells in us as in His
+temple, We must repeat the warning of the Apostle: "Grieve not the
+Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed" (Eph. 4.30). Nor is it
+enough to fly from sin; every Christian ought to shine with the
+splendor of virtue so as to be pleasing to so great and so
+beneficent a guest; and first of all with chastity and holiness,
+for chaste and holy things befit the temple. Hence the words of
+the Apostle: "Know you not that you are the temple of God, and
+that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? But if any man violate the
+temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is
+holy, which you are" (1 Cor. 3.16-17): a terrible, indeed, but a
+just warning.
+
+Lastly, we ought to pray to and invoke the Holy Spirit, for each
+one of us greatly needs His protection and His help. The more a
+man is deficient in wisdom, weak in strength, borne down with
+trouble, prone to sin, so ought he the more to fly to Him who is
+the never-ceasing fount of light, strength, consolation, and
+holiness. And chiefly that first requisite of man, the forgiveness
+of sins, must be sought for from Him: "It is the special character
+of the Holy Ghost that He is the Gift of the Father and the Son.
+Now the remission of sins is given by the Holy Ghost as by the
+Gift of God" (_Summ. Th_., 3a, q. iii, a. 8, ad 3m). Concerning
+this Spirit the words of the Liturgy are very explicit: "For He is
+the remission of all sins" (Roman Missal, Tuesday after
+Pentecost). How He should be invoked is clearly taught by the
+Church, who addresses Him in humble supplication, calling upon Him
+by the sweetest of names: "Come, Father of the poor! Come, Giver
+of gifts! Come, Light of our hearts! O, best of Consolers, sweet
+Guest of the soul, our refreshment!" (Hymn, _Veni Sancte
+Spiritus_). She earnestly implores Him to wash, heal, water our
+minds and hearts, and to give to us who trust in Him "the merit of
+virtue, the acquirement of salvation, and joy everlasting." Nor
+can it be in any way doubted that He will listen to such prayer,
+since we read the words written by His own inspiration: "The
+Spirit Himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings" (Rom.
+8.26). Lastly, we ought confidently and continually to beg of Him
+to illuminate us daily more and more with His light and inflame us
+with His charity: for, thus inspired with faith and love, we may
+press onward earnestly towards our eternal reward, since He "is
+the pledge of our inheritance" (Eph. 1.14).
+
+Such, Venerable Brethren, are the teachings and exhortations which
+We have seen good to utter, in order to stimulate devotion to the
+Holy Ghost. We have no doubt that, chiefly by means of your zeal
+and earnestness, they will bear abundant fruit among Christian
+peoples. We Ourselves shall never in the future fail to labor
+towards so important an end; and it is even Our intention, in
+whatever ways may appear suitable, to further cultivate and extend
+this admirable work of piety. Meanwhile, as two years ago, in Our
+Letter _Provida Matris_, We recommended to Catholics special
+prayers at the Feast of Pentecost, for the Reunion of Christendom,
+so now We desire to make certain further decrees on the same
+subject.
+
+AN ANNUAL NOVENA DECEEED
+
+Wherefore, We decree and command that throughout the whole
+Catholic Church, this year and in every subsequent year, a Novena
+shall take place before Whit-Sunday, in all parish churches, and
+also, if the local Ordinaries think fit, in other churches and
+oratories. To all who take part in this Novena and duly pray for
+Our intention, We shall grant for each day an Indulgence of seven
+years and seven quarantines; moreover, a Plenary Indulgence on any
+one of the days of the Novena, or on Whit-Sunday itself, or on any
+day during the Octave; provided they shall have received the
+Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist, and devoutly prayed
+for Our intention. We will that those who are legitimately
+prevented from attending the Novena, or who are in places where
+the devotions cannot, in the judgment of the Ordinary, be
+conveniently carried out in church, shall equally enjoy the same
+benefits, provided they make the Novena privately and observe the
+other conditions. Moreover, We are pleased to grant, in
+perpetuity, from the Treasury of the Church, that whosoever,
+daily, during the Octave of Pentecost up to Trinity Sunday
+inclusive, offer again publicly or privately any prayers,
+according to their devotion, to the Holy Ghost, and satisfy the
+above conditions, shall a second time gain each of the same
+Indulgences. All these Indulgences We also permit to be applied to
+the suffrage of the souls in Purgatory.
+
+And now Our mind and heart turn back to those hopes with which We
+began, and for the accomplishment of which We earnestly pray, and
+will continue to pray, to the Holy Ghost. Unite, then, Venerable
+Brethren, your prayers with Ours, and at your exhortation let all
+Christian peoples add their prayers also, invoking the powerful
+and ever-acceptable intercession of the Blessed Virgin. You know
+well the intimate and wonderful relations existing between her and
+the Holy Ghost, so that she is justly called His Spouse. The
+intercession of the Blessed Virgin was of great avail both in the
+mystery of the Incarnation and in the coming of the Holy Ghost
+upon the Apostles. May she continue to strengthen our prayers with
+her suffrages, that, in the midst of all the stress and trouble of
+the nations, those divine prodigies may be happily revived by the
+Holy Ghost, which were foretold in the words of David: "Send forth
+Thy Spirit and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew the
+face of the earth" (Ps. 103.30).
+
+As a pledge of Divine favor and a testimony of Our affection,
+Venerable Brethren, to you, to your Clergy and people, We gladly
+impart in the Lord the Apostolic Benediction.
+
+Given at St. Peter's, in Rome, on the 9th day of May, 1897, in the
+20th year of Our Pontificate.
+
+               LEO XIII, POPE.
+
+
+
+GOD'S PRESENCE
+
+1. Scripture is very full of the idea of the nearness of God to
+His creation, the Old Testament is alive with that inspiration,
+for there is hardly a chapter or verse that does not insist upon
+that truth. Naturally the New Testament, teaching so tenderly the
+Fatherhood of God, is even more explicit and more beautiful in its
+references to this intimate relationship. To the Athenians, St.
+Paul can develop no other point than this, and he finds in moving
+accents an eloquent appeal voiced by the touching dedication of an
+altar to the _Unknown God_. Now this notion of God's nearness to
+His world depends for its full appreciation on the central
+doctrine of creation. He has made the world, in consequence it is
+impressed with His personality; the more vigorous the artificer--
+the more vigorous that he is in character, will and personality,
+the more is his work stamped with his individuality; hence, the
+tremendous personality of God must be everywhere traceable in the
+things He has made.
+
+2. When we say God is everywhere, we mean that He is in all things
+because He made all things. Not only does the whole world lie
+outstretched before His eye and is governed by His power, but He
+Himself lurks at the heart of everything. By Him things have come
+into existence, and so wholly is that existence of theirs His
+gift, that were He to withdraw His support they would sink back
+into nothingness. It is a perpetual remark about man's works that
+they outlast him. Organizations we have toiled to establish
+outgrow our fostering care, perhaps grow tired of our interference
+and long to be free of our regulations. Wordsworth tells how a
+monk in Spain, pointing to the pictures on the walls of the
+monastery, which remained while the generations looking at them
+passed away, judged: "We are the shadows, they the substance." But
+the relationship established by creation is of a far greater
+dependence, so that nothing God has made can exist without His
+support. Out of human acts it is only music that bears some
+resemblance to this, for when the voice is silent there is no
+longer any song.
+
+3. God, then, is within all creation, because He is its cause. He
+is within every stone and leaf and child. Nothing, with life or
+without, evil or good, can fail to contain Him as the source of
+its energy, its power, its existence; He is "the soul's soul." Not
+only, therefore, must I train myself to see with reverence that
+everything contains Him, but I must especially realize His
+intimacy and relationship to myself. Religion, indeed, in practice
+is little else than my personal expression of that relationship. I
+have in my prayers, in my troubles, in my temptations, to turn to
+God, not without but within, not to some one above me or beneath
+supporting me, but right at the core of my being. I can trace up
+to its source every power of my soul, my intelligence, my will, my
+love, my anger, my fear, and I shall find Him there. Nothing but
+opens its doors to Him as innermost in its shrine. Wholly is God
+everywhere, not as some immense being that with its hugeness fills
+the world, but as something that is within every creature He has
+made.
+
+
+
+DEGREES OF GOD'S PRESENCE
+
+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"
+(_Summa_ 1, 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.
+
+
+
+GOD'S SPECIAL PRESENCE IN THE JUST
+
+1. While God is in everything in creation, He dwells in the just
+by grace. Scripture quite noticeably uses the word _dwelling_ when
+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 word _sent_ or _given_. 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.
+
+
+
+NATURE OF THIS PRESENCE
+
+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.
+
+
+
+THE MODE OF THIS PRESENCE: OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE
+
+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).
+
+
+
+MODE OF THIS PRESENCE: OBJECT OF LOVE
+
+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 mediaeval 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.
+
+
+
+THIS PRESENCE IS OF THE SAME NATURE AS THAT IN HEAVEN
+
+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's _Encyclical_, 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.
+
+
+
+THIS PRESENCE COMMON TO THE WHOLE TRINITY
+
+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!
+
+
+
+THIS PRESENCE HAS CERTAIN EFFECTS
+
+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.
+
+
+
+FORGIVENESS OF SIN
+
+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.
+
+
+
+JUSTIFICATION
+
+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.
+
+
+
+DEIFICATION
+
+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 "_the_ gift 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.
+
+
+
+ADOPTED SONSHIP
+
+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?
+
+
+
+HEIRS OF GOD
+
+1. One of the conditions of adoption is that the newly chosen son
+should become the legal heir of the new father. Without this legal
+result or consequence adoption has no meaning. Merely to get a boy
+to enter a family circle does not imply adoption, for this last
+has a distinct meaning with a distinct purpose. If, then, we are
+the heirs of God we are really possessed of a right to His Divine
+Inheritance. Heaven has been made indeed our home. We speak of it
+in our hymns as _patria_, which we can translate as the "land of
+our fathers." We claim it thereby in virtue of our parentage, and
+our parentage is of God. If, then, He is our Father, not by
+nature, but by adoption, i. e., by grace, we are none the less His
+heirs and have some sort of right over His possessions and riches.
+A father cannot without leave of his adopted son alienate any of
+the family heirlooms; the adopted son now, by the father's own
+free act acquires, not indeed dominion over the riches of the
+home, but, at any rate, an embargo on the father's free exercise
+of those riches. He could even demand, as against his father, a
+legal investigation into the due use and investment of them. His
+signature is required for every document that relates to them. He
+has become almost a part-owner of his father's possessions, since
+he is their legal heir. All this is implied by adoption in its
+true sense, and therefore it must be intended to apply to us when
+we are spoken of as God's adopted sons.
+
+2. I can, therefore, truthfully speak of myself as an heir of God.
+Of course I cannot mean that there is any possible question of
+"the death of the testator," i. e., of God. That is quite clearly
+of no significance here. But adoption does give me some sort of
+claim to the heritage of God. Now the law defines a heritage as
+that by which a man is made rich. It includes not the riches only,
+but the source of the riches, so that if I have a claim to God's
+riches, I have a claim also upon the source of those riches. For
+the heir is entitled not merely to a legacy, but to the whole of
+the fortune. I have a right to the whole fortune of God, to the
+whole universe. At once, as soon as I realize it, the whole of the
+world is mine. It is the doctrine of the mystics that,
+misunderstood, led astray the communists of the Middle Ages. These
+claimed a common ownership of the wealth of all the world, whereas
+what was intended was that we should look upon the whole world as
+ours. To me, then, in life, nothing can be strange or distant or
+apart. No places can there be where my mind cannot enter and roam
+at will and feel itself at home; no things can be profane, no
+people who are not tabernacles of God, no part of life that is not
+steeped in that living presence. The only possible boundary is the
+love and the grace of God. There will indeed come evil frontiers
+beyond which my soul could never dwell. But all else is of God and
+is therefore my right. All creation is mine; the wonder and beauty
+of it, life and death, pleasure alike and pain, yield up to me
+their secrets and disclose the hidden name of God.
+
+3. Here, then, I can find that divine wealth, to inherit which has
+been the purpose of the adoption by God. Wherever I turn I shall
+find Him. Whether life has smooth ways or rough, whether she hangs
+my path with lights or hides me in gloom, I am the heir to all
+that earth or sea or sky can boast of as their possession. Indeed,
+these are only the rich things of God, whereas I have a claim upon
+even more. I have a claim upon the very source of this wealth,
+that is, upon God Himself, for He is the sole source of all His
+greatness. I have a right to God Himself. He is mine. He Who holds
+in the hollow of His hands the fabric of the world, Who with His
+divine power supports, and with His providence directs, the
+intricate pattern of the world, has Himself by creation entered
+deeply into the world; at the heart of everything He lies hid. But
+even more by grace He comes in a fuller, richer way into the
+depths of the soul. Here in me are Father, and Son, and Spirit.
+Dear God, teach me to understand the wonder of this indwelling, to
+appreciate its worth, to be thankful for its condescension, to
+reverence its place of choice, to be conscious of its perpetual
+upholding. By it I am an heir to the fullness of the divine
+riches. By it I, a creature, possess in His fullness my Creator,
+Redeemer, Lord.
+
+
+
+GUIDANCE IN SPIRITUAL LIFE
+
+1. I have God the Holy Spirit with me. He comes to me in order
+that I may surrender myself to Him. Of course I cannot merge my
+personality in His to the extent of having no power of my own, but
+God has such infinite dominion over the heart of man that He is
+able to move the will, without in any sense whatever violating its
+freedom. In the liturgy of the Church there are two or three
+prayers which speak about God "compelling our rebellious wills."
+Now for anyone else to "compel my will" would be to destroy it as
+a will, since, as even Cromwell freely confessed, "the will
+suffereth no compulsion"; I cannot be made to will against my
+will. That would be a contradiction, though I can be made to act
+against my will, for my actions do not necessarily imply that my
+will is in them. Whereas, then, no one else can move my will
+without utterly destroying my moral freedom, God can, for He is
+intimate to the will and moves it, not really as an external but
+as an internal power. St. Thomas Aquinas repeatedly refers to this
+and says over and over again the same thing, namely, that God is
+so intimately united to man, and so powerful, that not only can He
+move man to will, but move him to will freely by affecting, not
+only the action of man, but the very mode of the action.
+
+2. Such is man, whether in a state of grace or not, that his will
+is in the hands of God, to be moved by man freely, but not so as
+to exclude God's movement. Naturally enough it is far easier to
+say this than to explain it. Indeed the mere statement is all that
+is actually binding upon faith, and the particular explanation
+favored by St. Thomas in his general acceptance of St. Augustine's
+teaching, comes to us largely as of deep and abiding moment on
+account of the very clear reasons given and the great authority of
+his name; but in any case there is something far more special in
+the guidance of the Holy Spirit sought for by the soul in its
+endeavor to "live godly in Christ Jesus." It has to yield itself
+to the promptings of God, be eager to catch His every whisper, and
+quick in its obedience to His every call. For this to be achieved,
+the first work is an emptying out of the soul. Every obstacle has
+to be got rid of; any attachment to creatures that obscures God's
+light has to be broken through (though not every attachment to
+creatures, since unless I love man whom I see, I cannot possibly
+know what love means when applied to God, nor can I suppose myself
+to be able to understand or love God, whom I do not see). First,
+then, to cleanse my soul by leveling and smoothing and clearing
+its surface and depths.
+
+3. Then I must yield myself into His arms. I shall not know very
+often the way He wishes me to go. It may be only one step at a
+time, and then darkness again; or I may be taken swiftly and
+surely and openly along a clear road. That is His business, not
+mine, only I must be prepared not to be able to follow always the
+meaning of what He wants of me. It is not necessary at all that I
+should know. If I am faithful and loyal and full of trust, things
+will gradually settle themselves, and I shall at least be able to
+look back and understand the significance and purpose of many
+things that at first appeared accidental, and even in opposition
+to the end I considered God had in view for me. Thus by looking
+back I can sometimes get a shrewd idea of what is to follow; but
+often it is only a guess, nothing more than that. Still,
+generally, it would seem that people who surrender themselves to
+God do get a sense or a feeling which leads them right and makes
+them sure. It is the divine tenderness stooping to poor muddled
+humanity and making it transfigured with God's own glory. The
+advance, then, whether consciously grasped or not, is in due
+proportion to the purity and fidelity of the soul, purity in its
+act of cleansing, fidelity in its subjection to the promptings of
+the Holy Spirit.
+
+
+
+GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
+
+1. To live the spiritual life to its fullness we need the
+instinctive governances of the Holy Ghost. All day long, and even
+all through the hours when consciousness is asleep, the Holy
+Spirit is speaking to us in many ways. He is offering us His
+heavenly counsel, enlightening our minds to an ever more complete
+understanding of the deep truths of faith, and generally imparting
+to us that deep knowledge without which we cannot make advance.
+Reason and common sense have their own contribution to make in
+opening our minds and hearts to a proper interpretation of all
+that is about us and within us; but reason and common sense have
+themselves also to be supernaturalized, to be illumined by the
+light of a far higher plane of truth. Hence the need of this
+divine instinct is patent to anyone who considers the purpose and
+destiny of the soul. But it is difficult at times to understand
+and to grasp surely the words of divine wisdom, since by sin's
+coarseness the refinement of the soul is dulled and rendered but
+little responsive; or, rather, it is not so much a matter of being
+responsive to a message as primarily of hearing and understanding
+it. It seems to be very obvious that God must be speaking to me
+almost without ceasing; it is equally obvious that very little of
+this is noticed.
+
+2. Here, then, am I in the world and needing the governance of
+God's instinct. Here, too, is this whispered counsel and
+enlightenment of God, perpetually being made to me. Yet, though
+made by God, and needed by me, this counsel and enlightenment, I
+can be certain, must frequently be entirely lost to me. It is as
+though I lived in a perfectly beautiful country, with stretching
+landscape about, and beautiful glimpses of hills and woodland, and
+yet never saw or appreciated the view; as though heavenly music
+were about me, to which I never paid the slightest attention; as
+though my best loved friend stood by me and I never lifted my
+eyes, and so did not know of his presence. Of course it is really
+a great deal worse than that, for I do not need with an absolute
+necessity the view, or the music, or the friend; whereas I do most
+certainly need this divinely offered help, guidance,
+enlightenment. Hence it is clear that neither my need nor God's
+instinct suffice. Something else is required by means of which I
+am able to make use of that instinct, to hear its message, to
+discover its meaning, to apply its advice to myself; else am I no
+better than a general who possesses the full plan of his allies,
+in all its details, but written in a cypher that he cannot read.
+
+3. To produce this reaction or perception is the work of the
+sevenfold gifts. They are habits infused into the soul, which
+strengthen its natural powers, and make them responsive to every
+breath of God and capable of heroic acts of virtue. By the gifts
+my eyes are made able to see what had else been hidden, my ears
+quick to catch what had else not been heard; the gifts do not, so
+to say, supply eye or ear, but make more delicate, refined,
+sensitive, the eye and ear already there. Their business is to
+intensify rather than to create powers established in me by grace.
+Less excellent necessarily than the theological virtues which
+unite me to God, they are yet more excellent than the other
+virtues, though, being rooted in charity and thereby linked up
+among themselves, they are also part of the dowry that charity
+brings in her train. On this account it is clear that from the
+moment of Baptism the sevenfold gifts are the possession of the
+soul, and whosoever holds one holds all; yet by the sacrament of
+Confirmation it would appear certain that something further is
+added, some more delicate perception, some livelier sensitiveness;
+or it may be, as other theologians point out, that by Confirmation
+they are more steadily fixed in the soul, more fully established,
+more firmly held. But in any case it is clear what they are to me,
+habits whereby I am perfected to obey the Holy Spirit of God.
+
+
+
+BEATITUDES
+
+1. The possession of the sevenfold gifts results in the
+performance of certain virtuous acts, for it is perfectly obvious
+that if I am so blest by the gifts that I find my reason, will,
+emotions, made increasedly perceptive of divine currents
+previously lost to me, I can hardly help acting in a new way. I
+now discover the view about me, and the music, and, consequently,
+my manner of life must in some ways be different from before. The
+Vision has come; it cannot simply open my eyes to new things in
+life without thereby altering that very life itself. Not only
+shall I find that what seemed to me before to be evil now appears
+to me to be a blessing; but on that very account what before I
+tried to avoid, or, having got, tried to be rid of, I shall now
+accept, perhaps even seek. Similarly, whereas then I was weak, now
+I am strong; and increase of strength means new activities, new
+energy put into the old work and finding its way out into works
+altogether new. My emotions, finally, which perilled and dominated
+my life, slip now into a subordinate position, and while thereby
+as actively employed as before, are held under discipline. It is
+clear, therefore, that the gifts will not leave me where I was
+before, but will influence my actions as well as alter my vision.
+
+2. I find, then, that these new habits will develop into new
+activities. But this means also that I have a new idea as to the
+means of achieving the full happiness of life. Once upon a time I
+thought happiness meant comfort, now I see that it means something
+quite different. My view of happiness has changed. I am therefore
+obliged to change also my idea as to the means and conditions
+whereby, and in which, happiness can be found. I had attempted to
+climb out of my valley over the hills in the west; I now attempt
+to climb out over the hills to the east. The steps by which once I
+clambered are useless to me. I must try new ones in the opposite
+hills. Just that is what Our Lord meant by promulgating His eight
+Beatitudes. These are just the new blessedness, so to say, which
+results from finding that happiness now means the knowledge and
+love of God. Things that previously I fled from, I now seek;
+things once my bugbear, are now the objects of my delight.
+Poverty, meekness, mourning, the hunger and thirst after justice,
+cleanness of heart, the making of peace, mercy, the suffering of
+persecution for justice's sake, are now found to be the steps to
+be passed over, the conditions to be secured before happiness can
+be finally secured.
+
+3. These things, then, are beatitudes to me. They are acts which I
+finally achieve by means of the new enlightenment gained through
+the gifts of God. Actively I am merciful and meek and clean of
+heart. I perform these actions, and they are the result of visions
+seen, and counsels heard, through the new sensitiveness to the
+divine instinctive guidance that of old passed me by without
+finding in my heart any response. To be forever pursuing now peace
+and sorrow, and, at whatever cost, justice, is an energizing state
+of life which is due entirely to the new perception of the value
+of these things, so that we are right in asserting that the
+beatitudes are nothing else than certain actions, praised by Our
+Lord and practiced by us as a result of the establishment in our
+souls of seven definite habits. But not only are they actions,
+they produce as an effect joy in the heart; for which reason it is
+that we call them beatitudes. They show me what is truly blessed
+and thereby give me, even here on earth, a foretaste of the bliss
+of final happiness.
+
+
+
+THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT
+
+1. Besides the beatitudes there are other acts that follow from
+the gifts when properly used by the soul. The beatitudes are means
+which, under the light infused by God, are valued at their true
+worth as leading finally to happiness in its more complete sense.
+But when these are thus put into practice, for the soul
+understands the new meaning life gathers, they do not end the
+wonders of the action of grace. As a boy I met life and found it
+full of interest and dawning with the glories of success. The
+world in its aspect of nature had such manifest beauties that
+these quickly entranced and thrilled the soul. The sun and grass
+and flowers and woods and waters, make no secret of their kinship
+with their creator; Francis Thompson found them "garrulous of
+God," so garrulous in our youth that we see that life is full of
+very good things. Then comes the reaction (to many even before
+full manhood), when life is found to be full of illusion. Life is
+now judged a melancholy business, apt to fail you just when the
+need of it is most discovered, hard to be certain of; it is the
+age of romantic melancholy when most people put into verse their
+sorrow at the disappointment to be found in all things of beauty.
+Every tree and flower and "dear gazelle" is no sooner loved than
+it is lost through death or misunderstanding.
+
+2. Then, finally, the balance is set right. The two phases pass.
+They are both true only as half truths. There is no denying that
+life is good and beautiful and thrilling. The boy's vision is
+correct. Yet it is equally true to say that there is sorrow and
+suffering and death and disappointment in all human things. But a
+new phase, blessedly a last phase, dawns upon the soul. Sorrow and
+pain are real, but the old happiness of boyhood is made to fit in
+and triumph over them by the sudden realization that strength is
+the lesson to be learned. Sorrow comes that discipline may be born
+in the soul, self-restraint, humility. Life is hard, but its very
+hardness is no evil, but our means of achieving good. That is the
+very atmosphere of the beatitudes, the message they bring, the
+teaching they imparted from the Sermon on the Mount. Poverty,
+cleanness of heart, mercy, meekness, are all things difficult to
+acquire; but they give a real, true blessedness to the soul that
+will see their value. Life is no longer a disappointment, but the
+training ground of all good.
+
+3. Finally, there follow other acts, too many to number, though
+there are twelve usually given, which result from gifts and
+beatitudes. These are called the fruits of the Holy Ghost, for
+they represent in that metaphorical sense the ultimate result of
+the gifts. They are the last and sweetest consequences of the
+sevenfold habits infused by the Spirit. Indeed, just as trees are
+grown in an orchard because of their fruits, and, therefore, just
+as it can be said that the fruit is, from the gardener's point of
+view, the purpose for which the tree is cultivated (for of the
+fruitless fig Our Lord asked why it cumbered the ground), so these
+fruits of the Holy Ghost (charity, joy, peace, patience,
+benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty,
+continency, chastity--Gal. 5.22) can be looked upon as the very
+purpose for which the gifts were given, that I might, by seeing a
+new blessedness in life's very troubles, begin to find joy and
+peace and patience and faith, where else I had found only sorrow.
+Endlessly could the list of these be extended, for St. Paul has
+chosen only a very few; but these that he names are what a man
+delights in when he has received the gifts, and has understood and
+valued the beatitudes. Sweetness is what they add to virtue, ease,
+comfort. I not only hunger and thirst after justice, but enjoy the
+very pain of the pursuit.
+
+
+
+KNOWLEDGE
+
+1. This gift of God illumines and perfects the intelligence. The
+purpose of the gifts, it has been already explained, is to make
+the soul more alive to, and more appreciative of, the whispered
+instinct of God; not to create new faculties, but to increase the
+power of those already existing. My mind, then, has to be
+supernaturalized and refined to that pitch of perception which
+will enable it to grasp and to understand God's message. Now the
+mind itself works upon a great variety of subjects. It has whole
+worlds to conquer, planes of thought which are very clearly
+distinguishable; yet in its every activity it needs this divine
+refinement, so that in all four gifts are allotted to perform this
+complete enlightenment of the mind. Knowledge overcomes ignorance
+and is concerned with the facts, visible and sense-perceived, in
+creation; for by the council of the Vatican it is laid down as
+part of the deposit of faith that human reason can prove the
+existence of God altogether apart from the supernatural motives
+which grace supplies. The visible world is held to contain ample
+proofs which in themselves are adequate logically to convince
+human understanding of the existence of God. Individual reason may
+fail to satisfy itself. People may declare truthfully that they
+are not convinced; the Church insists only that it can be done.
+
+2. Knowledge, however, in this sense is a gift of God whereby we
+discover Him in His own creation and in the works of man. It is
+here no mere task set to reason for detecting the Creator in His
+handiwork, but an actual vision by which the soul is
+supernaturalized and sees Him patently everywhere. The beauteous
+face of nature is merely seen as a veil, hiding a beauty more
+sublime. Things of dread as well as things of loveliness come into
+the scheme, things trivial and things tremendous, things majestic
+and things homely, all that God has made. Even man's work, who is
+himself only one of the greater masterpieces of the Great
+Artificer, is affected by this new light with which the world is
+flooded. The delicate pieces of machinery constructed by human
+ingenuity, that gain in wonder and in power, are themselves still
+God's work at one remove; they are the fruits of a mind that He
+has constructed, and they do not exhaust the capacity of that
+mind. They reveal hidden potentialities as well as express actual
+achievements. Weapons of destruction, with all the horror they
+rightly inspire, are yet witnesses again to that
+parent-intelligence whence was begotten man himself. All this, of
+course, as soon as considered, is admitted by every believer in
+God, but the gift of knowledge makes it realized and seen
+steadfastly.
+
+3. Life, then, of itself is full of illusion. That is the cry,
+desolating and pitiful, which arises from the higher followers of
+every religious faith. Man is bound to the wheel, his mind is
+compassed with infirmity, he is born into ignorance. Desire
+tumultuously hustles all his days. He needs, therefore, some light
+whereby he may find the true inner meaning of all with which he
+comes in contact. Here, then, in the gift of Knowledge is such a
+true vision, understanding, vouchsafed him of the visible things
+of creation. He will realize as much, perhaps, even more than
+before the attraction of beauty, only it will be no snare, but a
+beckoning light. He will find in it now no illusion, but the
+perfect image of a greater beauty. The charm of the world about
+him will become greater, the wonders of nature, the intricate
+pattern of mechanical appliances, the fury of storms, the tumult
+of the wind, the terrific force of pestilence, the psychological
+facts of man's mind, the construction of his frame, the grouping
+of his social instincts, all now will be alive with God, shot
+through with the divine splendor, elevated to His order of life,
+eloquent of His name--a deepening knowledge of God achieved through
+a knowledge of His creatures.
+
+
+
+UNDERSTANDING
+
+1. There is another gift required to perfect the intelligence when
+it is engaged upon the principles of truth. The mind was created
+by God to exercise itself upon truth, primarily, the Supreme
+Truth; secondarily, all truths which by their essence must
+themselves be radiations from the Supreme Truth. These truths are
+of endless variety, both in their relationship to each other and
+in the particular line in which they operate. They are the truths
+of arts and science, the intricate yet unchanging laws that govern
+the growth and development of matter, the complicated processes
+whereby organic beings build up their tissues and multiply
+themselves by means of the cell principle. There are again the
+curious laws, as they are called, that effect gravitation, that
+have to be counted upon in the science of architecture, and in all
+the various kindred crafts of man. There are principles, too, that
+underlie the whole series of the arts, principles of truth and
+life and beauty. Upon these the mind must feed, and in them all
+the mind must be able to trace the character and being of God. But
+there are also far higher truths which are taught only by
+revelation, safeguarded by authority, grouped under the title of
+faith. These truths are higher than the others, since they
+directly concern a higher being, i. e., God. All truths are truths
+about God, but the truths of faith concern themselves immediately
+with the being, life, and actions of God. Understanding,
+therefore, is the gift perfecting the mind for these.
+
+2. It might seem, perhaps, that the light of faith is itself
+sufficient, and that no further gift were needed, since it is the
+very purpose of faith to make us accept this revelation of God,
+enlightening and strengthening the intelligence till under the
+dominion of the will it says: I believe. It is true that faith
+suffices for this, but we require something more than faith, or at
+least if we do not absolutely require more, we shall progress more
+rapidly and further when we are not only able to believe but to
+understand. In every article of faith there is always something
+which is mysterious or hidden, some obscurity due not to the
+entanglement of facts, but to the weakness of the human mind. Of
+course this must to some extent always exist, for man can never
+hope to comprehend God till by the beatific vision he sees Him
+face to face; but a good deal of the obscurity can be lifted by
+the mere operation of the mind under the light of God, not arising
+purely from study, but from the depth of love enkindled by God. It
+is a commonplace in the lives of the saints that without
+instruction they do yet manage to learn the deep mysteries of God;
+the same is true of many simple souls whom we meet from time to
+time in the world. They not only believe, but penetrate the truths
+of faith.
+
+3. Here, then, I have ready to hand a most useful gift of God. I
+desire not only to believe, but to absorb and to penetrate the
+mysteries of God. I want to taste to the full the meaning of life
+as a whole, to develop every power that lies in me, to make the
+truths of revelation blossom out ever more fully, till their
+hidden and mystical significance becomes gradually more clear. The
+pages of Holy Scripture are full of instruction, but they will not
+yield up their secrets save to a soul attuned by God. That can be
+effected by the gift of understanding. I shall find by its means
+that these treasures are inexhaustible, that from mere abstract
+teaching the sayings of the Master and His Apostles become full of
+practical meaning, that all life about me takes on a new and
+richer significance. History and social life open their doors to
+whoever has this blessed gift, and it becomes clearly seen that
+their maker and builder is God. The dullness of souls who will not
+believe, or only believe and then stop short, becomes painful to
+note and bothersome to put up with, but this is the price one has
+to pay for so fine a vision. By this, then, we peer into the
+depths of faith, and find them gradually and steadily growing more
+and more clear and penetrable.
+
+
+
+WISDOM
+
+1. All writers on the gifts of the Holy Ghost place wisdom as the
+highest gift of all. It takes this high position partly because
+its work is done in the intelligence, which is man's highest
+power, and partly because it is that highest power occupied to its
+highest capacity. Like knowledge and understanding, its business
+is to make us see God everywhere, in the material and spiritual
+creation of God, in the concrete facts of existence, and in the
+revealed truths of faith. It produces in a soul a sense of
+complete certainty and hope. Hence it is sometimes described as
+neighbor to hope; indeed, its finest side is often just that
+determined and resolute conviction with which the soul rises
+superior to every possible disaster, and is prepared to brave
+every contingency in its sureness of God's final power and the
+efficacy of His will. It comes closer, therefore, to God Himself
+than do either understanding or knowledge. These do, indeed,
+enable the soul to be continuously conscious of the divine
+presence, of God immanent as well as transcendent, God in the
+heart of the world as well as wholly above the world, and they
+affect this consciousness by enabling the soul to see Him
+everywhere. They lift the veil. They show His footprints. They
+trace everywhere the marks of His power, wisdom, love. But it is
+noticeable that they lead to God from the world. I see a flower,
+and by the gift of knowledge I am immediately aware of the author
+of its loveliness; by understanding I perceive with clearness the
+wonder of God's working in the world. By them I lift my eyes from
+earth to Heaven, by wisdom I look from Heaven to see the earth.
+
+2. Wisdom, therefore, implies an understanding of the world
+through God, whereas knowledge and understanding suppose a
+perception of God through the world. Wisdom takes its stand upon
+causes, the other two on effects. They work from creatures to
+Creator; wisdom looks upon all the world through the eyes of God.
+Consequently the effect of wisdom is that the soul sees life as a
+whole. Matter and truth are to it no longer separate planes of
+thought, but one. There is at once no distinction between them in
+the eyes of God, for both are manifestations of Himself and
+creatures of His making. Hence the soul that is dowered with
+wisdom climbs up to God's own height, and looking down upon the
+world sees it "very good," noticing how part fits in with part,
+and how truths of faith, and truths of science and sunset, and
+flower and Hell, are linked one with another to form the pattern
+of God's design. Each has its place in the divine economy of God's
+plan, each is equally of God, equally sharing in His purposes,
+though some more than others able to express God better. The
+effect, then, is largely that the whole of life is co-ordinated,
+and equality, fraternity, liberty, become not the motto of a
+revolution, but of the ordered government of God.
+
+3. The opposite to this gift is folly, for a man who fails in
+wisdom loses all true judgment of the values of human life. He is
+perpetually exchanging the more for the less valuable, bestowing
+huge gifts in just barter, as he imagines, for what is merely
+showy and trivial. Not by causes, but by effect does he consider
+life and its activities. The wise man, then, estimates everything
+by its highest cause. He compares and discovers, gleans the reason
+of God's providence, its purpose, its fitness. First principles
+are his guide, not the ready and practical proverbs that display
+the wit and worldly wisdom of the lesser man. Eternity becomes of
+larger moment than time, since time is merely for eternity. God's
+law is more convincing than man's, for man's enactments are not
+laws at all when they come in conflict with divine commands. Faith
+is so deeply in him that he judges between propositions, and
+discovers truth against heresy. He has climbed to the heights of
+God and sees all the world at his feet, and knows it as God knows
+it, the world and its Lord and the glory of it.
+
+
+
+COUNSEL
+
+1. The fourth gift that perfects the intelligence acts rather as a
+moderating than as a stimulating influence. The soul is often
+impetuous in its decisions, moved by human feelings and passions,
+urged by desire, love, hatred, prejudice. Quickly stirred to
+action, it dashes into its course without any real attention to,
+or understanding of, its better wisdom. Frequently in life my
+lament has to be that I acted on the impulse of the moment. There
+is so much that I am sorry for, not merely because now I see what
+has actually resulted, but because even then I had quite
+sufficient reason to let me be certain what would result. I was
+blind, not because my eyes could not have seen, but because I gave
+them no leave to see. I would not carefully gaze at the
+difficulties, not puzzle out in patience what would most likely be
+the result. Even my highest powers are often my most perilous
+guides, since, moved by generosity, I engaged myself to do what I
+have no right to perform, and find that I have in the end been
+generous not only of what is my own, but sometimes of what belongs
+to another, not as though I deliberately gave away what belonged
+to another, but just because I had no deliberation at all. I need,
+then, the Holy Spirit of God to endow me with the gift of counsel
+which corresponds to prudence.
+
+2. Now prudence, which counsel helps and protects, is eminently a
+practical gift of God, not so high as wisdom, not so wonderful in
+the beauty of its vision as knowledge or understanding, yet for
+all a most important and homely need. The other intellectual gifts
+of the Spirit are more abstract. They give us just the whisper of
+God that enables us to see the large ways of God in the world.
+They give, in consequence, the great principles that are to govern
+us in life. Hence their importance is very great. We do so
+seriously need to know by what principles we are to measure life's
+activities, on what basis to build up the fabric of our souls, to
+be sure that God's laws are very clearly and definitely made
+manifest to us. But, after all, that is only one-half of the
+difficulty, for even after I know the principles of action, I have
+still the trouble, in some ways more full of possibilities of
+mistake, of applying them to concrete experience. I know that
+sacrifice is the law of life, I know that meekness overindulged
+may be cowardice, I know that I may sin by not having anger; that
+is all evident, a series of platitudes. But here, and now, have I
+come to the limit of meekness? Must I manifest my angry protests?
+Am I obliged to attend to my own needs and renounce the idea of
+sacrifice? There daily are questions that puzzle, torture, bruise
+me with scruples.
+
+3. Just here, then, I have intense need for this practical gift of
+God in order with nicety and precision to apply principles to
+concrete cases; often I am precipitate or perhaps dilatory. I am
+in a hurry or cannot make up my mind--shall I answer those who
+attack me, or shall I be silent? Our Lord was silent and made
+answer by turns. Counsel, then, is my need from God, the instinct
+whereby a practical judgment is quickly and safely made. All the
+more have I a tremendous need for this if my life is full of
+activity, if pressure of work, or social life, or the demands of
+good and useful projects, or the general tendency of my family
+surroundings, make my day crowded and absorbed, for the very
+combined and concentrated essence of life will need some
+exceedingly moderate influence to produce any sense of balance or
+proportion in my judgment. The people about me I notice to become
+more and more irritable, mere creatures of impulse. I feel some
+such malign influence invading the peaceful sanctuary of my soul,
+disturbing its even outlook on things, driving out my serene calm.
+I must anchor on to this gift of God, become prudent, detached,
+filling the mind with the counsel of the Holy Spirit.
+
+
+
+FORTITUDE
+
+1. After the intelligence comes the will which also, because of
+the very large part it plays in all human action, needs to be
+perfected by a gift of the Spirit. It is necessary to repeat that
+the Holy Spirit does not by His gifts bestow on the soul new
+powers and new faculties, but develops, refines, perfects
+faculties already there. It is not the creation of new eyes to see
+new visions, but the strengthening of the eyes of the soul so as
+to see more clearly and with a longer sight. The will, then, has
+also to be strengthened, for it is the will that lies at the very
+heart of all heroism. Merely to have a glimpse of greatness is but
+part of a hero's need. No doubt it is a larger part, for very many
+of us never by instinct at all touch on the borders of greatness,
+we do not see or understand how in our little lives we can be
+great, we have not the imagination lit up by God, no vision; yet
+"when the vision fails, the people shall perish." But even when
+that sudden showing does by God's mercy come to us, we still fall
+far short of it. It is too high, too ideal, too far removed from
+weak human nature to seem possible to us. That is to say, our will
+has failed us. We are faced by some huge obstacle, or even by a
+persistent refusal to budge on behalf of some one (ourselves or
+another) to go forward and to do; we struggle, fail, lose heart,
+surrender, cease our efforts. What do we want? Fortitude, that
+"persistive constancy" that to Shakespeare was the greatest
+quality of human wills.
+
+2. How is this achieved? By appreciating the nearness of God to
+us. The gifts make us responsive to God with an ease and
+instantaneousness that operates smoothly and without friction.
+That is God's doing, not ours. He gives us this wonderful power of
+being able to register at once every passing inspiration. The
+gifts that refine the intelligence allow it to perceive sights
+which else were hidden. The gift that refines the will must do
+this by some kindred action. Now the difficulties that beset the
+will must necessarily be difficulties for whose overcoming
+strength is needed. Therefore the will must be refined by being
+made strong. How can it be made strong by the Holy Spirit? What
+exactly happens to its mechanism to secure for it the power of
+endurance? The easiest way of understanding how this effect is
+brought about is to suppose that the soul by its refinement, by
+that delicacy whereby it responds instantly to a divine
+impression, is quickly aware of God's nearness to it. It perceives
+how close it is to the Spirit of God, and the sense of this
+nearness makes it better able to hold on to its duty. In the old
+style of warfare we often read of wives and mothers coming to the
+field of battle that their presence might awake their men to the
+topmost pitch of courage. Even in the modern methods of fighting,
+the moral effect of the presence of the emperor or king is
+considered to have an effect upon the troops. Of course here it is
+more homely, since the familiar presence of the Holy Spirit
+strengthens and inspires by love, trust, sympathy.
+
+3. For this reason the name Comforter was given to the Holy
+Spirit, in its original sense of strengthening, becoming the fort
+of the soul; and the result is that the recipient is able to hold
+on or, in our modern slang, to "carry on." By nature so many of us
+are prone to seek our own comforts at the expense of what we know
+to be the higher side of us. Human respect makes us again
+cowardly, or the sheer monotony of perseverance dulls and wearies
+the soul. We get so depressed with the strain of making efforts
+that we are very much inclined to let the spiritual side of life
+go under, or at least be rendered as little heroic as possible,
+for it is real heroism even just to "go on." The "silent pressure"
+of temptations, when their passion and fury have died down, is a
+constant worry, an unconscious weight on the mind, like the
+thought of war that lies heavily at the back of the consciousness
+of those whose external lives seem empty of war-reminders. We want
+to be courageous and fearless, to _undergo_. Then we must hold
+fast to God's nearness to us, and feel the virtue going out from
+Him to us, though He does but touch the hem of our garments by His
+indwelling.
+
+
+
+PIETY
+
+1. Besides our intelligence and will we have other faculties that
+go by a diversity of names; sometimes they are called the
+emotions, sometimes the passions, sometimes they are alluded to as
+the sentimental side of our nature; but by whatever name we may
+happen to call them, it is clear that they represent just those
+movements of our being which are not really rational in
+themselves, though they can be controlled by the reason. It is
+simplest to divide them into two classes and to realize that they
+lie just on the borderline between spirit and matter, partly of
+soul, partly of body. These two classes are arranged according as
+the emotion attracts or repels man. The repelled emotions are
+fear, anger, hatred, etc.; the attracted are love, desire, joy,
+etc. This gift of piety enables even the emotions to be made
+responsive to God. It is always the notion of some perfect
+instrument to be made harmonious that perhaps most clearly shows
+us the work of the Holy Spirit in the gifts of God, some perfect
+instrument, which needs to be so nicely at tuned that its every
+string shall give out a distinct note, and shall require the least
+movement from the fingers of God's right hand to make its
+immediate response. Here, then, we have first to record the fact
+that the purpose of this gift is to make the emotions or passions
+so refined, so perfectly strung, that at once the slightest
+pressure of the Divine instinct moves them to turn their love,
+desire, joy, towards God, finding in Him the satisfaction of their
+inmost heart.
+
+2. Piety, in its Latin significance (and here in theology, of
+course, we get almost all our terms through the Latin tongue),
+means the filial spirit of reverence towards parents. Virgil gives
+to the hero of his Roman epic the repeated title of _pius_,
+because he wishes always to emphasize AEneas' devotion to his aged
+father. Hence it is clear that what is primarily intended here is
+that we should be quickly conscious of the Fatherhood of God. The
+mediaeval mystics, especially our homely English ones like Richard
+Rolle of Hampole, and Mother Julianna of Norwich, curiously enough
+were fond of talking about the Motherhood of God in order to bring
+out the protective and devoted side of God's care for us; of
+course God surpasses both a mother's and father's love in His
+ineffable love for us. But then it is just that sweetness of soul
+in its attitude towards God, that this gift produces in me a
+readiness to perceive His love in every turn of fortune, and to
+discover His gracious pity in His treatment of my life. It
+requires a divine indwelling of the Spirit of God to effect this
+in my soul, for though I may be by nature easily moved to
+affection, prompt to see and profit by every opening for
+friendship, yet I must, no less, have a difficulty in turning this
+into my religious life without God's movement in my soul.
+
+3. Perhaps the most unmistakable result of this is in the general
+difference between Catholic and non-Catholic nations, in their
+ideas of religion. Even if one takes a non-Catholic nation at its
+best and a Catholic nation at its worst, the gulf between them is
+enormous, for at its lowest the religion of the Catholic nation
+will be attractive at least with its joy, and the non-Catholic
+repellent with its gloom. There is a certain hardness about all
+other denominations of Christianity, a certain restrained attitude
+of awe towards God, which though admirable in itself, is perfectly
+hateful when it is made the dominant note in religion. Better
+joyous superstition than gloomy correctness of worship; better,
+far better, to find happy children who have little respect, and
+much comradeship, towards their parents, than neat and quiet
+children who are in silent awe of their parents. It is, then, to
+develop this side of religion that the gift of piety is given. The
+result then is a sweetness, a gracefulness, a natural lovingness
+towards God and all holy persons and things, as opposed to a
+gloomy, respectable, awkward, self-conscious hardness towards our
+Father in Heaven. Clever, trained people have most to be on their
+guard, for the intellectual activities of the soul are apt to
+crowd out the gentler, simpler side of character.
+
+
+
+FEAR
+
+1. Catholics as a whole, then, we claim to be not in awe of God,
+but holding themselves to Him rather by love than fear; yet for
+all that there must come into our religion a notion also of fear,
+else God will be made of little account, dwarfed by His
+hero-followers, the saints. It is possible that familiarity with God
+may breed something which seems very like contempt. The majesty of
+God has got to be considered just as much as His love, for either
+without the other would really give a false idea of Him. Just as
+there are people who would give up all belief in Hell, because
+they prefer to concentrate upon His mercy, and, as a result, have
+no real love of God as He is in Himself, so there are people also
+who do not sufficiently remember the respect due to His awfulness,
+people who think of Him as a Redeemer, which indeed He is, but not
+as a Judge, which is equally His prerogative. Hence this side of
+our character is also to be made perfect by the indwelling of the
+Spirit of God, our fear, anger, hate, have got to be sanctified by
+finding a true object for their due exercise. No single talent
+must be wrapped away in uselessness; I must fear God, be angry
+with, and hate sin. Fear, then, as well as piety is a gift of the
+Spirit.
+
+2. The chief way in which the absence of this gift of fear
+manifests itself is in the careless and slipshod way we perform
+our duties. We are sure to believe in God's justice and majesty;
+but we are not so sure to act up to our belief. Accuracy in
+devotion, in prayer, in life, is the result of a filial fear of
+God, and if I have to confess a very chaotic and uncertain
+procedure in my spiritual duties, then I can tell quite easily
+which gift I most need to make use of. What are my times for
+prayer like? Are they as regularly kept to as my circumstances
+permit? How about my subject for meditation, how about my
+following of the Mass, my watchfulness in prayer, my days for
+confession and communion? Again, my duties at home, in my
+profession, in the work I have undertaken? Are they on the whole
+punctually performed, accurately, with regard to details? That is
+where my fear for God should come in, for fear here is part of
+love and love is enormously devoted to little things, indeed finds
+that where it is concerned there are no little things, but time
+and place and manner and thoroughness have all got faithfully to
+be noted and carried out. Here, then, is where I shall find I need
+a reverential fear of God.
+
+3. Yes, of course, pride and laziness will protest all the while,
+by urging that all this is a great deal of fuss about nothing,
+that God is our Father, that He perfectly understands, that we
+should not worry ourselves too much over trifles. Now pride and
+laziness often speak true things, or rather half-truths. It is
+true that God is my Father and understands; but it is equally true
+that I am His child and that love demands my thoroughness. Horror
+of sin, devotion to the sacrament of confession, the Scripture
+saying about a severe judgment for every idle word, all these
+things have got to be taken into account as well as the first set
+of principles. Piety needs fear for its perfect performance. The
+boy at first may have to be scolded into obedience to his mother.
+He does not at first realize, and is punished; but watch him when
+he is a grown man, no longer in subjection or under obedience; see
+how charmingly he cares for her by anticipating her wishes, how
+much he is at her beck and call, proudly foreseeing for her,
+protecting, caring. That is love, no doubt, but a love of
+reverence. They are comrades in a sense, but she is always his
+mother to him, some one to be idolized, reverenced, yes, and,
+really, feared, in the fullest sense of love.
+
+
+GRACE
+
+1. The indwelling, then, of the Holy Spirit is a true and
+magnificent phrase. It means that we become living Temples of God.
+Elsewhere indeed He is in tree, flower, sky, earth, water; up in
+the Heavens, down to the depths of the lower places, in the cleft
+wood and lifted stone, in the heart of all creation by the very
+fact of its creation. Yet the higher a thing is in the scale of
+being the more nearly is it after God's image and likeness, so
+that man by his sheer intelligence is more representative of God,
+as the highest masterpiece is more representative of the author of
+it. Yet over and above this intelligent life of man is another
+life in him, which secures God's presence within him in some
+nobler fashion, for it is noticeable that Scripture repeatedly
+speaks of God's dwelling in His saints, and not dwelling in
+sinners. Now He is even in sinners by the title of their Creator,
+so that _dwelling_ must be a deliberate phrase chosen by the
+Inspired author of Scripture to represent some presence above the
+mere general presence of God everywhere. Consequently we are
+driven to the conclusion that the saints, in virtue of their
+sainthood, become dwelling places of God, temples, special places
+set apart, where in a more perfect way, with richer expression and
+more true representation, God is. Sanctity, therefore, constitutes
+something wholly supernatural, attracting God's indwelling, or
+rather resulting from this indwelling of God.
+
+2. Now sanctity itself cannot mean that one man is able to make
+himself so alluring to God that he draws God to himself, for in
+that case God's action of indwelling would be motived by a
+creature, and God would have found some finite reason for His act.
+This cannot be, since the only sufficient motive for God can be
+God Himself. "He hath done all things on account of Himself," say
+the Scriptures. We can be sure, therefore, that the indwelling of
+the spirit is the cause and not the effect of the goodness that is
+in man, for the Saints are not born, but made by God. Hence we
+understand what is meant by saying that the justice of the Saints,
+their justification, is effected by grace, i. e., by God's free
+gift. It is not from them, but from Him: "Not to us, O Lord, not
+to us, but to Thy name give Glory." Grace, therefore, is the name
+given to that divine habit whereby the soul is made one with Him.
+It is clear, then, also, why in the catechism grace is called the
+supernatural life of the soul, and why mortal sin is called the
+death of the soul, since it kills the soul by depriving it of
+sanctifying grace.
+
+3. This leads us to the last notion of grace, that it is in the
+supernatural order what the soul is in the natural order. My soul
+is everywhere in my body and gives evidence of its presence by the
+life there manifest; cut off a portion of the body, amputate a
+limb. It dies. The soul is no longer in it. So does grace work. It
+is right in the very essence of the soul, at the heart of it, and
+works through into all the faculties and powers by means of the
+virtues. It is the life of the whole assemblage of these habits of
+goodness. As soon as it is withdrawn, then at once charity goes,
+for we are out of friendship with God, and charity is nothing
+other than the love of God. Hope still and faith in some form
+remain, but without any inner life or energy to quicken them. All
+else is a crumbled ruin, without shape or life, a sight to fill
+those that can see it with horror and disgust. With grace the soul
+is once more thronged with vital activities, for grace is life.
+Grace it is that gives the same charm to the soul as life gives to
+the body; it imparts a freshness, an alertness, an elasticity, a
+spontaneous movement, a fragrance, a youth. By grace we are
+children in God's eyes, with the delicate coloring and sweetness
+of a child; without it we are old, worn, dead, not only useless to
+ourselves, but a pollution to others. Need one wonder if all life
+is different to the soul in sin? Religion, God, Heaven, Mass,
+prayers, have lost all attraction and are full of drudgery.
+Outwardly we feel the same; but our attraction to these higher
+gifts has gone, a prodigal as yet content with the husks of life's
+fruitage, relishing only the food of swine, without grace,
+spiritually dead.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abiding Presence of the Holy Ghost
+in the Soul, by Bede Jarrett
+
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