Preparatory Prayer:
"I will extol Thee, 0 God my King; I will bless Thy Name forever; yea, forever and ever." Psalm 144.
Setting:
Jesus and His eleven disciples seated at supper in the upper room. Judas has gone to sign the death warrant of his Master; his place here is vacant and I am permitted to occupy it in my prayer this morning. Presently I am aware of the even tones Of the voice of Jesus. He is delivering to His own His farewell discourse. One of the group has just put Him some question, and I arrive at the precise moment when Our Lord is giving the answer. "If anyone 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." That single sentence is a mine containing abundance of material for prayerful consideration. It is God's promise to make the soul a tabernacle in which the Blessed Trinity will take up permanent abode. No subject could be more congenial to ponder in my heart than the wonderful doctrine of sanctifying grace; to this Jesus invites me today.
Fruit:
A resolve to grow in grace, consequent upon a deeper understanding of its nature and immense value.
There is a life immeasurably more important than the restless agitation which speeds men this way and that. It is a silent life, a hidden life, an unhurried life; it is the life of God Himself, saturating, so to say, the very texture of men's souls. The soul is a tabernacle, containing its own Real Presence, and the life that matters is lived by God behind the tabernacle door.
Every newly baptized soul pulsates with this principle of divine life. We know it as sanctifying grace. It is, par excellence, the gift of God, and from Our Lord's conversation with the Samaritan woman and others, it is clear that He longs for us to realize its value and to importune Him to give it to us. What is it? What does it do? Where is it to be found? In my prayer this morning He deigns to answer these questions, as He and I together look into the tabernacle of the soul.
Grace is, first of all, a new principle of life. It gives us power to do things that are utterly impossible for us to do considered as mere human beings. Grace lifts up our nature till we share in some mysterious way in the nature of God, and this sharing enables us to do deeds that are in a manner divine. That is why it is called a supernatural gift.
If the little dog which toddles into the room could sit at this typewriter and use his paws to copy a manuscript intelligently and correctly, he would need to receive a new principle of life, because the life due to his nature as a dog does not call for the power to write and reason. In a much more wonderful manner the soul in Baptism receives a power to impart to our most commonplace actions an entirely new value. Without grace we could not merit for heaven; with grace even trifles can be supernaturalized, can be informed with a vitality immeasurably superior to their own intrinsic value. By means of actions done in the state of grace, the soul actually wins a reward that will be eternal in heaven.
Through grace man becomes in a manner deified. He shares in God's own nature and, because he does, he now has an exigence to know God and love God in a manner closely corresponding to that in which God knows and loves Himself. There is an exigence in the fish to swim in the sea and in the bird to fly in the air. Until the advent of grace in a soul, there is no exigence to know and love God directly and immediately "as He is in Himself." The exigence is now created in the soul - to look forever on the unclouded beauty of the divinity and, as a result, to love Him with a love analogous to His own.
To such stupendous privileges Our poor nature, left to itself, could never aspire. Nothing can explain the giving of this "gift of God" except love.
Lord, in the distracted existence I live, there is nothing easier for me than to become absorbed in things that matter little. Reverently let me open out wide this tabernacle door and look inside. Teach me, Lord, to value the treasure herein contained.