Let me begin my meditation by turning to the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy. The eleventh verse is a beautiful simile which opens out many avenues of thought and supplies much material for prayer. Here it is: "As the eagle enticing her young to fly and hovering over them, He spread His wings, and hath taken him and carried him on His shoulders."
The obvious message here is boundless confidence in God. He compares Himself to the eagle, poised high in the sky and encouraging the fledglings to leave the nest and test the strength of their wings for their first flight. The eagle loves its young and will make certain that no harm will befall, but the little creature is still timid, having never had this experience before.
God is constantly urging us to aim high in our spiritual lives. Too many of us have small views of what He expects from us. The eagle wants her young to take the plunge, trusting in her love and leaving it to her to avert accidents, and God in the same way is honored and glorified when the soul spreads its wings out wide, very wide, and, upheld all the way by the strength of divine grace, flies direct, as the eagle always does, towards the sun.
One is reminded here of Our Lord's directions to His apostles, after they had spent a whole night fishing and had caught nothing. He told them to pull out into the deep for a catch. It is what the eagle would have her young to do, and what God wishes for the soul. It is lamentable if, in view of His Passion and all the inexhaustible treasures of grace it has placed within our reach (and such easy reach), we still remain cramped and narrow in our outlook on the spiritual life. It should not be enough merely to escape hell, merely to scrape somehow into heaven, merely to shun mortal sin. The eagle over our head would embolden us to soar into the regions which the saints have scaled.
There is evidence throughout the Church of the great courage of souls who face so many difficulties in their effort to make God known and loved. Heroic men and women will endure the horrors of torture and concentration camp; zeal for souls will speed them, like eagles, to the farthest and most difficult missionfields; they will incur the responsibility of big debts and be harassed for years by acute financial worries in order to build churches and schools and homes of refuge. All this, when rightly ordered, shows a trust in God that gives Him much glory. This is to pull out into the deep, and when it is done in obedience to His Will, it is sure to meet with abundant reward.
Other reasons are suggested why God compared Himself to an eagle. It is true that the eagle is accustomed to set its nest in a very high and inaccessible position. Pitched up here its young are safe from the snake that would seek to destroy them. In a similar manner God places the soul He loves in security. No enemy can reach the spot except God permit it, and only the distance He permits. God will never allow the snake to approach without giving due warning to the soul. He assures the soul there is nothing to fear if it takes the means He is eager to put at its disposal.
Indeed, the truth is that the eagle itself advances to the attack against the snake. It fixes its talons in the horrible creature's back and proceeds to tear it in shreds. So too does God Himself come forward to the assistance of the soul when Satan would terrify it with evil thoughts and foul suggestions.
But He allows the soul to be tempted, because in temptation He tests its love and its loyalty to Himself. The eagle, it seems, is wont to lift the young one out of the nest and expose it to the glaring rays of a brilliant sun. It holds it there and watches to see if it can endure to look and keep looking at this dazzling light. If it passes the test, the mother knows it is its own progeny and brings it back safe to the nest. But if it cannot bear this light and looks away and shows signs of distress, the eagle slowly loosens its hold upon it and lets it drop into the abyss.
The soul too has to be tried in the scorching fires of temptation. If it fail seriously, if it succumb to mortal sin and die without repentance, God in His justice must allow it to fall into hell.
"O my divine Eagle," prayed St. Therese, "for as long a time as Thou willest I shall remain [on earth], my eyes fixed upon Thee. I long to be allured by Thy divine eyes; I would become Love's prey. I have the hope that Thou wilt one day swoop down upon me, and, bearing me away to the source of all love, Thou wilt plunge me at last into that glowing abyss, that I may become forever its happy victim. . . . I entreat Thee to let Thy divine eyes rest upon a vast number of little souls"