Taken from THE LITURGICAL YEAR
by
Abbot Guéranger
 

X TIME AFTER PENTECOST
Book I

A NEW ray of light shines today in the Heaven of holy Church, and its light brings warmth the Divine Master given to us by our Redeemer, that is, the Paraclete Spirit, who has come down into this world, continues His teachings to us in the sacred liturgy. The earliest of these His Divine teachings was the mystery of the Trinity; and we have worshipped the blessed Three: we have been taught who God is, we know Him in His own nature, we have been admitted, by faith, into the sanctuary of the infinite Essence. Then this Spirit, the mighty wind of Pentecost, [Acts ii. 2.] opened to our souls new aspects of the truth, which it is His mission to make the world remember; [St. John xiv. 26.] and His revelation left us prostrate before the Sacred Host, the Memorial which God Himself has left us of all His wonderful works.  [Ps. cx. 4.] Today it is the Sacred Heart of the Word made flesh that this holy Spirit puts before us, that we may know and love and adore it.

There is a mysterious connection between these three feasts, of the blessed Trinity, Corpus Christi, and the Sacred Heart. The aim of the Holy Ghost, in all three, is to initiate us more and more into that knowledge of God by faith, which is to fit us for the face-to-face vision in Heaven. We have already seen how God, being made known to us, by the first, in Himself, manifests Himself to us, by the second, in His outward works [See Note From the Feast of Corpus Christi] for the holy Eucharist is the memorial, here below, in which He has brought together, and with all possible perfection, all those His wondrous works. But by what law can we pass so rapidly, so almost abruptly, from one feast, which is all directly regarding God, to another, which celebrates the works done by Him to and for us? Then again: how came the Divine thought, the eternal Wisdom, from the infinite repose of the eternally blessed Trinity, to the external activity of a love for us poor creatures, which has produced what we call the mysteries of our redemption? The Heart of the Man-God is the solution of these difficulties; it answers all such questions, and explains to us the whole Divine plan.

We knew that the sovereign happiness which is in God, we knew that the life eternal communicated from the Father to the Son, and from these two to the Holy Ghost, in light and love, was to be given by the will of these three Divine Persons to created beings; not only to those which were purely spiritual, but likewise to that creature whose nature is the Union of spirit and matter, that is, to man. A pledge of this life eternal was given to him in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. It is by the Eucharist that man, who has already been made a partaker of the Divine nature  [2 St. Pet. i. 4.] by the grace of the sanctifying Spirit, is united to the Divine Word, and is made a true member of this only-begotten Son of the Father. Though it hath not yet appeared what we shall be, says St. John, still we are now the sons of God; we know that, when He shall appear, we shall he like to Him; [1 St. John iii. 2.]  for we are called to live, as the Word Himself does, in the society of His eternal Father for ever and ever. [Ibid. i. 3.]

But the infinite love of the sacred Trinity, which thus called us frail creatures to a participation in Its own blessed life, would accomplish this merciful design by means of another love, a love more like that which we ourselves can feel; that is, the created love of a human Soul, evinced by the beatings of a Heart of flesh like our own. The Angel of the great Counsel, who is sent to make known to the world the merciful designs of the Ancient of days, took to Himself, in order to fulfill His Divine mission, a created, a human form; and this would enable men to see with their eyes, yea, and even touch with their hands, the Word of life, that life eternal which was with the Father, but appeared even unto us.  [Ibid. 2.] This human nature, which the Son of God took into personal union with Himself, from the womb of the Virgin-Mother, was the docile instrument of infinite love, but it was not absorbed into, or lost in, the Godhead; it retained its own substance, its special faculties, its distinct will, which will ruled, under the influence of the Divine Word, the acts and movements of His most holy Soul and adorable Body. From the very first instant of its existence, the human soul of Christ was inundated, more directly than was any other creature, with that true light of the Word, which enlighteneth every man who cometh into this world; [St. John i. 9.] it enjoyed the face-to-face vision of the Divine Essence; and therefore took in, at a single glance, the absolute beauty of the sovereign Being, and the wisdom of the Divine decree which called finite beings into a participation of infinite bliss. It understood its sublime mission, and conceived an immense love for man and for God. This love began simultaneously with life, and filled not only His Soul, but impressed, in its own way, the Body too, the moment it was formed from the substance of the Virgin-Mother by the operation of the Holy Ghost. The effect of His love told, consequently, upon His Heart of true human flesh; it set in motion those beatings, which made the Blood of redemption circulate in His sacred veins.

For it was not with Him as with other men, the pulsations of whose hearts are, at first, the consequence of nothing but the vital power which is in the human frame; until, when reason has awakened, emotions produce physical impressions, which quicken or dull the throbbings of the heart. With the Man-God it was not so: His Heart, from the very first moment of its life, responded to the law of His Soul's love, whose power to act upon His human Heart was as incessant, and as intense, as is the power of organic vitality-----a love as burning at the first instant of the Incarnation, as it is this very hour in Heaven. For the human love of the Incarnate Word, resulting from His intellectual knowledge of God and of creatures, was as perfect as that knowledge, and therefore as incapable of all progress; though, being our Brother, and our model in all things, He, day by day, made more manifest to us the exquisite sensibility of His Divine Heart.

At the period of Jesus' coming upon this earth, man had forgotten how to love, for he had forgotten what true beauty was. His heart of flesh seemed to him as a sort of excuse for his false love of false goods: his heart was but an outlet, whereby his soul could stray from Heavenly things to the husks of earth, there to waste his power and his substance. [St. Luke xv. 13.] To this material world, which the soul of man was to render subservient to its Maker's glory-----to this world, which, by a sad perversion, kept man's soul a slave to his senses and passions-----the Holy Ghost sent a marvelous power, which, like a resistless lever, would replace the world in its right position: it was the Sacred Heart of Jesus; a Heart of flesh, like that of other human beings, from whose created throbbings there would ascend to the eternal Father an expression of love, which would be a homage infinitely pleasing to the infinite Majesty, because of the union of the Word with that human Heart. It is a harp of sweetest melody, that is ever vibrating under the touch of the Spirit of love; it gathers up into its own music the music of all creation, whose imperfections it corrects, whose deficiencies it supplies, tuning all discordant voices into unity, and so offering to the glorious Trinity a hymn of perfect praise. The Trinity finds its delight in this Heart. It is the one only organum, as St. Gertrude calls it, [Legatus divinae pietatis; lib. ii. c. 23; lib. iii. c. 25.] the one only instrument which finds acceptance with the Most High. Through it must pass all the inflamed praises of the burning Seraphim, just as must the humble homage paid to its God by inanimate creation. By it alone are to come upon this world the favors of Heaven. It is the mystic ladder between man and God, the channel of all graces, the way whereby man ascends to God, and God descends to man.

The Holy Ghost, whose masterpiece it is, has made it a living image of Himself; for although in the ineffable relations of the Divine Persons, He is not the source of love, He is its substantial expression, or in theological language, the term; it is He who inclines the holy Trinity to those works outside Itself, which produce creatures; and then, having given them being, and to some life, He [the holy Spirit] pours out upon them all the effusion of their Creator's love for them. And so it is with the love which the Man-God has for God and Man: its direct and, so to say, material expression is the throbbing it produces upon His Sacred Heart; and again, it is by that Heart, that, like the Water and Blood which came from His wounded Side, He pours out upon the world a stream of redemption and grace, which is to be followed by the still richer one of glory.

One of the soldiers, as the Gospel tells us, opened Jesus' Side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water. [St. John xix. 34.] We must keep before us this text and the fact it relates, for they give us the true meaning of the feast we are celebrating. The importance of the event here related is strongly intimated, by the earnest and solemn way in which St. John follows up his narration. After the words just quoted, he adds: 'And he that saw it hath given testimony of it, and his testimony is true: And he knoweth that he saith true, that ye also may believe; for these things were done, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.'  [Ibid. 35, 36.]  Here the Gospel refers us to the testimony of the Prophet Zacharias, who after predicting that the Spirit of grace would be poured out upon the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, [Zach. xii. 10.] says: 'They shall look upon Him whom they pierced.' [Ibid. as quoted by St. John xix. 37.]

And when they look upon His side thus pierced, what will they see there, but that great truth which is the summary of all Scripture and of all history: 'God so loved the world, as to give it His only-begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have eternal life.' [St. John iii. 16.] This grand truth was, during the ages of expectation, veiled under types and figures; it could be deciphered but by few, and even then only obscurely; but it was made known with all possible clearness on that eventful day, when, on Jordan's banks, [St. Luke iii. 21, 22.] the whole Sacred Trinity manifested Who was the Elect, the chosen One, of the Father-----the Son in Whom He was so well pleased. [Is. xlii. 1.] It was Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary. But there was another revelation, of deepest interest to us, which had still to be made: it was-----how, and in what way, would the eternal life brought by Jesus into the world, pass from Him into each one of us? This second revelation was made to us, when the soldier's spear opened the Divine source, and there flowed from it that Water and Blood, which, as the Scripture tells us, completed the testimony of the blessed Three. 'There are three,' says St. John, Who give testimony in Heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are One. And there are three that give testimony on earth: the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood: and these three are one,' that is, they are one, because they concur in giving the one same testimony.  'And this,' continues St. John, 'is the testimony: that God hath given to us eternal life, and that this life is in His Son.' [1 St. John v. 7, 8, 11.]  These words contain a very profound mystery; but we have their explanation in today's feast, which shows us how it is through the Heart of the Man-God that the Divine work is achieved, and how, through that same Heart, the plan which was conceived, from all eternity, by the Wisdom of the Father, has been realized.

To communicate His own happiness to creatures, by making them, through the Holy Ghost, partakers of His own Divine nature, [St. Pet. i. 4.] and members of His beloved Son-----this was the merciful design of the Father; and all the works of the Trinity, outside Itself, tend to the accomplishment of that same. When the fullness of time had come, there appeared upon our earth He that came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. The Spirit, Who, together with the Father and the Son, has already on the banks of Jordan given His testimony, gives it here again, for St. John continues: 'And it is the Spirit which testifieth, that Christ is the truth; [1 St. John v. 6.]  and that He spoke the truth when He said of Himself, that He is Life.' [St. John v. 26.]  The Spirit, as the Gospel teaches us, [Ibid. vii. 37-39.]  comes forth with the water from the fountains of the Savior, [Is. xii. 3.] and makes us worthy of the precious Blood, which flows together with the water. Then does mankind, thus born again of water and the Holy Ghost, become entitled to enter into the kingdom of God; [St. John iii. 5.]  and the Church, thus made ready for her Spouse in those same waters of Baptism, is united to the Incarnate Word in the Blood of the sacred Mysteries. We, being members of that holy Church, have the same union with Christ ; we are bone of His bones, and flesh of His flesh; [Gen. ii. 23; Eph. v. 30.]  we have received the power to be made adopted eons of God, [St. John i. 12.] and sharers, for all eternity, of the Divine life, which He, the Son by nature, has in the bosom of the Father.

On, then, thou Jew! though ignorant of the nuptials of the Lamb, give the signal of their being accomplished. Lead the Spouse to the nuptial bed of the Cross; He will lay Himself down on that most precious Wood, which His mother, the Synagogue, has made to be His couch; she prepared it for Him, on the eve of the day of His alliance, when from His Sacred Heart His bride is to come forth, together with the Water which cleanses her, and the Blood which is to be her dower. It was for the sake of this bride, that He left His Father, and the bright home of His Heavenly Jerusalem; He ran, as a giant, in the way of His intense love; He thirsted, and the thirst of desire gave Him no rest. The scorching wind of suffering which dried up His bones, was less active than the fire which burned in His Heart, and made its beatings send forth, in the agony in the garden, the Blood which, on the morrow, was to be spent for the redemption of His bride. He has reached Calvary, it is the end of His journey; He dies; He sleeps, with His burning thirst upon Him. But the bride, who is formed for Him during this His mysterious sleep, will soon rouse Him from it. That Heart, from which she was born, has broken, that she might come forth; broken, it ceased to beat; and the grand hymn which, through it, had been so long ascending from earth to Heaven, was interrupted; and creation was dismayed at the interruption. Now that the world has been redeemed, man should sing more than ever the canticle of his gratitude: and the string! of the harp are broken! Who will restore them? Who will re-awaken in the Heart of Jesus the music of its Divine throbbings?

The new-born Church, His bride, is standing near that opened side of her Jesus ; in the intensity of her first joy, she thus sings to God the Father: 'I will praise Thee, O Lord, among the people, and I will sing unto Thee among the nations.' Then, to her Jesus: 'Arise, Thou, my glory! my psaltery, my harp, arise!'  [Ps. cvii. 1-4.] And He arose in the early morning of the great Sunday; His Sacred Heart resumed its melody, and, with it, sent up to Heaven the music of holy Church, for the Heart of the Spouse belongs to His bride, and they are now two in one flesh. [Gen. ii. 24; Eph. v. 31.]

Christ, being now in possession of her who has wounded His Heart, gives her, in return, full power over that Sacred Heart of His, from which she has issued. There lies the secret of all the Church's power. In the relations existing between husband and wife, which were created by God at the beginning of the world, and [as the Apostle assures us] in view of this great mystery of Christ and the Church, [Eph. v. 32.] man is the head, [1 Cor. xi. 3.] and the woman may not domineer in the government of the family. Has the woman, then, no power? She has power, and a great power: she must address herself to her husband's heart, and gain all by love. If Adam, our first father, sinned, it was because Eve used, and for evil, her influence over his heart, by misleading him, and us in him. Jesus saves us, because the Church has won His Heart; and that human Heart could not be won, without the Divinity also being moved to mercy. And here we have the doctrine of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as far as regards the principle upon which it rests. In this its primary and essential notion, the devotion is as old as the Church herself, for it rests on this truth, which has been recognized in every age: that Christ is the Spouse, and the Church is His bride.

A Note From the Feast of Corpus Christi

The dogma of the Trinity, does not represent the whole richness of Christian revelation: Thou, O blessed Spirit, hastenest to complete our instruction, and widen the horizon of our faith.

The knowledge Thou hast given us of the essence and the life of the Godhead, was to be followed and completed by that of His external works, and the relations which God has vouchsafed to establish between Himself and us. In this very week when we begin, under Thy direction, to contemplate the precious gifts left us by Jesus when He ascended on high; on this first Thursday, which reminds us of that holiest of all Thursdays, our Lord's Supper, Thou, O Divine Spirit, bringest before our delighted vision the admirable Sacrament, which is the compendium of the works of God, one in Essence and three in Persons; the adorable Eucharist, which is the divine memorial  of the wonderful things achieved by the united operation of Omnipotence, Wisdom, and Love. The most holy Eucharist contains within itself the whole plan of God with reference to this world; it shows how all the previous ages have been gradually developing the Divine intentions, which were formed by infinite love, and, by that same love, carried out to the end, yea, to the furthest extremity here below, that is, to Itself; for the Eucharist is the crowning of all the antecedent acts done by God in favor of His creatures; the Eucharist implies them all; it explains all.

Man's aspirations for union with God-----aspirations which are above his own nature, and yet so interwoven with it as to form one inseparable life-----can have but one possible cause, and it is God Himself, God who is the author of that being called man. None but God has formed the immense capaciousness of man's heart; and none but God is willing or able to fill it. Every act of the Divine will, whether outside Himself or within, is pure love, and is referred to that Person of the blessed Trinity Who is the Third; and Who, by the mode of His Procession, is substantial and infinite love. Just as the almighty Father sees all things, before they exist in themselves, in His only Word, Who is the term of the Divine intelligenee: so, likewise, that those same things may exist in themselves, the same almighty Father wishes them, in the Holy Ghost, Who is to the Divine will what the Word is to the infinite intelligence. The Spirit of love, Who is the final term to the fecundity of Persons in the Divine Essence, is, in God, the first beginning of the exterior works produced by God. In their execution, those exterior works are common to the Three Persons, but they are attributed to the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as He, being the Spirit of love, solicits the Godhead to act outside Itself. He is the Love Who, with its Divine weight and influence of love, sways the blessed Trinity to the external act of creation; infinite Being leans, as it were, towards the deep abyss of nothingness, and out of that abyss creates. The holy Spirit opened the Divine counsel, and said: "Let us make man to Our image and likeness." Then God created man to His own image; He created him to the image of God, taking His own Word as the model to which He worked; for that Word is the sovereign archetype, according to which is formed the more or less perfect essence of each created being. Like Him, then, to Whose image he was made, man was endowed with understanding and free-will. As such, he would govern the whole inferior creation, and make it serve the purpose of its Creator, that is, he would turn it into a homage of praise and glory to its God; and though that homage would be finite, yet would it be the best of which it was capable. This is what is called the natural order; it is an immense world of perfect harmonies; and, had it ever existed without any further perfection than its own natural one, it would have been a masterpiece of God's goodness; and yet, it would have been far from realizing the designs of the Spirit of love.

With all the spontaneity of a will which was free not to act, and was as infinite as any other of the Divine perfections, the holy Spirit wills that man should, after this present life, be a partaker of the very life of God, by the face-to-face vision of the Divine Essence; nay, the present life of the children of Adam here, on this earth, is to put on by anticipation the dignity of that higher life; and this so literally, that the future one in Heaven is to be but the direct sequel, the consequent outgrowth, of the one led here below. And how is man, so poor a creature in himself, to maintain so high a standing? How is he to satisfy the cravings thus created within his heart? Fear not: the Holy Ghost has a work of His Own, and He does it simultaneously with the act of creation; for the three Persons infuse into their creature, man, the image of Their Own Divine attributes; and upon his finite and limited powers graft, so to say, the powers of the Divine nature. This destiny for an end which is above created nature-----these energies superadded to man's natural powers, transforming, yet not destroying, them, and enabling the possessor to attain the end unto which God calls him-----is called the supernatural order, in contradistinction to that lower one, which would have been the order of nature, had not God, in His infinite goodness, thus elevated man above his own mere state as man from the very beginning of his existence.

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