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 G.o.d"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 G.o.d? 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, the Figure of His substance, the brightness of His glory, and to the Holy Spirit we more often attribute G.o.d"s love and G.o.d"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 G.o.d is not so absolutely and distinctly proper to G.o.d, the Holy Ghost, as the Incarnation is proper to G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 att.i.tude to the Mother of G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 surpa.s.sing the limits of faith and hope?
2. By grace, then, I receive this indwelling of the Spirit of G.o.d, 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 emba.s.sy from Heaven to earth conducted by a Divine amba.s.sador.
The news of the Incarnation, the offer of the Motherhood of G.o.d, were made by means of an angel. But here, in my case, to no created official is this wonderful thing confided, only to G.o.d 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 G.o.d, the Holy Ghost, sent as the messenger of the Three! I must consequently expect that the results of this indwelling are judged by G.o.d 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 G.o.d in my midst. Do I wonder now at the charm of early innocence, when a soul sits silently holding G.o.d 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 G.o.d"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 G.o.d"s grace and that divine Presence therefore should a.s.sume larger proportions in my life. I am now the dwelling place of G.o.d. 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 G.o.d! 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d. I have to be conscious of the Incarnation, of the story of that perfect life, the privations of it, the culminating horror of the Pa.s.sion and Death, then of the Resurrection, the patient teaching of those forty days when He spoke of the Kingdom of G.o.d 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d. Now it is against one so perfect, so tender, so divine, that sin is committed, a wanton, brutal outrage against an almost overfond love. Ingrat.i.tude, treachery, disloyalty, united in the basest form.
2. G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d and is facing the other way, and thus it has been able by some fatal power to prevent G.o.d"s everlasting love having any effect upon it. G.o.d 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 G.o.d"s friendship, naturally is banished; charity, which is nothing else than the love of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, the right to the eternal heritage, the merits heretofore stored up--all lost. Even G.o.d 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 ingrat.i.tude and disloyalty put one side; not simply in the sense that G.o.d 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. G.o.d 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 att.i.tude of G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d"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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d. Moreover, when G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d"s own heart. "It is the love of G.o.d," says St. Thomas (_Summa theologica_, i, 20.2), "that produces and creates goodness in things." The divine presence, then, of G.o.d in the soul, effected by sanctifying grace, makes the soul more worthy a temple, more fit a home. G.o.d does not come to us because we are fit, but we are fit because G.o.d 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 G.o.ds. 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 G.o.ds." 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 G.o.d, 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 partic.i.p.ation in the being of G.o.d. The indwelling of the Blessed Trinity, then, does even more, for by it we partic.i.p.ate not only in the divine being, but in the divine nature, and fulfill the prophecy of Our Lord: "Ye are G.o.ds." Justification, therefore, is a higher gift than creation, since it does more for us.
2. This divine partic.i.p.ation 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d," 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 G.o.d," 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 partic.i.p.ation in the Divine Nature is therefore no mere metaphor, but is a real fact. The indwelling of G.o.d makes the soul like to G.o.d. 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d. Grace is formally in G.o.d, at the back, so to say, of His divine nature, the inner essence of Himself. By receiving it, therefore, I receive something of G.o.d, and begin to be able to perform divine actions.
I can begin to know G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d!" (1 John 3). We become the sons of G.o.d. St. Paul very gladly quotes the saying of a Greek poet that men are the offspring of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d. St. John, St. Peter, and St. James repeat the same message as the evident result of the Incarnation, for by it we learn that G.o.d became the Son of Man, and man the son of G.o.d.
2. Yet it must also be admitted that this sonship of G.o.d, which is the common property of all just souls, and is the result of the indwelling of G.o.d 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 G.o.d"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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d that showeth mercy." Finally, the inheritance is indeed ours by right and t.i.tle of legal inheritance. We are co-heirs with Christ, and our human nature is lifted up to the level of G.o.d; not, of course, that we supplant Him who is by nature the true Son of G.o.d, but that we are taken into partnership with Him, and share in Him the wonderful riches of G.o.d.
3. Here, then, I may learn the worth and dignity of the Christian name. I am a true son of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 n.o.blest ideals. What n.o.bler ideal, or fancy, or desire, can a man have than to be called and to be the son of G.o.d; to know that he has been drawn into the close union of G.o.d; to feel within his very essence the presence of G.o.d; to have personal experience as the objects of his knowledge and love of the Father, Son, and Spirit?
HEIRS OF G.o.d
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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d. 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 doc.u.ment 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 G.o.d"s adopted sons.
2. I can, therefore, truthfully speak of myself as an heir of G.o.d.
Of course I cannot mean that there is any possible question of "the death of the testator," i. e., of G.o.d. That is quite clearly of no significance here. But adoption does give me some sort of claim to the heritage of G.o.d. 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 G.o.d"s riches, I have a claim also upon the source of those riches. For the heir is ent.i.tled not merely to a legacy, but to the whole of the fortune. I have a right to the whole fortune of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, no part of life that is not steeped in that living presence. The only possible boundary is the love and the grace of G.o.d. There will indeed come evil frontiers beyond which my soul could never dwell. But all else is of G.o.d 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 G.o.d.
3. Here, then, I can find that divine wealth, to inherit which has been the purpose of the adoption by G.o.d. 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 G.o.d, whereas I have a claim upon even more. I have a claim upon the very source of this wealth, that is, upon G.o.d Himself, for He is the sole source of all His greatness. I have a right to G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d "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, G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, to be moved by man freely, but not so as to exclude G.o.d"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 G.o.dly in Christ Jesus." It has to yield itself to the promptings of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d"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 G.o.d, nor can I suppose myself to be able to understand or love G.o.d, whom I do not see). First, then, to cleanse my soul by leveling and smoothing and clearing its surface and depths.