John Henry Newman: The Spirit of God Makes Christ Present with Us by Making Us Present with Christ Sunday, May 20 2012

You will say, How can He [the ascended Jesus] be present to the Christian and in the Church, yet not be on earth, but on the right hand of God?

I answer, that the Christian Church is made up of faithful souls, and how can any of us say where the soul is, simply and really?

The soul indeed acts through the body, and perceives through the body; but where is it? Or what has it to do with place?

Or why should it be a thing incredible that the power of the Spirit should so visit the soul as to open upon it a Divine manifestation, which yet it perceives not, because its present perceptions are only through the body?

Who shall limit the power of the gracious Spirit of God? How know we, for instance, but that He makes Christ present with us, by making us present with Christ?

As the earth goes round the sun, yet the sun is said to move, so our souls, in fact, may be taken up to Christ, when He is said to come to us.

But no need to insist on one mode in which the mystery may be conceived, when ten thousand ways are possible with God, of which we know nothing.

Scripture says enough to show us that influences may be exerted upon the soul so marvellous, that we cannot decide whether the soul remains in the body or not, while subjected to them.

St. Paul, speaking of himself, says, “Whether in the body, I cannot tell, or whether out of the body, I cannot tell; God knoweth: … caught up to the third heaven.”

And he repeats his statement: “I knew such a man,” meaning himself, “whether in the body I cannot tell, or out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth: how that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter.”

St. Paul was brought into Paradise, yet his body remained where it was; and whether his soul was separated from it, was a question which he could not decide.

How can we pretend to decide what the Holy Spirit may or may not do towards faithful souls now, and whether He does not manifest Christ to and in them, by bringing them to Christ?

Again; consider Satan’s power in showing our Lord all the kingdoms of the world “in a moment of time;” may not the Almighty Spirit much more do with us, what the evil one did with our Lord?

May He not in less than a moment bring our souls into God’s presence, while our bodies are on earth?

John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890): Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 6,Sermon 10. The Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Church.

Leave a Response »

 

H.E. Manning: Even Now to Dwell in Heaven, Where All Hearts Are Stayed Wednesday, May 16 2012

Though He should seem to refuse all we ask, He will not refuse to give unto us Himself.

The more you converse with God, the more He will manifest Himself to you.

The very act of prayer will make you familiar with His presence.

Though He be pleased to take from you, one by one, as from His servant Job, all things you cleave to; yet as all other things are withdrawn, He will compass you about with a more sensible presence of His love.

Even as at the last, when there was nothing more to be taken away from the man of many sufferings, the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind;

so from the darkness and perplexity of His providence, there come forth, to those whom God chastens, such tokens of His presence, that they are constrained to say,

“I have heard of Thee with the hearing of the ear;” such was all my past knowledge, hearsay and a dream; “but now mine eye seeth Thee.”

Now all is clear; all stands out before me in full outline and completeness.

So shall it be with those that pray without fainting. By habitual converse with God, they are drawn within the veil through which His providence controls our mortal life.

They rise above it; and their “life is hid with Christ in God. ”Their “conversation is in heaven.”

They begin to see into the hidden meaning of His government over the Church, and of His dealing with themselves; into the secret of the secret, whereby “to principalities and powers in heavenly places is known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God.”

Whatsoever befalls them, they know to be better than they could choose; the best that can be chosen.

[...] To those who are His, all things are not only easy to be borne, but even to be gladly chosen.

All events and changes are the will of God in Christ Jesus. They are also the will of those who have fellowship with Christ, and through Him with God the Father.

Their will is united to that will which moves heaven and earth, which gives laws to angels, and rules the courses of the world.

It is a wonderful gift of God to man, of which we that know so little must needs speak little.

To be at the centre of that motion, where is everlasting rest; to be sheltered in the peace of God; even now to dwell in heaven, where all hearts are stayed, and all hopes fulfilled.

“Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.”

H.E. Cardinal Manning (1808-1892): Sermons, vol. 3, serm. 13 (“A Life of Prayer a Life of Peace”).

Leave a Response »

 

Robert Hugh Benson: Mary Magdalen and the Risen Jesus Tuesday, Apr 10 2012

“Mary!”

“Rabboni!”

But there is still one more lesson for her to learn.

As she throws herself forward, speechless with love and desire, to grasp His Feet

– to assure herself even by touch that it is these same feet indeed which she kissed in the Pharisee’s house, and on the Cross of Calvary

– that it is Himself, and no phantom

– He moves back from her.

“Do not touch me, for I am not yet ascended to my Father.”

“Do not touch me.” . . .

That Friendship is not what it used to be: it is infinitely higher.

It is not what it seemed to be, since the limitations of that Sacred Humanity are gone

– those limitations by which It was here and not there; by which It could suffer and grow weary and hunger and weep

– limitations that endeared It to Its lovers, since they could indeed minister to It, comfort It, and hold It up.

And Its expansion in Glory is not yet consummated – “I am not yet ascended to my Father” –

that expansion of the Ascension and the Nine Days’ Journey through the Heavenly Hierarchy, from the position “a little lower than the angels” to the Session and Coronation at the right Hand of the Majesty on high

– that expansion of which the Descent of the Holy Ghost is the expression, and the Sacramental Presence of that same Humanity on a hundred altars the result.

And then, Mary, the Friendship shall be given back in “good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over.”

Then that which thou hast known on earth confined by time and space shall be given back to touch and handling once more.

Again thy Friend shall be thine own.

The Creator of Nature shall be present in that Nature, unlimited by its limitations.

He who took Humanity shall be present in Humanity.

He who spoke on earth “as one having authority” shall speak again in the same accent.

He who healed the sick shall heal them in the Gate called Beautiful; He who raised the dead shall raise Dorcas in Joppa; He who called Peter in Galilee, shall call Paul in Damascus.

A Friend again He shall be, as never before: a Creature exercising the power of the Creator: a Creator clothed with the sympathy of the Creature; God suffering on earth, and Man reigning in Heaven.

But a Friend, first and last, in Alpha and Omega; a Friend who has died in the humiliation of Friendship; who has risen and reigns in its Eternal Power.

Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914): The Friendship of Christ, chapter13.

2 Responses »

 

John Henry Newman: The Cross of Christ So Wounds As to Heal Also Saturday, Apr 7 2012

[Following on from here...]

It must not be supposed, because the doctrine of the Cross makes us sad, that therefore the Gospel is a sad religion.

The Psalmist says, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy;” and our Lord says, “They that mourn shall be comforted.”

Let no one go away with the impression that the Gospel makes us take a gloomy view of the world and of life.

It hinders us indeed from taking a superficial view, and finding a vain transitory joy in what we see.

But it forbids our immediate enjoyment, only to grant enjoyment in truth and fulness afterwards.

It only forbids us to begin with enjoyment. It only says, If you begin with pleasure, you will end with pain.

It bids us begin with the Cross of Christ, and in that Cross we shall at first find sorrow, but in a while peace and comfort will rise out of that sorrow.

That Cross will lead us to mourning, repentance, humiliation, prayer, fasting; we shall sorrow for our sins, we shall sorrow with Christ’s sufferings.

But all this sorrow will only issue, nay, will be undergone in a happiness far greater than the enjoyment which the world gives,

—though careless worldly minds indeed will not believe this, ridicule the notion of it, because they never have tasted it, and consider it a mere matter of words, which religious persons think it decent and proper to use, and try to believe themselves, and to get others to believe, but which no one really feels.

This is what they think; but our Saviour said to His disciples, “Ye now therefore have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”

“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you.”

And St. Paul says, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”

And thus the Cross of Christ, as telling us of our redemption as well as of His sufferings, wounds us indeed, but so wounds as to heal also.

John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890): Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 6, Sermon 7. The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World.

Leave a Response »

 

John Henry Newman: The Creator Spirit Changes the Self-Satisfied Pharisee into the Broken-Hearted Publican Monday, Feb 20 2012

It is the ignorance of our understanding, it is our spiritual blindness, it is our banishment from the presence of Him who is the source and the standard of all Truth, which is the cause of this meagre, heartless religion of which men are commonly so proud.

Had we any proper insight into things as they are, had we any real apprehension of God as He is, of ourselves as we are, we should never dare to serve Him without fear, or to rejoice unto Him without trembling.

And it is the removal of this veil which is spread between our eyes and heaven, it is the pouring in upon the soul of the illuminating grace of the New Covenant, which makes the religion of the Christian so different from that of the various human rites and philosophies, which are spread over the earth.

[...] That awful Creator Spirit, of whom the Epistle of this day speaks so much, He it is who brings into religion the true devotion, the true worship, and changes the self-satisfied Pharisee into the broken-hearted, self-abased Publican.

It is the sight of God, revealed to the eye of faith, that makes us hideous to ourselves, from the contrast which we find ourselves to present to that great God at whom we look.

It is the vision of Him in His infinite gloriousness, the All-holy, the All-beautiful, the All-perfect, which makes us sink into the earth with self-contempt and self-abhorrence.

We are contented with ourselves till we contemplate Him. Why is it, I say, that the moral code of the world is so precise and well-defined? Why is the worship of reason so calm?

Why was the religion of classic heathenism so joyous? Why is the framework of civilized society all so graceful and so correct?

Why, on the other hand, is there so much of emotion, so much of conflicting and alternating feeling, so much that is high, so much that is abased, in the devotion of Christianity?

It is because the Christian, and the Christian alone, has a revelation of God; it is because he has upon his mind, in his heart, on his conscience, the idea of one who is Self-dependent, who is from Everlasting, who is Incommunicable.

He knows that One alone is holy, and that His own creatures are so frail in comparison of Him, that they would dwindle and melt away in His presence, did He not uphold them by His power.

[...] He knows that there is just One Being, in whose hand lies his own happiness, his own sanctity, his own life, and hope, and salvation.

John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890): Sermons Preached on Various Occasions 2: The Religion of the Pharisee, the Religion of Mankind.

One Response »

 

John Henry Newman: “Blessed are they that Do His Commandments, that they may have Right to the Tree of Life” Thursday, Oct 20 2011

(On 2 Kings 22:19-20.)

In conclusion, my brethren, I would have you observe in what Josiah’s chief excellence lay.

This is the character given him when his name is first mentioned; “He did … right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.” (2 Kings 22:2).

[...] Now what is this strict virtue called? it is called faith. It is no matter whether we call it faith or conscientiousness, they are in substance one and the same:

where there is faith, there is conscientiousness—where there is conscientiousness, there is faith; they may be distinguished from each other in words, but they are not divided in fact.

They belong to one, and but one, habit of mind—dutifulness; they show themselves in obedience, in the careful, anxious observance of God’s will, however we learn it.

Hence it is that St. Paul tells us that “the just shall live by faith” under every dispensation of God’s mercy.

And this is called faith, because it implies a reliance on the mere word of the unseen God overpowering the temptations of sight.

Whether it be we read and accept His word in Scripture (as Christians do), or His word in our conscience, the law written on the heart (as is the case with heathens); in either ease, it is by following it, in spite of the seductions of the world around us, that we please God.

St. Paul calls it faith; saying after the prophet, “The just shall live by faith”;

and St. Peter, in the tenth chapter of the Acts, calls it “fearing and working righteousness,” where he says, that “in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.”

It is all one: both Apostles say that God loves those who prefer Him to the world; whose character and frame of mind is such.

Elsewhere St. Paul also speaks like St. Peter, when he declares that God will render eternal life to them, who by “patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory” (Rom. 2:7).

St. John adds his testimony: “Little children, let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.” (1 John 3:7).

And our Saviour’s last words at the end of the whole Scripture, long after the coming of the Spirit, after the death of all the Apostles but St. John, are the same: “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life” (Rev. 22:14).

John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890): Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 8,  Sermon 7. Josiah, a Pattern for the Ignorant. 

Leave a Response »

 

Nicholas Wiseman: He Came Down from Heaven as Our Divine Physician Saturday, Aug 13 2011

Reflect how unreasonable it would be for a man, grievously sick, to send for a physician, and express his eager desire to be restored to health, and kept in it, and yet obstinately to resist every measure proposed, and refuse to take such remedies as the physician had been at the pains to prepare for him with his own hands.

[...] Precisely such, or worse, is our conduct as regards our sanctification, if we neglect to use frequently and well the sacraments which Jesus Christ has left us for that end.

He came down from heaven as our Divine physician; He knows all our weaknesses, sores, and ailments;  He has studied our case most minutely, and through His own painful experience;  He has made up for us sovereign remedies, in which His own Blood is the principal ingredient.

These remedies He offers to us in the sacrament of Penance.

Can we indeed be said to dislike and lament our state of illness, or to desire seriously our recovery, so long as we neglect to apply to that means of cure?

Further, our Lord has laid up in the Most Holy Sacrament of His Body and Blood a rich and inexhaustible store of blessings and graces, pledges and instruments of eternal life.

Can we be said to desire earnestly the sanctification they are designed to bestow, if we are slothful, negligent, or cold in the use of that adorable institution to which they are attached?

Such, then, are the sacraments left by our Lord for the sanctification of His followers; and they are precisely such as are best adapted for the purpose.

For, first, the great impediment to our sanctification is our constant frailty, which by daily and hourly falls prevents the grace of God from fully possessing our souls, and reigning therein sovereign and supreme.

What could we hope for, unless God, in His mercy, had prepared for us a saving remedy, accessible to us as often as we need it; wherein our offences are forgiven, and their consequences repaired in our souls?

But besides this repeated diminution of strength by accidents, there is a constant evaporation and wearing out of our vigour, by our contact with the world, by the action of our passions and earthly desires, and by the very inertness of our mortal natures, which cannot long together keep steadily to what is good.

[...] God…hath given us a strengthening bread, a succulent nourishment, which confirms and consolidates the spiritual man, and pours new vigour into his soul, and restores all its wasted energy.

How then can we hope spiritually to live that is, to be in a state of grace or sanctification if we have not frequent recourse to this banquet, ever spread for us, in which grace and holiness ever dwell?

Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman (1802–1865): Daily Meditations, pp. 301-302.

One Response »

 

John Henry Newman: The Prophet Elisha and the Comfortable Christian Doctrine of the Communion of Saints Monday, Aug 8 2011

Next I observe on the especial communion, or (as I may call it) citizenship, which Elisha enjoyed with the unseen world.

Elijah thought himself solitary, though he was not so; the world invisible was hid from him.

Though ministered to by Angels, though sustained miraculously by Almighty God, yet, like St. John Baptist, when he sent to ask Christ, Art Thou He that should come? he seemed to himself one against many.

But Elisha had the privilege of knowing that he was one of a great host who were fighting the Lord’s battles, though he might be solitary on earth.

To him was revealed in its measure the comfortable Christian doctrine of the Communion of Saints. His eyes were purged to see sights which the world could not see….

Hear Elijah’s words—I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away (1 Kings 19:10).

On the other hand, when Elisha’s servant, on finding the host of the Syrians round about them, said to the Prophet, Alas! my master, how shall we do? Elisha answered, Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them (2 Kings 6:15-17).

And then he besought Almighty God to give to his servant for an instant a glimpse of that glorious vision which he in faith, or by inspiration, enjoyed continually.

He prayed, and said, Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

How well does this vision correspond to that blessed privilege which, as the Apostle assures us, is conferred upon us Christians:

Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,

and to an innumerable company of Angels, to the general assembly and Church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all,

and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant,

and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel!

An innumerable company of Angels, and the Spirits of the just;—we dwell under their shadow; we are baptized into their fellowship; we are allotted their guardianship; we are remembered, as we trust, in their prayers.

We dwell in the very presence and court of God Himself, and of His Eternal Son our Saviour, who died for us, and rose again, and now intercedes for us before the Throne.

We have privileges surely far greater than Elisha’s; but of the same kind.

John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890): Sermons on Subjects of the Day, Sermon 13. Elijah a Type of Christ and His Followers.

Leave a Response »

 

Robert Hugh Benson: He Tears from Himself the Conventions with which Our Imaginations have Clothed Him Friday, Aug 5 2011

It is true that we have obeyed, that we have striven to avoid sin, that we have received grace, forfeited it and recovered it, that we have acquired merit or lost it, that we have tried to do our duty, endeavoured to aspire and to love. All this is real, before God.

But it has not been real to ourselves. We have said prayers? Yes. But we have scarcely prayed.

[...] But after this new and marvellous existence, all is changed. Jesus Christ begins to exhibit to us not merely the perfections of His past, but the glories of His presence. He begins to live before our eyes; He tears from Himself the conventions with which our imaginations have clothed Him.

[...] We have known facts about Him all our life; we have repeated the Catholic creed; we have assimilated all that theology can tell us. Now, however, we pass from knowledge about Him, to knowledge of Him.

We begin to understand that Eternal Life begins in this present, for it is to “know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (John 6:3). Our God is becoming our Friend.

On the other side He demands from us what He Himself offers. If He strips Himself before our eyes, He claims that we should do the same….  He knows every instant in the past in which we have swerved from His obedience: but, as our Friend, He waits for us to tell Him.

It is tolerably true to say that the difference between our behaviour respectively to an acquaintance and to a friend, is that in the first case we seek to conceal ourselves, to present an agreeable or a convenient image of our own character, to use language as a disguise, to use conversation as we might use counters; and in the second case that we put aside conventions and makeshifts, and seek to express ourselves as we are, and not as we would have our friend to think us to be.

This then is required of us in the Divine Friendship.

Up to now our Lord has been content with very little: He has accepted a tithe of our money, an hour of our time, a few thoughts and a few emotions, paid over to Him in religious intercourse and worship. He has accepted those things instead of ourselves. Henceforth

He demands that all such conventions should cease; that we should be entirely open and honest with Him, that we should display ourselves as we really are – that we should lay aside, in a word, all those comparatively harmless make-believes and courtesies, and be utterly real.

Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914): The Friendship of Christ, chapter 2.

Leave a Response »

 

Robert Hugh Benson: He Has Come Down from the Painting on the Wall – My Beloved Is Mine and I Am His Friday, Jul 29 2011

It seems inconceivable at first sight that a relationship, which in any real manner can be called a friendship, should be possible between Christ and the soul.

Adoration, dependence, obedience, service, and even imitation – all these things are imaginable; but until we remember that Jesus Christ took a human soul like our own,…until this becomes to us, from a dogmatic fact apprehended by faith, a vital fact perceived by experience, a full realization of His friendship is out of the question.

For just as in the case of ordinary persons the plane of real friendship lies in the communion of the two souls, so it is between Christ and a man.

His Soul is the point of contact between His Godhead and our humanity. We receive His Body with our lips; we prostrate our whole being before His Divinity; but we embrace His Soul with ours.

Human friendships usually take their rise in some small external detail. [...] Now the Divine Friendship – the consciousness, that is to say, that Christ desires our love and intimacy, and offers His own in return – usually begins in the same manner.

It may be at the reception of some sacrament, such as we have received a thousand times before; or it may be as we kneel before the Crib at Christmas, or follow our Lord along the Way of the Cross.

We have done these things or performed these ceremonies dutifully and lovingly again and again; yet on this sudden day a new experience comes to us.

We understand, for example, for the first time that the Holy Child is stretching His arms from the straw, not merely to embrace the world – that would be little enough! – but to embrace our own soul in particular.

We understand as we watch Jesus, bloodstained and weary, rising from His third fall, that He is taking our own very self in particular to help Him with His burden.

The glance of the Divine Eyes meets our own; there passes from Him to us an emotion or a message that we had never before associated with our own relations with Him.

The tiny event has happened! He has knocked at our door, and we have opened; He has called and we have answered. Henceforth, we think, He is ours and we are His.

Henceforth, we think, He is ours and we are His. Here, at last, we tell ourselves, is the Friend for whom we have been looking so long:

here is the Soul that perfectly understands our own; the one Personality which we can safely allow to dominate our own. Jesus Christ has leapt forward two thousand years, and is standing by our side;

He has come down from the painting on the wall; He has risen from the straw in the manger – My Beloved is mine and I am His….

Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914): The Friendship of Christ, chapter 2.

2 Responses »