Alter Christus - At the Founts of Divine Love

The love of God is the supreme need of our life. For that love is the exact measure both of our own perfection and of the fruitfulness of our ministry. Where it reigns, all else is included: "Super omnia autem caritatem habete, quod est vinculum perfectionis"; whilst without it, however active we may be, we are but "aes sonas, cymbalum tinniens." If we realized this fully, how we would hunger for that love in our life, and strive to communicate it to souls around us! "Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi... Coruscasti, splenduisti, et fugasti caecitatem meam... O amor, qui semper ardes et nunquam exstingueris, caritas Deus meus, accende me" (Confessions of St Augustine, Bk X, ch. 27 & 29 ).

What opportunities does not this time of the year bring us: the feasts of Pentecost, the Holy Trinity, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart. All stupendous mysteries of divine love! If only we understood: "si scires donum Dei. . . ".

"FONS VIVUS, IGNIS CARITAS"

The feast of the Holy Spirit reveals to us the very source of that love, the "Altissimi donum Dei" which brings the love of God into our hearts: "Caritas Dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris per Spiritum Sanctum qui datus est nobis."

Then for eight days we shall live in the constant supplication that the Holy Spirit may fill the hearts of the faithful and kindle in them the fire of divine love. And we shall be meditating on the sublime work and operations of the Holy Spirit in our soul: sanctifying grace, actual graces, infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost...

"Si scires donum Dei!" It is the gift which Christ has merited for us on the Cross and by which He vivifies all the members of His Mystical Body; it is His spirit, His very life that He communicates to us... If we long for an intimate participation in the life of Christ, let us not separate devotion to the Holy Spirit from our devotion to the Sacred Heart.

* May we realize more and more what place that devotion should have in our spiritual life. - Our daily "Veni, Sancte Spiritus" ought to be a real, heartfelt yearning, as for the coming of a Friend most dear and most needed. - And we ought to keep ourselves always in a humble, vigilant and eager docility to the promptings of the "Dulcis Hospes animae".

"DEUS CARITAS EST"

The feast of the Most Holy Trinity will stir us, no doubt, to renewed fervour in our praise and adoration of the infinite Majesty of God. But it should bring us also an increased realization of our ineffable union with divine love through the presence of God in our soul. For "God is love" and God dwells in the soul adorned with sanctifying grace, as a friend dwells with a friend: "...ad eum veniemus et mansionem apud eum faciemus".

If we lived more habitually with the sense of that presence in us of the God of Love, how we would grow in that love: avoiding all deliberate faults that might diminish it, per­forming all our actions from the motive of love and under its direct influence.

* Let us guard ourselves against ought that might dim the brightness of that love, by remembering, especially in times of temptations, that we are "the temple of God". ­Let us endeavour to grow in the spirit of recoItection, so necessary for that intimate union with God: "Converte, (Domine), obsecro, cor meum ad Te introrsum in fundum animae meae ..." (Lessius). - Even each one of our signs of the cross might become for us a sealing as it were, a consecration of our body as the dwelling-place of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as the sanctuary of Love itself.

"SACRAMENTUM AMORIS"

Sanctuary of Love again, however unworthy our poor heart, every time we receive the most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord: "manet in me et ego in eo". May the feast of Corpus Christi quicken our faith and our trust in the transforming power of the Sacrament of Love! Does it not contain and bring to us the Sacred Heart and all its love, and with Christ the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity and their infinite love? Each holy Communion therefore puts us in possession of the fullness of divine love. Its special, 'sacramental' grace is the 'fervour of love'.

* What are our faith and eagerness, every day, at holy Mass and holy Communion? And how do we prepare for it? - How much time and what care do we give to thanks­giving? Do we close the eyes of the body to the things of the world and open the eyes of the soul to the secrets of divine love within us? (Cf. Imitation of Christ, bk IV, ch. 13.)

"FORNAX ARDENS CARITATIS"

And if yet those hidden sources of divine love do not move us sufficiently, then let us, in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, on His feast day, behold the visible signs of that love: the "last effort" of Christ to kindle in men's hearts the fire He came to cast upon the earth... May the vivid remembrance of that vision and revelation make us realize how true devotion to the Sacred Heart is but a constant stirring of love and consequently a shortcut to holiness of life: it radiates the heat of love from the "Fornax ardens caritatis" and sets us on fire with it in the degree in which we surrender ourselves to its action. . .

* Has our devotion to the Sacred Heart that deep meaning? - Are our various practices of the devotion real exercises of love? - Love sums up the whole life of the Sacred Heart; true devotion compels us to surrender in return our heart entirely to Him, so that His love may be the keynote of our whole life: "Praebe, fili mi, cor tuum mihi."

" Illo nos igne, quaesumus, Domine, Spiritus Sanctus inflammet : Quem Dominus noster Iesus Christus misit in terram et voluit vehementer accendi" (Saturday after Pentecost).

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Adapted from Alter Christus, Meditations for Priests by F.X. L'Hoir, S.J. (1958)
Meditation 18.
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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood.