THE LITURGICAL YEAR
BY THE VERY REV. DOM PROSPER GUÉRANGER, ABBOT OF SOLESMES
THE TIME AFTER PENTECOST
PROPER OF THE TIME.
The Liturgical Season, over which presides the Spirit of sanctification and love, has commenced its career amidst the brightness of a light which is new, both for the Church and the christian soul. The weak eye of our intellect, veiled by the protecting cover of faith, has ventured to gaze on the deep things of God [1 Cor. ii. 10]; in the midst of the eternal relations which. make up the holy Trinity, we have been enabled to discern those sublirne links which exist bctween each of the Divine Persons and man, nothingness though he be by his own origin. Then, too, we have been given to know Him who is Eternal Wisdom; this Wisdom is the Incarnate Word; and the time for mans coming to know that Wisdom was the Feast of the Eucharist; it was through the revelation then made known to him of the divine love for mankind, that rrian understood why it was that the world had been created. Beyond these grand teachings given to us by the bright Festivals, first of Trinity Sunday, and then of Corpus Christi, we had the Sacred Heart of Jesus repeating to us, and summing up in itself, all these mysteries; that Divine Heart was revealed to us as the source of supernatural life, as the organ of praise, as the centre where the love of God for man, and the love of man for God, were united. All this has filled the whole earth with the magnificence of the supernatural order.
It was with these three bright mysteries, as celebrated by the Church immediately after Pentecost Sunday, that the reign of the Holy Ghost was begun for us this Year of Grace. Our Emmanuel himself, during the years of his sojourn upon our earth, had not shed such light as this upon us. True, our Emmanuel was himself though Light ; and the Ho1y Ghost, far from revealing to us any new dogmas, did but remind the world of the truths taught it by Him who is ever the true Master and Teacher of his Church. How then, is it, that the light becomes doubly strong immediately that this Jesus of ours leaves us? How comes it, that the Holy Ghost, who was not to speak of himself, no sooner descends upon us, than we are enabled to see the heavenly mysteries with such intensified clearness? Let us master the lesson involved in all this.
Yes, the Holy Ghost is not to speak of Himself and yet he teaches divine1y.~ It is from the Word that he receives what he tells to this earth of ours ;He hearkens to that Word, and will say the same things himself but he will say them in his own way.
The Eternal Word is the one only word; it had spoken from the very commencement of creation; its varied utterances had filled the whole earth; its divine teaching had been heard, day telling it unto day, and night unto night. And yet, this almighty voice of Wisdom, which penetrated into the bottom of the deep,° was but too frequently allowed to speak unnoticed. The light shone in the darkness, but the darkness would not be movcd, as the Church reminded us during the Season of Advent, when the four weeks of those wintry and dark days told us how man, for four thousand years, had abased the very light of his reason, by making it serve to put out the light of the divine Word which God had been giving him. During all this long period, the Word had sought, though in vain, to put the imprint of himself on the successive generations ; that period transpired and he came down upon earth, there to take up his abode, and converse with men, and, with his own lips, to give to the world the unreserved heavenly message of light and truth. The children of Adam heard with their own ears, and saw with their own eyes and touched with their very hands, tho word of life, the Word made Flesh. And yet, even with all this condescension and intimacy, even though very men who enjoyed most of His presence,—those men who were selected to become the messengers of his word, who were to be his heralds and his witnesses to the nations,~ even they failed to take in the light of that kingdom of God, which shone so strongly, so directly, upon them. Yes, even for these future sowers of the Word in the souls of men, our Emmanuel, during his mortal life among them was always a hidden God; He was a Word not understood by them. He lovingly complains of all this, when wishing them farewell at the Last Supper !~ But, if we rightly appreciate that complaint, it was not so much a reproach to his Disciples, as an earnest prayer offered to his Father, beseeching him to send down that creating Spirit, who alone could transform those hearts, rid them of their innate weakness, and fill them, as the Church expresses it,~ with the warmth of the Word.
For, there is the secret of success,—the incomparable teaching of the Spirit of love. How universal and how grand soever was the manifestation of him- self, offered to the minds of men by the Word ; ~ how
intimate and familiar soever were the conversations of our Emmanuel with those whom he had graciously selected as his Friends,—yet, in both ways, the truth made no way beyond the outside; the Teaching went no further than the exterior ; like the material sun, the reflection of the eternal Light was but of the surface, it did not penetrate into the depths of inner souls. The Holy Ghost, on the contrary, like an impetuous stream, flowed into mans heart, bring-ing with himself, into the inmost recesses of the creature, substantial and living Truth. The Man- God had foretold this to his disciples. He had said to them: These things which I have spoken to you, whilst abiding with you, the Paraclete will teach them all to to you more efficacious1y,~ for he will not only abide in you; but will be in you. The truths which you could not bear now, you shall have from Him; He will lead you into the whole truth. ~
It is the office of the Holy Ghost to act, rather than to speak. He is, so to say, less intent on pro- claiming the truth, than on the realising it, by sanctification, in the Church and in the soul. The Spirit, says St. Cyril ofAlexandria, has a marvelous school of His own in the Saints: be does more than speak; he produces knowledge by an efficient demonstration, that is, he passes on to the creature what belongs to God; he makes us partakers of the divine nature. Not only, therefore, does he purify the senses, and cleanse the interior eye from its imperfections; but, moreover, in virtue of that sanctifying action, which is his special attribute, he establishes, in the very midst of the regenerated creature, that kingdom of God whose hidden excellencies were declared by Jesus to the as yet ignorant fishermen of Galilee. No sooner has tho Holy Ghost done this his work in the soul, than all doubt, all gross ignorance and error, are at an end. The only obscurity left is that of Faith, which, as yet, sees not, but knows and possesses, by the Spirit, the gifts of God. Man thus renewed, comprehends, as the Apostle assures us, what is the breadth, and length, and height , and depth, of the teachings of our Emmanuel; for it is Christ himself who, through the Paraclete, dwells in. our hearts, and fills them with the fulness of God
St. Cyril admirably developes all this,in the Treatise we have already quoted. Amongst other things, he says, that as the sweet fragrance of a flower which makes itself felt to our senses, seems to be doing nothing else but telling us about the flower itself,—. so the Holy Spirit, when he leads us to the plenitude of Truth, does nothing else than infuse into us the mystery of Christ. The silent operation of the Paraclete is ever revealing to our mind, and applying to our soul, the power and hidden mysteries of the Incarnation. He is the Spirit of Truth ; ~ but what is the Truth, but Christ himself, who, in his person and his perfections dwells, through the Holy Ghost, in holy souls? The Incarnate Word, in his visible presence, has been taken from among us; we are to no more to see him, during our sojourn here ; ~ but all this is for no other purpose than to manifest himself to our souls,—it is the manifestation the best be- coming a God. When, therefore, our Lord tells us and when his Apostles repeat the announcement, that he is going to teach us all things by the Ho1y Ghost, we must not suppose that he is hereby intending to pass us on to some other Master than himself.
No; according to the promise he made us. He dwells in pure souls; He reveals himself to them in an unspeakable manner; lie, as their head, directs them in all their ways; only, he does all this by his Spirit. For the Spirit is the author of sanctification ; and what is this Sanctification but the transformation of a creature into the Image of Him who saith unto us~: Be ye holy, because The Lord your God is Holy?Now the Image of God, the one perfect and beautiful Image,—the divine Seal which impresses on our souls a likeness of the Fathers face,—this Image, this Seal, is the Eternal Son of that Father He is the Word of his Father; and that Word, in his sacred Humanity, sanctified Himself, together with us, and for us, by anointing~, with the Holy Spirit, the temple of his body. With and by tlhat Spirit, he transforms us, from brightness to brightness, the type and model of his sacred Humanity ; he is born again and grows in each of us, by the incorporation of the mysteries of his deifying Life.
Christians! you were made sad, a few days back, on hearing of the speedy departure of your Jesus ; learn, now, that your sadness must give place to joy, for this Emmanuel of ours, though he has ascended up into heaven, has not left our earth. Jesus Christ yesterday, and today, and the same forever. He is the one sole object of the Fathers good-pleasureche is the one sole worthy instrunient of Gods glory and being this, he centres into his own unity the divine plan for the sanctification of the elect. So far, then, is the glorious Pentecost from being the separating us from Jesus our divine exemplar and guide,
by means of the Coming of the Holy Ghost,—the very contrary is the result; for the Paraclete only came upon this earth in order that he might make aIl the closer the union between the Head and the Members; he came, that he might, by Faith and Love, make us one with him who alone is holy, as He alone is Lord, and alone Most High, together with the Father and the Ho1y Ghost, for ever and ever !
Now, let us think on what the Churchs Liturgy is with regard to ali this. We have passed one half. of the Church's year; we have had, from Advent, up to this present day, all those several Seasons, or Times, which we have celebrated with her; and what have they all been but so many ascensions (as the Psalmist calls them, so many steps, gradually leading up to that summit of perfect justice, where the holiness of Christs Church has been consummated in union. Though an humble daughter of earth, yet did the Son of God, even from the day of eternity, love and desire her beauty. This does not mean, that any single individual of the fallen Hunan family, which had to form the Members of this Bride of Jesus, could ever, of himself, contribute to the Church a loveliness in any way worthy of the King,.— but it means, that the King himself, Jesus, the Sun of Justice, who had gratuitously set his heart on this his chosen one, had resolved to deck her brow with his own charms. It was by this his own anticipated gratuity, that he found in her that sublime perfection of likeness to the heavenly Father, ~ which, being the essential beauty of the Word himself was, for that very reason to constitute the sanctity of the favored race, that his merciful love, had called to himself from the desert mountains of the Gentiles. Thus was to be fully verified that saying of the Apostle, that the Spouse is the image and glory of God, but the Bride is the , and that both of them are one, because they both harmonise in the one same divine plan.
Yes, the Gentile world, the barren woman despised by the Synagogue, the black inhabitant of the parched deserts of Ethiopia, she is, one day, to be transformed, by grace, into the true daughter of the Father, and become the Bride of his Son. Such an adoption, and such a Nuptial Union, would depend, in part, on the consent of the chosen one; and not only hcr consent would be required, but she would also have to do something towards her winning her honours, by labouring for them. The Liturgy expresses and achieves all this. First of all, there was the Season of Advent; it was a Time of expectation and struggle; it corresponded to what is called THE PURGATIVE WAY. The Son of God was then cleansing the human race from its defilements; he was removing out of her way the obstacles which kept her down. Then followed those rich Seasons of the Church , in which Jesus, the Divine Spouse, offered himself to mankind as their model, and Light, and Guide, all for the purpose of bringing them up to the divine ideal which the were to reproduce in themselves . It is called THE ILLUMINATIVE WAY. During those mystic Seasons, Jesus showed Himself to His Church by again treading the royal way of His mysteries. He drew her after him in the fragrance of his footsteps, from Bethlehem to the Jordan; from Mount Quarantine to the Cross on Calvary's top, and thence to the glorious Sepulchre. In each stage of His life's mysteries, he so deeply imprinted on the Church the divine likeness of His sacred humanity that she stood alone before Him as the new Eve, taken out of th eMan-God and formed of His substance, The Lord God, the eternal Father, is rejoiced that the new Adam is no longer alone; He has found the helper like unto Himself , which neither earth nor heaven had been able to give Him.
The first Adam did not so ardently love her whom he declared to be flesh of his flesh, as the Word does that glorious Church, His Bride, who hath neither spot or wrinkle, but is all beautiful with His holiness upon her. She has no life of her own; the only life she can henceforth possibly live is the life of her divine Spouse. That life has been worked into her by the stupendous power of the mysteries celebrated by her in the previous seasons go her divine liturgy; - let Pentecost come, let the breath of the sanctifying Spirit make itself felt upon her, and Jesus and His Church will be one spirit, one body. The departure os the Man-God in His triumphant Ascension was not an abandonment of His Church. On the contrary, desirous to accomplish the mystery of divine union with her, which had been sol long in preparation, He returned, as the psalmist expresses it, on the winds of the wind, to that sanctuary of the Godhead, where from from the Father and The Son proceeds the third Person, the Spirit of love. He ascended into heaven, that He might send this Spirit upon the children of men, and send Him directly from His eternal source.
That Spirit came down; the annals of holy Church then began their course on earth, for it was then
alone, thanks to the permanent and intimate Union of which this Holy Spirit is the cause, that she could begin to receive, from her divine Head Jesus, movement and life. Were the union transient, were it to fail for a single instant, the incomparable Bride of the Son of God would be separated from her Spouse ; and thus forfeiting the principle and reason of her existence, she would cease to be. From all this, it follows that not only PURGATIVE and UNITIVE WAYS and THE ILLUMINATIVE WAY Ways. Moreover, it belongs to her alone; it is her privilege and her secret as bride of the Incarnate Word.
Consequently, it is only by uniting himself with the Church, by being a member of this one bride of Christ Jesus, that the Christian, thus hiding himself with Christ in God, can reach those high degrees of divine charity, where Jesus so masters the powers of mortal man that even here below, they derive from Him their whole movement and life. On the other hand, there is not on among the baptised who, by the mere fact of his being thereby incorporated into the Church of Christ, may not be led to a greater or less degree of that inner life of union. If there be few who enjoy the privilege offered them, it is because the majority correspond with grace too feebly or inconstantly.
Consequently, it is only by uniting himself with the Church, by being a member of this one bride of Christ Jesus, that the Christian, thus hiding himself with Christ in God, can reach those high degrees of divine charity, where Jesus so masters the powers of mortal man that even here below, they derive from Him their whole movement and life. On the other hand, there is not on among the baptised who, by the mere fact of his being thereby incorporated into the Church of Christ, may not be led to a greater or less degree of that inner life of union. If there be few who enjoy the privilege offered them, it is because the majority correspond with grace too feebly or inconstantly.