“I am in the father”

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, grant that I may enter into the interior dispositions of Your soul, into its continual personal union with the Father.

MEDITATION

1. The intimate dispositions of Jesus toward God and His relations with Him are of the utmost importance to us. Jesus is the Son of God; herein lies all His greatness and holiness. By His very nature, He is the only Son of God; we, who are made to His image, have become children of God by His mediation. This divine sonship, which belongs to Him by nature, is communicated to us by grace; hence, like Him, all our greatness and holiness consist in our living as true children of God. Therefore, as far as is consistent with our human nature, we should try to reproduce in ourselves the interior attitude of Jesus toward His heavenly Father.

First of all, we note an attitude, or rather a state, of, intimate union. It is as the Word that Jesus declares. “The Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (Jn 10,38). He is referring, of course, to the substantial, incommunicable union of the Word with the Father, which no one can ever imitate; this union is the prerogative of the Son of God alone. But He also made the statement as Man, because, as Man, all His love is concentrated on the Father and dominated by the Father. His whole mind is directed toward Him in an effort to please Him. This union of Jesus with His divine Father is the model for our union, precisely because it is a union of grace. Grace in Jesus is “infinite,” in the language of the theologians, and in this respect it differs from ours; yet even the grace we possess enables us to keep our souls directed toward the Father and our affections centered in Him. Jesus gives us the example Himself, and asks of the Father this close union for us: “ As Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us” (ibid. 17,21).

2. The soul of Jesus is completely immersed in the Blessed Trinity. His human intellect enjoys the Beatific Vision, in which He sees God, whose nature He possesses; He knows the Person of the Word as the subject of all His human activity. He sees the Father and knows that He is His Son; He sees the Holy Spirit who dwells within Him. His heart is filled with created charity, as infinite as the grace which adorns His soul. This charity continually ascends toward His heavenly Father with a very rapid movement, thence to pour itself out upon our souls. Whether Jesus is busy in the workshop at Nazareth, walking the roads of Palestine, preaching, teaching, debating with the Pharisees, healing the sick, or talking with the multitudes—while giving Himself to all, He never interrupts that life of wonderful union with the three divine Persons which goes on in the depths of His soul.

By means of grace, our souls have become the temples of the Blessed Trinity. The three divine Persons are really present within us, continually offering and giving Themselves to us, so that we, even here on earth, may begin to know, love, and possess Them. It is by faith that we can know Them, by charity that we can love and live in union with Them. It was to enable us to possess this life of close union with God that Jesus merited for us the grace and charity which He is continually bestowing upon us. This grace and charity are identically the same as that which fills the soul of Jesus, although given to us in a lesser degree and with far less perfection. Jesus sees God face to face, in the Beatific Vision; we “see” Him through the obscure, yet certain, knowledge of faith.

In this way we, too, can have a share in Christ’s interior life which is completely immersed in the Blessed Trinity. Did not St. Paul say, “Your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3,3)? With St. Teresa Margaret, we can aspire to “emulate, by faith, insofar as it is possible for a creature, the hidden, interior life and activity of the intellect and will of the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ, hypostatically united to the Word” (Sp).

COLLOQUY

O Jesus, what great treasures are hidden in Your words: “As Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us!” It is not enough for us to imitate Your exterior life; You want more than that. You want us to imitate, as far as mere creatures can, Your interior life, Your intimacy and Your unceasing union with the Father! It would be folly and arrogant temerity even to think of doing this, had You not commanded us to do so. But You have commanded it, and these words of Yours are particularly sacred because they form part of Your last prayer to Your Father, a prayer which contains Your spiritual testament.

You, O Jesus, are indissolubly united to the Father by nature, and I may always be united to God by grace. Your most holy soul is always immersed in the Beatific Vision of the Most Blessed Trinity; and I by faith know that the Trinity lives within me. Under the motion of the Holy Spirit, an infinite love of charity is continually rising up from Your heart toward the Father; and in me the fire of charity, kindled and diffused by the divine Paraclete, desires only to grow, to expand, and to be seized by the Holy Spirit and drawn into His flame of love, so as to mount again toward the Father, toward the Blessed Trinity.

Aided by Your grace, O Jesus, I live in You and You live in me. But I do not live in You alone, for wherever You are, O Word, there are the Father and the Holy Spirit also. Thus You, O Christ, draw me to live in the Trinity and my poor human life remains hidden with You in God. O Lord, do not permit me to become so absorbed by exterior activities, even good ones, that I forget or neglect the wonderful life of union with God to which You are calling and inviting me. In the innermost depths of my heart, hidden from all human gaze, dwells the Trinity; help me to dwell with Them! Help me to be silent and recollected, to hide myself with God who is hidden within me! Grant that, like a true child of God, I may always live in union with my Father, always remain at His feet to love and adore Him, and to listen to His divine words.