The power of the divine teacher

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, I beg You, not only to instruct me, but to move my soul to accept Your teaching and to put it into practice.

MEDITATION

1. Jesus not only imparts truth to us, He also helps us to accept it. This is the task of any teacher, but he can work only from the exterior, trying to clear his pupil’s mind of the errors which obscure it and to present the truth in a clear and convincing manner. Jesus, however, does much more than this; His activity is far more intimate and profound. He is the only Teacher capable of acting directly on the souls, the minds and the wills of His pupils. Jesus moves our souls interiorly to accept His teachings and to put them into practice.

The truths Jesus teaches are divine mysteries; therefore, we cannot master them by the art of human reasoning. To accept them, our minds must be equipped with a new supernatural light and power, the light and power of faith. Faith comes to us through Jesus; not only did He merit it for us, together with grace, the other infused virtues, and the gifts, but He is continually obtaining it for us and producing it in us. “ He is always the author of faith... He infuses the light of faith into the faithful” (Mystici Corporis). Therefore, while Jesus is revealing eternal truths to us, He is also filling our souls with the light of faith, until He produces in us, by means of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, a profound, mysterious knowledge giving us an intuition, a sense of divine things. He acts on our wills in the same way by the virtue of charity, drawing us to love Him and our heavenly Father, impelling us to put His teachings into practice. While Jesus is teaching us, He is kindling in us the fire of divine love just as He did in the two disciples from Emmaus. After they had heard His explanation of the events that had taken place in Jerusalem, they said to each other : “ Was not our heart burning within us, whilst He spoke in the way?” (Lk 24,32).

2. “Our Master,” writes St. Thérése of the Child Jesus, “has no need of book or teacher to instruct a soul. The Teacher of teachers instructs without sound of words, and though I have never heard Him speak, yet I know He is within me, always guiding and inspiring me; and just when I need them, lights, hitherto unseen, break in upon me” (St, 8). Jesus interiorly teaches souls who are willing to listen to Him, and He teaches them above all by His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, thus carrying out His promise to the Apostles: “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” (Jn 14,26). Jesus and the Father are always sending the Holy Spirit from heaven into our souls; this Divine Spirit makes us understand the profound meaning of Our Lord’s teaching and suggests practical applications for our daily life. Jesus teaches us through the authority of the Church, to which He has entrusted the task of preserving His doctrine and transmitting it unchanged to all the faithful.

When we accept Jesus as our Teacher, we must also accept all His teachings: the written words of the Gospel, the living word of the Church, and the mysterious, secret word by which He teaches our souls individually, making us perceive intuitively the way He wishes us to live. If His word is to be truly a treasure, it is not enough for us merely to hear it; we must sound its depths. This demands silence and interior recollection. We must imitate Mary, who “kept all these words, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2,19), meditating on everything her divine Son said and did.

COLLOQUY

O Lord Jesus, I need You to exercise all Your power as divine Master over me! I dearly love Your words of instruction, but only too often these divine words fail to bring forth in me the fruit I desire. Why is this, O Lord? Could it be because, after I have listened to You in prayer and made a resolution to put into practice what You have deigned to make me understand, I forget it all at the opportune moment and allow myself to be overcome by my habitual frailty? Perhaps, O Lord, it is because I do not know how to retain and deeply penetrate Your words in interior recollection, but allow them to be stifled by distractions and useless preoccupations, just as the careless farmer allows the good grain to be choked by weeds. Oh! in times of difficulty, when I should be carrying out Your instructions, if I only knew enough to turn to You, my divine Teacher, always present and operating in me by Your grace! Oh! if I would place myself, were it only for an instant, at Your feet and implore Your help, how I should profit! I know You are always ready to receive me and to increase my spirit of faith, so that I may see everything in Your light and regard all circumstances and things according to their value for eternity. You are always eager to kindle in my heart a more ardent flame of charity and to draw me gently to the practice of what You have taught me.

People weary themselves seeking learned teachers; they spend a great deal of money; they take long journeys and make many sacrifices to consult them even for a few brief moments. And I, who have always at hand the divine Master, do I not know enough to take advantage of His teaching? O Jesus, infinite wisdom and knowledge, You do not hesitate to come down to me to be my Guide and Master; do not permit me to be so foolish as to forget You! May I always listen to Your word and continually seek Your light and strength!