“I am the life”

RESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, Fount of life, may Your life ever increase in my soul.

MEDITATION

1. Jesus explained His mission in these words: I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (Jn 10,10). What is this life which He gives us? It is the life of grace, which is a participation in His divine life. Jesus is the Incarnate Word; in His divine nature as the Word, He possesses divine life in the same way and to the same degree that His Father possesses it. “As the Father hath life in Himself, so He hath given to the Son also to have life in Himself” (ibid. 5,26).

This plenitude of divine life reverberates in Christ’s humanity by reason of the hypostatic union. His sacred humanity, placed in direct contact with His divinity, to which it is united in one Person, is inundated with divine life; that is, it receives the greatest possible participation in it through “such plenitude of grace that no greater amount can be imagined ” (Mystici Corporis). The sanctifying grace which fills the soul of Jesus is so plentiful, perfect, intense, and superabundant that theologians do not hesitate to call it “infinite grace.” “ Because in Him [Christ], it hath well pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell” (Col 1,19), affirms St. Paul; and St. John describes Him as being “full of grace and truth” (Jn 1,14). But Jesus does not wish to keep all this immense wealth for Himself alone; He wishes to have brethren with whom He can share it. For this reason He embraced His sorrowful Passion; by dying on the Cross, He merited for us His members that grace which He possesses in such great plenitude. Thus Christ becomes the one and only source of grace and supernatural life for us. He is so “full of grace and truth” that “of His fullness we have all received” (ibid. 1,14.16). Here, then, is how divine life comes to us: from the Father to the Word; from the Word to the humanity which He assumed in His Incarnation, and from this humanity, which is the sacred humanity of Christ, to our souls.

2. Grace, like everything that exists, apart from God, is also created by God. Jesus as God, that is, as the Word, is, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Creator of grace. Let us now contemplate Jesus as our Redeemer, therefore, as Man, and as such, the Mediator of grace, the One who merited grace for us, in virtue of His own infinite treasure of grace, and who also bestows it upon us. He not only merited it for us once for always by His death on the Cross, but He is continually applying it to our souls and producing it in us. Thus grace is infused and made to grow in us by means of His living and ever-present action. In this way, Jesus gives us life; He is Life for us, the one source of our supernatural life. For this reason the grace of Jesus is called “ capital grace,” that is, grace belonging to the Head, who both merited it and dispenses it to His members.

Two precious, practical consequences follow from this. One who desires to possess grace and supernatural life must go to Christ. He must become incorporated in Him and live in Him. “He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son, hath not life” (1 Jn 5,12). The grace which sanctifies our souls is, in its essence, identically the same as that which adorns the sacred soul of Jesus (St. Thomas, III, q.8, a.5). Of course, they differ immensely in measure and perfection, but the nature of the grace is the very same. Hence grace in us has the same sanctifying power, the same tendencies as it has in the soul of Jesus. Thus it can sanctify us, making us live in union with God and for His glory. By giving us grace, Jesus has truly communicated His life to us; He has planted in us the seed of His sanctity, so that we can live a life similar to His own.

COLLOQUY

O Jesus, how delightful it is to contemplate Your sacred humanity which contains all the treasures of the divine life! I cannot gaze directly at Your divinity, O eternal Word, but it is easy for me to contemplate it in Your humanity; there my thoughts rest, and never cease admiring Your immensity. O Jesus, Your soul is so rich in grace, so luminous, so filled with divine life that Your glory as the only-begotten Son of the Father is fully reflected in it. Your humanity seems to me to be the one mediator and the source of all grace and of all divine life which can be given to mankind. But then I contemplate this sacred humanity as it was lacerated in the bitter torment of the Cross, this humanity which is so glorious and so closely united to God. All its glory is hidden; I see nothing but sorrow, death, and total annihilation. Yet, from those bleeding wounds there gushed forth a marvelous fountain of life: by Your death, O Jesus, You merited grace for us and have become Yourself its one and only source.

I run to You, O Jesus; as one who is thirsty runs toward a spring, I draw near You. Give me, O Lord, of Your water, and I shall thirst no more because “ the water You give me will become in me a fountain which will spring up into life everlasting” (cf. Jn 4,14). The Apostle, who did not wish to go away from You, once said, “ Thou hast the words of eternal life” (ibid. 6,69). Oh! You have much more than words of life. You are Life itself, and You give life to us! But Jesus, let me ask one question. If that sanctifying grace which comes from You and gives life to my soul is, by its very nature, the same kind of grace that fills Your sacred soul, why am I so unlike You, so far from sanctity?

I know the answer. You give me Your grace gratuitously, but You do not make it increase in me without the cooperation of my free will. There is very often a bitter struggle in me between the demands of grace and the claims of my evil nature. Alas! How often nature conquers! O Lord, I beg You, give me the grace to overcome and sacrifice myself, no matter what the cost. Let Your grace and Your life triumph in me for Your glory, and for the glory of Your work of redemption. “May my mind, my heart, my body, my life, be wholly animated by You, my sweet Life! I will love You Lord, my strength; I will love You, and will live, no longer through my own efforts, but through You ” (St. Augustine).