Jesus our all

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, my God and my Redeemer, make me understand that You are my All and that in You I may find all that my soul needs.

MEDITATION

1. Jesus is both true God and true Man. As Man, He is our Way : He came to take us by the hand and lead us back to our Father’s house. He is the source of our life because He merited grace for us and still continues to dispense it to us; He is the Master who shows us the way to go to God, the Model who, by His example, teaches us how we should live as children of God. Having merited our participation in the divine life, which He as the Word possesses in its full plenitude, Jesus has made us worthy to be readmitted to the intimacy of the family of God. In His last prayer, as if summing up His work as Redeemer, Jesus said to the Father, “ And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given to them, that they may be one, as We also are one” (Jn 17, 22). Yes, He has given us His grace, His Spirit, and has thus made us sharers in the glory of His divine Sonship, true children of God and temples of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus, the one perfect Mediator between God and man, we find everything we need for our sanctification and our life of union with the Triune God. We belong to Christ, we live in Him, “who, of God is made unto us wisdom and justice, and sanctification, and redemption ” (1 Cor 1,30).

2. As God, Jesus is our End : He is the Incarnate Word and, as the Word, He is in all things equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit. Equally with the Father and the Holy Spirit He is our Beginning, the Creator of everything in the natural and supernatural order. He is also our last end, the End toward which we must move in this life with faith, love, generosity, and perseverance, in expectation of the joy of eternal union with Him and the Father and the Holy Spirit in heaven. Jesus, as Man, merited grace for us; as the Word He bestows it upon us. He creates it in union with the other two Persons of the Blessed Trinity. If, as Man, Jesus merited the coming of the Holy Spirit, as the Word, He, together with the Father, is continually sending the Spirit into our souls, because the Holy Spirit proceeds from Him as well as from the Father.

In Jesus, therefore, we find our Mediator and our God. When as Mediator He guides us, He is also drawing us to Himself as God; and when we are united to Him as Man we are also united to Him as the Word of God. Whether we fix our gaze on the humanity of Jesus or on His divinity, we shall always behold Him in the Word. To go to Jesus is to go to the Word; and to go to the Word, to the Son, is to go also to the Father, to the Trinity. That is why St. Teresa of Jesus insists so strongly that we must never separate ourselves from Christ : “It is by this door [Jesus] that we must enter.... Let us seek no other way: that way alone is safe. It is through this Lord of ours that all blessings come” (Life, 22). St. Paul says the same: “And you are filled in Him ” with all good things; “ Christ is all, and in all” (Col 2,10 — 3,11).

COLLOQUY

O Jesus, my God and my All! You are everything to me, and I want to belong entirely to You, consecrating my whole self to Your love and service. “Now do I see, my Spouse, that You are mine; I cannot deny it. For my sake You came into the world; for my sake You suffered such great trials; for my sake You endured to be scourged; for my sake You have remained with us in the Most Holy Sacrament.... I have seen clearly that it is by this door that we must enter if we wish Your sovereign Majesty to show us great secrets. He who loses You will be unable to find his way. “What am I, Lord, without You? And what am I worth if I am not near You? If once I stray from Your Majesty, where shall I find myself?

“Blessed is he who loves You in truth and has You always at his side. What more do we need than to have at our side so good a Friend who will never leave us? O my Lord, my mercy and my good, what more do I want in this life than to be so near You that there is no division between You and me? In such company what can become difficult? What can one not undertake for You, with You so near? Never, with Your help and favor, will I turn my back on You.

“What can I do for my Spouse? How can I be Yours, my God? What can a person do for You who has contrived such evil things as I? I can only lose the favors You have granted me. From such a one what services could be hoped for? And even if, by Your favor, I should accomplish something, consider how little a miserable worm can do. How can a powerful God have need of it? Only love allows us to think that this true Lover needs us.

“ But if You come to me, Lord, can I doubt that I can render You great services? From this moment, Lord, I will forget myself and look solely at the ways in which I can serve You; I will have no will but Yours. But my will is powerless, my God; it is You that are powerful. All I can do is to resolve to serve You, and this resolve I make and will henceforth carry into action” (cf. T.J. Con, 4 — Life, 22 - Int C VI, 7).