Jesus the teacher of sanctity

PRESENCE OF GOD - I need You always, my divine Master, because You alone are holy and can show me the true way of holiness.

MEDITATION

1. The knowledge of God in which eternal life consists, as Jesus has said, is not the kind of knowledge which stops at the enlightenment of our intellects, but knowledge which stirs up our wills to love the God whom we know, and which regulates our whole life so that it will be pleasing to Him. Consequently, when Jesus has brought us to the knowledge of the Father, He then teaches us what we must do to please Him: “Be you therefore perfect as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5,48). In this brief formula, the divine Teacher reveals two great truths : God is the model of sanctity, because He alone is the fullness of perfection, free from every shadow of fault or failing; secondly, God’s will in our regard is that we also be perfect, which we shall be according to the degree in which we try to imitate God’s perfection.

Yet how can a mere creature imitate divine perfection? Jesus, our Life and our Teacher, makes it possible for us. The grace which Jesus merited for us and which He is continually giving us, together with the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, raises us from the human level to the supernatural, divine level; we are made sharers in the divine nature, the divine life. Faith also makes us sharers in God’s truth and in the knowledge which He has of Himself and of all things. Charity gives us a participation in the infinite love with which God loves Himself and His creatures.

However, we cannot see God’s perfection and holiness, because He “inhabiteth light inaccessible, whom no man hath seen, nor can see” (1 Tm 6,16). But Jesus reveals God to us: He manifests Him to us in Himself, His works, and His words.

Hence, Jesus is the perfect Teacher of holiness. He teaches us that God wants us to be holy, shows us God as the supreme, infinite ideal of holiness, and enables us to start out toward this sublime ideal.

2. When Jesus says to us : “ Be you perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect, ” He gives us a model of perfection that we can never exhaust. The perfection of the very greatest saints when compared with God’s perfection is nothing. Jesus teaches us, then, not to rest complacent in the degree of perfection we have attained, nor to be satisfied with our progress or even our efforts. Compared with the lofty ideal He sets before us, we are nothing. This is why He tells us never to stop, never to say, “This is enough.” No matter how much progress we make, we never advance far enough. Who, indeed, can become as just, as merciful as God? As long as we are on earth, our holiness will always consist in a continual tending toward divine perfection. “Strive for it untiringly and uninterruptedly,” says St. Augustine.

Among the perfections of God which Jesus has revealed, charity has first place. It is so important that, when He asks us to imitate God, His first requirement is an intense practice of charity toward God and our neighbor. The precept of charity, like that of striving for perfection, has no limits : however much we love God we shall never succeed in loving Him as much as He is capable of being loved, that is, as much as He deserves; and however much we love our neighbor we shall never love him as God loves him.

Jesus thus invites us to rise to perfection, to a holiness which has no limits and which requires of us a continual advancement, progress and ascension. Although we always do little, a mere nothing compared with so lofty an ideal, Our Lord is satisfied with this little, provided we put all our good will into it.

COLLOQUY

O my divine Master, what a sublime ideal of perfection You set before my soul! With Your help, I shall go on in this way with the one desire of following Your teaching, of doing the will of God, and of pleasing our heavenly Father. If in comparing myself to the saints, I see so many defects, how shall I ever put my misery before the infinite perfection of God? But, O Jesus, there is no question about it, for Your words resound clearly in my mind: “ Be you perfect, as Your heavenly Father is perfect.”

I can do nothing better, then, than to imitate St. Thérése’s charming, audacious method. Instead of becoming discouraged, I shall say to You as she did, “ O Lord, You would not inspire me with a desire which could not be realized; therefore, in spite of my littleness, I can aim at being a saint. It is impossible for me to become great, so I must bear with myself and my many imperfections; but I will seek out a means of reaching heaven by a little way—very short, very straight, and entirely new. We live in an age of inventions : there are now lifts which save us the trouble of climbing stairs. I will try to find a lift by which I may be raised unto God, for I am too small to climb the steep stairway of perfection.... O Jesus, Your arms, then, are the lift which must raise me even to heaven. To reach heaven I need not become great; on the contrary, I must remain little, I must become even smaller than I am” (T.C.J. St, 9).

These are Your two arms, O Jesus: the Holy Spirit whom You have sent to me, and the grace which You have given me: sanctifying grace and actual grace, by which You continually sustain the steps of those who trust in You. I must admit that if I am often discouraged, finding the path of perfection too difficult and wearisome; if I give up at last, because I think that a certain effort or act of generosity is too much for me, it is simply because I forget to have recourse to You, to cast myself into Your arms and implore You to help me. O my loving Master, You who never abandon us, but are always ready to help us if we have recourse to You, teach me to fly to You for refuge continually, with full confidence, asking Your help in every difficulty.