Jesus, the Incarnate Word.31
An Incamational Spirituality
Jesus, the Incarnate Word Our Savior is a faithful counselor who can never deceive us or be deceived. He is a strong helper whom labor never wearies. He is a mighty protector who will quickly enable us to trample underfoot the powers of Satan. For he is the wisdom of God who is ever ready to instruct the ignorant, the power of God for whom it is so easy to strengthen the weak and rescue those in danger. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, in all our doubts and perplexities let us have recourse to so wise a master. In all our undertakings let us invoke the assistance of so powerful a helper. In our every combat let us commit our souls to the keeping of so faithful a protector. He has come into the world so that living here in us, with us, and for us he might illumine our darkness, lighten our labors, and guard us from all dangers.
(Seventh Sermon for Advent) Do we feel sad? Let the name of Jesus come into our heart, from there let it spring to our mouth, so that shining like the dawn it may dispel all darkness and make a cloudless sky. Do we fall into sin? Does despair even urge us to suicide? Let us but invoke this life-giving name and our will to live will be at once renewed. The hardness of heart that
An Incarnational Spirituality is our common experience, the apathy bred of indolence, bitterness of mind, repugnance for the things of the spirit
— have they ever failed to yield in presence of this saving name? The tears dammed up by the barrier of our pride — how have they not burst forth again with sweeter abun dance at the thought of Jesus' name? And where is the one who, terrified and trembling before impending peril, has not been suddenly filled with courage and rid of fear by calling on the strength of the name? Where is the one who, tossed on the rolling waves of doubt, did not quickly find certitude by recourse to the clarity of Jesus' name? Was ever a person so discouraged, so beaten down by affliction, to whom the sound of this name did not bring new resolve? In short, for all the ills and disorders to which flesh is heir this name is medicine. For proof we have no less than his own promise,
"Call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." Nothing so curbs the onset of anger, so allays the upsurge of pride. It cures the wound of envy, controls unbridled extravagances and quashes the flame of lust. It cools the thirst of covetousness and banishes the itch of unclean desire. For when I name Jesus I set before me a man who is meek and humble of heart, kind, prudent, chaste, merciful, flawlessly upright and holy in the eyes of all. And this same man is the all-powerful God whose way of life heals me, whose support is my strength. All these re-echo for me at the hearing of Jesus' name.
(On the Song of Songs, 15:6) What have you to do with righteousness if you are ignorant of Christ, who is the righteousness of God? Where,
I ask, is true prudence, except in the teaching of Christ? Or true justice, if not from Christ's mercy? Or true temperance, if not in Christ's life? Or true fortitude, if not in Christ's
An Incamational Spirituality
passion? Only those can be called prudent who are imbued with his teaching. Only those are just who have had their sins pardoned through his mercy. Only those are temperate who take pains to follow his way of life. Only those are courageous who hold fast to the example of his patience when buffeted by suffering. Vainly therefore will anyone strive to acquire the virtues if he or she thinks they may be obtained from any source other than the Lord of virtues whose teaching is the seed-bed of prudence, whose mercy is the well-spring of justice, whose life is a mirror of tem perance, whose death is the badge of fortitude.
(On the Song of Songs, 22:11) The faithful know how totally they need Jesus and him crucified. While they admire and embrace in him that charity which surpasses all knowledge, they are ashamed at failing to give what little they have in return for so great a love and honor. Easily they love more who realize they are loved more: "He loves less to whom less is given." . . . The Church sees King Solomon with the diadem his mother had placed on his head. She sees the Father's only Son carrying his cross, the Lord of majesty slapped and covered with spittle. She sees the Author of life and glory pierced by nails, wounded by a lance, saturated with abuse, and finally laying down his precious life for his friends. She beholds this, and the sword of love all the more pierces through her soul, and she cries: "Cushion me with flowers, pile up apples around me, for I languish with love."
These apples are certainly the pomegranates the bride introduced into her Beloved's garden. Picked from the tree of life, they had changed their natural taste for that of the heavenly bread, their color for that of Christ's blood. At last she sees death dead and death's author defeated. She beholds captivity led captive from hell to earth and from earth to heaven so that in the name of Jesus every knee
An Incamational Spirituality bends in heaven, on earth and in hell. She beholds the earth, which produced thorns and thistles under the ancient curse, blooming again by the grace of a new blessing. And in all this she thinks of the psalm which says: "And my flesh flourishes again, with all my will I shall praise him." She wishes to add to the fruits of the passion which she had picked from the tree of the cross some of the flowers of the resurrection whose fragrance will induce the Bridegroom to visit her more often.
Then she says: "You are fair my Beloved and handsome, our couch is strewn with flowers." By the couch she reveals clearly enough what she desires, and by declaring that it is strewn with flowers she indicates clearly whence she hopes to obtain what she wants: not by her own merits but with flowers picked in the field the Lord has blessed. Christ loved flowers. He willed to be conceived and raised in Nazareth.
The heavenly Bridegroom enjoys those perfumes so much that he willingly and often enters the chambers of the heart he finds decked with these flowers and fruits. Where he sees a mind constantly occupied with the grace of the passion and the glory of the resurrection, there he is constantly and willingly present.
If we wish to have Christ for a guest often, we must keep our hearts fortified by the testimony of our faith in the mercy of him who died for us, and in the power of him who rose from the dead. As David said: "These two things I have heard: Power belongs to God and mercy to you, O Lord."
The testimonies of both these are ever so believable. Christ died for our sins and rose again from the dead for our justification. He ascended to heaven for our protection, sent the Spirit for our consolation, and will someday return for our fulfillment. He certainly showed his mercy in dying, his power in rising again, and both of these in all the other things he did for us.
(On Loving God 7ff)
An Incamational Spirituality
Afterward Jesus showed them a higher degree of love when he said, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing." I think Paul had reached this level when he said,
"Even if we once knew Christ in the flesh, we know him thus no longer." Perhaps this was also true of the prophet
[Jeremiah] who said, "A Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord." When he adds, "Under his shadow we will live among the heathens," he seems to me to speak on behalf of the beginners, in order that they may at least rest in the shade, since they know they are not strong enough to bear the heat of the sun. They may be nourished by the sweet ness of his humanity, since they are not yet able to perceive the things which are of the Spirit of God. The shade of Christ, I suggest, is the flesh which overshadowed Mary and tempered for her the bright splendor of the Spirit. There fore, in this human devotion there is in the meantime consolation for who does not as yet have the Spirit who gives life, at least not in the same way as those who say, "A Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord." And again, "If we once knew Christ in the flesh,we know him thus no longer."
Lor there is no love of Christ at all without the Holy Spirit, even if this here is in the flesh and without its fullness. The measure of such love is this: Its sweetness seizes the whole heart and draws it completely from the love of all flesh and every sensual pleasure. Really, this is what it means to love with the whole heart. If I prefer to the humanity of my Lord someone joined to me by ties of blood or some sensual pleasure, it obviously proves that I do not love with my whole heart. Because it is divided between its own interests and the love of the One who taught me as a man, both by his words and examples. Would I not seem to give my love partly to him and partly to my own? As he once said,
"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." To put it briefly, to love with one's
An Incamational Spirituality whole heart means to put the love of his sacred humanity before everything that tempts us from within or without.
Among these temptations we must also count the glory of the world, because its glory is that of the flesh, and those who delight in it without a doubt are persons of the flesh.
Of course, this devotion to the humanity of Christ is a gift, a great gift of the Spirit. I have called it carnal with comparison to that other love which does not know the Word as flesh as much as it knows the Word as wisdom, justice, truth, holiness, loyalty, strength, and whatever else could be said in this manner. Christ is truly all these things.
"He became for us the wisdom of God, and justice, and sanctification and redemption."
Take as an example two persons: One of them feels a share in Christ's sufferings, is affected and easily moved at the thought of all that Christ suffered. This person is nourished and strengthened by the sweetness of this devo tion to good and honest and worthy actions. But the other person is always aflame with zeal for justice, eager for the truth and for wisdom. Her life, her habits are saintly, ashamed of boasting, avoiding criticism, never knowing envy, hating pride. She not only flees all human glory but shrinks from it and avoids it, every strain of impurity both in body and soul she loathes and eradicates. Finally, she spurns every evil as if naturally, and embraces what is good.
If you would compare the feelings of these two, would it not appear that the latter was superior in respect to the former whose love was somehow more carnal?
But that carnal love is worthwhile, since through it sensual love is excluded and the world is condemned and conquered. It becomes better when it is rational and be comes perfect when it is spiritual. Actually it is rational when the reason is so strong in faith that in all things concerning Christ it strays not even in the slightest degree because of any false likeness of truth. Not by any heretical
An Incarnational Spirituality
or diabolical deceit does it wander from the integrity of the sense of the Church. In the same way, when speaking on its own it exercises such caution as never to exceed the proper limits of discretion by superstition or frivolity or the vehemence of too eager a spirit. This is loving God with one's whole soul as we said before. If with the help of the Spirit the soul attains such strength that it remains steadfast no matter what the effort or difficultv, if the fear of death itself cannot make it act unjustly but even then it loves with its whole strength, this then is spiritual love. I think the name is very fitting for this special love because of the special fullness of the Spirit in which it excels.
(Sermons on the Song of Songs 20:7 ff)