When we are free from mortal sin and in a state of sanctifying grace we have God truly and really dwelling within us. But how can we connect with God? How can we gain better intimacy with our Creator? This is what we will learn as we read through this book that seeks to help us to draw closer to God.
From the book God Within Us by Father Raoul Plus, S. J., (1949, P. J. Kenedy and Sons, pages 1-9).
The end of piety, its object and reward, is intimacy with God. Comparatively few souls attain it. Many imagine it to be an impossibility. What is the cause of this? Chiefly, that we are in the habit of treating God as if he were someone who is absent. How can we possibly be on intimate terms with someone who is never there? Intimacy presupposes presence.
Quite so. But can we, without indulging in a flight of imagination, treat God as if he were someone really present?
Among the different ways in which God is present amongst us, there is one which is, above all, a source of intimacy. It is that which we shall endeavor, in these pages, to describe, and, if possible, to make clear — the Presence of God within us, by the state of grace.
The catechism tells us that God is present everywhere. Some, but comparatively few, souls are impressed by a sense of this omnipresence of God. For the average man, on the other hand, a being who is everywhere is nowhere, and the majority of Christians fail to understand how an impersonal presence, difficult to conceive of, and existing alike for the sinner and the just, as a sole result of the act of creation, can possibly excite any feeling of intimacy.
God is omnipresent also, and in a special manner, in heaven. But heaven is so far away! It needs considerable mental powers to create a feeling of intimacy which will bridge over a gulf so great as this. It is all very well for St Thomas, whom his contemporaries describe as walking with his eyes forever raised in divine contemplation; or for St Ignatius, whom Laynez compares with Moses, because he appeared to speak with God, face to face,1 and who, says Fr. Nouet, loved, when he prayed, to be as near the roof as possible, in order to feel that he was nearer heaven.
God is also present in the Eucharist, and this presence, though still very mysterious, is much more palpable. We see something — feel something — something which guarantees his presence to our poor human nature. What we see, what we taste, are but the appearances. The reality escapes our perception. Nevertheless, what we do perceive supports our faith, so that, under the appearances, we adore the divine reality. But this eucharistic presence of God in Holy Communion lasts but a short while, nor can we make our lives one long visit to the Blessed Sacrament.
Besides these three ways in which God is present among us, there is another, which is, for our present purpose, much more truthful. If we were to ask a child: Where is God? he would answer: In my heart. What causes God to be there? Grace. What can drive him from our hearts? Sin. These child-like, but profoundly illuminating, replies sum up the whole of the doctrine on which, as I believe, we may build up a life of intimacy with God.
Nothing is more strange than the way we all have of passing by all that is most marvelous without giving it a thought. The moral beauty of religious devotion, the splendor of the Church, the dignity of the priesthood — who stops to realize what these things mean? But we Christians do even worse. We are past-masters in the art of ignoring the splendid realities which lie within us.
Ask any baptized Christian what is meant by being in a state of grace. A state of grace, he will reply, consists in not having any mortal sin on the conscience. So far, so good — but, you ask him, is that all it means to him? Yes, he will say, and is it not enough? No, you reply. According to you, being in a state of grace means not having something. Does it not also imply having something? Having what? Listen, and I will tell you. It means that God is present and dwells within us. This, neither more nor less, is the doctrine of the Church, and the teaching of the catechism.
God, then, is present, and dwells within us. We shall now proceed to show that —
Our Lord affirms it;
St Peter explains it;
St Paul makes it an habitual text of his epistles;
The Doctors of the Church vie with each other in preaching it;
The liturgy celebrates it in a thousand different ways; and
The saints lived in the contemplation of it.
How does it come to pass, then, that for the majority of Christians, and even of pious souls, this fundamental doctrine is practically a dead-letter — that this doctrine, which is the source of such great consolation, is either without weight, or absolutely unknown? We can find a good many reasons for this strange state of affairs. First of all, we will point out one very good reason — that comparatively few people ever mention this doctrine.
“Reality,” says Cardinal Mercier in a Retreat given to priests a few months before the war, “is God dwelling within us. Many baptized souls are ignorant of this mystery, and remain, their whole lives, unaware of it. . . . The very people whose mission it is to preach it throughout the world neglect it, forget it, and when it is brought home to them are astonished. Let me impress upon your minds the belief that God Almighty will never forsake you, unless, by mortal sin, you compel him to quit your souls. Make spontaneous, explicit, and frequent acts of faith in this real and constant presence of God within you. Seek him, not outside, but inside you, for there he dwells, calling you, expecting you, and grieving, because of your distractions and your forgetfulness.”
In the writings of the learned Cornelius a Lapide we find the same regret. “Few men,” he says, “ adequately appreciate the gift of grace. Each soul ought to go down in respectful admiration before its presence within him; preachers and scholars should expound it and profoundly inculcate a knowledge of it in the minds of the people. Thus would the faithful learn that they are the living temples of the Holy Ghost; that they carry God himself in their hearts; and that it behooves them, in consequence, to walk divinely in his presence, and to live a life worthy of such a guest, who everywhere goes with them, and everywhere sees them.” Mgr. de Segur makes a similar complaint:
“All Christians know,” he says, “vaguely, and in theory, that God dwells within their hearts; that they are the temples of Jesus Christ, and that the Holy Ghost abides with them. . . . How is it that so few people seem to attach any importance to it — that so few think of it, live in it, or have any practical belief at all in it? I am not afraid to say that even among priests — good priests — there are but few who actually feed their flocks on this precious food for which alone they crave; which alone can satisfy their hunger and quench their thirst for God, the life of their souls, the treasure of their hearts, the companion of their lives, the intimate source of their strength, their sanctification, and their piety.”
According to the Message of Coeur de Jesus au Coeur du Pretre (found among the papers of a Marist Father who died in Rome, and probably communicated to him by some pious soul) our Lord has manifested a desire that devotion to the state of grace should be spread among the faithful.
“Devotion to my Sacred Heart has certainly spread rapidly. It consoles me, and is the means of bringing many souls to me, the Savior of souls! How little understood, nevertheless, are the infinite treasures of my heart! Ah! did they but guess how intense is my desire to unite myself intimately with each one of them! Very few are they that attain to this union as completely as my heart has prepared it for them on earth! And what is lacking to bring this to pass?
“To gather together, and to pile up, as it were, their affections, and to concentrate them on me, who am there, in the inmost recesses of their souls! Ah! cry out to them all how much I love them; implore them to lend ear to the urgent appeal of my heart, my tender invitation to descend into the depths of their souls, there to unite themselves with him who never leaves them; to identify themselves with me, so to speak, and then — what blessings will I not promise them!
“This mysterious and divine union will be the beginning of a life which will be sanctified and fruitful to a degree never before experienced by them. . . .
“Many priests know well enough in theory the meaning of this union of the soul with me, and some aspire to it. But how few know what it is in practice, and how few, even among those pious and zealous priests who are my devoted friends, know that I dwell there, in the depths of their souls, all burning with desire to make them one with me!
“Why is this? It is because they live, as it were, on the surface of their souls. Ah! if they would only draw aside from the things of sense, from human impressions, and descend thus alone to the inmost corners of their souls, to their very depths, where is my dwelling, how soon would they find me, and what a life of union, light, and love would be theirs” . . .
Mgr. de Segur does not hesitate to take the blame himself if the faithful fail to grasp this admirable doctrine, which is nevertheless none other than that which St. Paul taught to the Colossians,2 “the mystery which hath been hidden from ages and generations, but now is manifested to his saints, to whom God would make known the riches of the glory of this mystery.”
“We, the ministers of God,” says this holy prelate, with his usual humor, “have not enough of the spirit of faith. We have the faith in partibus, like those good bishops who have no diocese. Alas! I also am one of these!”
It cannot be denied, however, that, for him who desires to be an apostle in the real sense of the word, it is first of all necessary that he should be able to appreciate the primary importance of this doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the souls of the faithful.
If we ourselves have not thoroughly explored it, by patient study and prolonged meditation, how can we be surprised if the faithful spend their lives in such amazing ignorance of the most precious treasure that exists, as long as this treasure is not deemed worthy of ardent investigation by those whose office it is to teach others?
Does anyone say that every priest who has done his treatise de Gratia has sufficiently studied this mystery, but that it is an impossibility to preach it, and to give it to the faithful, as food for their souls?
If this were true, it would mean that a fundamental doctrine of the Church, and that the basis on which rests the whole Christian life, must be ignored by the majority of Christians. This cannot possibly be so.3
To whom does St Paul preach “the great mystery,” the presence of God, by grace, within us? It is to the curriers of Ephesus, and the dockers of Corinth — men no less “buried in matter” than the average Christian today; men whose habits and whose pagan traditions must have made it harder for them to grasp its meaning than it ought to be for us, who are hereditary Christians, children and grandchildren of baptized souls.
Supposing, even, that we admit that all the faithful cannot benefit — at least in the same degree — by the idea of the divine Indwelling within us, may we not maintain, nevertheless, that many pious and fervent souls, thirsting for closer union with God, would profit considerably by having their attention drawn to this most important point? This, at least, is our opinion — hence these pages.
Many generous souls strive and strive again, and all in vain, to draw closer to God, because they do not turn, as they ought to turn in order to succeed, to this beautiful and fundamental doctrine, but seek rather to attain their end by indulging in sentiment, or by devotion to pious practices.4
In order to bring home to such souls the mistake they make, St Bernard bids them remember the story of St. Mary Magdalen at the tomb:
“Many seek God where he is not — or rather, where he is not in a special manner. This is the explanation of all the confusion, all the lost time, and so much stamping of feet. 'Woman, thou weepest? Whom seekest thou? He whom thou seekest, thou dost possess. Dost thou not know? Thou hast him, and thou weepest? Thou dost seek him, but thou hast him within thee. Thou dost stand by the tomb, weeping. Why? Where am I? I am within thee? There do I take my rest, not indeed dead, but living and immortal. Thyself art my garden. Thou hast well said, in calling me the gardener. I am the second Adam. To me also has been given the care of a Paradise. My task is to labor that there may spring up in this garden, which is thy soul, a harvest of desires. How? Thou hast me. Thou dost possess me, within thee , and thou dost not know it? For this dost thou seek me outside. And behold, I am here. I did but appear to thee without, that I might lead thee within. It is there, within , that thou wilt find me. . . . Ah, I am not absent, afar off, as thou dost think. I am very near. Tell me, what has anyone closer than his own heart? Those who find me will find me there, in their own hearts, for there is my dwelling.’ ”
The object of the present writer is to set forth as clearly as possible (while at the same time avoiding anything which may possibly give rise to controversy) for the benefit of all pious souls who feel drawn to lead a truly Christ-like life, exactly what is meant by the Presence, or Indwelling of God within us.
His favorite invocation was, as we know: O Beata Trinitas! and his constant prayer: Oh, beloved Word of God.
Colossians 1:26.
“If any subject ought to interest us it is surely that; nothing affects us more personally; nothing is so precious to us, or more important. . . . The study of this mystery not only offers nothing to repel us, nothing dry, but it is calculated to stir us to the depths of gratitude, admiration, confidence, and love.” — Fr. Froget, O.P.: De l' Habitation du S. Esprit dans les Ames justes, p. 184 (Lethielleux, 1898).
There is another difficulty — the danger lest they should confuse the divine Indwelling with certain unorthodox opinions which arise out of modernism, and which tend towards nothing less than the suppression of God, and the deification of man. We have already dealt with this question in the Revue pratique de Apologitique (June 1 and 16, 1914) in article entitled “Notre Temps et l' Intelligence de l’fitat de Grace.”