EXTENT AND DELICACY OF GOD'S CHARITY FOR MEN
IN order to excite ourselves to fraternal charity, let us try and picture that of God for us. After having had us present in His thoughts from all eternity, He has called us from nothingness to life.
He Himself formed man's body, and, animating it with a breath, enclosed in it an immortal soul, created to His own image. Scarcely arrived on the threshold of life, we found an officer from His court an angel deputed to protect, accompany, and conduct us in triumph to our heavenly inheritance.
What a superb palace He has prepared for us in this world, supplied with a prodigious variety of flowers, fruits, and animals which He has placed at our disposal!
We were a fallen race, and He sent His Son to raise us and save us from hell, which we merited. The Word was made flesh. He took a body and soul like ours, thus ennobling and deifying, so to speak, our human nature. Before ascending to His heavenly Father, after having been immolated for us on the Cross, for fear of leaving us orphans, He wished to remain amongst us in the Holy Eucharist, to nourish us with His flesh, and to infuse into our hearts His Divine Spirit as the living promise and the delicious foretaste of the felicity and glory which He went to prepare for us in His kingdom.
Truly, O God, You treat us not only with a paternal love, but with an infinite respect and honour; and cannot I love and honour those whom You have thus honoured and loved Yourself? Why do not these thoughts inflame my charity in the fire of your Divine love? My brethren and myself are children of God and members of Jesus Christ. My brethren have their angels, who are companions of my angel. One day my brethren will be my companions in glory, chanting eternally the Divine praises. It is but a short time since, with them, I partook of the heavenly banquet of the Most Holy Sacrament, and to-morrow shall do so again.
[XIX]
EXTENT AND DELICACY OF THE CHARITY OF JESUS CHRIST DURING HIS MORTAL LIFE
LET us now admire the charity of our Divine Saviour while on earth.
If wine was wanting at a feast; if fishermen laboured in vain during the night; if a vast crowd knew not where to procure food in the desert; if unfortunate persons were possessed by devils or deprived of the use of their limbs; if death deprived a father of his daughter, or a widow of an only son, Jesus was there to supply what was wanting, to give back what was lost, or to sweeten all their griefs. Sometimes He forestalled the petition by curing before being asked, or by exciting the wavering faith. He generally went beyond the demands of the petitioners. He was always ready to interrupt His meal, to go to a distance, or to quit His solitude. Nicodemus, as yet trembling and timid, came to find Jesus during the night, and He did not hesitate to sacrifice His sleep by prolonging the conversation. The Samaritan woman was not beneath His notice, although He was fatigued after a long journey. He lavished with prodigality His caresses on the children who pressed around Him. When the crowd was so great that the poor woman with the flow of blood could not come within reach of His hand, He caused an all-powerful virtue to set out from Him, and a simple touch of the hem of His garment supplied instead.
With what charming grace His benefits were accompanied! "Zacheus, come down quickly, for I will abide this day in thy house." Who more than He excelled in the art of making agreeable surprises? In His apparitions to Magdalen, to the holy women, to the disciples at Emmaus, did He not pay well for the ointment, the tears, and the perfumes, and the hospitality He received from them? Who is not moved with emotion when he sees his Lord preparing a meal for the Apostles on the lake-shore, or asking Peter thrice to give him an opportunity of publicly repairing his triple denial, "Lovest thou Me?"
Who would not be moved when he hears what St. Clement relates having heard it from St. Peter that our Lord was accustomed to watch like a mother with her children near His disciples during their sleep to render them any little service?
O Jesus! the sweetest, the most amiable, the most charitable of the children of men, make me a sharer in Your mildness, Your love, and Your charity.