TABLE OF CONTENTS
[PREFACE ]
[ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF LEO XIII, 9TH MAY, 1897 ]
[GOD'S PRESENCE ]
[DEGREES OF GOD'S PRESENCE ]
[GOD'S SPECIAL PRESENCE IN THE JUST ]
[NATURE OF THIS PRESENCE ]
[MODE OF THIS PRESENCE, KNOWLEDGE ]
[MODE OF THIS PRESENCE, LOVE ]
[THIS PRESENCE IS OF THE SAME NATURE AS THAT IN HEAVEN ]
[THIS PRESENCE COMMON TO THE WHOLE TRINITY ]
[THIS PRESENCE HAS CERTAIN EFFECTS ]
[FORGIVENESS OF SIN ]
[JUSTIFICATION ]
[DEIFICATION ]
[ADOPTED SONSHIP ]
[HEIRS OF GOD ]
[GUIDANCE IN SPIRITUAL LIFE ]
[GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT ]
[BEATITUDES ]
[FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT ]
[KNOWLEDGE ]
[UNDERSTANDING ]
[WISDOM ]
[COUNSEL ]
[FORTITUDE ]
[PIETY ]
[FEAR OF THE LORD ]
[GRACE]
THE ABIDING PRESENCE
OF THE HOLY GHOST
IN THE SOUL
[ENCYCLICAL] LETTER FOR PENTECOST, 1897 [1]
TO OUR VENERABLE BRETHREN,
THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS,
BISHOPS, AND OTHER LOCAL ORDINARIES
HAVING PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE
HOLY SEE
LEO XIII, POPE
[1] This translation is the official form that appeared in the London Tablet, June 5, 1897.
VENERABLE BRETHREN,
HEALTH AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION
That divine office which Jesus Christ received from His Father for the welfare of mankind, and most perfectly fulfilled, had for its final object to put men in possession of the eternal life of glory, and proximately during the course of ages to secure to them the life of divine grace, which is destined eventually to blossom into the life of heaven. Wherefore, our Saviour never ceases to invite, with infinite affection, all men, of every race and tongue, into the bosom of His Church: "Come ye all to Me," "I am the Life," "I am the Good Shepherd." Nevertheless, according to His inscrutable counsels, He did not will entirely to complete and finish this office Himself on earth, but as He had received it from the Father, so He transmitted it for its completion to the Holy Ghost. It is consoling to recall those assurances which Christ gave to the body of His disciples a little before He left the earth: "It is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you: but if I go, I will send Him to you" (1 John 16.7). In these words He gave as the chief reason of His departure and His return to the Father, the advantage which would most certainly accrue to His followers from the coming of the Holy Ghost, and, at the same time, He made it clear that the Holy Ghost is equally sent by—and therefore proceeds from—Himself and the Father; that He would complete, in His office of Intercessor, Consoler, and Teacher, the work which Christ Himself had begun in His mortal life. For, in the redemption of the world, the completion of the work was by Divine Providence reserved to the manifold power of that Spirit who, in the creation, "adorned the heavens" (Job 26.13), and "filled the whole world" (Wisdom 1.7).
THE TWO PRINCIPAL AIMS OF OUR PONTIFICATE