THE INTERIOR LIFE. (6)
Zeal.
"Behold I come that I should do Thy Will. O my God, I have desired it, and Thy law in the midst of my heart."
(Ps. xxxix. 8, 9).
1st. Prelude. Jesus living in and working through Mary.
2nd. Prelude. The grace of zeal according to His methods.
There is a very close connection between prayer and zeal; the more perfect the prayer, the greater necessarily will be the zeal. Why? Because prayer is identifying oneself with the mind and Will of God, and doing everything with the unique intention of pleasing Him. What are the Will and pleasure of God? The salvation of the world for which He became incarnate—The closer we unite ourselves to God in prayer, the dearer will His intentions be to us. The best workers are those who pray best, those who enter most deeply into God's Will and plans. When we find our zeal flagging, it would be well to examine ourselves on our spirit of prayer.
Point I. The zeal of JESUS living in Mary.
This zeal showed itself at once. No sooner had He become incarnate than He inspired His Mother to take a difficult journey into the "hill country" to visit her cousin Elizabeth. The zeal of Jesus showed itself first of all, as it naturally would, on His Mother and filled her spirit with the humility and charity and forgetfulness of self which were needed for the journey. It then effected Elizabeth and filled her with the Holy Ghost, but these were only the overflowings of His zeal on His way to make what Father Faber calls His "first convert." The soul of John the Baptist, His chosen Precursor, was very precious to Him and as yet it lay unconscious at a distance from God in darkness and the shadow of death. One of the first acts of God Incarnate was to deliver that soul from prison and let it see what great things He had in store for it. At the sound of the voice of the Mother with her Child, a change was wrought in that dark soul; it was set free from the curse of original sin, it was flooded with grace, it was brought nigh to God, the Holy Ghost with all His gifts took possession of it and as a consequence, it leapt in the womb in joy and gratitude and adoration.
The voice of Mary directed by her Child had simultaneously worked two miracles of grace. Elizabeth heard the salutation first, but it was the leaping of the Babe in her womb which made her understand that the Incarnation had taken place, and cry with a loud voice: "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb."
If the zeal of Jesus was so powerful during the first hours of His life, what must it not have effected during the nine months! How many souls without knowing (as St. John the Baptist did) the cause, were brought nearer to Heaven by the presence of the Incarnate God in the world!