St John Eudes: Being "In Christ"

August 19th was the Memoria of St John Eudes (1601-1680). The second reading from the Office of Readings for that day, taken from the saint’s treatise on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is a remarkable piece of spiritual advice, and also something of a theological tour de force.

I ask you to consider that our Lord Jesus Christ is your true head and that you are a member of his body. He belongs to you as the head belongs to the body. All that is his is yours: breath, heart, body, soul and all his faculties.

All of these you must use as if they belonged to you, so that in serving him you may give him praise, love and glory. You belong to him as a member belongs to the head.

This is why he earnestly desires you to serve and glorify the Father by using all your faculties as if they were his. He belongs to you, but more than that, he longs to be in you, living and ruling in you, as the head lives and rules in the body.

He desires that whatever is in him may live and rule in you: his breath in your breath, his heart in your heart, all the faculties of his soul in the faculties of your soul, so that these words may be fulfilled in you: Glorify God and bear him in your body, that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in you.

You belong to the Son of God, but more than that, you ought to be in him as the members are in the head. All that is in you must be incorporated into him. You must receive life from him and be ruled by him. There will be no true life for you except in him, for he is the one source of true life.

Apart from him you will find only death and destruction. Let him be the only source of your movements, of the actions and the strength of your life. He must be both the source and the purpose of your life, so that you may fulfil these words: None of us lives as his own master and none of us dies as his own master.

While we live, we are responsible to the Lord, and when we die, we die as his servants. Both in life and death we are the Lord’s. That is why Christ died and came to life again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

Finally, you are one with Jesus as the body is one with the head. You must, then, have one breath with him, one soul, one life, one will, one mind, one heart. And he must be your breath, heart, love, life, your all.

These great gifts in the follower of Christ originate from baptism. They are increased and strengthened through confirmation and by making good use of other graces that are given by God. Through the holy Eucharist they are brought to perfection.

Fr Garrigou-Lagrange OP: The Resurrection of the Body

Shadowlands left a very kind comment on my previous post St Catherine of Siena: What Happens After We Die? asking for more on the same subject, so here is an extract from what Fr R. Garrigou-Lagrange OP has to say about the resurrection of the body in his book Life Everlasting.

Reason cannot give a demonstrative proof of this truth, but it can give high reasons of appropriateness. These reasons are thus expressed by the Catechism of the Council of Trent: "The first is that our souls, which are only a part of ourselves, are immortal, and retain forever their natural inclination to union with the body."

Hence it seems contrary to nature that they should forever remain separated from their bodies. Now that which is contrary to nature is in a state of violence and cannot last long. Hence it is very appropriate that the soul be united to its body again and that the body be raised to life. The soul is naturally the form of the body, hence it groans at the idea of separation. Therefore it should not be deprived forever of this body.

A second reason is found in the infinite justice of God, who has established punishments for the wicked and rewards for the good. Hence it is appropriate that the souls be reunited to their bodies in order that these bodies, which have been instruments, whether of good or of evil, partake with the soul in the awards and punishments deserved…

…In the case of the good, the body has been in the service of the soul in the accomplishment of good works, sometimes heroic works, in devotion, in the apostolate, in martyrdom. Further, the bodies of the just are temples of the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says. Hence the resurrection of the body is highly appropriate, that the soul may lack nothing in its state of felicity. Here we see, together with the justice of God, also His wisdom and His goodness.

A third reason is drawn from the victory of Christ over sin and the devil, which victory consequently triumphs over death which is a consequence of sin. He won this victory over death by His own resurrection and by that of His Blessed Mother. Hence it is appropriate, since He is to be the Savior of humanity, body and soul, that He win also the definitive victory over death by universal resurrection.

St Catherine of Siena: What Happens After We Die?

Fr Philip Powell OP of the Domine Da Mihi Hanc Aquam blog recently wrote an interesting post entitled What happens after we die? in which he offers a response to a question asked by Heather Barrett who had attended a retreat for Lay Dominicans led by Fr Powell a few days earlier.

Heather’s question was: “One thing mentioned at the retreat is that human persons are body and soul, integrated. Which I understand. But it makes me wonder what happens to us when we die and the body and soul separate. Who are we when in that state of separation? Are we still ‘ourselves’?”.

The concern is that, if a human person is body and soul, and if the soul is separated from the body after death until the general resurrection, does this mean the soul waiting for the resurrection of the body somehow lacking the fullness of what it means to be human? And, if the answer to this is “No”, are we not going down the Gnostic/spiritualist road of seeing redemption in terms of deliverance from the body?

A question put by a Dominican to a Dominican clearly requires a Dominican response, so who better to give this than St Catherine of Siena. Here’s what she has to say in section 41 of the Dialogue (the English translation available at CCEL is not ideal, but it’s the only one in the public domain).

Catherine makes a number of points. Firstly, the resurrection of the body doesn’t add anything to the bliss of the soul:

And think not, that the bliss of the body after the resurrection gives more bliss to the soul, for, if this were so, it would follow that, until they had the body, they had imperfect bliss, which cannot be, because no perfection is lacking to them.

On the contrary, it is the soul the shares its bliss with the body:

So it is not the body that gives bliss to the soul, but the soul will give bliss to the body, because the soul will give of her abundance, and will re-clothe herself on the Last Day of Judgment, in the garments of her own flesh which she had quitted.

The temporary separation of soul and body is beneficial for both. No longer weighed down by the flesh, the soul becomes perfectly fixed on God. When the body is reunited with this perfected soul, it can no longer turn it away from God, but is taken up into the soul’s own grace and perfection:

For, as the soul is made immortal, stayed and established in Me, so the body in that union becomes immortal, and, having lost heaviness, is made fine and light. Wherefore, know that the glorified body can pass through a wall, and that neither water nor fire can injure it, not by virtue of itself, but by virtue of the soul, which virtue is of Me, given to her by grace, and by the ineffable love with which I created her in My image and likeness.

The joy of the blessed consists in the vision of God. They do not lack the vision of God before the resurrection of the body, and so enjoy the fullness of beatitude, in which there is nothing lacking. However, when soul and body are reunited at the general resurrection, the body shares in the soul’s bliss, and the soul rejoices to share its bliss with the body.

Oh, how much delight they have in seeing Me, who am every good! Oh, how much delight they will have in being with the glorified body, though, not having that delight from now to the general Judgment, they have not, on that account, pain, because no bliss is lacking to them, the soul being satisfied in herself, and, as I have told you, the body will participate in this bliss.

So the soul awaiting the resurrection of the body is not lacking in blessing, and is not in any sense less than a fully integrated human being. There is, however, a sense in which it is incomplete – not because it lacks something that it needs to be fully human and fully happy, but because God has ordained that ultimately its perfect happiness should overflow and irradiate the risen body.

"Praise and Bless" Blog

Fr Charles is a Franciscan friar whose a minor friar blog is both entertaining and profound. His other blog, Praise and Bless, on which he posts his homilies, is equally good. His post for tomorrow (unlike us in the UK, they're very properly observing the 20th Sunday of the Year in the US this Sunday) discusses the figure of Lady Wisdom in the book of Proverbs, and is well worth reading.

Prayer and the Equipment of Prayer (Updated)

From time to time I’ve posted extracts from the writings of St Theophan the Recluse (a Russian Orthodox hermit of the nineteenth century), many of whose reflections on the spiritual life seem to me to be as applicable to Catholics as they are to Orthodox. In the following passage (taken from this Homily on Prayer), he discusses the difference between “prayer” and the “equipment of prayer”. [Update: it's worth reading Maureen's comment; I don't think that Theophan is using the words "feelings" and "emotions" in the sense in which most people in the West now use them.]

However, not every act of prayer is prayer. Standing at home before your icons, or here in church, and venerating them is not yet prayer, but the “equipment” of prayer.

Reading prayers either by heart or from a book, or hearing someone else read them is not yet prayer, but only a tool or method for obtaining and awakening prayer.

Prayer itself is the piercing of our hearts by pious feelings towards God, one after another – feelings of humility, submission, gratitude, doxology, forgiveness, heart-felt prostration, brokenness, conformity to the will of God, etc.

All of our effort should be directed so that during our prayers, these feelings and feelings like them should fill our souls, so that the heart would not be empty when the lips are reading the prayers, or when the ears hear and the body bows in prostrations, but that there would be some qualitative feeling, some striving toward God.

When these feelings are present, our praying is prayer, and when they are absent, it is not yet prayer.

St Maximus the Confessor: The Transfiguration

August 6th is the Feast of the Transfiguration. The Handmaid (an Orthodox blogger whose beautifully designed blog is rich in the spiritual wisdom of the Fathers) has posted a lovely quotation from St Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662) on what it means for Christ to be transfigured in the believer:

When the Word of God becomes bright and shining in us, and His face is dazzling as the sun, then also will His clothes be radiant, that is, the clear and distinct words of the Holy Scripture of the Gospels now no longer veiled. Then Moses and Elias will stand beside Him, that is, the more spiritual meanings of the Law and the Prophets.

St. Maximus the Confessor, Second Chapter on Knowledge, No. 14, trans. George Berthold.

St Oswald of Northumbria

August 3rd is the feast of St Oswald, King of Northumbria (one of our diocesan saints here in Hexham and Newcastle). Oswald was born around 604, and was King of Northumbria from 634 until his death. Read more here on the Saints and Blessed Page (my other blog).

St Dominic Novena

Unfortunately I'm a day late with this, but there's a good Novena to St Dominic (f/d August 8th) being posted on a daily basis by Anita Moore OPL on the V For Victory Blog.