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The Time After Pentecost
Friday
May He grant you “to be strengthened by His Spirit with might unto the inward man.” For this
grace the Apostle first prays in this Sunday’s Epistle. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts,” is
the second grace. “That being rooted and founded in charity, you may be able to comprehend
. . . what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of the grace of your vocation is the
third grace; and “to know also the charity of Christ” is the fourth grace. These four graces have
but one purpose: “That you may be filled unto all the fullness of God” (Epistle).
“If any one love Me, . . . My Father will love him, and We will come to him and will make Our
abode with him” ( Jn 14:23). The fullness of the Godhead — of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost — becomes ours through the power of baptism and our incorporation in Christ. “For in
Him [Christ] dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead corporeally. And you are filled in Him”
(Col 2:9 f.). “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts” (Rom 5:5). God descends to
us, who are but dust, and abides in our soul. He Himself is in us, He speaks to us, He watches
our steps, He inspires us, He admonishes and guides us with infinite benevolence, with divine
wisdom and deep love, with a clear vision and with a strong arm, which nothing can resist. We
may speak to Him any time, come to Him as His beloved children, seek His help, reveal the inmost
feelings of our hearts. We can express our gratitude, our affections, our love, our contrition, our
needs. We need not await the dawn of eternity to possess God; we bear Him within us. And with
Him we have a foretaste of the perfect blessedness which awaits us in eternity. Tribulations and
miseries are easily borne when we are conscious of the nearness and love of God, our devoted
Father. His nearness makes us joyful and happy and immensely rich. We must be more keenly
aware of the presence of God living in us.
“Filled unto all the fullness of God.” From this original fountain of divine life, from which
we receive all things, we receive a new source of life, the fountain of grace. It operates like an
overflow of God’s infinite love for us. It gives us the unspeakable fullness of God; it elevates our
human nature to a state which far surpasses all our natural powers and abilities; it lifts our will,
heart, and mind into the world of God, and plants a new love in us, the love of the child for its
father, the childlike confidence which makes us cry out, “Abba, Father.” We glow with the light
of purity and the holiness of God, and penetrated with this divine life, we are endowed with the
divine virtues of faith, hope, and charity. The so-called moral virtues, which are conferred upon
us with sanctifying grace, serve these three theological virtues. We receive also the virtues of
prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. All are a participation in the divine life which we
possess through the power of sanctifying grace and by virtue of the indwelling of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost. In these virtues God gives us the rudders with which we must steer the
small ship of our soul to the shores of eternity through the stormy sea of time. The journey is
fatiguing, the way is far, our own strength is not enough. Therefore to develop and protect these
virtues He gives us the sails of the seven gifts — wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel,
piety, fortitude, strength, and fear of the Lord — which the Holy Ghost, who lives in us, swells
and drives as a powerful blowing wind. The same Spirit of God who hovered above the human
nature of Christ and filled it, steadily moves above our soul, enlivens it with His power, enlightens
it through His divine light, and urges it to perfect, heroic charity.
Besides being “filled unto all the fullness of God,” we are given endless graces of counsel,
graces which clarify the intellect and incite and strengthen the will. We also receive the grace
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