Bronchain Meditations: August 2

St. Alphonsus, Doctor Of The Church

Preparation. - St. Alphonsus could truly apply to himself these words of St. Paul: “To me, to life is Christ; and to die is gain” (Phil. 1. 21). We shall consider, first, how closely united was this holy Doctor to Jesus Christ, and secondly, how we can therein imitate him. We shall, moreover, resolve, after his example, often to make fervent acts of love, so that we may thus attach ourselves to Jesus Christ and live by His divine life. “Christ is my life, and death is my gain.”

I. Intimate Union Of St. Alphonsus With Jesus

As worldlings sometimes say: “Gaming, reading, study is my life;” so also could St. Alphonsus say: “Christ is my life.” In other words: “My mind, my heart, my thoughts and desires, my projects, every thing in me breathes Jesus, is centred in Him. In the morning as soon as I awake, I think of Him; I offer Him my whole day, and resolve to seek Him alone. At every moment I pray to Him, I love Him, ask for His graces, and converse with Him. If I or others happen to offend Him, I grieve. When I hear Him praised, exalted, served and glorified, I rejoice thereat more than at any personal advantage. For He is every thing to me; in Him I glory, and find rest, hope and happiness; His interests are my interests; His successes and triumphs suffice to enrapture me.”

Thus could St. Alphonsus speak during his long career on earth. He loved Jesus with the purity of the angels, with the constancy of the martyrs, with the burning ardor of the Seraphim. To him Jesus was every thing in all things. Happy in being with Him, he sometimes meditated on the mysteries of His infancy, at others on those of His Passion; or he adored Him in the churches wherein He dwelt in the Sacrament of love. There he would spend long hours in conversing with his Beloved, and he always returned from those visits more filled with love for Him, more eager to immolate himself for His glory. He thereby became like another Christ, all transformed into his dear Master through love, and, as it were, identified with Him. Could he not then say: “Christ is my life”? O precious life, which bears in itself our grandeur, our merit, our bliss! O life, which transforms the earthly into the heavenly, and, as it were, deifies mere mortals like ourselves!

If we wish to know how far the Lord lives in us, we should examine what degree of constant self-denial we have reached. If, in order to obey Jesus, we are strong enough to do violence to our heart, to our defects, to our propensities, to our habits of distraction, impatience, caprice, disobedience, and to so many other little passions which hinder our progress, we then belong wholly to Him.

O my amiable Master, bring about in me this death to my own mind ever ready to judge and criticize; free me from that will so unyielding, so wanting in generosity in making sacrifices. Make me, as it were, insensible to whatever may please or displease me, and enable me to consider and love solely in all things Thy good pleasure. “For Christ is my life, and death my gain.”

II. How To Imitate St. Alphonsus In His Union With Jesus

“My little children,” says St. Paul, “of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you” (Gal. 4. 19). These words may be attributed to our saint. The Church has placed him in the ranks of her Doctors, confiding to him the mission of instructing and guiding souls to God by doctrine and example. His teaching is as follows: The perfect life, he says, requires, first, that we renounce the maxims of the world and of corrupt nature, so that we may be one mind with the God-man, that we may think and judge as He does, that we may esteem what He esteems, and despise what He despises. In meditating His Gospel, the mysteries of His hidden, poor and suffering life, we shall soon look upon the three concupiscences of the world as the foes of God and of our soul.

Gradually by means of prayer, the sacraments, pious reading and assiduous reflections, our mind and will will become impregnated with the ideas and teachings of our divine Master. We shall love what He loves, and hate what He detests, and shall even embrace, in order to please Him, what is repugnant to our self-love. In this manner our heart will be formed like that of Jesus, and grace, constantly increasing in us, will in the end predominate our nature. Happy such a state, which begins in us the perfect reign of the God-man! Then Jesus lives and commands in us, regulating all our thoughts, all our desires, all our affections, and we do nothing deliberately without Him. He then becomes the soul of our soul, and our thoughts, judgements, love, joy and sorrow, will and actions, all become the effect of His grace rather than of our weak nature. Such will be in our interior, as in St. Alphonsus, the intimate life of Jesus, if we faithfully correspond to His light and attraction.

That we may attain so desirable a perfection, let us propose, first, to exercise ourselves in constant mental prayer, even amid our occupations; secondly, never to lose our time in idle conversation and useless actions; and thirdly, to keep ourselves always united to the divine pleasure both in acting and in suffering.

St. Alphonsus, imitator of Jesus and Mary, inspire me with love of prayer, work and conformity to the divine will. Unite me most closely to my amiable Redeemer. May He be henceforth the light of my mind, the life and strength of my heart, so that, whilst worldlings seek transitory goods, I may set all my happiness in possessing Jesus, in always living by Him, with Him, in Him and for Him: “Christ is my life, and death, my gain.”

Method

Show/Hide

Servant of God

Charles Louis Laurent Bronchain was born of excellent parents, September 4, 1829, at Frameries, near Mons in Belgium. From his early boyhood he was distinguished for his piety. As an altar boy he was modest and recollected, and was wont after serving Mass to remain as close as possible to the priest. Being asked why he acted thus, he replied: "I do this, because I wish to be nearer to the good God." When he saw people going to holy communion, he was filled with a holy envy, and would say to himself: "When shall I also have the happiness of receiving our Lord?" We may easily imagine his joy and happiness when this favor was vouchsafed to him for the first time. When out walking with his playmates, he always managed to bring them near a church and induced them to enter it with him to pay homage to our divine Saviour in the Sacrament of His love.

During the six years he studied at the "Petit Seminaire de Bonne Esperance," he was universally admired and respected for his modesty, piety, charity, and other virtues. Heeding the divine call to a more perfect life, he, with the consent of his parents, renounced the world and the brightest prospects of success, and entered in 1850 the Redemptorist Novitiate at St. Trond. The following year he made his profession and was sent to Wittem to prosecute his studies. As novice and student, Louis Bronchain was a model to his companions in regular observance, charity, love of prayer, and study, and self-denial. After his ordination in 1857, he labored zealously for some years in the ministry and in giving missions.

In 1865 he was appointed Master of Novices. To his novices he was ever a tender and loving father, giving them the example of every virtue. His life was practically a continual prayer. Rising very early every morning to be able to devote more time to it, he would spend hours in meditation before the Blessed Sacrament. Though very severe towards himself and addicted to corporal austerities, he, like a true saint, was always cheerful and full of charity and condescension towards others, and of solicitude in supplying the wants of his novices. His health failing, he was relieved of his heavy burden in 1870. From that time until his death, his life was one of continual suffering, borne with wonderful patience and resignation. As long as he was able he labored for his fellow-religious, and for the salvation of souls. Being an able spiritual director, he enabled his many penitents to make great progress in the spiritual life. As for himself he was an “interior man,” such as he describes in his “Meditations.” He died June 2, 1892, in the odor of sanctity.

Father Bronchain spent his years of suffering in composing spiritual works, which passed through many editions during his lifetime and have done incalculable good to souls. They are, like the works of St. Alphonsus, whose spirit he possessed in a remarkable degree, noted for the solidity of their doctrine, the simplicity and popularity of their language, and especially for that sweet unction which induces the practice of virtue, horror of sin, and especially the love of Jesus and Mary.

Index

by Date

by Subject

by Keyword

August 2

Method

Servant of God

Links