Monday After Trinity Sunday
Our Soul, The Image Of God
Preparation. - The most perfect image of the Blessed Trinity on earth is our soul. Let us consider it, first, according to nature, and secondly, according to grace, and then resolve to purify and sanctify it by frequent acts of repentance, love and petition, so as to make of it a dwelling befitting the divine Majesty. "Holiness becometh Thy house, O Lord" (Ps. 92. 5).
I. The Human Soul According To Nature.
God formed the soul, not merely with His all-powerful hands, but with the breath of His mouth, that is, wishing it to be His image, He made it spiritual and immortal like Himself, endowed with understanding, free-will, having, like Himself, noble thought, a breadth of conception embracing all things, a restless activity, a desire of happiness and enjoyment which never says - enough. If we esteem a portrait according to the talent of the painter, what idea should we not have of our soul, which is the work of the Almighty, the Creator of the universe! We respect a painter that represents an august personage; how much more should we not revere men's souls, which are the images of the Most High!
Their natural beauty surpasses all the beauties of the universe. Neither the firmament with its millions of twinkling stars, nor the sun with all its brightness, nor the palaces of monarchs with their brilliant courts and their superb gardens, nothing can give us an idea of that ravishing portrait of God, our soul, which bears the features of the adorable Trinity. Like the Father, our soul has being; like the Son, it possesses understanding; like the Holy Ghost, it loves. Our mind begets our thoughts, as the Father begets the Son. From the mutual love between our mind and its idea arises the act of our will, as the Holy Ghost, the substantial Love, proceeds from the Father and the Son. O greatness too little known, too often forgotten!
Let us remember that, as the interpreters of irrational creatures, we ought in their stead to praise God who created them, and to beware turning them away from their end, which consists in helping us to know and love our Creator. But, alas! have we not often done the contrary by making use of the exterior world to offend God and gratify our passions? this is an injustice and an ingratitude which degrades us and renders us liable to eternal torments, if we sinned grievously in doing so.
O my God, I repent of having used for my vanity and self-love so many objects created to enable me to rise to Thee. Give me the courage to resume my place above this visible world, first, by mortifying my body, my senses, and my passions; secondly by detaching myself from transitory goods, and thirdly, by being constantly submissive to Thy ever wise and amiable guidance.
II. The Human Soul According To Grace.
The soul resembles God not only according to its nature, but especially according to grace. By habitual or sanctifying grace it receives, so to speak, a new being, an accidental being, which it can lose without being destroyed, but a being of an order infinitely superior to the natural, which is called supernatural or above all created nature, even the angelic. This is an astounding privilege, if there ever was one, which elevates our soul to the sphere of God!
Faith, which flows therefrom, is far more sublime than the brightness of the greatest geniuses, and, in some manner, deifies our intellect, by enabling us to know the mysteries of God with the help of the same light, by which He knows them. It is like the Creator's reason added to ours. And how greatly does the Lord ennoble our will also, by communicating to it the horror of evil and the love of good, as they are in Himself! God goes even so far as to enable us to participate, by analogy or resemblance, in His divine Being, or His Divinity; this is for us, says St. Thomas, the height of true greatness. O goodness, O charity of our God!
Adam's sin has caused us to fall very low; and lo! the Most High raises us up in Jesus Christ so far as to make us His adopted children, and, in some manner, as other Jesus Christs! The whole Blessed Trinity contributes to this glorious childship of God; God the Father by adopting us; God the Son by uniting us to Himself and constituting us His brethren and co-heirs; God the Holy Ghost by communicating to us the love of the Father and the Son, through the gifts and graces He lavishes on us, the least of which surpasses in value the whole universe.
Who will tell us how much we are indebted to the bounty of the three divine Persons? That we may testify our gratitude to them, let us honor, first, God the Father by our unreserved obedience and submission to His holy will; secondly, God the Son, by annihilating our self-esteem in His presence; and thirdly, God the Holy Ghost, by a complete detachment from the earth and a constant love of the supreme Good.
O holy Trinity, one, immutable and eternal God! I adore Thee present in my soul; I love Thee and submit to Thy good pleasure. Through the merits of Jesus and Mary, cause me to respect in men's souls Thy image according to nature, and Thy likeness according to grace. Make me docile to Thy commandments, patient in trial, and charitable towards all men.
