My dear brethren,
“What do you ask of the Church of God? Faith! What does Faith offer you? Eternal Life!” These are the very first words of the traditional rite of Baptism. Now the catechumen who comes to be baptised has already learnt his faith, and precisely he learnt that “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6). And he heard our Lord saying: “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned” (Mk. 16:16). Before Baptism, the catechumen can do some acts of faith, with actual graces, but he needs the virtue of faith with sanctifying grace in order to gain eternal life.
Death is the consequence of sin. God had said to Adam: “of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death” (Gen. 2:17). Adam did eat and did die. The devil had lied when he had “said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death” (Gen. 3:4). Adam and Eve had believed the devil rather than God, and that was a very grave sin.
But as death is the consequence of sin, so Christ’s victory over death on Easter is the consequence of his victory over sin on Good Friday, by perfect obedience to the precept of the Father, as our Lord said: “No man taketh [my life] away from me: but I lay it down of myself, and I have power to lay it down: and I have power to take it up again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (Jn. 10:18).
The Resurrection of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ is exemplary cause of the future resurrection of our body, as St Paul teaches: He “will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory” (Phil. 3:21).
But we have two lives, the life of the body and the life of the soul. Our body lives when it is united to our soul; our soul lives when it is united to our Lord Jesus Christ by Charity. St Paul says to the Colossians that Christ is our life (Col. 3:4). And he says further that “Charity is the bond of perfection” (Col. 3:14). Thus, there are two lives, the life of the body and the life of the soul. There are two births, natural birth of the body and the new birth by Baptism. There are two deaths, the death of the body, when the soul departs, and the death of the soul by mortal sin, which separates us from God. There is the food of the body, which everyone knows, and the food of the soul which is both the Word of God and the Holy Eucharist. There are remedies for the body and remedies for the soul, especially the Sacrament of Penance.
There would be many passages of the Scriptures to show these two lives, but I will give here one: “Amen, amen I say unto you, that the hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself, so he hath given the Son also to have life in himself: And he hath given him power to do judgment, because he is the Son of man. Wonder not at this; for the hour cometh, wherein all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they that have done good things, shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment” (Jn. 5:25-29).
So here you have two hours, the first which is now, the second which will be at the end of the world (the Resurrection of the body). In the first hour those who hear the voice of the Son of God – that is who believe with living faith – shall live, but that is not “all”; in the second, all who are in the grave shall come forth out of the graves. In the first, there is one outcome but not all hear. In the second all hear but there are two outcomes, the resurrection of life and the resurrection of judgement. Note also that in the first he speaks of the “dead”, in the second he speaks of “those who are in the graves”.
These two hours are the two resurrections: the resurrection of the soul is the first hour, the resurrection of the body is the second one. Since the life of the soul is so much more important than the life of the body, those who lost the life of the soul are really the “dead”; those who lost the life of the body are “those who are in the grave”. The spiritually dead come back to the life of the soul by “hearing the voice of the Son of God” by a living faith, and they shall live, that is, they come back to the true life. All the physically dead shall rise out, but only the good shall rise out “unto the resurrection of life”, a glorious life; those who lived a bad life to the end and died in the state of mortal sin shall come out of the graves “unto the resurrection of judgement”, that is, of condemnation for “everlasting torment” as our Lord says at the end of the Last Judgement. Such torment is not worthy to be called “life”.
Once we understand that there are two lives, it is easy to understand that the important one is the life of the soul; this is the one we should cherish and be very careful not to lose. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to give us first of all and above all that life of the soul: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (Jn. 10:10). Our Lord Himself IS Life: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” (Jn. 14:6) He could never lose that spiritual life. That is why He took a soul and a body that could die. By the Resurrection of His body, He guaranteed not only that God was capable to raise our bodies, but even more that He can bring back our souls to life. His new life at Easter is the pattern of our new spiritual life. And that new life, we should never lose it: “Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more, death shall no more have dominion over him” (Rom. 6:9).
Note our frailty: we can lose it, but we should not, never! And it is possible by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to keep that new life received at Baptism or recovered in the Sacrament of Penance. Many saints have kept the innocence of their baptism, avoiding all mortal sin – not all venial sins: this is the privilege of our Lady, this is her Immaculate Heart, continuation of her Immaculate Conception. The early Christians were more fervent than now, because they kept more carefully the grace of their baptism. Do we appreciate enough the grace of OUR baptism?
St Peter says: “By [Christ] he hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world” (2 Pet. 1:4). The Church teaches that this spiritual life, by sanctifying grace, is a true participation in the Life of God Himself! Jesus lives in us, together with His Father and the Holy Ghost: “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him… If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him” (Jn. 14:21, 23): the soul that truly loves God is the dwelling temple of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. St Paul says so about the Holy Ghost: “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16). He is the Spirit of Love and dwells in those who love God.
What is the Life of God? A life of contemplation, knowledge of the Eternal Truth and Love of the Eternal Goodness: this is a most fruitful life, indeed: the Son of God proceeds from the Father by way of intelligence; the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son by way of Love. This is the eternal life of God Himself, supreme happiness. And the Saints partake in it by beatific vision. And the spiritual life here below is a beginning of it by faith and charity! This is why every good Catholic’s spiritual life should have a contemplative dimension: prayer, which may start as vocal prayer, should more and more have that contemplative dimension and lead to the silence of listening to God, meditating on and contemplating the eternal Truth so that we may be filled by Christ.
This is a life of Faith: St Paul says three times: “The just man liveth by faith” (Rom. 1:17), quoting the prophet Habakkuk (2:4). Faith makes us not only adhere to the revealed Truth, but also motivates all supernatural virtues. Indeed, with sanctifying grace is given to us a whole set of supernatural infused virtues. It is like being at the wheel of a powerful Porshe: there is power in this engine, but to benefit of it, we need to get into the right gear: by providing the motive of Faith, we get these virtues into gear. For instance, if we see a poor person begging for food, we hear the words of Christ saying: “I was hungry, and you gave me to eat… Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me” (Mt. 25:35, 40). Then we have the courage to help him. Or if we are tempted to do something wrong, we put in front of our eyes Jesus crucified, who suffered so much because of sins, and we repel the temptation: how could we add to His sufferings? The motive of faith empowers us to put in practice the Law of God, to remain faithful and “to excel in good works” (Tit. 3:14).
This is the Life which Christ has purchased for us and has given us at Baptism. This is the life that was strengthened by Confirmation. This is the life that is nourished by the very Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the life that is restored and healed by the Sacrament of Penance. That is the life that is ultimately prepared for beatific vision by the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. That is the life which the priest gives you, the reason why you call him father. The priest is not the source of that life, God alone is the source of Life. But the priest transmitted to you that life, as the father of your body did not make out of nothing the life of your body but simply transmitted the life of the body he himself had received. And though marriage is first of all made to transmit the life of the body, it is a grave duty of the parents to provide for the baptism and good Catholic education of their children so that they may populate Heaven!
Since the life of our soul is Jesus living in it, the one who gave us Jesus is truly our mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. By baptism we became children of God and children of Mary. And she does take care of us as the best of all mothers. We ought to have for her the tender love of a child, as Jesus loved her, so we should “have in us the feelings that were in Christ Jesus” and thus the same love for Mary His mother.
fr. Laisney
