The Foundation Of The Christian Life: Faith In Jesus Christ

“In the preceding conferences, I have tried to show you the economy of the Divine designs considered in itself.   We have seen the eternal plan by the Incarnation, Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father, being at once our Model, our Satisfaction, our Life-lastly the mission of the Church continuing here below, under the action of the Holy Ghost, the sanctifying work of the Savior.

The Divine figure of Christ dominates all this plan: the Eternal thoughts are centered on Him: He is the Alpha, He is the Omega.  In the days before His coming, figures, rites and prophecies converge towards Him; after His coming, all is linked with Him.  He is truly the center of the Divine plan.

He is also, as we have seen, the centre of the supernatural life.  The supernatural is to be found first of all in Him: the Man-God, perfect humanity indissolubly United to a Divine Person, possessing fullness of grace and heavenly treasures, and meriting, by His passion and death, to be the universal distributor of them.

He is the Way, the only way by which to come to the Eternal Father: NEMO venit ad Patrem nisi per me; except this foundation pre-established by God, nothing is stable: Fundamentum enim aliud NEMO potest ponere, praeter id quod pontum est, quod est Christus Jesus.  Without this Redeemer and without faith in His merits, there is no salvation, still less holiness: Non est alio aliquo salus.  Nec enim aliud nomen est sub caelo datum hominibus, in quo oporteat nos salvos fiera. Christ Jesus is the only Way, the only Truth, the Only Life.  Who follows not this way goes astray from truth and seeks in vain for life.  Qui habet Filium; habet vitam; qui non habet Filium, vitam non habet.

To live supernaturally is, for us all, to share in the plenitude of Divine life that is in Jesus Christ: Ego veni ut vitam habeant. . .Et de plenitudine ejus nos omnes accepimus.  We receive our state of adoption from Him.  We are only children of God in the measure we are conformed in Him Who, alone, is by right the only true Son of the Father, but Who wills to have with Himself a multitude of brethren through sanctifying grace.  All the supernatural work considered from God’s point of view is summed up in this.

It was in order we might receive this grace of adoption that Christ came and gave Himself to us: Ut adoptionem filiorum reciperemus, and that He has confided all His treasures and all powers to the Church.  He sends and continues to send “the Spirit of Truth”, the sanctifying Spirit, to direct her and perfect, by His actions in souls, the work of sanctification, until this mystical body comes, at the end of time, to its last perfection.  Beatitude itself, the crowning of our supernatural adoption, is nothing less than the inheritance Christ shares with us: Heredes Dei, coheredes Christo.

That is what we have seen so far.  But it will serve for little if it is only in an abstract and theoretical manner we contemplate this Divine Plan, whence shines forth the wisdom and goodness of our God.  We must adopt ourselves practically to this plan, under penalty of our belonging to Christ’s Kingdom.  This is what we shall see in the following conferences.  I will try to show you how grace takes possession of our souls in baptism; how the work of God is elaborated in us and what our conditions of our personal action as free creatures whereby we may be enabled to participate in the Divine life of the largest manner possible.

We shall see that the foundation of all this spiritual edifice is Faith in the Divinity of Our Lord, and that baptism, the first of all the sacraments, marks our whole existence with a double character of “death to sin” and of “life for God”.   In the wonderful discourse which Our Lord pronounced at the Last Supper, on the eve of His death, when He raised as it were a corner of the veil which hides from us the secrets of the Divine life, He said it is to the glory of the Father that we Bear much fruit: In hoc clarificatus est Pater meus, ut fructum plurimum afferatis.  It is therefore to enter into the eternal designs if we seek to develop in us, in the highest degree, our conditions of children of God.

Let us ask Christ Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Father and our Model, to teach us practically not only how He abides in us, but also how we ought to abide in Him, for that is the one means for us of bearing much fruit by which the Father will recognize us as His beloved children: Qui manet in Me, et ego in eo, hic fert fructum multum.

All holiness, as I have said-and my greatest desire is that this truth should be engraved in the depths of your souls-all holiness for us contains of participating in the holiness of Christ Jesus, the Son of God.  But how are we to participate in it? By receiving Jesus Christ Who is the one source of holiness.  When speaking of the Incarnation, St. John tells us that all those who receive Christ are “made the sons of God”.  And how do we receive Christ, the Incarnate Word?  First and before all, by faith.

St. John then says that it is Faith in Jesus Christ that makes us children of God.  That is likewise the thought of St. Paul: “For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus”.  Because by faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ, we identify ourselves with Him; we accept Him as the Son of God and the Incarnate Word.  Faith yields us to Christ and Christ, introducing us into the supernatural domain, yields us to His Father.  And the more prefect, profound, ardent and constant our faith is in Christ’s Divinity, the more right we have, as children of God, to the communication of Divine life.  In receiving Christ by faith, we become by grace what He is by nature-children of God; and then our state calls forth an influx of Divine life from the Heavenly Father.  Our state of “children of God” is like a continual prayer: O Holy Father give us this day our daily bread, that is to say, the Divine life which Thy Son has the plenitude!

I want to speak to you of this faith.  Faith is the very first attitude we ought to have in our relation with God.  St. Augustine says the same, ” It is primarily Faith that subjects the soul to God.”  St. Paul says: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.  For he that cometh to God, must believe.”  With still greater reason, it is impossible without faith to attain to His friendship and remain His child.  You see at once that this subject is not only important, but vital.  We shall understand nothing of the supernatural life, of the Divine life in our souls, if we do not graspt that it is altogether founded upon this faith, upon this intimate and profound conviction of the divinity of Jesus Christ.

For as the Holy Council Of Trent says: “Faith is the root and foundation of all justification”, and in consequence, of all holiness.  We will now see what is this Faith, what is its object, and how it is manifested.”