1st Week after Epiphany: Thursday

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

We will meditate to-morrow on a fourth title of Jesus Christ, which is well adapted to make us attach ourselves to Him. We shall see: 1st, that He is our Master through His teachings; 2nd, what we owe to Him because of this title. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to venerate in Him the Master who is entitled to direct us in every detail of our conduct; 2nd, to follow His divine teachings without paying any attention to what the world may say or think of us. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the Gospel: “Neither be ye called masters, for one is your master, Christ” (Matt. xxiii. 10).

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore Jesus Christ as the great Master come down from heaven to teach us the science of salvation (Ps. xciii. 10). Man speaks only to the ears of the body; Jesus Christ speaks to those of the heart (St. Augustine, Tract. iii. in Ep. Joan.). Let us prostrate ourselves at the feet of this best of masters; let us attach ourselves to His divine lessons, and let us say with St. Vincent de Paul: “Lord! What happiness to be Thy scholars!”

FIRST POINT

Jesus Christ is our Master through His Teachings.

The heavenly Father declared it from on high upon the banks of the Jordan: “This is My beloved Son, hear ye Him” (Luke ix. 35). The Saviour Himself proclaimed that He was our sole Master, and St. Paul teaches us thus: “God who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all in these days hath spoken to us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the world” (Heb. i. 1, 2). How happy we are to have such a Master! 1st. He is an infallible Master; heaven and earth may pass away, but His words will not pass away; He knows everything with certainty, and His science is taken from the very source itself of eternal truth. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him (John i. 18). Every time then that we can say with regard to anything whatever “Jesus Christ has said it,” it is true, for He is truth itself (John xiv. 6); the thing is good, for He is the way which leads surely to heaven (Ibid.). He is the theologian who forms the faith; the casuist who directs the conscience; the counsellor who rules the conduct, and the Church with all her doctors does not merit our belief except for the reason that she is His organ. 2nd. He is a Master of incomparable ability; who makes us learn quickly all that He teaches, who enlightens the understanding to comprehend His doctrine and also disposes the will to appreciate it. When we have God for our Master, says St. Ambrose, how quickly we learn the lessons that are taught us! 3rd. He is a Master who knows how to put His teaching within the reach of the most simple, who speaks to the heart rather than to the mind, and in one instant raises the humble soul to the knowledge of more truth than he would have learnt in ten years in a school which had men at the head of it. O Saviour, what an excellent Master Thou art! and how happy we are to receive Thy lessons!

SECOND POINT

What we owe to Jesus Christ in His Quality of Master.

We owe it to Him to take Him as the Supreme Regulator of our determinations, of our sentiments, and of the whole of our conduct. “Lord, to whom should we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life” (John vi. 69). On the one side the world deceives us; on the other our reason is short-sighted and does not change the heart, of which the ancient philosophers who moralized so much, and who led such evil lives, are a proof; it is powerless to sustain the soul in temptation, to console it in troubles; a glance of the eye, a sigh directed towards Thee, O my God, says more to me and consoles me better than any words of man. Jesus Christ has said it; this one word is of greater value in enabling me to believe, and is more decisive in making me act than all the reasons adduced by the human understanding. Jesus Christ has said: “He that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little” (Ecclus. xix. 1). I believe it. He has said: Woe to you here below who live in pleasure and in the midst of honors and riches; blessed are the poor; blessed those who weep; blessed those who suffer (Luke vi. 24 et seq.). I believe it. He has said: “Every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be My disciple” (Luke xiv. 33). I believe it. I do not understand how happiness can be found in the cross, glory in contempt, peace in war, but the Master has said so. He would not have said it if it had not been true; I believe it; I refer myself to Him, and I regulate my conduct in accordance with it. We owe it to Him, 2nd, to study the Bible, the writings of the apostles, and books of piety in which His divine lessons are developed, to take pleasure in pious books, to listen with the docility of a pupil seated at the feet of his master, and by the help of these books to be filled with the Christian spirit in order that we may conform the whole of our conduct to it in all things. We owe it to Him, 3rd, to despise the spirit and maxims of the world, as being in direct opposition to His spirit and His maxims. The world may censure us; let it do so; it is a bad judge, it is an ignorant and deceiving master, against whom Jesus Christ has cast His anathemas. Let us examine ourselves as to whether we are docile disciples of Jesus Christ, and whether our sentiments and our conduct are always in harmony with His maxims.

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.