June 30th: Commemoration of St. Paul

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

We will consider to-morrow how the great heart of St. Paul was: 1st, wholly given to Jesus Christ; 2d, wholly to his neighbor for the sake of Jesus Christ. We will then make the resolution: 1st, not to serve God in only half a manner, by a guilty mixture of self-love, of our own comfort, and of our tastes, with the love of God; 2d, to endeavor not to inflict pain on any one, and to contribute to the happiness of all by whom we are surrounded. Our spiritual nosegay shall be: “For me to live is Christ” (Philipp. i. 21).

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore Jesus Christ raising St. Paul from this world to the third heaven, and there instructing him with His own mouth; delegating him to the nations of the Gentiles to announce to them the riches of the Gospel, and confirming his mission by numberless prodigies, by miraculous effusions of the Holy Ghost, who descended at his voice upon the faithful, and above all by the multitude of conversions which the Apostle himself called the apology of his apostolate, an apology written by the hand of God, a thousand times more convincing than any which could be written with corruptible ink (II. Cor. iii. 3). Let us glorify, let us thank Our Lord for all these marvels; let us congratulate St. Paul for having so well corresponded to them, and let us ask the grace to imitate the Apostle.

FIRST POINT

The Life of St. Paul was a Life of Entire Immolation to the Greater Glory of Jesus Christ

St. Paul was not one of those Christians who give only the half of themselves to Jesus Christ, and reserve the other half for their self-love, their comfort, and for things that give them pleasure; who give themselves in general to God in prayer and take back themselves in detail when it comes to practice. Our apostle began by emptying his heart of all attachment to this world and to human objects (Gal. i. 16), from all attachment to self-love and the opinion of men (I. Cor. iv. 3), to everything which passes away (II. Cor. v. 18); then he gives up his heart entirely to Jesus Christ alone, to be wholly His by love, devotedness, and imitation. 1st. By love. Oh, how this great heart loved Jesus; Jesus was the whole of his life (Philipp. i. 21). The charity of Jesus urges me, he said (II. Cor. v. 14). I defy all creatures in heaven and upon earth to separate me from Him. Anathema be to him who does not love Our Lord Jesus Christ (I. Cor. xvi. 22). As for me, I give myself wholly up to His service; the whole of my person belongs to Him; I am His prisoner; the chains of His love hold me captive; I am delivered up to His grace that it may lead me where it will, chained by His spirit, from whom I will never separate myself (Acts xv. 40; xx. 27). He loves his good Master with all the affection of his soul; all the beatings of his heart are for Him; his hand delights to write the name of Jesus, and he repeats it as often as two hundred and forty-three times in his fourteen epistles. Lastly, such is his love for Jesus that he desires two things only, one of them being to know always more perfectly the charity of his divine Saviour, that he may love Him ever more and more (Eph. iii. 19); the other to die, that he may go to heaven and live with Jesus Christ (Philipp. i. 23). 2d. His devotedness is equal to his love; he devotes his body to Jesus Christ by mortification (II. Cor. iv. 10), reducing it to servitude and crucifying it with Jesus Christ (Gal. ii. 19). He devotes his whole soul and his life to Him entirely, going, at the risk of all kinds of dangers, of all kinds of labors, to bear His glory and His name throughout the whole earth, from Jerusalem to the confines of Illyria, and as far as Rome, whence he proposes to himself to go to Spain and to the extreme West. Would it be possible to be more devoted? 3d. He belonged wholly to Jesus Christ by imitation. Love leads to the imitation of the person beloved. Therefore our apostle makes it his great study to imitate his good Master, and he succeeds so well that he is able to say to the faithful: “Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ” (I. Cor. iv. 16; xi. 1); “I live now, not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. ii. 20); and St. Chrysostom ventured to say: “The heart of Paul was the heart of Jesus Christ.” Let us compare our love with that of St. Paul.

SECOND POINT

The Life of St. Paul was a Life Wholly of Immolation to the Service of his Neighbor, for the Love of Jesus Christ

Yes, said the great heart of Paul to the faithful, “I most gladly will spend and be spent myself for your souls” (II. Cor. xii. 15). “If I be made a victim upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and congratulate with you all” (Philipp. ii. 17). “So desirous of you, we would gladly impart unto you not only the Gospel of God, but also our own souls, because you were become most dear to us” (I. Thess. ii. 8). “Our mouth is open to you, our heart is enlarged. You are not straitened in us, but in your bowels you are straitened” (II. Cor. vi. 11, 12). His apostolic heart suffers for the people he evangelizes the suffering attendant on childbirth (Gal. iv. 13). He warms by his charity as a nurse in her bosom those to whom he has so painfully given birth (I. Thess. ii. 17). He embraces in his immense paternity both individuals and nations; he is insatiable in labors, privations, and sufferings, provided that he does but do good to souls (II. Tim. ii. 10); he fashions himself to all kinds of characters, to all sorts of conditions (I. Cor. ix. 22). The people respond ill to so much charity: it does not signify; it seems as though he loved them all the more in proportion as he is less loved by them (II. Cor. xii. 15), and he retains them in spite of themselves, as it were, in his heart, both in life and in death (II. Cor. vii. 3). In presence of so generous a charity, so full of endurance, what ought to be our confusion, we who are so cold, so insensible, sometimes so disagreeable and so hard towards our neighbor!

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.