Our Lady Saint Mary. J. G. H. Barry
all that preceding students have done, and betake our unprepared selves to field work! But that is the "Bible and the Bible only" theory of spiritual knowledge. If we want to know the meaning of the Biblical teaching, we must make use of the helps which the experience of the Church has richly provided.
But the nature of the divine will and the particulars of our obligation are not merely, perhaps one ought to say, not chiefly, to be assimilated through our brains. The best preparation for the doing of the will of God and the progressive entering into His mind, is an obedient life. Purity of character will carry us farther on this path than cleverness of brains. Our Lord's own rule is: He that doeth the will shall know of the doctrine. In other words, we understand the mind of God and attain to the illumination of the conscience, through sympathetic response to the will so far as we have seen it. And each new response, in its turn, carries us to a deeper and clearer understanding of the will. That is to say, our conscience, by habitual response to God's will, so far as it knows it, is so illumined as to be able to make trustworthy judgments on new material submitted to it.
This is, of course, to be otherwise described as the working of God the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit that dwelleth in us and directs us to right judgments if we will listen. Our danger is that self-will constantly crops up and complicates the case by representing that the line suggested by the Holy Spirit is not in reality in accord with our interests. This opposition between the seeming interests suggested by self-will, which indeed often contribute to our immediate gratification, and our true interests as indicated by the monitions of the Holy Spirit, constitutes the real struggle of the life during the period of probation. The will of God in every circumstance is usually plain enough; but it is silenced by the clamour of the passions and desires demanding immediate gratification: and we are all more or less children in our insistence on the immediate and our incapacity to wait. But I must insist again that it is not knowledge that is wanting but sympathy with the course that knowledge directs. We pursuade ourselves that we do not know, when the real trouble is that we know only too well. One feels that much that is put forward as inability to understand religion is at bottom merely disinclination to obey it.
Not that there is not room for genuine perplexity. Often it happens that we are not at all certain in this or that detail of conduct. In that case it is well to consider whether it is necessary to act before we can attain certainty through study or advice. But if act we must, we can at least act with honesty, not making our will the accomplice of our passions or interests.
I do not believe that there are many cases in which we shall go wrong if we make use of all the means at our disposal. A diligent doing of the will of God does undoubtedly bring light on unknown problems and unexpected situations in which we from time to time find ourselves. If our constant attitude has been one of free and glad obedience we need not fear to go astray. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord," Blessed Mary said; and such an attitude has never failed to meet the divine approval and call out the help of God. Just to put ourselves utterly at God's disposal is the clearing of all life. "Into Thy hands," is the solution of all difficulties.
I sing a maiden
That is matchless;
King of all kings
To her Son she ches.
He came all so still
To His Mother's bower,
As dew in April
That falleth on the flower.
Mother and maiden
Was never none but she;
Well might such a lady
God's Mother be.
English, Fifteenth Century.
PART TWO
CHAPTER IV
THE VISITATION I
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.