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Christ loved the Church and delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life (Eph. v, 25-26).
The purpose of the Church is the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the world, and therefore it is the sanctification of men. St. Paul sets forth this purpose in the words: "Christ hath loved the Church and delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life. That he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Eph. v, 25-27). In those words the apostle sketches an ideal which can never attain complete fulfillment in the Church on earth. For the words which our Lord spoke to His disciples at the Last Supper are true of her: "Ye are clean, but not all" (Jn. xiii, 10). Our Lord foretold only too plainly that there would be cockle among the wheat, bad fish among the good, and that scandals must come. So long as the Church abides in this world, awaiting the coming of the Lord, her prayer will have to be, not only "Hallowed be thy Name, thy Kingdom come!" but also "Forgive us our trespasses, lead us not into temptation!"
But however little the Church of this world can be called a society of saints—and the New Testament too refrains from speaking of a "holy Church" in that sense—yet her whole nature as the Body of Christ aims at that consummation. She seeks to redeem men, all men, in slow but steady process, from their self-centredness, and to form them into new men, children of God, "fellow-citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God" (Eph. ii, 19), into a "kingly priesthood and a holy people" (1 Peter ii, 9). It is from this her essential task that the Church wins that venerable name of "Holy Church," a title used by the apostolic Fathers and incorporated into the ancient Creeds.
In this and the next Chapter we shall ask how the Church merits this title and wherein lies the sanctifying power of her action. Since "the end of the commandment," as the apostle tells us (1 Tim. i, 5), "is charity, from a pure heart and a good conscience and an unfeigned faith," does she really show herself, in her doctrine and worship, to be the great school of charity, to be the institute of salvation in a special and comprehensive sense?
If we would appreciate the sanctifying power of the Church, it is of fundamental importance to understand her dogmatic teaching concerning the character and development of the regenerate man, the "homo sanctus," to understand therefore her conception of justification.
The Church's doctrine of justification is based upon the presupposition that man is not only called to a natural end, to the fulfillment of his natural being, to the development of his natural powers and aptitudes, but also beyond that, to a supernatural elevation of his being which entirely surpasses all created aptitudes and powers, to sonship with God, to participation in the divine life itself. Such is the central fact of the glad tidings of Christianity: "To as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God" (Jn. i, 12). "Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. But we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him" (1 Jn. iii, 2). This likeness consists, according to the Second Epistle of St. Peter, in an enrichment by grace, in a fulfilling and permeation of our being by divine and holy forces. We shall be made "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter i, 4). We win a "share in His sanctity" (Hebr. xii, 10). Therefore man's end lies, not in mere humanity, but in a new sort of superhumanity, in an elevation and enhancement of his being, which essentially surpasses all created powers and raises him into an absolutely new sphere of existence and life, into the fullness of the life of God. God shows Himself most luminously as the absolute Personality, sufficient for Himself and independent of the world, in the fact that He reveals Himself personally to us, as one person to another. And He shows that He is absolute Goodness in the fact that He reveals Himself to us as our Friend, nay, as our Father, so that by the power of His love we become His sons and may cry "Abba, Father." Wherefore the Church, in her educative effort, cannot be contented with developing any mere humanity, or perfection of humanity. That is not the object of her work. On the contrary her ideal is to supernaturalize men, to make them like to God. It is of the essence of the Church's character that she should press on towards that which is better and pursue the best and highest that is to be found in heaven and on earth, that she should move in the unsearchable depths of the divine mystery and therefore love the heroic, the incomprehensible and inconceivable, the wide spaces of infinity. That which was uniquely realized in Christ when the Triune God united a human nature with His divine nature in the unity of His person, that mystery of the raising of man to God is constantly repeated by grace in the life of the individual Christian.
This raising of man to the most intimate communion of life and love with God cannot be effected by man himself. It can be merited by no human effort. It is the work of God alone. God gives Himself to those to whom He wills to give Himself, with the most gratuitous mercy and love. So it is the Church's doctrine that every movement of man towards God, every holy thought, every good resolution and every pure affection is initiated and supported by God's grace—the theologians speak here of "actual" grace; and further, that the definitive establishment of the new life in the soul, the state of direct communion of life and love with God—which the theologians call "sanctifying" grace—is effected in the soul by God alone without human merit. We are made sons of God solely by the eternal love of God, by a mysterious operation of His power effected supernaturally.
The child of God, the saint, is therefore according to the Church's view essentially a creation of grace, a child of the eternal Love. And since it is the function of Christ and of Christianity to bring the love and grace of God to sense-bound man under the veil of visible and evident signs, therefore the first and chief duty of the Church's educative activity is the sacramental mediation of the grace of Christ. The seven sacraments are God's appointed means, whereby man shall ordinarily (ordinario modo) experience the action of the grace of Christ, the elevation of his being into the stream of God's life and love. This does not mean that extraordinary ways and activities of grace are excluded, as was shown in the last Chapter.
On the other hand—and here is the chief distinction between the Catholic and the orthodox Lutheran conceptions of justification—man is not purely passive under the action of grace like some lifeless stone or log. As the Church conceives original sin, the natural religious and moral endowment of man was not destroyed by that sin, so that as the Lutheran "Formula of Concord" expresses it "no spark of spiritual power was left him for the knowledge of truth and accomplishment of good." Man's religious and moral faculties are not impaired in their natural substance, but weakened in their operation, inasmuch as original sin deflects them from their supernatural course and gives them therefore a false direction. The effect of grace, as the upsurging of the eternal love within him, is to bring a man's faculties back again into their original course, and so to disengage them completely and set them free. Therefore grace is not merely compassionate mercy, nor is it like some brilliant cloak of gold thrown over the human corpse. On the contrary the Church conceives of it as a vital force, which awakens and summons the powers of man's soul, understanding, will and feeling, inspires them with a new love, with a new fear of God and His judgments, with a new yearning for transcendent holiness and infinite goodness. When grace thus works on the sinner, continually urging him on with its secret goad to the heights, it produces in man those spiritual acts of faith, fear and trust which are the preparation on the human side for justification. The justification itself which follows these acts is the sole work of God. In the sacrament of Baptism or Penance God answers the appeal of the penitent with His kiss of forgiving love: "I baptize thee, I absolve thee."
But—and here we see again the special quality of the Catholic doctrine of justification, the dynamic character of the Church's conception—God does not merely forgive. At the same time as He forgives He sanctifies. So that justification is not a mere covering over of sin, a mere external imputation of the righteousness of Christ. It is the communication of a true inward righteousness, of a new love which remakes the whole man; it is sanctification. Justification and sanctification are not to be separated the one from the other, as though sanctification were merely a happy consequence of justification. On the contrary, God's justifying word of forgiveness is an omnipotent word which remakes the man, not only forgiving the penitent but conferring on him the supernatural life of grace; nay, forgiving him for the very reason that it implants in him the germ of this new life. The first effect of God's mercy in the penitent is the awakening of this new life, of this new love. Theologians call it the "infusion of love" (infusio caritatis), which produces a new sense of sonship, so that the man cries "Abba, Father." Therefore, according to Catholic doctrine, the grace of justification not only puts the man into a new relation with God, but also produces a new attitude. It creates a new heart and a new love.
This new heart, this new state of righteousness and holiness, is not produced fortuitously and in a magical manner. For the man is already inwardly ordinated to this life by his preparatory acts of faith, fear and love, acts supported by grace. His soul longeth for the Lord. It panteth for Him, like the hart for the fountains of water. And God answers its appeal, condescends to the soul and permeates it with His new love. Therefore the grace of justification has its psychological point of contact in the grace- produced preparatory acts. And it does not come from outside like some alien charm, but as the creator to His creature. For God, the primal creative force of all being, is within us. He is nearer to us than we to ourselves. He is the fundamental ground in which our innermost being is ontologically rooted. The new life rises from out of this divine source within us which yet is not ourselves. It sets free all the good powers of the soul. I obtain a new desire, a new strong and steadfast will; I am filled anew with God, I have divine charity. It is not of me, and yet it is wholly mine. For it comes from the divine basis which maintains and supports my being. Therefore the expression "infusion of charity" (infusio cantatis) means that the new love flows into me out of a primal source which is not my own self. But this primal source is not far from me, but within me, for it is at the basis of my being. The man who believes in the reality of God must believe also that this reality is the source of all power and all grace, and that therefore the new life comes not from himself but from God. That is the meaning of the expression "infusio." If a man denies its theological substance, then his theology is an unsatisfactory subjectivism. He does not attain to belief in the transcendental reality of God. He remains shut up in his own ego, and is ultimately bound to make his own ego the basis of all reality, as is done by idealistic monism.
As we have said, the act of justification is the creative formation of a new man, the man who is born again. But this new man is as yet a child who takes milk and not solid food. The new love which is infused into him by sanctifying grace has to grow and develop to the "measure of the age of the fullness of Christ." In its insistence that the grace of justification has this power of growth lies the third distinguishing mark of Catholic teaching concerning justification. "He that is just, let him be justified still: and he that is holy, let him be sanctified still" (Apoc. xxii, 11). The new life implanted in the soul is, so to speak, a supernatural "form" which sets free continually new powers and energies, which embraces and controls all the man's religious and moral life and effort, and which in that process itself increases constantly in depth and strength. That is what theologians mean when they speak of the increase of sanctifying grace. And all that a man performs under the influence of this new love has supernatural value and is no longer something profane, natural and purely human. His acts, because animated by the breath of Christ's love, are of value for salvation, are meritorious acts. That is a further consequence of the Catholic conception of justification Since justification is a God-given sanctification, an infusion of charity, and since charity comes not from man but from God, all that is performed by means of this charity is of divine quality, stamped with the seal of Christ. It is meritorious. The Catholic agrees with St. Paul and emphatically denies that man with his natural powers can in the least degree merit eternal salvation. There is no such thing as natural merit, but there is merit by grace. The creative and quickening power of justification is manifested exactly in the fact that it permeates our natural, religious and moral energies with the new, divine love, and thereby makes us bear fruit worthy of eternal life. So that eternal life becomes, as St. Paul expresses it, a wage and a reward. But when I say that, I am really saying that it is the grace and power of Christ. For it is that alone which gives my activity value in the sight of God. So in my activities it is the grace of Christ, and not any power of mine, that is expressed and is rewarded. Therefore there is no room for pride and self- complacency. Wherever you have the grace of Christ, there you have Christian humility. "When you have done all these things that are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants" (Lk. xvii, 10). Therefore the merit which is won by grace does not exclude humility, but includes it.
If we look at the matter more broadly, this point becomes still plainer. When we define justification as an "infusion of charity" it follows, in the fourth-place, that this love can be lost again, and that even the justified are amenable to the apostles' words: "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. ii, 12). The justified man has indeed an absolute certainty of faith, but he has no unconditional certainty of salvation, that is to say that he does not know with unconditional certainty whether he is permanently worthy of love or of hatred. It is true that he can by certain subjective signs and by earnest self-examination ascertain with moral certainty whether he is at the moment impelled by the new love, and so whether he is a child of love and a child of God. But without a special divine revelation he has no unconditional guarantee that he is at any given moment in the grace of God, nor has he any unconditional certainty that he may not in the future, by misusing his freedom, by his own fault, be deprived of the love of God. However solid his piety may be, however magnanimous and courageous, yet he avoids above everything spiritual pride and overweening presumption. His piety gives him humility, the vivid consciousness that he abides wholly in the hands of God and must always pray humbly with the publican: "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!" The accusation is leveled against the Church that this teaching of hers concerning the uncertainty of salvation she harasses the Catholic conscience, and that she has made the malady of scrupulosity endemic in Catholicism.[1] This reproach is a gross exaggeration. It is true that there are pathological states, especially at the time of adolescence, which feed for choice on religious conceptions. And such states are especially dangerous when religious instruction is defective or where it is in the hands of clumsy directors. But Protestantism also has such scrupulous souls. Goethe himself laments the religious scruples of his youth. And generally speaking such people are not scrupulous because this or that truth of faith terrifies them, but they allow themselves to be terrified by them because they are already scrupulous. Scrupulosity is in fact a condition of psycho-physical infirmity, which is not created, but only disengaged by religious conceptions. The condition shows itself particularly in a lack of vitality and confidence on the one hand, and on the other in an exaggerated self-centeredness. Milder cases will yield to the treatment of the spiritual director, but the more difficult cases require the mental specialist. Catholic pastoral theology, while warning us against presumptuous trust in God's mercy, insists with quite as much vigor on the immeasurable riches of His goodness—"for He is good." It is the fault of the invalid, and not of the Church, if he hears only the warning and neglects the assurance.
To sum up: the special quality of the Catholic doctrine of justification lies on the one hand in its clear and consistent emphasis on grace, on the unmerited nature of the new life and the new love, and on the other hand in its decisive summons to man's religious and moral powers to play their part in the work of grace. The unmerited character of justification is manifested in the Church's sacramentalism. The decisive word of sanctification is not spoken by man, but by God, in the sacrament's visible sign of grace.
On the other hand grace is a dynamic force which sets free all man's religious and moral powers to take their share in the work of salvation. So that the sacramental and divine factor is joined by the moral and human factor, that is to say by man's personal initiative set free and controlled by grace. In the work of salvation God and man, grace and nature, sacrament and moral effort are united. We have therefore in justification a repetition of the fundamental mystery of Christianity, the condescension of God to man and the raising of man to God. The acts of a justified man are neither purely divine nor purely human, but a compound of divinity and humanity.
And from this we may understand how far the sanctifying action of the Church apparently moves along two distinct lines, being sacramental and mystical on the one hand, and moral and ascetical on the other. In reality these two lines do not run parallel to each other, still less in opposite directions; they run in each other, and are mutually interlaced. There is no sanctity in the Church which is not sacramental, and there is no sacramental act which is not at the same time a striving after sanctity. In the next Chapter, when we describe the sanctifying powers and means of grace to be found in "Holy Church," we shall note that point. In accordance with the Catholic conception of justification these powers and means will be found to lie partly in the religious and sacramental sphere, and partly in the domain of the ethical and ascetical. For the present let us be content to describe the sacramental effectiveness of the Church.
We have already shown how the seven sacraments of the Church embrace the whole of human life, and how they sanctify all its heights and depths. The soul at peace with God is sanctified in Confirmation and Holy Eucharist; the soul burdened with sin in Baptism and Penance; the afflicted soul, in the awful hour of death, in the Last Anointing. The community life also is sanctified by the sacramental blessing: on its social side by the sacrament of Matrimony, on its religious side by the sacrament of Holy Orders. It is before all else the realism of its sacramental thought which gives the sacramental worship of the Church its religious and moral value. The Church does not attenuate the sacrament into an empty symbol, or into a sign of grace which obtains all its efficacy from subjective faith. On the contrary it is a real expression of our Lord's gracious will, a sign of Christ (signum Christi), and as such it already ensures the presence of His grace through itself, through its actual performance. That is a fundamental point of Catholic sacramental doctrine. "A sacrament is not fulfilled by the fact that one believes in it, but by the fact that it is performed." (Sacramenta non implentur dum creduntur, sed dum fiunt.) Thus through the sacraments divine grace wins tangible reality and becomes a visible and present value. Therefore the Catholic, in receiving the sacrament, is as sure of the presence of divine love as the child is of the love of its mother. In the Sacrifice of the Mass we are not merely reminded of the Sacrifice of the Cross in a symbolical form. On the contrary the Sacrifice of Calvary, as a great supra-temporal reality, enters into the immediate present. Space and time are abolished. The same Jesus is here present who died on the Cross. The whole congregation unites itself with His holy sacrificial will, and through Jesus present before it consecrates itself to the heavenly Father as a living oblation. So Holy Mass is a tremendously real experience, the experience of the reality of Golgotha. And a stream of sorrow and repentance, of love and devotion, of heroism and the spirit of sacrifice flows out from the altar and passes through the praying congregation. These are not mere words. From this representation of the Sacrifice of the Cross thousands of Catholics daily draw strength and joy, so that they may face the sacrifices, small or great, of their everyday life. And it was in the shadow of the altar that the Catholic saints—those examples of heroic devotion to Christ and to His brethren—grew to maturity. The Protestant theologian, Niebergall, draws attention to this high value of Holy Mass. "We cannot," he writes, "set too high a value on the Roman Mass as a spiritual power in the religious life."[2] And Heiler laments in vigorous terms that the Reformation was not able, while renewing the common worship of God, "to enkindle that intimate and fervent life of prayer which is excited by the Catholic service of Mass." "I have observed," he says, "the life of prayer in both communions, long and carefully and with complete impartiality, and I have again and again received the impression that—apart from certain limited sects and minor bodies—there is more and more inward prayer in Catholic than in Protestant worship. When I reflect upon my experience, I am continually reminded of Wellhausen's characteristic saying that Protestant worship is at bottom Catholic worship . . . with the heart taken out of it."[3] The heart that Wellhausen and Heiler intend is the Catholic's experience of reality in the great Mystery, his assurance that in it the grace of Christ really and truly enters our world of space and time and touches his soul.
The power of this real experience to purify, sanctify, console and rejoice, is manifested particularly, apart from the Mass, in Holy Communion and in Confession. The faithful Catholic does not merely hope that Jesus will come to him. He knows that He does. He knows that Jesus is there as really and truly as He was once present in the Upper Room or by the Sea of Galilee. This consciousness of His presence evokes in the soul the whole scale of religious sentiment from the deep humility of "Lord, I am not worthy" (Domine, non sum dignus) to the happy intimacy of "Jesus, the only thought of Thee" (Jesu dulcis memoria). Holy Communion is a living intercourse with Jesus truly present, and is therefore a perennial spring of devotion to Jesus. As Heiler rightly remarks, it is "the culminating point of Catholic piety. In it the Catholic life of prayer attains that depth, fervor and strength which only he knows who has himself experienced it."[4] And since Jesus is not present only in the moment of reception, but so long as the "species," the visible, ocular signs of His presence last, He also enkindles the religious and moral life of the Catholic outside the liturgy proper, in every church in which the most Holy Sacrament is reserved. It is not the friendly glimmer of the sanctuary lamp which burns before the altar, nor the solemn figures of the saints on the walls, nor the dim, religious light of the building and its majestic silence, that radiate over a Catholic church its charm of divine intimacy and devotion. Those things may serve to protect and promote devotion; but the thing that enkindles it, is living faith in the presence of Jesus. Here, before the tabernacle, the Catholic soul enacts its most sacred hours, here it drinks in life in its deepest, most divine quintessence, here all time is silent and eternity speaks. Heiler's statement that Catholicism has a syncretic character, being overlaid with alien material, cannot be better rebutted than by his own words, in a previous book, about these eucharistic devotions in Catholic churches. "He who observes," he writes, "in Catholic churches these men praying in contemplative absorption, must admit that God's spirit truly lives in this Church . . . and he who seeks for a parallel to this life in the Protestant churches, must recognize to his sorrow that they have nothing similar to show."[5]
The Catholic sacramental idea, the idea of real divine grace sacramentally conveyed, shows its power of moral renewal not only in Mass and the Holy Eucharist, but also and not least in Confession. The Catholic knows that the priest does not hear confessions in his own right but as the representative of God, and that whatever he binds or looses on earth in the name of Jesus will be bound and loosed in heaven also, and this knowledge gives confession its deep seriousness, its absolute truthfulness and its bracing power. In every good confession the holiest victories are won by the power of conscience, by love for purity and goodness, by desire of God and of peace of soul. Confession has given new courage and new confidence and a fresh start in life to millions of men. No less a person than Goethe praises the profound wisdom of Catholic confession, and laments that he was prevented in his youth from settling his strange religious scruples by recourse to it.[6] Hamack does not hesitate to say that Protestantism was guilty of "culpable folly" in "uprooting the whole tree of confession because some of its fruit had gone bad."[7] Yet the "tree" is no good, if it be not a living tree. And it gets this life from the Catholic doctrine that the absolution imparted in the sacrament of Confession is no mere expression of a hope, but is a consoling actuality.
But it is not only this realism of the Church's sacramental belief which makes Catholic sacramental practice so fruitful. The Church plays an equally effective part in the psychological tact and comprehension with which she conveys the sacraments to her children. She does that partly by the positive requirement that all who would be accounted members of her communion shall attend Mass on Sundays and Holydays and so acquire for themselves the spirit of love and sacrifice for their daily life, and further by stipulating that every one who has come to the use of reason shall renew his moral life at least once a year by a good confession and at Easter receive the Body of the Lord. By these positive stipulations she ensures that all the faithful shall have at least a minimum of a supernatural moral and religious life. But, still more effectively than through these positive enactments, the Church promotes sacramental piety by wisely embedding the reception of the sacraments in the rhythm of everyday life, in the course of a man's personal and social life and its duties. Goethe says (op. cit. above) that "in moral and religious matters .... men do not like to do much impromptu." The Church is aware of that fact and therefore she does not wait until men come to the supernatural of their own accord. On the contrary she sets it amid the activities of human life, so that in and through these activities men must at the same time perceive and take notice of the supernatural. That is the meaning of the ecclesiastical year and its solemnities. The whole history of redemption, beginning in Advent with the hopes of patriarchs and prophets, and passing through the Crib and the Cross to the alleluia of Easter and the mighty wind of Pentecost, is interwoven with the course of the natural year. With the revolution of the months and weeks and days there is a change also in the preaching of the Church and in her liturgy. New depths of the divine mystery are continually being disclosed, new visions of the love and grace of Christ. So the Catholic is being constantly summoned out of his everyday life and enriched with constantly new impressions, insights and powers. He is thus able in a living and progressive manner to get into touch with the Church and to maintain a sympathetic contact with her. In particular the Church's feast-days are popular feasts in the noblest sense of the word, a joyful thanksgiving and jubilation before the Most Holy Sacrament. Nor they alone, for every day is made to serve the Church's life and its mysteries—from the morning Angelus to the evening Ave bell. There is no day but bears some saint's name, no week-day that is not consecrated to some special devotion. Thursday is assigned to veneration of the Sacrament of the Altar, Friday to remembrance of the Passion of Christ, Saturday to veneration of the most pure Virgin. And every month too has its special religious character. May is the month of Mary, June the month of the Sacred Heart, July the month of the Precious Blood, October the month of the Rosary, November the month of the Holy Souls. And the personal life too, like the general course of the year, is seized and permeated in its inward rhythm by the mystical power of the sacraments. Every devout Catholic has his own special feast days on which he approaches the table of the Lord. There is no joy and no sorrow that enters his life which does not take him to the altar, from Nuptial Mass to Requiem. For all his personal interests, hopes and anxieties, there are triduums and novenas before the Blessed Sacrament. And in order that the rhythm of social life may be made harmonious by religious and sacramental concords, the church approves innumerable confraternities and sodalities, confraternity altars and banners and feasts, in which religious effort aims at a specially intimate and lofty community expression. And to that extent it may be rightly said that Catholicism is the "religion of exalted moments." From out of the infinite abundance of its wealth it is constantly, as the hours pass, bringing new gems and new treasures to light, and these give a constantly new stimulus to the faithful and enrich them and do not suffer their interest to flag. So Niebergall describes the Church as a "mistress of joy to her children." The life and activity of the Church are irradiated with innocent joy, serene brightness, devout gladness. The source of all this devout happiness is the Tabernacle, belief in the beneficent presence of the eternal Love. All ecclesiastical art has originated in this devout gladness. "Gothic architecture," said the Protestant Dean Lechler, "is at home only where the mass bell rings." And he justly adds: "Without the worship of Catholicism neither Raphael nor Fra Angelico, neither Hubert Van Eyck, nor the younger Holbein, nor yet Lorenzo Ghiberti, Veit Stoss and Peter Vischer, would have produced the marvelous achievements of their art and endowed the churches of God on earth with a wealth of sacred beauty which will remain a treasure for all time.[8] I am not sure that this intimate connection of Christian art with the Holy Eucharist, of the cathedral with the Tabernacle, is generally recognized. Catholic churches, whether of ancient or modern times, with all their wealth of beauty, are eucharistic creations. They have sprung from a living faith in the sacramental Presence of our Lord. And where this faith has departed they lose their deepest meaning and are left without the idea which created and inspired them. They are beautiful but dead, bodies without a soul.
Much more might be said to show how the Church, in her sacramental work for souls, embraces also the inanimate creation, consecrating the altar stone, consecrating also the church's bells. We might speak of her Rogation Days whereon she blesses the produce of the fields, and tell how on Corpus Christi Day she carries the Blessed Sacrament out into the spring-time. The whole of nature, the flowers of the field, the wax of the bee, the ears of corn, salt and incense, gold, precious stones and simple linen—there is nothing which she does not bring into the service of the sacred Mystery, and bid them speak of It with their thousand tongues. Under her hands all nature becomes a "Lift up your hearts" (Sursum corda) and a "Bless ye the Lord" (Benedicite Domino). "Everywhere," says Niebergall, "she makes men see the Holy and she fills the whole environment of her adherents with its charm and radiance." And where the Church herself is not active, there her children are at work. With hands that are rude and humble, but with eyes shining with the light of faith, they erect their sacred images and crucifixes in fields and by mountain paths, and carry the light and consecration of the divine up to the soaring peak and down to the foaming torrent. Amid a Catholic folk and in a Catholic land—there statues of our Lady stand by the roadside, there the Angelus bell is heard, there men still greet one another with the words, "Praised be Jesus Christ."
We have endeavored to estimate in a few brief sentences the Church's sacramental and mystical action in the formation of the "homo sanctus," the saint. We have seen that she is able both comprehensively and profoundly, with realistic force and with psychological insight, to bring God's grace down to men, and amid the dust and turmoil of everyday life to make the All Holy visible amidst innumerable candles. Yet that is only one aspect of the Christian work of redemption. In the next Chapter it shall be our business to explain how the Church, in accordance with the Catholic conception of justification, achieves the other half of her task. We shall have to show, that is, how the Church not only brings the Kingdom of God to men, but also brings men to that Kingdom.
Endnotes
1. Heiler, op. cit., p. 261 ff.
2. "Praktische Theologie," 1919, p. 41.
3. Heiler, "Das Wesen des Katholizismus," 1920, p. 105.
4. ibid., p. 110.
5. ibid., p. 110.
6. "Dichtung und Wahrheit," Pt. II, Bk. VII.
7. "Reden und Aufsatze," Vol. II, p. 256 (Giessen, 1906).
8. K. Lechler, "Die Konfessionen in ihrem Verhaltnis zu Christus," 1877, p. 161.
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