Adolescens, tihi dico : surge {Luc, 7). To-day we read in the gospel about the widow with an only son who had died. And our Lord came to him and said, ‘ Young man, arise ! ’ And he sat up.
By the widow we understand the soul ; her husband was dead, so her son was dead also. Her son we take to mean her intellectual nature. Our Iord, sitting by the well, said to the woman, ‘ Go home and fetch me thine husband.’ Not hers that living water which is the Holy Ghost ; that is vouchsafed alone to those who are quickened in their understanding. Intellect is the summit of the soul. It has fellowship and intercourse with the angels in angelic nature. Angelic nature no time can touch, nor can time touch the intellectual nature. Unless she lives in this her son will die. She was a widow. No creature lives but has some good and some shortcomings. She was a widow in this sense : intellect was dead in her, and with it perished also the fruit of it, the Son.
Widow, in another sense, suggests abandonment, one who is forsaken. Even so must we abandon creatures and forsake them utterly. The prophet says, ‘ The woman who is barren, more in number are her children than hers who is fruitful.’ So with the
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soul who travails ghostly : manifold are her offspring, instantly does she bear fruit. The soul that has gotten God is bringing forth fruit all the time. God must needs accomplish his work. God is ever at work in the eternal now, and his work is the begetting of his Son ; he is bringing him forth all the while. In his birth all things have proceeded forth, and so great is his pleasure in this birth that he spends his whole energy upon it. God bears himself out of himself into himself ; the more perfect this birth is the more docs it bear. I say that God is all one, he knows nothing but himself alone. God cannot know himself without knowing all creaturcis. God gives himself birth all at once in his Son ; he says all things in him. He says, ‘ Young man, arise I ’
God exerts all his power in his Son so as to quicken the soul back to God. And hell-torment really means the frequent lapsing of the soul fiorn the purpose of God’s effort, which is, to bring the soul to life again. God makes all creatures in a word, but in order to vivify the soul the whole of his power is expended in his Son with intent for the soul to be brought back therein. In his birth she comes to life, and God bears his Son into the soul so as to quicken her. God speaks himself in his Son. In the word wherein he speaks himself in himself he speaks himself into the soul. It belongs to all creatures to be born. A creature without birth would not be at all. According to one master, it is a sign of the divine birth that all creatures are wrought in it. Hence his words, ‘ Young man, arise ! ’
The soul has nothing God can speak into excepting her intelligence. Some powers are too vile for God to speak to. He could of course address them, only they would not hear. Will as will is not receptive, not in any wise ; will consists in aspiratioji. So he says, ‘ Young man, arise ! ’ The powers of the soul age not, they say. Not so the corporal faculties, which How ])ast and decay. The more a man knows the better he knows, and this ennobles the soul. But the corporal powers do not have this result, so his words, ‘ Young man, arise ! ’ have reference to the noble powers of the soul.
Philosophers define as young things which are near to their beginning. Man has perennial youth in his intellectual nature ; the more he is in his active (intellect) the nearer he is to his birth, and a thing near its birth is young. The first issue of the soul is her intellectual nature, next follows will and then all the rest of her powers. Now he says, ‘ Young man, arise ! ’ The soul herself is one indivisible work ; what is wrought by God in the impartible light of the soul is more lovely and fair than the whole of his work in creatures. Yet foolish folk take bad for good and good for bad. To him who understands aright the unitiue work.
of God in the soul is better and nobler and higher than the whole world.
Above this light comes grace. Grace enters neither into intellect nor will. For grace to enter into intellect and will, intellect and will must transcend themselves. A master says, There is I know not what, wholly mysterious, above them,’ meaning the spark of the soul, the only part of her which is Godreceptive. Here in this minute spark, called the spirit of the soul, there occurs true union between the soul and God. Grace never did any virtuous work : it has never done any work at all albeit good works are the outcome of it. Grace does not unify by works. Grace is the inhabiting and co-habiting of the soul in God. Work of whatever kind, external or internal, is beneath it. All creatures are searching for the Godlike. The more vile they are the more they search outside. Air and water, for example, flow away, but heaven steadily goes round and in its course is bringing forth all creatures ; therein being godlike so far as in it lies. Moreover, in its motion it is seeking rest. Heaven never condescends to serve inferior creatures. And in this it is very much like God. God’s birth of himself in his Son is denied to creatures. But heaven is striving after this act which God performs in himself. And if heaven does this, and also other creatures much baser than the soul, then it is thankless and shameful of her to make such scant effort to compass such things as resemble the works God does in eternity.
According to philosophers, the soul can give birth to herself in herself and bear herself out of herself back into herself. In her natural light she works wonders ; she is able to separate one. Fire and heat are one ; in her intellect she divides them. Wisdom and goodness are one in God : in her intellect wisdom is never envisaged as goodness. Why ? Because wisdom enters more into God. The soul brings forth in her God out of God into God ; she is with young in her very self, and this by dint of her nearness to God, of her being the image of God.
As I have often said, image as image, ix. as a reflection, is an inseparable thing. Soul as living in the reflection of God has real union no creature can sever. Not God himself, not angels, nor any sort of creature is able to disjoin the soul who is in the image of God. That is true union, and therein lies true happiness. Various philosophers are in search of happiness. My verdict is, that happiness lies neither in intellect nor will : happiness lies above them both, and it is there as happiness and not as intellection, and God is there as God and soul as the image of God. May he unite us to him in this sense. So help us God. Amen.