22. Conformity to God's Will

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “Conformity to God’s Will.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogmaby Father James Bellord.

I. The will of God is the law of our life; our will is the motive power in our life; if our will, then, is harmonious with the will of God, our life and action will be perfect, in accordance with their law, and in resemblance to God. To accept fully the will of God is indeed a strict duty, but it is also most meritorious. It is an act of profound submission to God in that we subject to His dominion that faculty which holds dominion in our lives, and so exalt His divine authority. It is a grateful sacrifice to God to offer Him a thing that is so entirely our own; and as this faculty sums up all that we have, the oblation of it is a holocaust, a consecration of all our being to God.

If we carry out the spirit of conformity fully, we shall be led thereby to the practice of the highest virtues. There is prudence in taking so infallible and beneficial a rule as our guide. There is justice, because we render to the Supreme Being what is His due. Nothing gives such fortitude in acting and enduring as the consciousness that we are fulfilling the will of God. Temperance or moderation is identical with restraining those appetites that oppose the divine will. We acquire perfect peace and security when we feel that everything is ordained by God, and content ourselves with it accordingly.

Conformity to God’s will is one of the characteristics of the blessed in heaven; and as to us on earth, Our Lord says, “Whoever shall do the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother” (Matt. xii. 50). Offer your will to God. Desire nothing apart from Him.

II. There are four principal forms of this high virtue.

Conformity of obedience, whereby we desire to obey all those commands and prohibitions which are essential to our salvation.


Conformity of habit, by which we cultivate in ourselves the same ideas and dispositions towards different objects that God has. This is what St. Paul commands: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. ii. 5). Consider how Our Lord regarded such things as pleasure, labour, death, riches, prayer, mankind, God.


Conformity of aim, by which we strive after the same objects as God does; viz., His glory, the diffusion of knowledge and love of Him, the reign of justice, the salvation of souls.


Conformity of object, i.e., desiring everything that God desires without exception, and rejecting everything unreservedly that He disapproves of. This last can only be practised perfectly in heaven.

Inquire as to God’s will in each respect and see how you are conformed to it. Never resist it in the smallest degree, for “who hath resisted Him and hath had peace?” (Job ix. 4).

III. This last kind of conformity in its perfect form is not demanded of us on earth; our weakness can hardly rise to that height. Our Lord Himself mercifully accommodated His example to our capacities; for, while resigning Himself perfectly to the divine will, He said, “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me” (Matt. xxvi. 39).

We too are allowed to pray for favours and deprecate chastisement, in the hope that God may have so arranged things from the beginning, in prevision of our prayers, as to grant our desires; but we must be prepared to accept a refusal or a delay with contentment and gratitude.

It is a great perfection, however, “to ask nothing and refuse nothing” in the temporal order; to cast ourselves unreservedly into the arms of the divine will, indifferent to all that may happen, wishing only that God’s purposes be accomplished, and knowing that everything He decrees is arranged for the best. So did the saints generally act in regard of themselves.

Desire at least to have this conformity. Trust more in God. Be sure that “to them that love God all things work together unto good, to such as, according to His purpose, are called to be saints” (Rom. viii. 28).

21. The Double Will of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Double Will of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

I. The will of God is one simple act without progressive stages or variation. Yet it has different effects according to the difference of the objects it deals with, like the sunlight, which to the healthy organism is a delight, but torture to the feeble and diseased eye. To represent this fact to ourselves we have to reduce it to terms of human ideas and speak of a double will in God. Scripture holds the same language, and tells us of God changing His decrees towards the sinner when he repents, and the just man when he falls away (Jer. xviii. 9, 10).

The primordial intention of God in creation was to “have all men to be saved;” and therefore “the one Mediator of God and men . . . gave Himself a redemption for all” (1 Tim. ii. 4–6). This we call the antecedent will of God. Man, however, is absolutely free, even to the extent of resisting Omnipotence. God does not break man’s will by force, but ratifies his choice and allows him to bear the consequences. To this extent the assent of God’s will depends on man’s; and therefore we speak of God’s subsequent will, as if it were formed later than the primordial will for such a man’s salvation, and after the prevision of his free action.

Thus we reconcile the apparent contradiction that nothing happens without God’s will, and yet His will is contradicted; that Almighty power desires a man’s salvation, and yet that man is lost. There are mysterious depths in the Divine Will that we cannot fathom. “Thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter” (John xiii. 7). Wait in patience.

II. The efficiency of God’s antecedent will amounts to this, that He desires most urgently the salvation of every man, and brings it about efficaciously, except so far as each one’s free choice and deliberate obstinacy prevent it. God bestows the means of salvation on all, not scantily, but with at least as great a prodigality as we see in the material creation. He says of the lost soul, “What is there more that I ought to do to My vineyard that I have not done to it?” (Isa. v. 4).

Many labour under peculiar disabilities, but the bounteous ways of Divine Providence are peculiar for each man. For every disadvantage there is compensation, for weakness there is gentle pity, for the effects of heredity or misfortune there is the broadest allowance. God does not command the impossible; He requires from each man only in proportion to what he has received; and, as the Gospels often show, the lot of the least endowed is often better than that of the most favoured.

Thank God for His desire for your salvation. Trust in Him and do not wrong His mercy by any suspicion. Do what you can, and your salvation is secure.

III. If any man perish, he perishes in defiance of the antecedent will of God. “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye from your evil ways; and why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezech. xxxiii. 11). If the subsequent will has consented to the soul’s loss, it is the doing of that soul alone. “Destruction is from thyself, O Israel” (Osee xiii. 9).

A very small amount of knowledge suffices for salvation, and God at some time gives this to all. Temptation in itself is never fatal: we are helped to bear it, and grace is proportioned to our needs. “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able” (1 Cor. x. 13). Prayer places the whole force of God’s omnipotence in our hands; it pierces the clouds, and, according to Our Lord’s repeated promises, its effect is infallible.

Only the most absolute carelessness and shocking perversity are capable of neutralizing God’s will to save our souls. Still you must always work out your salvation with fear and trembling. You cannot depend on yourself; there are such enormous possibilities of perversity in you. 

20. The Will of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Will of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Will of God

I. The will is a necessary accompaniment of intelligence. The intelligence knows and compares different things, or different courses of action; the will is the executive power which gives effect to the judgments. In the intelligence activity commences, by the will it is carried to completion. The Supreme Power is not a blind force like the air or gravitation; such a power would be inferior to us who possess a will, and it could not have given birth to an effect in us so far superior to the cause. The divine power, mercy, justice, generosity, all imply the determination of an infinite will. God possesses this faculty, like all others, in an infinite degree. He has the power of choosing or rejecting, of desiring, of inclining towards His creatures, taking delight in them, and of loving them.

The will of God differs from ours in several respects: 1. it does not waver between good and evil, but is irrevocably fixed in its determination towards perfect good; 2. it is not affected or changed by external forces, but it exercises complete domination over them; 3. it is not impotent and fragile, but it is all-powerful and invincible. Nothing is more perfect, more mighty, more beneficent than the Divine Will. God “worketh all things according to the counsel of His will” (Eph. i. 11). As you serve God by your reason and intelligence in receiving the truths of faith, complete the offering by the service of your will, inclining towards Him, obeying His commands, delighting in Him, loving Him.

II. The act of volition by which God wills a thing and takes delight in it is called His good-pleasure. The primary inclination of the divine will must necessarily be towards that object which is in itself most perfect and good; viz., towards His own Divine Essence. The full and infinite determination of His will is towards this, and He loves it with an infinite delight.

Secondarily the will of God goes out towards creation. He sees in His Divine Essence the innumerable forms of life in which His perfections can be manifested; and His good-pleasure determines to exercise His power by producing outside of Himself some of these. The different series of beings are called forth, and energies are implanted in them to guide their development according to their kinds. Some of these beings are intelligent and free. These are the special objects of the divine complacency. God wills them to have liberty to control their acts, and light and strength to keep His law, and at the same time power to choose the contrary with all its consequences. Thank God for that determination of His will which called you into existence, gave you a soul with its powers, grace, knowledge and strength, and the reversion of a heavenly kingdom.

III. The phrase “Will of God” also denotes these external manifestations of God’s good-pleasure which are intended to guide our conduct. Such are: 1. the permission of moral evil and its consequence, physical evil; 2. the prohibition of moral evil; 3. the operation of good in us by His grace; 4. the command to do certain good actions; 5. the counsel to do other acts which are not laid upon all men, and which we are at liberty not to do if we so desire.

These expressions of God’s will always stand, whether men conform themselves to them or not; the obligation to observe them remains, and adequate consequences will follow infallibly on obedience or disobedience. One stage of God’s external will may be contravened; but He is not mocked, for even this results in the fulfilment of His interior will. “Be not unwise, but understanding what is the will of God” (Eph. v. 17). As His servants our first care should be to know His will and do it. It is often hard to know it, and the knowledge is given only after much delay and in answer to prayer. “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts ix. 6). Whatever it be, carry it out minutely and fearlessly.

19. The Life of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Life of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Life of God

I. Holy Scripture speaks of the life of God as one of His distinctive attributes; it frequently calls Him the Living One or the Living God. He affirms by His life, in Ezechiel: “As I live, saith the Lord:” and the angel in the Apocalypse “lifted up his hand and swore by Him that liveth for ever and ever” (Apoc. x. 17). A living being is one that has in itself a principle of operation or of movement. Life is the source of activity either in regard to oneself or others. God has this. He is not a dead inactive substance, He does not operate or move in accordance with some higher external law; but He has a most full and superabounding vitality, which first energizes within the Divinity, and then diffuses itself and becomes the origin of all other life and activity. The Divine Life is not as the life of the plant or the sentient life of the animal, but it is the highest kind, spiritual, intellectual; and from this intellectual life proceed all material substances and all forces. Even our poor intelligence operates on external matter, and is, in a modified sense, creative; much more is this the case with God. The divine life is the breath of our nostrils (Job. xxvii. 3) in the natural order; and a more special communication of it is our life in the supernatural order. A spontaneous, irresistible drawing towards life is a sign that it is vigorous in you. Take delight in God, long after Him, try to say “My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God” (Ps. lxxxiii. 2).

II. Consider the excellence of this divine life in God. It is spiritual and intellectual. “The cognition of the Divine Essence is the food and drink of the Word” (St. Clem. Alexand.). The divine life is full of purity and sanctity and virtue of all kinds. It is most peaceful, happy, tranquil and content. It is perfectly free, independent, and sovereign. It is the first source and the last term of the perfection of all created natural and supernatural life. It is an inconceivably perfect life beyond all powers of description. God communicates Himself to you in divers ways, and with Himself His life. This takes place through Our Lord, through His teaching, His Church, His grace, His Sacraments; and it is accomplished so perfectly that we may become able to say, “I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. ii. 20). Then all the aforesaid noble qualities of the divine life become realized in us. Thank God for these wonders, and for thus elevating you above the natural creation and above your natural capacities.

III. God in Jesus Christ becomes our life (John xiv. 6). We sorely need this life. Compare human life with the divine. “Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries; who cometh forth like a flower and is destroyed, and fleeth as a shadow, and never continueth in the same state” (Job. xiv. 1, 2). Our life begins in nakedness and feebleness and tears, and in original sin; it continues in labours and sorrows, in fears and disappointments, in perversity, folly and sin; it ends in weariness and failure, in humiliating decay, or in premature catastrophe. It is seldom successful, generally pitiful, and often is considered not worth living. There is only one thing that will elevate it, that will lend it dignity, that will make it endurable and useful; and that thing is the infusion of the supernatural life of God. The universal cry of human nature is, “Unhappy man that I am! who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. vii. 24). Your life is worth nothing to yourself or to others unless God be with you. This is the greatest truth of moral and social science and the secret of your happiness. Do not wait to learn it by sad experience, but be wise in time.

18. The Truth of God

 

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Truth of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Truth of God

I. The first kind of truth to be considered is metaphysical truth, or truth of essence, or truth of nature. We assert this of a being when we say that it is true to its nature; and we mean thereby that it possesses all the qualities that belong to its nature, and that it is a full and complete member of its class. This kind of truth God possesses eminently, as having all the perfections proper to the Infinite God. He possesses spirituality, immortality, eternity, omnipotence, independence. All that we can conceive of good qualities and perfections He has in an infinite degree. All that His infinite intelligence can conceive in the way of perfection He possesses. He is true to Himself as God. Further, God not only has, but He is this perfect transcendent truth. For all that is in Him is Himself. There is no division in Him of qualities as distinct from His being. The infinity and the goodness of God are God Himself: and so the truth of God is God. You should be like God as possessing all the truth of your being, all the perfection and virtue which God has decreed to be proper to human nature. If you are sensual, worldly, proud, you are not true to the ideal of perfect man as it exists in God and is manifested in Jesus Christ. Adore the truth of God and cultivate it in yourself.

II. A second kind of truth is attributed to God as being the only solid and perfect reality, the only necessary and abiding substance. Compared with His reality, man and all creatures are mere nothingness. “All nations are before Him as if they had no being at all, and all are counted to Him as nothing and vanity” (Isa. xl. 19). Vanity is that which has no substance, which cannot be grasped, does not satisfy, does not sustain, produces no fruit. Such is the whole of creation. It proceeds in some incomprehensible way out of nothingness, it is supported by the breath of God, without Him it would sink back into nonentity. “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the grass. The grass is withered and the flower thereof is fallen away, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever” (1 Peter i. 24, 25). And again, life “is a vapour which appeareth for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away” (James iv. 15). Adore God as the sole reality that abides. Do not be so shortsighted as to spend all your energies and set all your hopes on shadows unsubstantial and transient. “How long will you be dull of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek after lies?” (Ps. iv. 3).

III. There is a third kind of truth or rather truthfulness. It is a quality of the intelligence, and consists in ideas being conformable to realities. God sees all truth in Himself, and all creatures as they really are, without any deception. This knowledge is His truth; it is the perfect correspondence of subject with object; and He is Himself this truth. Further, His words to us correspond to the ideas of the divine mind; they convey truth to us far more certainly than any words of men, any evidence of our senses, any conclusions or any prejudged opinions of our minds. These words of God are not merely true, they are the truth; and though heaven and earth pass away, they will never pass away. So perfect is this veracity of God that the Apostle comparing us with Him says, “God is true and every man a liar” (Rom. iii. 4). Worship God as the Supreme Truth. In homage to Him cultivate truth in all its forms. Let no doubts or sophisms turn you from the most absolute reliance on the word of God; be careful not to overlay it with your own false ideas and attribute divine veracity to them. Strive for true views of all things; and confess the truth without timidity or compromise.

17. The Ideas of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Ideas of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Ideas of God

I. By the ideas of God theologians mean those models, as it were, in the mind of God, according to which creatures were made. There is nothing outside God which He can copy or reproduce in creation; but He made all things as manifestations or expressions of His perfections. Each thing, therefore, is in some sense a likeness of something in God. The divine ideas, then, are the Divine Essence considered as the infinite reality which is shadowed forth imperfectly in finite creatures. St. Paul indicates this when he writes: “The world was framed by the Word of God, that from invisible things visible things might be made” (Heb. xi. 3). Some beings imitate God simply in that they exist; others in that they have life; others as having sense; and others again as being intelligent, spiritual, free, immortal, supernatural. Creatures represent variously God’s wisdom, strength, ingenuity, providence, fatherly-love, beauty. Everything proceeding from the hand of God is good; everything should remind us of God, teach us something about Him, and lead us to love Him. Strive to recognize the hand of God in all that happens, and believe that all is good for you though it seem to be evil; even if it be really evil God will bring forth good from it.

II. We may also understand by the ideas of God the reflection, as it were, of each thing separately in the divine mind; comparing God’s knowledge of things to the images or impressions formed in our senses by outward substances, and then conveyed to our brain. Every creature of God is, in a sense, reflected in God as in a mirror. As God is immutable, and acquires nothing anew but has always possessed it, these ideas or reflections have been in Him from all eternity. Not only did God see in Himself what we and all things were to be, but He saw all as if actually existing. When we are admitted to the sight of God we shall, in seeing His divine mind and participating in His ideas, see these reflections of all things in Him; and thus, without investigation or study, but by a mere glance, we shall possess our knowledge in God. Your image too has been impressed on the consciousness of God from all eternity, as an object of His Providence and His love. Therefore He says by the prophet: “Behold I have graven thee in My hands” (Isa. xlix. 16); and again, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jer. xxxi. 3). In return keep the reflection of God’s image always vivid in your mind.

III. There is one thing that has no counterpart or idea in the mind of God, which derives nothing from Him, and reflects nothing from out of the great total of reality and good which exists in Him. That thing is the state of sin. In sin, therefore, there is no particle of good; it is the privation of good and the contradictory of God, as nothingness is the contradiction and the destruction of existence. It is essentially evil of its own nature; it is the supreme evil as being the opposite of supreme good; and it is the only real evil, since everything else is from God. God indeed sees, and knows, and has for ever known our acts of sin; after sin He still bears with the sinner patiently, is mindful of him, loves him, and invites him to penance. But the state of the sinner is an abomination to God, and destructive of God in its tendency, and actually exterminates God from that soul; and this, of course, cannot become an idea, i.e. an actuality, in God Himself. Thus the sinner’s state, and the supernatural state, i.e. heaven, i.e. God, are absolutely incompatible. Keep sin, therefore, out of your mind and your heart. Remember it only for contrition and atonement. No consequences but evil ones can follow from essential evil, however plausible its appearance. 

16. The Science of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Science of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Science of God

I. Science or knowledge is one of the great attributes of intellectual beings. It is the assimilation of truth by the mind, and so is a most noble function. It supplies the materials for our action, it guides us as to the use of them, it causes an intense pleasure, and is transformed into great power. Naturally we have a great avidity for it. A power so noble must also exist in God, and in an infinite degree. His knowledge must be perfect. It is complete, embracing all things; it is intuitive, not gained by study or process of argument; it is not subject to obscurity or error; it is never excessive, or a source of danger as with us. “The Lord is a God of all knowledge” (1 Kings ii. 3). The Psalmist asks, “He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? Or He that formed the eye, doth He not consider?” (Ps. xciii. 9). The order of the world, its preservation, its progress, testify to the supreme science possessed by God. He is also the author and fount of our knowledge. He is the truth which is manifested partially in this world, and which we gather up laboriously and appropriate to our purposes. God has placed it in our way and guided us to it, and intends it to be a means of leading us upward to Him. Deep knowledge commands our respect when found in a man: how much more admiration and worship do we not owe to God in regard to this perfection! Rejoice also in the happiness that He derives from it.

II. Consider the extent and abundance of God’s knowledge. First it embraces infinity as knowing the Divine Essence with all its perfections and all its internal activity; it sees all God’s possibilities of external activity in the way of angels, men, worlds, universes. Next, the knowledge of God embraces all things actually to be created, and all the actions of His goodness, justice and mercy towards them. This is classed as a different kind of knowledge, because it is the knowledge that creates those beings or produces that action. Further, God knows, as Our Lord shows in the Gospels, what would have happened under any difference of circumstances, and all the series of consequences following from all combinations of events, even to the end of the world. God knows our most secret thoughts even better than we ourselves, for He is not blinded by our self-deception. He holds, too, the awful secret of our destinies; and as all things are present at once to Him, He sees now some of us as rejoicing in heaven and some as blaspheming in hell. This last is the one thing not caused by God’s knowledge. Your fate is in your own hands, and God knows how you will dispose it. All other things depend on God’s previous knowledge of them as causing them. But if you be lost, God’s knowledge depends on your action and is caused by it. Live always as being in the presence of God. Let all your acts be such that you will not be ashamed of God’s knowing them.

III. Consider the advantageous consequences of God’s knowledge. With regard to Himself, His knowledge of His Divine Nature constitutes His eternal happiness. With regard to us, God’s knowledge is the cause of our existence and of all that we possess. He knew us and chose us before the foundation of the world (1 Peter i. 2), and His knowledge guided the operations of His power, His benevolence, His generosity towards us. How happy we are to be ruled by One so eminent in all knowledge, who uses it for our greatest advantage. We are safe in His hands. He will never deal with us unwisely, will never forget us or neglect us, will never be mistaken, or fail to understand those circumstances which make every man’s case a peculiar one. Never question the wisdom of God’s knowledge. Be contented with all that proceeds from Him, for He knows what is best. 

15. The Names of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Names of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Names of God

I. God is ineffable. He cannot be described. Considering the name as being the summing up and the picture of a person and his qualities and peculiarities, we may say that God cannot be named. If our intellect cannot grasp His essence, still less can feeble words express it. Even the transcendent ideas that find expression only in those nobler languages which we call the arts, are still too much “of the earth earthly” to suggest to us a fraction of the wonders and delights contained in the Creator’s smallest attribute. Even this earth will never be adequately described, although it is but the footprint of the Almighty. Hence it was said, “Why askest thou My name, which is wonderful?” (Jud. xiii. 18). And again, “I am the Lord that appeared . . . by the name of God Almighty; and My name Adonai I did not show them” (Ex. vi. 3). The name of God was not pronounced or even known by the Israelites: it was represented by four letters which we pronounce Jehovah. No word can express God’s nature but the uncreated Word of God Himself, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Never presume to measure the perfections of God by the ideas of men. You cannot judge of His ways, His designs, the wisdom of His decrees, the methods by which He carries them out. To attempt this is the same as attributing a human character to God and a human name.

II. But because God is ineffable and indescribable, we must not on that account abstain from naming God according to our abilities, from describing His perfections and glorifying His name. In the same way that God, although incomprehensible, may yet be known to a great extent by us; so the impossibility of a full description of Him does not prevent us from describing Him in a way that will excite much devotion and give glory to His name. “When you exalt Him put forth all your strength and be not weary, for you can never go far enough” (Eccli. xliii. 34). The fact that we cannot go far enough is the very reason why we should go as far as we can. If we cannot render God the whole of His deserts, we should at least offer Him all that is in our power. Glorify the name of God, then, as much as you can, making His perfections known to others, enlightening their ignorance about Him, leading them to practise worship and prayer, and teaching them to love Him.

III. Consider the multitude of names by which God allows us to address Him. The Jews had seventy-two names for God; and we have many more, according to the different aspects in which we regard Him. Much of our knowledge of God is negative; we know that He is free from our imperfections and limitations; so we call Him the Infinite, the Eternal, the Immortal, the Uncreated. Other names refer to God as the origin of all life and virtue and goodness. Therefore we speak of Him as the Creator, the First Cause, the Supreme Being, the Almighty, the All-just, the All-merciful. Under other aspects we may address God as our life, our perfection, our joy, as perfect truth and perfect beauty. In the old times God was called the Lord of Hosts, the strong, the great, the terrible (2 Esdr. i. 5). Jesus Christ has revealed to us a different class of names. Christians think of God more frequently as their love, their highest good, their supreme desire, their felicity, their sweetness, their Spouse, and chiefly as their Father. Above all we know the name of God made man, Jesus Christ, the only “name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved” (Acts iv. 12). Rehearse the different names of God, and praise Him for what is signified by each. Be grateful that He has granted you to know His name and to call upon it.

“No voice can sing, no heart can frame,
Nor can the memory find
A sweeter sound than Thy blest name,
O Saviour of mankind.” 

14. The Beatific Vision of God

 

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Beatific Vision of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Beatific Vision of God

I. There are three factors in the vision of God as in the perception of anything else. The first is the subject which sees; i.e., the person possessing the faculty or organ of vision. God is not corporeal but spiritual: so that He is not to be perceived with the bodily eye but with the spiritual faculty or the elevated intelligence of angels and men. Therefore the Lord said to Moses, “Thou canst not see My face; for man shall not see Me and live” (Ex. xxxiii. 20). The intellect is the power of perceiving intellectual objects; and it has an aptitude and a need for exercising itself on intellectual objects, of which the first and most eminent is God. Further the mind easily acquires an incipient knowledge of God; and this, like every other faculty, is capable of indefinite development, and indicates the possibility of a transcendent degree of knowledge. There is also in man an intellectual hunger for the Infinite, and a tendency towards it, i.e., towards God. This is shown by the fact that nothing created, whether in the material or the intellectual sphere, can satisfy man’s desires and fulfil his ideal of goodness, knowledge and happiness. The natural knowledge of God as seen in the universe does not satisfy this high faculty of vision, this spiritual eye. We require a fuller vision of God here, and a still fuller vision hereafter, if we are to carry out our destiny and develope all the possibilities that are in us. Cultivate clearness of vision according to the indication of Our Lord: “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. v. 8).

II. The second factor in vision is the medium, like the light which conveys the impression of the object to the eye. Something analogous to this is required to enable man to see God; according to the Scripture: “In Thy light we shall see light” (Ps. xxxv. 10). The nature of God altogether transcends that of man; they are in different spheres; man is absolutely incapable by himself of seeing God as He is. His faculties are such that they are not sensitive to the vibrations of that finer spiritual light which makes God visible. These faculties require to have some quality added to them corresponding to a new sense, so that they may perceive the rays as they come direct from God and not merely as they are reflected from creatures. This supernatural quality is called “the light of glory.” This is the “eternal light” which we implore for the souls in purgatory. Even in this life the faithful can say, “the light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us” (Ps. iv. 7). They have a light and a vision, by which they can see, and know, and understand things which for others are wrapped in impenetrable darkness. No happiness is so great as the possession of this. It is a foretaste of the vision which we shall enjoy in heaven.

III. The third factor in vision is the object present before us. Our faculties, which cry out for an infinite object to satisfy them, and that sense in us which has an aptitude for God, are proofs that God will some day be within their range. In heaven the Divine Essence will be present to us in a better way than it is present to every creature in this world. In what way that indescribable Essence will be manifested to us we cannot now conceive. This only we know that God will not be shown to us as at present, in His creatures, His images, His reflections, or in figure, but in Himself, directly, and without intermediary. So the Apostle tells us: “We see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known” (1 Cor. xiii. 12). How wonderful, how novel, how far beyond all expectation will be the heavenly vision when it is suddenly unveiled before us! How little we can anticipate now that revelation of glory and delight, the revelation of divine love for us, and of our capacity for loving God!

13.The Incomprehensibility of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Incomprehensibility of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Incomprehensibility of God

I. God is known to us with perfect certitude; at the same time we cannot now, and never shall fully understand Him. The infinite heights and the infinite depths of His nature, and the multitudinous aspects which His perfections present to us cannot be grasped and sounded by any less perfect than Himself. “The things that are of God no one knoweth but the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. ii. 11). God is incomprehensible. Man possesses the light of nature for the investigation of truth. His natural faculties, exercised upon the world around him, discover to him the existence of God and some of His attributes, His greatness, wisdom, goodness, and others. “The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, His eternal power also and divinity” (Rom. i. 20). But our science, while penetrating boldly into the secrets of the universe, is checked at the threshold of God’s sanctuary. It is unable to analyse and catalogue the divine mysteries; it requires to be refined and elevated first by supernatural grace. God, to our natural faculties, is like a great fire beyond the horizon. We have evidence of its existence and know something of what it must be by the volumes of smoke; but we do not know of its details, and still less do we profit by its light and heat and varied power. Take care not to trust too much to natural faculties and mental cultivation in the things of God. As towards God natural science is profoundest ignorance.

II. To satisfy our desires for the unattainable, God gives us a second light, that of faith and revelation. This is of the supernatural order. By this we are able to receive and assimilate knowledge about the Trinity, the Incarnation, the future life, the moral law, the Church; knowledge which is most positive and certain, and yet cannot be gained by natural investigations, nor proved by natural tests. One ray of this light does more for our intelligence, in spiritual matters, than years of study and all the instruments of the laboratory. We may compare this higher light to those marvellous rays which penetrate through solid substance and convey to us a picture of metals or bones enclosed within. Unless we have the secret, no accumulation of ordinary light in its greatest intensity is of any avail. At present even the supernatural light reveals God only as “through a glass in an obscure manner” (1 Cor. xiii. 12). Yet it gives us a knowledge such as worldly wisdom never acquires: a knowledge that is primarily spiritual, but enables us to understand many of the secrets of life, of the practical sciences, of history. Be grateful for the gift of revelation and faith, but do not expect that it will dispel all clouds and explain all difficulties.

III. When we shall have been proved faithful and admitted to the presence of God we shall become capable of a higher manifestation of God by the light of glory. Our eyes will be opened, our intellect perfected, and God will be disclosed to our sight. Then we shall know things, which here below eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart conceived. We shall receive a special influx from God, or a light, which will enable us to apprehend the Beatific Vision. Yet even then the angels and the blessed will find God still unfathomable. For eternity they will go on, progressing in mental illumination and in ever new delights, and yet will never arrive at the end. God will remain for ever beyond all human capacity, however enlarged; for He will always be infinite, and we shall always have a finite receptivity. How miserable then will be the lot of those who have been content with the light of nature, have refused to receive or acknowledge the light of faith, and have thereby excluded themselves from the light of glory! They will remain in the darkness of ignorance for ever. Take care so to profit by faith here as to merit the fullness of illumination hereafter.

12. The Peace of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Peace of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Peace of God

I. The peace of God is a most profound tranquillity and repose, like the silence of untrodden mountain summits clothed with eternal snows; or like the lowest depths of the ocean, where the fierce storms that rage on the surface are unfelt, and where the turbulent industry of men can never penetrate. Nothing can equal that peace. Within the Godhead there is its perfect unity without diversity, there is immutability untouched by any changes. The will of God is not disturbed by the need of striving after anything that has to be accomplished or possessed; and nothing happens contrary to its determination. God is not like man, disturbed by the weight of responsibility or the greatness of His operations; nor by any incompetence, or weakness, or failure of His plans; nor by hesitation and doubt as to the issue of events; nor by the loss of the love and esteem which so many of mankind refuse Him; nor even by the exercise of His avenging justice when this becomes necessary.

“But Thou, being master of power, dost judge with great tranquillity” (Wisd. xii. 18). In the human soul, as in heaven, God dwells not in an atmosphere of tumult, excitement, passion. Those who are eminently the abode of God are marked always by a peaceful and peace-making spirit, by contentment and joy under all circumstances. May this “peace of God which surpasseth all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. iv. 7).

II. The tranquillity of God is not inaction and stagnation. On the contrary, it is the accompaniment of irresistible power always in activity, and never swerving from its purposes, and never overcome. It is like the silence and quiet of the broad sunshine as it bathes land and sea in its glow. Nothing is more peaceful, yet its activity in a single instant is to be measured by millions of horse-power. It is the source of almost all the mechanical force and heat and motion on this earth. So, too, it is with God. Although He abides in an eternal Sabbath, yet Our Lord says, “My Father worketh until now, and I work” (John v. 17).

When we hereafter enter into the repose of the Lord we shall not pass into a state of inactive enjoyment. Life and action are inseparable; and a fuller life means that our faculties will be freed from their present bondage, our powers enlarged, and consequently our activity. God’s whole universe will be open to us. Then will begin our true life of increasing mental activity, and, in some way, of usefulness also in a higher sphere of work.

III. Holy Scripture sometimes speaks of God as angry, or as repenting of what He had done. Such passages are not to be understood literally; they are figures of speech, used to impress on us the evil of sin, and the consequences of withdrawing ourselves from the beneficent operation of the divine law. No ingratitude, insult, or wrong can really ruffle the immutable peace of God. Nothing of earth is able to penetrate into the inner sanctuary of the Divinity and diminish the essential joy and glory of God.

We need a like equanimity if we are to be happy amidst the turmoil of this world. It can come only from God abiding in our souls. Forgetfulness of God induces an over-anxiety about earthly things, a feverish activity in the pursuit of them, an intemperate indulgence in pleasure, which rob us of the proper rewards of our activity, and destroy the capacity for enjoyment. Even for its temporal well-being human life requires a large infusion of the peace of God; and activity needs to be tempered by grace in order that it may attain its full efficiency.

Act always with vigour and upright intention, but leave the result to God, and be contented with it. Let no wrongs endured, no disappointment, disturb your equanimity. Our Lord has said to His faithful: “My peace I give to you. . . . Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid” (John xiv. 27).

11. Purity, Sanctity sand Beauty of God.

 

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Purity, Sanctity, and Beauty of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

Purity, Sanctity sand Beauty of God.

I. The purity of God is a negative term indicating that He is exempt from all admixture of anything inferior to Himself, from all fault, taint, imperfection; as gold is pure when it is free from all dross or alloy of inferior metals. “Thine eyes are too pure to behold evil, and Thou canst not look on iniquity” (Hab. i. 13).

God is purity most perfect and inconceivable, in Himself, in creation, and in His decrees concerning us, His sinful creatures. Although in such close relations with material things and with sinners, He contracts no imperfection from them. There is in Him no passion or disturbance, for He is immovable in His perfect tranquility. He is not hasty or inconsiderate, for He is never taken by surprise. He does not the smallest wrong to us, for He is perfect justice. He is not harsh or vindictive, for He is infinite mercy and love.

The defects which produce sin in us have no place in God. There is no malice in Him on account of His infinite goodness; no ignorance on account of His perfect wisdom; no weakness on account of His omnipotent power. How then can men murmur against God as if any iniquity could be in Him, or His decrees, or His actions? He is not like us who are full of impurities even in our holiest actions.

Ask for purity of mind and heart and body, that God may dwell in you without a rival.

II. Sanctity is a positive term indicating the possession of all moral perfections. “The Lord is just in all His ways and holy in all His works” (Ps. cxliv. 17).

Every virtue that we recognize, whether by its presence or its absence in men, exists in God in a supereminent degree. The Divine Essence is the first source and the full reservoir of all virtues and holiness. We have seen much excellence in saints and other great men; it has seemed wonderful to us and almost unattainable; but it is all only a shadow compared to the reality of holiness in God.

God is upright in all His works, perfectly just without failing in mercy, infinitely merciful without making justice a mockery. He is liberal in His gifts, setting no bounds to them but what we ourselves place. His patience never grows tired under our repeated offences. His prudence foresees all things and orders them for the best.

God is not exacting or hard in demanding from us more than we can render to Him; but He is most generous in making broad allowance for our inevitable shortcomings. He is pacific in receiving us back as soon as we accept the overtures of His love. God is most true; His words will never pass away, and He will never forget His promises.

Glorify God therefore with His angels, saying, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God of hosts” (Isa. vi. 3). Imitate His holiness by the practice of all virtues.

III. God also possesses the attribute of beauty in an infinite degree. This is another quality of beings when complete and well ordered, and it is the cause of intense delight.

Consider how much there is of beauty in the world. We find it in harmonious sounds, in form and colour, in nature and art, in words and in ideas, in the expressions of the countenance, in the moral character of men. It is a special quality different from goodness, truth, utility. How abundant it is, and how much pleasure it affords!

It exists also in God in infinite perfection, and in diverse forms more varied and more intense than we can imagine. The beauty of God will ravish us with delight for all eternity.

This same beauty of God exists in your soul when you are in the state of grace; you are then more pleasing in the eyes of God than all the wonderful beauty of the material world. Possessing this in yourself and in God, you can afford to dispense with earthly pleasures, to live a life of mortification, and to look forward to the enjoyment of that “Beauty which is ever ancient and ever new.”

Cultivate this divine quality in your soul that God may take delight in beholding you.

10.The Unity of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Unity of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Unity of God

I. The next great truth after the existence of God is His Unity. “Know that the Lord He is God, and there is no other besides Him” (Deut. iv. 35). This is a wonderful and a necessary perfection. There is a striking grandeur in the idea of a One, sole, supreme, unequalled Being. The Gentile multiplication of gods was ignoble and debased; it was destructive of the very idea of the supreme infinite God as revealed by Moses and Our Divine Lord. Sovereignty, omnipotence, infinity, perfection, independence are meaningless terms as soon as we attempt to conceive them as divided amongst a number of equal beings. Supremacy is necessarily vested in one or it does not exist. The multiplication of beings is an acknowledgment that no one of them is absolutely perfect: it is a vain attempt to make up the perfection which does not exist in any one of them.

So, too, the authoritative manifestation of God in religion must be one and sole. The idea of a multiplicity of religions, all equally good, is a survival of that tendency to deterioration which expressed itself of old in polytheism. If religion be the divine system for the communication of truth and grace, it does not need to be multiplied, like the cells of an electric battery, in proportion to the increase of the circuit. Religion is a representation of God, and is the exercise of His divine action. A number of them, if they are uniform, are at variance with the supreme unity of God; if they are contradictory, they cannot be the manifestation of Him who is harmony and peace. Thank God for calling you to a Church whose unity proclaims its divine origin and its all-sufficiency.

II. Reason, proceeding on the data which the visible world supplies, sufficiently indicates the Unity of God. Science shows us a surpassing unity underlying all things and carries us back towards one great original principle of life, motion and law. Harmony and strength are marks of all the works of God; and the source of them is unity and not division. Divided power is weakness, divided authority is no authority. In the spiritual and religious sphere, even more than in nature, we should expect to find the impress of God’s Unity. If there is to be among men unity of mind and heart, of doctrine, worship and morals, there must be unity of spiritual laws and religious organization. Disorder and contradiction do not accord with the Divine Ideal. No kingdom divided against itself shall stand. One Church alone maintains the principle of unity and possesses unity in itself. Endeavour always to promote “the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. iv. 3).

III. In relation to man individually, the unity of God demands unity of service from us. We cannot serve two masters; we must serve God alone “with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, with all our mind.” If we render partial service to the world or any creature, to our pride, our interests or our lusts, we are putting a false god in God’s place. It is equivalent to dividing our loyalty among a number of gods, or attempting to worship God simultaneously in discordant religions; it is compounding together light and darkness, truth and falsehood.

Our hearts are too small to love the one great Being sufficiently; much more insufficient is their service if part of it be withdrawn and bestowed on creatures. In any pursuit we can only secure success by concentrating all our thoughts and energies upon it alone. In this respect, the children of light may well take a lesson from the children of this world. Seek God alone and always. Let one principle guide your life in all its diverse operations. Let nothing turn you from the path of consistency, from whole-hearted loyalty and affection towards God. Do not dissipate your energies on any other object; but let all the various duties of life look to God and be turned to His service.

9. The Eternity of God

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Eternity of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Eternity of God

I. The eternity of God is His infinite tenure of life. His life is nothing else but Himself; it is entirely beyond our understanding and cannot be described in human words, any more than the essence of God could be painted with brushes. As creatures bound to time, we naturally think of existence as unfolding in moments—with beginnings and endings—and so we speak of life in temporal terms. But God’s eternity stands apart from all that. Time and eternity are not just different—they are opposed in every way. While time is the unfolding of life in successive instants, eternity is the simultaneous possession of life in its completeness.

God’s eternity is not made of past, present, or future. As St. Denis tells us, there is no “was” in God, for He never had a past. He never “will be,” for there is no unrealized future before Him. Nor can we say that He simply “is,” for our present is passing and incomplete, but His existence is full and without change.

Because we are unable to grasp eternity as it truly is, we often imagine God’s life as if it were stretched out over an infinite timeline. “He always was,” we say, and “He always will be,” with a present moment in between: “He is.” We picture eternity by stacking countless moments upon each other, as if adding more and more time could eventually amount to eternity. But this is not the way to understand God. In fact, such imagining misleads us, because it tries to use the very element—time—that eternity denies.

So we must mortify our curiosity. Scripture warns us: “Seek not the things that are too high for thee, and search not into things above thy ability: for it is not necessary for thee to see with thy eyes the things that are hid.” We must humbly adore what we cannot explain.

II. Eternity is the possession of a life without any limits. This boundlessness includes the complete absence of beginning and end, which belong only to time and to the creatures that exist in time.

We cannot measure backward through the vast stretches of created existence, nor can we calculate its duration. But we do know that everything we see was once nothing, and every created thing—whether a force, a planet, or a human soul—is gradually using up its strength and will one day fall silent in death. All things in time fade and pass.

Yet beyond all this stands God, the all-pervading and unchanging Existence. “The heavens are the works of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou remainest. Thou art always the same, and Thy years shall not fail.” Therefore, as Scripture proclaims: “To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever.”

III. God’s eternity is also said to be complete and perfect because it is entirely free from all the limitations and deficiencies that mark life lived in time. Our life, by contrast, is always unfolding. It is never whole in a single moment, and there is always something just beyond us—something we hope for or something we regret.

While each phase of life brings its own work and joys, each also comes with struggles and losses. We do not possess our life in fullness. We live it in dependence on others and alongside countless other souls. Though we are immortal, and though we may one day pass through an endless series of moments, we still do not live as God lives. His life is absolute; ours is not. Even the life of glory that we will receive in heaven will not be equal to His in independence, completeness, or perfection.

And yet, God in His mercy promises us some measure of participation in that eternal life—so far above our comprehension. We shall be raised one day into the glory and beauty and happiness of His own life, a joy we cannot now imagine or fully understand. Let us give thanks to God for this promise, and desire that happy day with all our hearts.

8.The Immutability of God

 

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Immutability of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogmaby Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Immutability of God

I. “With God there is no change or shadow of alteration” (James i. 17). This attribute of unchangeableness is a great perfection in God. We are always impressed by the sight of stability, firmness, permanence of strength and fitness, whether we see them in a grand building, in a political constitution, in a landscape, or in the character of a noble man. All this exists in a supreme degree in God.

Change of any kind is impossible to Him, whether it be in His substance or in His relation to creatures; for change denotes the improving of the position or making it worse, gaining something or losing. As being infinite and possessing in Himself all perfection, it is impossible for God to suffer any addition or any diminution.

As eternal, He exists outside of the conditions of succession and time, so that the progress of events is not a change to Him. The whole of the celestial bodies are in a state of most rapid motion, but this is no change relatively to God, who is everywhere by His immensity.

As all-wise and all-knowing, God cannot experience anything unexpected; nor can He learn any new thing that would change His determinations or His action towards creatures.

How majestic is God, imperturbable, unmoved, unchangeable for all eternity! Prostrate yourself before this grand attribute. Know that God will never change towards you, never desert you, never fail you, never deceive you, nor grow weary of you or forget you. Rest firmly on Him and you will be strengthened in faith, in virtue, in perseverance, by participation to some extent in His immutability.

II. We speak of God changing His dispositions and acting differently at different times towards His creatures. But this is an inaccuracy, necessary in the transference of spiritual ideas into human speech. What change there is is in ourselves, and in the different results produced by the one law in its incidence on our varying actions.

So it is that we speak of the sun as rising, or withdrawing his light, or growing hotter, whereas the changes are really in the conditions of this earth. No alteration then takes place in God as a consequence of our action.

As our sins do not injure Him or disturb Him, so, on the other hand, our service and love are not any new happiness to God, or any increase in His essential glory. So far as we are said to advance His glory, it is only His accidental and temporal glory with regard to creatures that is promoted.

“What doth it profit God if thou be just; or what dost thou give Him if thou be unspotted?” (Job xxii. 3).

Acknowledge humbly that all your justice, which you esteem so highly, is worthless before God; that you have never really done anything for Him, and that you are a most unprofitable servant. He does not want you except for your own good.

III. Consider, on the other hand, how variable and inconstant creatures are. All things are in a state of flux, rising and falling, flourishing and decaying and taking new forms. So the days and seasons and generations pass by. So kingdoms and civilizations and races of men come and go, and the whole surface of the earth is renewed. All ideas, customs, theories, and even sciences, change from day to day.

“They shall perish but Thou shalt continue; and they shall all grow old as a garment, and as a vesture Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed. But Thou art always the self-same and Thy years shall not fail” (Heb. i. 11, 12).

There is no fixedness, no certainty, no permanence, except in God and in that religion which is never to fail. Human religions change like the minds of men, and all at last suffer the final change of dissolution. The Church of God alone outlives all institutions and never grows antiquated.

Thank God that your faith is founded on an immutable rock; but pray that your life may ever change—for the better.

7. The Immensity of God

 

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Immensity of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogmaby Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Immensity of God

I. Immensity is an aspect of God’s Infinity; it is the boundless diffusion of the Divine Essence; and in virtue of this, God is ubiquitous or actually present in all created space. Consequently God does not move from place to place. To do so would be to change, which is contrary to His immutability; and it would be acquiring something, certain relations for instance, not already possessed.

God is not comprised within the dimensions of space, but He is at once in the whole of creation. In those great expanses beyond our solar system which surpass the capacity of arithmetic to describe, and which the swift rays of light take thousands of centuries to traverse, God is present throughout.

He is above all things, not as being locally elevated, but as presiding over all: He is under all things, not as being abased, but as sustaining all: He is within all, not as being enclosed, but as filling them: He is outside all things, not as being excluded, but as enveloping them.

Most literally then “in Him we live and move and be” (Acts xvii. 28). The whole of visible creation up to the remotest nebula is overwhelmed and lost in His immensity, like a microscopic animalcule in the depths of the ocean.

Remember always this all-absorbing presence of the infinite God, and be ever full of respect for Him in all your words and thoughts and actions. What an outrage it is to sin against Him when actually living by His support and in Him!

II. God may be considered as universally present in three different ways.He is present substantially, by His Divine Essence actually being here and everywhere.
He is present everywhere, in that He sees and knows all things; and nothing escapes His watchfulness, even to the most secret thoughts of our souls.
He is present as ruling and guiding all things irresistibly, and operating in them by His power.

Further, God is specially present with His elect.The Apostle says: “Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Cor. iii. 16).
There is a special watchful providence over the just, and predestination of them to grace and glory.
There is a special supernatural operation of God in the soul, including justifying grace, and the infusion of virtues, and help in all natural and spiritual duties.

How wonderful it is that you should thus possess the kingdom of God within you! This presence of God is your greatest treasure; it gives you strength for every emergency, companionship in loneliness, cheerfulness as against depression, indomitable faith and confidence; it is your happiness and your glory. Value it as such.

III. Although God is absolutely pure, yet He is a witness of every event, yet He contracts no defilement from scenes of sin, He is not hurt by any outrage, He is not dishonoured by any blasphemy on earth or in hell.

It is with Him as with the bright, pure rays of sunlight; they shine upon every kind of foulness, but never become unclean or contaminated. God is present to all our sins, yet “He inhabiteth light inaccessible” (1 Tim. vi. 16) at the same moment. He is with us by His immensity and is far above us by His infinity.

Nothing can pain Him. Nothing can touch His sanctity, His beauty, His perfect felicity. It is only God who can know of evil and not suffer the penalty of knowledge. We cannot pass through it or live amongst it without imminent peril, if not actual corruption.

Keep far away from evil; else, it is tempting God to ask Him to preserve you from it. You must encounter evil, but you need not therefore fall. If God be with you, you can do your duty in the world and still keep yourself unspotted from it. 

“I set the Lord always in my sight: for He is at my right hand, that I be not moved” (Ps. xv. 8).

6. The Infinity of God

 

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Infinity of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Infinity of God

I. God is infinite in the number of His perfections. It is true that, by virtue of the divine simplicity, the attributes of God are all one and indistinguishable; yet we perceive Him, not as He is, but as our limitations permit. No concept of ours can represent adequately that which is at one and the same time every perfection. We must then view God, now as this perfection, now as that, though all the time we are conscious that all perfections are identified in Him; and that He not only has them all, but further is them all, in the indivisible simplicity of His essence.

God is far more than the sum of all the perfections we can conceive. We can imagine only the perfections which we find in creatures; but God could go on creating for ever more and more perfect beings, without exhausting the revelation of His own perfections. The prophet babbled helplessly, unable to convey a fraction of the mysteries made known to him. “A—a—Lord God! Behold I cannot speak: for I am a child” (Jer. i. 6). St. Paul also saw secret things which cannot be uttered in human speech (2 Cor. xii. 4).

How many things you have seen and enjoyed! Yet they are nothing to the wonders of this earth; and they in their turn are nothing to the wonders of the wider universe; and they again are nothing to the marvels of the angelic world; and the whole sum of all is but the flash of a single ray proceeding from the intense brilliancy of the Divinity. “There are many things hidden from us that are greater than these; for we have seen but a few of His works” (Eccli. xliii. 36).

Adore the Infinity of God.

II. Furthermore, each one of the innumerable perfections of God is infinite in its range and its intensity. Each one is supreme; it cannot be increased by any addition; neither is it subject to the limitations which beset all things within our experience; nor can any perfection fall short or fail.

Thus, strictly speaking, the patience of God can never fail, nor does His mercy come to an end. When we use such expressions, it is to indicate a permanent change which man by his obstinacy and rejection of God works in himself. God cannot be limited by time, for He is eternal; nor by space, for He is immense; He is not limited by the measure of our intelligence—as many would seem to think when they pass judgment on His decrees—for He is incomprehensible; still less is God expressed adequately by the terms we use to describe Him, for He is ineffable. Neither can our hearts fathom the delights of His love.

Thus every perfection of God surpasses all understanding. “We shall say much and yet shall want words; but the sum of our words is, He is all” (Eccli. xliii. 29). How miserable are you before these awful infinities! Humble yourself in silence before this greatness, which your words cannot describe and your mind cannot imagine.

III. God is infinite in magnificence and grandeur. “The Lord is terrible and exceeding great, and His power is admirable” (Eccli. xliii. 31). How can we possibly form any idea to ourselves of this? We can only heap up words indefinite, that convey only the idea that we have no adequate idea of God.

We can only picture to ourselves the trivial scenes of grandeur that we know on earth: the angry sea, a thunder-storm in the tropics, a great battle, the triumphant reception of a conqueror, an Oriental pageant, the ancient glories of Egyptian architecture, the inaccessible heights of a wilderness of snow-clad mountains. These absorb all our faculties and fill us with awe and speechless admiration. They are but little after all, and yet we cannot rise beyond them in our present life.

What adoration and awe are due to God! How wonderful is His presence! We are actually in that presence when we kneel before the silent tabernacle! Let not the lowly surroundings diminish your awe of the Majesty that dwells there.

5. The Goodness of God

 

Today’s Meditation on Christian Dogma is called “The Goodness of God.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Goodness of God

I. God is good in Himself with natural goodness; that is to say, He possesses all the natural qualities which belong to His nature. God, being truly God, is what God ought to be, and possesses all that God ought to possess; being infinitely perfect, He possesses this entirely and not partially; being necessary, He possesses His perfections absolutely, and cannot suffer any loss or diminution of them.

God possesses every conceivable goodness in an infinite degree. He is all that is most beautiful, holy, pure, delightful, useful, wonderful, lovable. Therefore, when Moses asked to see His face, God answered, “I will show thee all good” (Exodus 33:19).

God has all this not from another, or by participation, but of Himself and by virtue of His own nature. No other being is good in this supereminent way; whence it is written, “None is good but God alone” (Luke 18:19).

How admirable, then, and desirable is God, and deserving of our highest love, even apart from all that He has done for us and the love that He has shown us. Render Him love and service purely for His own sake. This is the highest kind of love and homage. Pray Him, with Moses, to show you His face, and with it supreme and total goodness, not only in the next world, but here too in your meditations.

II. Goodness is, of its nature, “diffusive of itself” (St. Denis). God is good with respect to His creatures, as being the source from which all goodness of every kind is originated and poured forth. He may be compared to the sun, which is ever emitting heat and light and vital force in every direction, on all the worlds which come within its range.

“The eyes of all hope in Thee, O Lord, and Thou givest them meat in due season. Thou openest Thy hand and fillest every creature with blessing” (Psalm 145:15–16).

This diffusion of good is always in full activity, and is never checked for an instant. It falls on all alike, however great their unworthiness or the bad use they make of it. None can escape the continual outpouring of blessings.

All this God does, not under constraint, not moved by any desert on our part, not for any advantage or gain to be expected from us, but simply from the very nature of His goodness itself. Therefore, “give glory to the Lord because He is good. Let the mercies of the Lord give glory to Him, and His wonderful works toward the children of men” (Psalm 106:1, 15).

Glorify God by imitation, and by diffusing upon others, without hope of gain or even of gratitude, such blessings temporal and spiritual as may be within your gift.

III. The immense goodness and kindness of God towards man, the chief of the works of His hands, is manifested in a special way by every one of His attributes; by His power which has created us, wisdom which ordains all for our good, justice which renders to us what is due, mercy which pardons sin, eternity which assures us endless happiness, beauty which ravishes our souls.

God is good to us variously as father, as friend, as brother, as spouse, as master, as benefactor, as our “reward exceeding great.” He is Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, Advocate, Sacrifice, End, Beatitude.

Further, He is our supreme good as being the author of all the good that is in us; He has given us our natural powers, our virtues, our moral perfection, our efficacy for good, all our successes, and all enjoyments.

“The Lord is good to them that hope in Him, to the soul that seeketh Him” (Lamentations 3:25).

Seek God alone, and all these good things will be yours. God gives Himself entirely to you; take care to give yourself entirely to Him. Dedicate your body, your thoughts, your action, your life to Him. Strive to be like God, to be good in every quality, in the practice of every virtue, in your relations to every creature that God has made.