Christians Who Lack Christianity
When we look around today on the masses of Christian people, we marvel that such can belong to the chosen race, to those for whom the Word Incarnate suffered and died, to those who know this and know that they are the objects of such care and love.
God came down from heaven, emptied himself, suffered and died for each soul. Each Christian soul has been given a rebirth at baptism. God has adopted him for his child. Jesus Christ has cleansed him in his Precious Blood. The Holy Spirit has come upon him in confirmation. To preserve this Christian soul, Jesus Christ has left inexhaustible treasures of merit in his Church: sources of grace in the Sacraments, the sacrifice of the Mass; he has established priests, ceremonies, prayers, blessings: and after all this Christians reduce Christianity to a few exterior practices or even less. Except for these few practices there is no difference between a Christian and a pagan: neither greater decency in dress, nor more frugality in food, nor more reserve in speech, nor more love of God, nor less attachment to the goods and pleasures of this world.
Is it not a thing unworthy of the greatness of God that he who created heaven and earth, angels and men by his word, should have paid so great a price only to have so poor a return from the greater number of Christians.
From The Spiritual Direction of St. Claude de la Colombiere (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1998)
God came down from heaven, emptied himself, suffered and died for each soul. Each Christian soul has been given a rebirth at baptism. God has adopted him for his child. Jesus Christ has cleansed him in his Precious Blood. The Holy Spirit has come upon him in confirmation. To preserve this Christian soul, Jesus Christ has left inexhaustible treasures of merit in his Church: sources of grace in the Sacraments, the sacrifice of the Mass; he has established priests, ceremonies, prayers, blessings: and after all this Christians reduce Christianity to a few exterior practices or even less. Except for these few practices there is no difference between a Christian and a pagan: neither greater decency in dress, nor more frugality in food, nor more reserve in speech, nor more love of God, nor less attachment to the goods and pleasures of this world.
Is it not a thing unworthy of the greatness of God that he who created heaven and earth, angels and men by his word, should have paid so great a price only to have so poor a return from the greater number of Christians.
From The Spiritual Direction of St. Claude de la Colombiere (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1998)
posted by Lactantius at
11:42 pm
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