Salesian Literature

Chapter 16  :  Perfect union with God’s will strips the soul of everything

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Let us picture to ourselves the gentle Jesus in Pilate’s house … There, for love of us, he was divested of his garments one by one at the hands of soldiers, the agents of his death.  Not content with that, they tore his skin from him with cudgel-blows and whips.  Later his soul was divested of his body, his body bereft of life, by the death he suffered on the cross.

 

But in three days, through his holy resurrection, his soul re-assumed its glorious body, while his body regained immortal flesh and clothed itself in a variety of garbs – now a pilgrim, now a gardener – as men’s salvation and his Father’s glory called for it.

 

All that was love’s work, Theotimus.  And it is also love at work when a human soul is prompted to die happily to self and come alive to God; it is love that divests it of all human desires, of all self-esteem – each as close to spirit as skin to flesh – and lays it bare at last of even its darling emotions, such as fondness for spiritual consolations, practices of piety, perfection of virtue – all of which seemed to be the very life of a devoted soul.

 

We cannot bear to remain naked long, stripped of all attachments.  That is why St. Paul warns us (cf. Col. 3:9-10) that as soon as we are quite of the old self, and the habits that went with it, we must be re-clothed in the new self – that is, in Jesus Christ.  When we have given up everything, even a fondness for virtue, so as to have no desire for this or for anything else but what God sees fit to send us, we are to clothe ourselves anew with other likings – perhaps even those we formerly renounced.  We are to re-clothe ourselves in them, however, not for their attractiveness, their utility for us, not for the fact that they are creditable, fit to gratify our love for ourselves, but solely because God finds them attractive, because they redound to his honour, contribute to his glory.

 

The man who gives up everything for God ought only to take back such things as God wants.  He gives his body only such nourishment as God enjoins, so that it may be a servant to the spirit.  He sits down to study with the sole idea of assisting his neighbour and his own soul as God means him to do.  He practises virtue, not because it suits him, but because God wants him to.

 

God ordered Isaiah to strip himself naked (cf. Is. 20:2-3).  This the prophet did, and went about preaching like that.  At last, when the time prefixed by God expired, he put on his clothes again.  In the same way we are to strip ourselves of all attachments, little or great; we are frequently to examine our consciences to see if we are ready, as Isaiah was, to divest ourselves of all our garments.  Then we too, when the time comes, are to take up again such inclinations as are suited to charity’s service.

 

Thus we shall be able to die naked with our Saviour on the cross, to rise again with him in newness of life (cf. Rom. 6:4-6).  Not death itself is so strong as love (Cant. 8:6) to make us release our hold on everything; and charity is sublime as the resurrection to adorn us with grandeur and glory.

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