Full reality, creation as a whole, embraced in the relation
with God, established by prayer, transfigured by Grace,
rooted in the Law of Dogma, perfectly simple yet infinitely
rich, the vessel and expression of the Life of Christ:
4
Our Religion rises before us as a figure
so majestic that it leaves us breathless.
We are children of the living God and
members of a living Church. Christ
takes possession of His creature and
penetrates it with His Light; He fills its
will and heart with His own burning
Love and the root of its being with His
own divine peace. He bestows upon it
the longing and power to possess Him.
His boundless Love then seizes the
creature and imparts to it, His own
Divine Nature giving it a second birth
in Christ Jesus through the Holy Ghost.
The personal life of the Christian is
engaged to its profoundest depths in
the Church and is always affected by
Her condition. We must be wholeheartedly
Catholic! No longer can we
regard the Church as a spiritual police
force, but blood of our own blood, the
life of whose abundance we live. Only
then, will She be our Mother and our
Queen, the Bride of Christ! Yet, to be a
Catholic is to accept the Church as She
is, together with Her tragedy. Christ lives
on in the Church, but Christ Crucified!
One might almost venture to suggest
that the defects of the Church are His
Cross. The entire Being of the Mystical
Christ - His Truth, His Holiness, His Grace
and His adorable Person, is nailed to
them as once His physical Body was
nailed to the wood of the Cross. He,
who will have Christ, must be nailed
to His Cross. We cannot separate Him
THIS IS THE LITURGY!