To be a Christian is to be someone of immense depth and dignity. We are sons and daughters of God in His only begotten Son. And if we live in Christ, we bear very much fruit, as He told us. If we are members of Christ, if we are the fullness of Christ, if we are the branches that make up the Vine that He is, then how wonderful our life is. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God. How this truth ought to color all our actions and thoughts and everything about us. What delight and confidence and satisfaction it should infuse into our prayers.
. . . We are, and we know we are, the children of God. We do, and know that we do, share in the Divine Nature by living in Christ Who is God. It is very necessary for us to be extremely humble because all we have and all we are and all we are capable of is due to the gift of God. But I think it is equally important for us to realize our dignity and importance and significance as members of Christ. It does not matter how trivial the things we have to do in life are; we do them as members of Christ. The things we do are acts of Christ Who lives in us as we live in Him. The greatest thing we ever do is to pray. Praying in the Spirit of Our Lord is a world-saving activity. We can all pray, whatever else we can or cannot do. And Our Lord has told us to pray always. A Christian at prayer is Jesus at prayer. A Christian doing anything that is God’s will is Jesus doing that thing. Our Lord embraces in His own life all in our lives that is for God. And everything in our lives ought to be for God. . . .
When Jesus said He would be with His Church all days even until the end of the world, He did not mean that He would be available like someone at the other end of the telephone. He did not mean that we should be able to get in contact with Him if we wanted to. He meant much more than that. The Vine and the branches are always in contact; they form one whole living organism. . . . We are His Mystical Body. We are not His physical Body, but we are fed and nourished by His physical Body in the Eucharist. We are not just a group of people associated by thoughts and ideals with Our Lord. Our connection with Him is one of a shared life. He lives in us and we live in Him. . . .
As we are members of Christ, we must love all men as He loved them. As we are His members, we must forgive anyone who harms us as He forgave them. As His members we must speak the truth with conviction, with the authority of the Church behind us, and that is the authority of Jesus Himself. We cannot spread God’s love, which is the only kind that matters, unless we hold fast to His revealed truth. Jesus taught with authority, and His Church teaches with authority. He taught infallibly, and His Church teaches infallibly. If any Christian teaches that doctrine does not matter, he has not taught the truth. However much love he has, it is very much weakened because the only love that matters is God’s love, and we find that kind of love in Christ by union with Him, and we cannot have union with Him if our faith is not in what is objectively true. He is the Way and the Truth and the Life. To be a living member of His we must follow the Way, believe the Truth, and live the Life, which is love. They all go together.
. . . Let us keep our eyes on the face of Jesus and keep our hearts where His Heart is. Let us make believing in Him, trusting in Him, living in Him the one consuming passion of our life. We were made for Him. We belong to Him. He knows His own, and His own know Him. And having loved them all, He loves them to the end. He loves them not just to the end of His earthly life, or to the end of their earthly lives, but from end to end of the infinite love of God, which has no end. He loves us with an everlasting love. If only we would realize that!
