£ h « m n n , g e n & ü c t 

A DISCUSSION CLUB TEXT WITH OUTLINE 



Nihil Obstat: 
STEPHEN AULBACH, C . S S . R . , 

Censor Deputatus. 
Imprimatur: 

© JAMES E . KEARNEY, D . D . , 
Bishop of Rochester. 

New York, January 20, 1941. 

COPYRIGHT, 1941 , BY 
T H E MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF. ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 

IN THE STATE OF N E W YORK 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED IN THE U. S. A. 
BY THE PAULIST PRESS, NEW YORK, N . Y. 

8 1 



T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
<L^f Discussion Club Text with Outline 

BY 
REV. BENEDICT EHMANN 

Woodcuts by Mary K. Finegan and Mary Krenzer 

N E W YORK 
T H E P A U L I S T P R E S S 

4 0 1 W E S T 5 9 T H STREET 



The Creator of man became man 
And, like man, 

The Bread of Life hungers, 
The Living Fount thirsts, 
The Light of the World sleeps in swaddling clothes, 
And the Way grows weary in the way. 

That for man 
Truth by lies might be accused, 
Justice by injustice condemned, 
Strength made weak, 
Life crucified. 

For all this 
God became man 
That man may become God. 

St. Augustine (354-430). 



I N T R O D U C T I O N 
Some years ago, three Moors of the Moroccan desert 

were touring in the French Alps. Their guide led them to 
a tremendous waterfall, roaring over the rocks. They stood 
rooted in dumbfounded amazement. 

"That is all there is to see," the guide said. 
"We must wait." 
"Wait for what?" 
"The end." 
They were used to the desert's thirst, the dying caravans 

maddened for want of water, the miserly oozing of the 
sparse wells. Water was gold to these men of the hot 
sands. I t was a rare gif t of God. 

But at this waterfall Nature seemed to have gone mad, 
recklessly spendthrift with the precious liquid. I t could 
not last. Moroccans would do a year's penance for one 
minute's flow of this prodigal cataract. 

Once in the early days of His public life, Jesus sat down 
by the old well of Jacob in Samaria. He was tired and 
thirsty f rom His journey on the dusty roads. He asked a 
Samaritan woman to give Him a drink from the pitcher 
which she had just brought. Because He belonged to an 
alien race, she hesitated. He said: 

If thou didst know the gif t of God, and Who He is 
that saith to thee, Give Me to drink, thou perhaps would 
have asked of Him, and He would have given thee liv-
ing water (John iv. 10). 
This pamphlet has been prepared to help you "know 

the gif t of God" which is yours in the Redemption . . . to 
help you stand in grateful wonder before "the fountains of 
the Saviour" which our generous God has made to flow 
through the desert of this life. 

I t may have been a long time since you reviewed the 
doctrine of the Redemption. You cannot be a genuine 
Christian unless you have its essence by heart. Pray to 
the Holy Ghost each time you attempt to study or discuss 
it, and to Mary, Mother of our Redeemer, "who kept all 
these words, pondering them in her heart." 

* * 

3 



C H A P T E R S 
PAGE 

CHAPTER I 
GOD'S PLAN IN THE OLD TESTAMENT S 

CHAPTER I I 
GOD'S PLAN IN THE N E W TESTAMENT 13 

CHAPTER I I I 
T H E LIVING CHURCH 2 4 

CHAPTER I V 
T H E FORGIVENESS OF SINS 3 4 

CHAPTER V 
CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 4 4 

CHAPTER V I 
CHRISTIAN L I F E 5 3 



CHAPTER I 
GOD'S P L A N : THE OLD T E S T A M E N T 

Doctrine: God raised Adam, the father of the hu-
man race, to the state of grace, i. e., a supernatural 
sharing of God's nature. Adam's sin lost this grace for 
himself and all his posterity. But God decreed to re-
store it to man through His own Son. In order to pre-
pare for the coming of His Son, He established a Cove-
nant with a chosen people. Because this Covenant was 
incomplete and preparatory, it is called the Old Testa-
ment. 

INTRODUCTION—GOD'S P L A N : A TESTAMENT OF LIFE 

PART I. L Adam's Part. 
2. Adam's Sin. 
3. Our Loss in Adam. 

PART II. The Divine Son in Adam's Place. 

PART III. The Preparation for the Coming of the 
Saviour. 
1. The Old Testament. 
2. The Temple. 
3. The Sacrifices. 
4. The End of the Preparation. 

5 



6 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 

mm 
INTRODUCTION 

A Testament of Life 

Imagine that some leader of your 
community announces you as the bene-

5» 2 ficiary of all his insurance policies. He 
^ ^ is deeply interested in you. He is anx-

ious to secure and promote your future. 
"Quite overwhelming, if true," you 

say. "But quite as incredible! One 
chance in a million! Why waste time 
on a day-dream?" 

However, there is a marvelous plan for our future, which 
is no day-dream. It was made by God Himself. So great 
and wonderful was it that God spent many centuries in un-
folding it to the world. It was like a deep secret, of which 
God kept giving hints and clues, until He told it all in the 
Person of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament is the record 
of these hints and clues. The New Testament is the record 
of the full revelation. 

The plan is as deep in power as it is simple in words: 
God gives His Son to us, and the Son gives His life to us, 
to make us sons of God. God becomes one with us, that 
we may become one with Him. God becomes partaker of 
our humanity, that we may become sharers of His Divinity. 
Through Jesus, true God and true Man, we are united by 
what He has in common with us, to what He has in com-
mon with God. In Jesus Christ, all those who receive Him 
are born into the life of God. 

This great Testament of divine life which Jesus sealed 
with His own Blood is the great glory of our faith. It seals 
our relationship with God by covenant. Christians are not 
people who are merely seeking after God; they are people 
to whom God has given possession of Himself by a guaran-
teed and sworn covenant. 



7 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
But if we are to appreciate this covenant, we must go 

back to the beginning and trace its history. 
I 

Adam's Part 

God made Adam the father of our race, the first re-
pository or container (so to speak) of human nature. 
From Adam, human nature would be multiplied in its 
thousands and millions until the end of time.1 

God gifted human nature, in Adam, with a share in His 
own divine life. This gift of divine life is called "grace," 
to remind us of the love and free choice which moved God 
to grant it to man. If Adam were to remain faithful, he 
would transmit this "grace," along with his life, to his 
descendants. 

Adam's Sin 

We know that Adam sinned. He forfeited his "grace," 
and incurred the wrath of God. He sinned as the father 
and representative of the race, and transmitted his liability 
to his descendants. We understand, of course, that the ac-
tual guilt of sin cannot be inherited. When our Faith teaches 
us that we inherit original sin, we ought to understand that 
we do not inherit Adam's personal guilt. What we do in-
herit from our first father is his being disbarred, disquali-
fied, from the life of grace. We are the children of an out-
cast, born into the world with his mark upon us. 

i The question of evolution must be noticed here, if only to clear up the following points: 1. That there is nothing against faith in supposing that the body of Adam was produced by animal evolution. The whole question of human evolution is still only a theory, and the Church asks us not to say things on the matter of which a true scientist would not approve; 2. That the soul of Adam, being a spirit, could not have been produced by evolution, but was directly created by God, and infused into Adam's body (whether that body was produced by evolution or made directly by God); 3. That Adam is the only father of the human race—a fact which is in-directly revealed in the doctrines of Original Sin and Redemption. The great differences in racial types are taken by leading ethnologists (e. g., Wilhelm Schmidt) as explainable by differences in climate, food, modes of work, etc. 



8 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
Our Loss in Adam 

Because of Adam's sin, our human nature was tainted 
at its source. Disorder set in to upset the order implanted 
by the Creator. In turning against God, man found that 
he had turned himself against himself; he became an enemy 
to himself, his flesh battling against his soul, his soul strug-
gling against the flesh. 

. . . The good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do (Romans vii. 19). 
In turning against God, man also found that he was 

turned against his own fellow man, brother locked against 
brother, family against family, nation against nation, race 
against race, in bitter feud. Hardly has Adam's sin been 
announced in the Bible, when we read of the murder of 
Abel by his brother Cain, and of the division of tongues 
at the tower of Babel. 

Seemingly, God's loving plan is thwarted. The treasure 
of grace is rejected. The race of man is outcast, divided 
against itself, driven by concupiscence, biassed against God. 

II 
The Divine Son in Adam's Place 

But "where sin abounded, grace did more abound" 
(Romans v. 20). God's thoughts were "thoughts of peace, 
and not of affliction" (Jeremias xxix. 11). Foreseeing the 
fall of man, God's plan decreed a wonderful restoration. 
This restoration was to be a masterpiece of God's wisdom 
and love. In power and beauty it would far surpass the 
original "grace" of Adam. 

This time God Himself would come personally to ful-
fill His plan. He would take the place forfeited by Adam. 
He would become the Head of a restored human race. Tak-
ing on human flesh, and becoming man, He would pay the 



9 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
debt of sin by dying in that flesh, and so restoring to man 
the "grace" of Divine Life. 

It is this which gives the answer to those people who 
complain that God was unjust to create the race of man, 
knowing that it would sin; or to permit men to be born 
with the liability of original sin. God did not cause man's 
sin or his liability; He permitted it. And in permitting it, 
He was foreseeing at the same time the wonderful work of 
Redemption, and the tribute of a Redeemed Race. 

That which we have now in Grace Restored is more 
wonderful than what we would have had in Original Grace. 
Each day in the Mass the Church prays: 

O God, Who, in creating human nature, didst won-derfully dignify it, and hast still more wonderfully re-newed it . . . (Offertory Prayer). 
And on Holy Saturday, the eve of the Resurrection, the 
Church sings, in inspired language: 

. . . it availed us nothing to be born, unless it had availed us to be redeemed. O how admirable is Thy goodness towards us! O how inestimable is Thy love! Thou hast delivered up Thy Son to redeem Thy serv-ant. O truly necessary sin of Adam, which the death of Christ has blotted out! O happy fault, that merited such and so great a Redeemer!—(Blessing of Easter Candle.) 
III 

The Preparation for the Coming of the Saviour 

It was the will of the Father that man should pass 
through a long Advent of preparation before the coming 
of the Saviour. Whether it was 4,000 years or 40,000 
years from Adam to Christ is immaterial; in any case it 
was a long novitiate of pain and longing and bitter need in 



10 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
which the human millions were groping toward their re-
lease. 

The Old Testament is the panorama of this prepara-
tion. God stands out in it as a wonderful Teacher keep-
ing alive in His human family the hope of a Redeemer, 
and in the mouth of His patriarchs and prophets building 
up by little and little the picture of the Messiah. 

In the Old Testament God appears as a Divine Drama-
tist, with the whole world for His stage, raising up heroic 
leaders, directing His people through the ruins of dynasties 
and kingdoms, hammering at them with calamity and exile, 
hewing at their stubborn souls with the words of His 
prophets, enticing them and cajoling them as with the 
tenderness of a mother, never letting them forget that their 
destiny was the birth of the Messiah from Whom blessing 
would go forth to the whole world. 

The Old Testament 

God guarantees His plan with His chosen people by 
making it a Covenant, establishing it in Abraham, sealing 
it in the blood of circumcision, renewing it again and again 
as the centuries move on, confirming it with a ritual and a 
sacrifice and the revelation of the Ten Commandments. 
Truly God's chosen people were a people of Covenant, pre-
pared for the destined moment when the Messiah would 
come, to fulfill the Old Testament with a New Testament, 
sealed in His Blood, and to bequeath to the lost race of 
man His own life. 

The Temple 

The great shrine of the chosen people was the Temple 
at Jerusalem. Its ritual sacrifices and ceremonial were or-
dained by God Himself in the time of Moses. Its most 
sacred sanctuary was called the Holy of Holies, and con-
tained the Ark of the Covenant, a visible memorial of God's 
Testament and living Presence among them. No one was 



11 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
ever allowed to enter into the Holy of Holies, except the 
High Priest—and he, only once a year, during the feast of 
the Passover, bringing in the blood of the paschal lamb and 
sprinkling the Holy of Holies with it. 

The Sacrifices 

Outside the Holy of Holies there were two other courts 
of worship: in one of them there was an altar of incense 
always burning, together with a table holding what were 
called the loaves of proposition, which were renewed every 
Sabbath day; in the other court was the altar of holo-
causts, on which burnt-offerings were offered up to God 
every day. 

These official sacrifices were intended by God to keep 
the memory of His Covenant alive among His people, and 
at the same time to instruct and prepare them for the New 
Covenant which was to come. Through them the people 
pledged their fidelity to God, and God ratified His Testa-
ment to His people. In the blood of the sacrificed victims, 
God accepted the lives of His people, and sealed His Cove-
nant with them. 

The End of the Preparation 

At last came the "fullness of time" for which the Old 
Testament had been made. All these former things were 
but shadows of the substance which was to come. They 
were only types and symbols of the better gifts which God 
would give to His people in a New Testament—a Testa-
ment which was to be ratified and sealed, not with the 
blood of animals, but with the Blood of God's own Son. 

When the fullness of time was come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that He might redeem them who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. . . . (Galatians iv. 4, 5.) 



12 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
Questions 

Introduction 
1. What is God's plan for the human race? 
2. What is the covenant called which God made with 

His people before the coming of Christ? 
Par t I 

1. In what state was Adam created by God? 
2. What do you call the sharing of Adam in God's 

life? 
3. Would Adam have transmitted the g i f t of God to 

us if he had not sinned? 
4. Do we inherit Adam's personal sin? 
5. What is original sin in us? 

Par t I I 
1. Who was to take Adam's place as the supernat-

ural head of our race? 
2. How was this head of our race to satisfy God for 

sin? 
3. Prove by quoting the Offer tory prayer and the 

prayer used on Holy Saturday that we are now 
in a higher state of grace than Adam was before 
his fall. 

Par t I I I 
1. Wha t people were chosen by God to prepare the 

world for the coming of the Redeemer? 
2. How did God little by little build up the expec-

tation of the coming Redeemer? 
3. Where was the great sanctuary of the Jews 

located? 
4. What was the purpose of the sacrifices of blood 

victims in the Jewish religion? 
5. What was the true religion in the time of the 

Old Testament? 



CHAPTER II 
GOD'S P L A N : THE N E W T E S T A M E N T 

Doctrine: In the "fullness of time," God sent His 
Son to redeem the world, and to restore grace to man-
kind. By His humiliation, suffering, and death, the 
Redeemer became a Victim and a Mediator for the sins 
of the world. He fulfilled the Old Testament, and es-
tablished a New Testament of infinite love and mercy, 
sealing it with His Blood, making it effective by His 
death. 
INTRODUCTION—THE " F U L L N E S S OF T I M E " : T H E E N D OF 

T H E PREPARATION 

PART I. The Coming of the Redeemer. 
1. A Victim and Mediator. 
2. His Humiliation. 
3. His Suffering. 
4. His Death. 

PART II. The Fulfillment of the Redemption. 
1. New Life for the World. 
2. A New Deliverance. 
3. A New People of God. 

PART III. The New Testament. 
1. Made Effective by Christ's Death. 
2. The Annulment of the Old Testament. 
3. The Effects of the Redemption. 

13 



14 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 

INTRODUCTION 

The Fullness of Time 

When the fullness of time was come, God sent His 
Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He 
might redeem them who were under the law, that we 
might receive the adoption of sons (Galatians iv. 4, 5). 
Jesus taught us about this fullness of time in a dra-

matic parable: 
A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it out to husbandmen: and he was abroad for a long time. 
And at the season he sent a servant to the husband-men, that they should give him of the fruit of the vine-yard. Who, beating him, sent him away empty. 
And again he sent another servant. But they beat him also, and treating him reproachfully, sent him away empty. 
And again he sent the third: and they wounded him also, and cast him out. Then the lord of the vineyard said: What.shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be, when they see him, they will reverence him. 
Whom when the husbandmen saw, they thought within themselves, saying: This is the heir, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. 
So casting him out of the vineyard, they killed him. What, therefore, will the lord of the vineyard do to them? 
He will come, and will destroy these husbandmen, and will give the vineyard to others (Luke xx. 9-16). 



15 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
I 

The Coming of the Redeemer 

The Jewish prophecies were ripe for 
fulfillment. The pagan sages felt that 
the order of the ages was rising to some 
great and blessed event. The heart of 
the world was pregnant with the hope 
of a golden age. After centuries of 
war and conquest, there came at last 
that celebrated peace which will al-
ways live in the history books as the 

Pax Romana. It was the fullness of time, and God sent 
into the world His beloved Son. 

The coming of the Divine Son was as strange as it was 
remarkable. His birthplace was a stable, outside a de-
spised town, in a remote and despised colony of the Roman 
Empire. His parents were poorest of the poor, forgotten 
relics of a royal family. 

"He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant," 
St. Paul tells us (Philippians ii. 7). 

Victim and Mediator 

From the very first moment of His Incarnation, the Son 
of God comes to spend Himself, to give Himself, to under-
go suffering. In the Blessed Trinity, He had offered Him-
self to the Father as a Mediator and Victim for sinful man. 
But to act as Mediator and Victim, He must become a man. 
It was man who had contracted the debt of sin; only a man 
could pay it off, representing all his fellow men. But the 
debt was infinite, since it was God against whom man had 
sinned, and only God could restore with a payment of in-
finite value. 

It looked like a hopeless dilemma for man, but the love 
<of God found a way. The Son of God would become a 
roan. He would undergo the brunt of the Father's jus-



16 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
tice. He would offer up His life in payment of the debt 
of sin. As man, He could take the human debt upon Him-
self; as God, He could give His payment an infinite value, 
fully satisfying to the Father. 

Mercy and truth have met each other: justice and 
peace have kissed (Psalm lxxxiv. 11). 

His Humiliation 

Even if the Son of God had taken a human nature 
without any of its handicaps or hardships, that would still 
have ben an "emptying" and a humiliation beyond any 
power of ours to imagine. Our human nature has a cer-
tain beauty and nobility which set it high in the order 
of created beings. But, by comparison with the Being of 
God, it is allied to darkness and nothingness. 

A few years ago, a royal prince visited the slum homes 
of a mining district. Many a time he had to overcome his 
revulsion to dirt and foul odors and ugliness. Suppose, 
instead of just visiting these slum derelicts, he had abdicated 
his royal living to become one of them, and live their life— 
a whole lifetime of disgust and nausea for his refined nature. 

This gives us only a dim picture of what it meant for 
the Divine Son to invest Himself with our human nature. 
The only word which St. Paul can find to express the sheer 
power and wonder of this condescension of God is that 

He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. 
His Suffering 

But the love of the Saviour went further than that. He 
subjected His human nature to lowliness and poverty, to 
humiliation, to shame and reviling, "even to the death of 
the cross" (Philippians ii. 8). "Greater love than this no 
man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends," 
Jesus told His apostles on the eve of His death (Johnxv. 13). 



17 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
As a Victim for sin, it is natural to find that all of 

Jesus' life was a reversal of that perverseness which had 
caused man's sin. To man's pride, Jesus opposed His 
humility; to man's lust, Jesus opposed His love; to anger, 
His meekness; to greed, His poverty; to revenge, His pa-
tience; to luxury, His suffering; to hatred, His charity. 

This explains the whole way of Jesus' life from Beth-
lehem to Calvary: it is a way of expiation and regenera-
tion. This perverseness of man is a legacy from Adam. 
Jesus comes to take Adam's place, to be the Royal Head 
of a new race, to purge the spoiled blood of Adam with 
a second birth in His own Blood. He comes to re-
create a "new man" and to show a new way of life free 
of the perverseness of sin—a way of peace, of humility, 
of patience, and of charity. 

His Death 

But in living this new way of life, Jesus comes into con-
flict with the old and perverse way of sin. It rises up 
to oppose Him; it hates Him; it attempts to overpower 
Him. "This is your hour, and the power of darkness," 
Jesus says to His enemies when they come out to seize Him 
in Gethsemane (Luke xxii. S3). He succumbs to its fury. 
It is the death-grapple of Good and Evil, and the fate of man 
hangs in the balance. In pain and blood, "with a strong cry 
and tears" (Hebrews v. 7), Jesus dies. It is the Feast of the 
Passover, when the high priest in the temple enters the 
Holy of Holies with the blood of the paschal lamb to com-
memorate the ancient deliverance of God's chosen people 
out of Egypt. 

II 
The Fulfillment of the Redemption 

Never has Evil enjoyed a greater victory than this in 
which it brought God to shameful death. But at this mo-
ment of its greatest victory, it suffered its greatest defeat. 



18 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
Out of the death it has inflicted comes forth the. Life which 
defeats it. Foretelling His death, Jesus had said, 

Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit (John xii 24, 25). 
When Peter had protested to the Saviour that He 

should never undergo sufferings and death, Jesus answered, 
Thou savorest not the things that are of God, but 

the things that are of men (Matthew xvi. 23). 
And after His Resurrection, on the way to Emmaus, Jesus 
upbraids the two puzzled disciples, 

O foolish, and slow of heart to believe in all things 
which the prophets have spoken. 

Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and 
so to enter into His glory? (Luke xxiv. 25, 26.) 

New Life for the World 

It was the plan of God that the Saviour should become 
the Source of the new life by undergoing death. It was 
a masterful stroke of Divine Wisdom that the Son of God 
should turn the course of sin against itself. Adam had 
sought to become like God by eating of the forbidden tree, 
and had brought death into the world. The Son of God 
became man, suffered death on the tree of Calvary, and 
restored Life to the world. 

Dying upon His Cross on the Passover Feast, the 
Saviour beholds with His divine glance the "former things" 
of the Old Testament. He sees the ancient Israelites when 
they were slaves in Egypt, laboring under a bitter yoke; 
He remembers their deliverance under Moses—how God 
commands them, before they depart, to offer up in each of 
their families a lamb for a sacrifice; how they flee, tens of 
thousands of them, toward the Promised Land; how the 



19 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
Red Sea is divided to let them pass over, dry-shod, and 
how its walls of water come together to engulf their ene-
mies; how they complained in the wilderness, and hank-
ered once more for the fleshpots of Egypt, so that the Lord 
God condemned them to forty years wandering; how the 
Lord fed them with manna, and guided them in the cloud 
and in the pillar of fire; how they came, at the end of their 
penance, into the Land of Promise. 

The New Deliverance 

All these things Jesus sees in review before His soul 
as He hangs on Calvary, offering His life for the sins of 
the world. In the Holy City, the lambs of the Passover 
festival are being sacrificed, and all pious Jews are recall-
ing their ancient deliverance and the Old Testament which 
God had given to their fathers. But outside the walls, on 
the little mound of Calvary, hangs the true Lamb of God. 
It is the sacrifice of a new deliverance and a new Passover. 

A New People of God 

The people of this new deliverance are to be gathered, 
not only from the Jews, but from all the nations of the 
world. The bondage in which they are chained is that of 
sin. But they are purchased and ransomed by the Blood 
of Jesus, and brought into the freedom of the children of 
God. Not, however, until they have paid their own debt 
of sin by death will they enter into the Promised Land. 
For the time of this life, they must pass through the wil-
derness of this world. But God nourishes them with a 
heavenly Bread, and leads them with His word and His 
law. 

I l l 
The New Testament1 

They are a Redeemed People, purchased by Jesus with 
His Blood and belonging to Him. The Old Testament is 



20 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
now annulled, and a new and greater Testament is given 
to man. In this New Testament, Jesus bequeaths us His 
Divine Life. He ratifies it and seals it with His Blood. 

This is My Blood of the New Testament, which 
shall be shed for many unto remission of sins (Matthew 
xxvi. 28). 

Made Effective by Christ's Death 

Jesus makes His Testament effective by His death. 
. . . (Christ) is the mediator of the New Testament: 
that by means of His death, for the redemption of those 
transgressions, which were under the former Testament, 
they that are called may receive the promise of eternal 
inheritance. For where there is a testament, the death 
of the testator must of necessity come in (Hebrews ix. 
IS, 16). 

In this New Testament, the Father promises all those who 
are joined to His Son complete reconciliation and peace. 

In Christ it hath well pleased the Father that all 
fullness should dwell; and through Him to reconcile all 
things unto Himself, making peace through the Blood 
of His cross (Colossians i. 19, 20). 

The Annulment of the Old Testament 

We are told in the Gospel that, at the death of our 
Redeemer, the great veil in the temple was torn from top 
to bottom. We may see in this a sign from God that the 
Old Testament is annulled. No longer is there need for 
the Jewish high priest to enter the Holy of Holies with 
the blood of the paschal lamb: from now on, the divine 
High Priest, Jesus Christ, presents to the Father His own 
Blood—the Blood of the Lamb of God. No longer is there 
need for sacrifices and burnt-offerings of animals for sin: 
the Divine Victim has been slain in a Perfect Sacrifice. 



21 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
For the former things are passed away. Behold I 

make all things new (Apocalypse xxi. 4, S). 
The Effects of the Redemption 

It will be helpful to conclude this chapter with the 
following "digest" of the effects of the Redemption: 

1. Liberation from sin. 
He hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own Blood (Apocalypse i. S). 
When you were dead in your transgressions, . . . He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, and blotted out the written bond of the decrees against us, which was adverse to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross (Colossians ii. 13, 14, Father Spencer's translation). 

2. Release from the power of the devil. 
"Now is the judgment of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself (John xii. 31, 32). 

3. Payment of the debt of punishment due to sin. 
. . . (God) spared not even His own Son, but deliv-ered Him up for us all (Romans viii. 32). 
For the wickedness of My people have I struck Him (Isaias liii. 8). 

4. Reconciliation with the Father. 
For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son; much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life (Romans v. 

10). 
5. The union of all the Redeemed in Christ's life. 

I pray . . . that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, End I in Theej that they also may be one in Us. 



22 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have 

given to them, that they may be one, as We also are 
one (Jesus' Prayer at the Last Supper—John xvii. 20- 22). 
6. The opening of Heaven. 

We have therefore, brethren, a confidence in the 
entering into the Holies by the Blood of Christ (He-
brews x. 19). 

Questions 

Introduction 
1. What is meant by the clause: "When the fullness 

of time was come . . ."? 
Par t I 

1. In what country and town was the Redeemer 
born? 

2. W h y did the Redeemer have to be both God and 
man to satisfy for man's sins? 

3. Explain St. Paul 's words: "He emptied Himself, 
taking the form of a servant." 

4. What other things did Christ suffer for our sake? 
5. As a rebuke to what sins did Christ undergo 

poverty, humility, and suffer ing? 
6. Explain Christ 's words to His enemies in the 

Garden of Gethsemane: "This is your hour and 
the power of darkness." 

Par t I I 
1. Explain Jesus' words about the grain of wheat 

in the ground: "But if it die, it bringeth for th 
much frui t ." 

2. How did Jesus' death bring life to us? 
3. W h y is Jesus called the Lamb of God? 



23 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
4. Explain the resemblance between the deliverance 

of the Chosen People f rom Egypt and the deliv-
erance of the Redeemed from sin by Jesus. 

5. From whom did Christ recruit the new people 
of God. 

Part I I I 
1. By Whose Blood are we redeemed? 
2. What did Christ mean when He said at the Last 

Supper: "This is My Blood of the New Testa-
ment which shall be shed for many unto the re-
mission of sins"? 

3. When was the Old Testament annulled? 
4. What is the New Testament? 
5. Name six effects of the Redemption. Quote a 

Scripture text for each one. 



CHAPTER III 
THE L I V I N G C H U R C H 

Doctrine: The Redeemed, the new people of God, 
receive a sharing in the life of Christ. This is accom-
plished by Baptism. Christians are a living Church, 
vitally united with Christ, as branches with the vine, 
or as members of the body with the head. Christ is the 
Life of the Church. The Church is Christ in His mem-
bers, continuing the work of the Redemption until the 
consummation of the world. 

INTRODUCTION—GOD DWFXLS AMONG U S 

PART I. New Life in the "Second Adam." 
1. Birth of the New People of God by 

Baptism. 
2. Sharing the Christ-Life. 

PART II. The "Good News" of Salvation. 
1. The Vine and the Branches. 
2. The Body: Head and Members. 
3. The Whole Christ. 

PART III. The Catholic Church: The Body of Christ. 
1. The Work of the Church. 
2. Evil in the Church. 

24 



25 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
INTRODUCTION 

d Dwells Among Us 

A familiar verse says: 
God's in His heaven, 
All's right with the world! 

But that is only one half of God's 
"good news." The other and the bet-
ter half tells us that God's in His 
world . . . that He "dwells among us" 
. . . that He takes up His abode in 
our hearts. 

I 
New Life in the "Second A d a m " 

Jesus came to restore the fallen race of Adam, but only 
on condition that He would become the Head of the race 
He redeemed. Jesus thus became "the second Adam." 
The first Adam had forfeited his right to transmit eternal 
life to his children. Jesus took his place, paid his debt, 
and received the right to transmit eternal life to all those 
who desire it. 

As by one man sin entered the world, and through 
sin death, and so death extended to all men inasmuch 
as all sinned—much more did the grace of God, and 
the gift by the grace of the One Man, Jesus Christ, 
overflow upon the many. 

Even as, by the transgression of one, sentence was 
passed upon all men to their condemnation, thus also, 
by the righteousness of One, grace was offered to all 
men to justification of life. 

As by the disobedience of the one man, the many 
were made sinners, so by the obedience of the One, the 
many shall be rendered just (Romans v. 12, 15, 18, 19, 
Father Spencer's translation). 



26 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
There is now an everlasting agreement between the 

Father and the Son that when any child of Adam's race, 
even though guilty of the vilest sins, turns in sincere re-
pentance and love to his Redeemer, he is at the very mo-
ment reborn into the life of Jesus. He becomes one with 
God's Son; the Father's anger is reconciled, and now He 
says of the sinner, "This is My beloved Son in Whom I 
am well pleased," even as He once said it of Jesus (Matthew 
iii. 17). For Jesus and the converted sinner are one. 

Sharing the Christ-Life 

The redeemed are all those who are baptized into the 
life of the Redeemer. God pours into their souls a sharing 
in the life of His Son Jesus. Because this baptism is a 
giving of life, Jesus called it a birth. 

Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy 
Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That 
which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is 
born of the Spirit, is spirit (John iii. S, 6). 
And St. John writes, in the foreword of his Gospel, 

As many as received Him, He gave them power 
to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in 
His name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the 
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God 
(i. 12, 13). 
When the priest blesses the baptismal water on Holy 

Saturday, he says a prayer which clearly shows that the 
holy fountain of baptism has power to give birth: 

May the Holy Spirit by the secret infusion of His 
divine power make fruitful this water that we have 
prepared, for the giving a new birth unto men; so that, 
conceived in holiness, from the stainless womb of this 



27 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
most sacred font a heavenly offspring may come forth, reborn into a new creation; and that those whom sex may divide in body, or age in years, Grace their mother may bear, all equally, unto one new childhood (C. T. S. pamphlet, "Holy Saturday Morning Service," trans-lated and edited by Rev. C. C. Martindale, S.J.). 
By our first birth, from our parents, we are born as 

children of Adam, sharing the dispossessed human life of 
which he was the original father. 

By our second birth, in baptism, we are born as chil-
dren of God, sharing the life of Jesus, and entering into a 
divine family. 

II 
The "Good News" of Salvation 

This is what the first Christians meant by the word 
Gospel. It was the "good-spell"—the "good news" of sal-
vation. Open your Bible to the Epistles of St. Paul, or 
to the Acts of the Apostles, and read for yourselves what 
joy those early Christians took in their Redemption. We 
find that the same joy carries over into the writings of 
the Fathers, and into the Acts of the Martyrs. Nothing 
was too terrible for them to face, for they knew that they 
bore the Lord God in their bodies. 

If God be for us, who is against us? Who shall separate us from the iove of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? But in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us. 
For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things pres-ent, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans viii. 31, 35, 37-39). 



28 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
As for ourselves, we cannot hope to make this great 

Gospel of love our own if we do not dwell upon it, or turn 
it over in our minds, or pray about it to the Holy Spirit. 
We must bring to it a reverent and attentive spirit, and 
not expect to pick it up between supper and a movie. 

The Vine and the Branches 
Listen to how Jesus taught it to His disciples. Like a 

good teacher, He used a familiar picture to bring it home 
to them. The time was the Last Supper, and Jesus was 
giving His chosen twelve the deepest secrets of His love. 

I am the vine; you the branches. He that abideth 
in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for 
without Me you can do nothing. 

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it 
abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide 
in Me (John xv. 5, 4). 
Like wild branches, cut out of the stock of Adam, we 

have been engrafted into the Vine of Christ, and we grow 
now and bear fruits of goodness in Him. When they are 
cut off from the vine, the branches wither and die; but 
when they are part of the vine, they live with its life and 
bear its fruit. So it is with us in the Vine of Christ: we 
live with His life, and bear His fruit. 

The Body: Head and Members 
The Apostle Paul learned this lesson in a dramatic 

way. He had been a persecutor of the infant Christian 
Church. One day he was on his way to Damascus with 
writs of arrest to be served on some of the Christians there. 
On the road, an invisible force toppled him off his horse 
to the ground, and a blazing light struck him blind; and 
from the light a voice cried, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest 
thou Me?" Paul asked, "Who art Thou, Lord?" The 
voice replied, "I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest" (Acts 
of the Apostles ix. 4, 5). 



29 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
He became a Christian, changed his name to Paul, and 

went for five years into the desert of Arabia to reorganize 
his whole life; there he learned the new Gospel, as he tells 
us, "by the revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians i. 12). 

His whole missionary life from that time on was one 
long and perilous adventure to preach the great tidings 
which came to him on the Damascus road: that Christ is 
in His Christians . . . that Christ and His Christians are 
one . . . that you strike at Christ when you strike at His 
Christians. 

The image that St. Paul used most to describe this one-
ness of Christ and His Christians is the image of the hu-
man body. 

As the body is one, and hath many members; and 
all the members of the body, whereas they are many, 
yet are one body, so also is Christ. 

You are the body of Christ, and members of mem-
ber (1 Cor. xii. 12, 27). 
Surely St. Paul did not mean that Christians were mem-

bers of Christ's physical body—the body that suffered and 
died, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, where it 
now sits at the right hand of the Father. What then could 
he have meant? 

When the father of a family sees his little flock around 
him, he can say within himself, "This is bone of my bone, 
flesh of my flesh: this family is my body." 

If Adam is given a vision of the human race, he can 
say, "These are bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh: this 
multitude of nations is my body." But they are Adam's 
body only in the natural order. By his original sin, Adam 
lost the privilege of transmitting the life of supernatural 
grace in the process of generation. He remained the 
physical father of the race, but lost his position as spiritual 
father of the family of God. 



30 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
It was this lost position as Head of the family of God 

which Jesus came to fill. He had within Himself the 
supernatural life which was being restored to Adam's race. 
He offered up that life as a ransom and as a gift. From 
that time on, it is transmitted to man by a second birth— 
a spiritual birth, by faith and baptism. 

The Whole Christ 

As Jesus beholds this family of the Redeemed and of 
the Reborn, He can say, "These are members of My Body, 
of My Flesh, and of My Bones (c/. Ephesians v. 30). 
Through My Blood, they are reborn into My life. To 
nourish them, I give them My Flesh to eat, and My Blood 
to drink. Truly, My life courses through them. I am 
their Head, and they are My Body." 

It is the time-honored custom to call this body of 
Christ, His "Mystical" Body,.to signify a communication 
and a communion of life between Jesus and His members, 
which cannot be seen by physical observation: it is hidden 
under visible realities, in much the same way as the grace 
of the sacraments is hidden under visible signs. 

But those people who find some difficulty with the idea 
of "the Mystical Body of Christ" may find their problem 
somewhat simpler if they use the phrase "the Social Body 
of Christ." 

Here, then, you have the proper concept of the Catho-
lic Church. It is a living organism. Its life is the "fullness 
of Christ." Externally, it is the congregation of all the 
Redeemed. Internally, it is Christ in His Social Body. 

St. Augustine's forceful words come to mind on this 
point: 

The Whole Christ is head and body. The head is 
the only-begotten Son of God; the body is His Church. 
Like bridegroom and bride, they are two in one flesh 
(The Unity of the Church, ix. 341). 



31 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
III 

The Catholic Church: The Body of Christ 

The Catholic Church is not merely a memorial of the 
past. It is a miracle of the living present. It is Christ 
always in the world, living and growing in His Christians 
until, at the end of time, He will present to His Father 
His completed Body (His "pleroma," or "fullness," as St. 
Paul calls it). 

It is only in the light of this great truth that we can 
really understand the history of the Church. If you con-
sider the Church merely as an efficient and complex organ-
ization with a certain code and ceremonial, you are miss-
ing the main point about it. But if you regard the Church 
as Christ in the world extending His Incarnation and Re-
demption until the end of time, then its whole history re-
solves itself into an awe-inspiring pattern. 

The Work of the Church 

In all her missionaries, from Peter and Paul to the 
lonely Gospel-bringers of today's outposts, it is Christ still 
preaching the holy Word. In all her popes and bishops, 
from Peter to Pius XII, from the Apostles to the living 
bishops of today, it is Christ still holding the power of 
the keys, and giving the commandments of life. In all 
her priests, it is Christ still giving the word of forgiveness, 
still offering His Calvary to His Father, still feeding the 
faithful with the Bread of life. In all her words of char-
ity, it is Christ ever "going about, doing good," bringing 
God's comfort and healing. In all her sufferings and per-
secutions, it is Christ still buffeted and spat upon, driven 
along the way of His Cross, and crucified. In all her vin-
dications and perennial youth, it is Christ still rising from 
His tomb unto new glory. 



32 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
Evil in the Church 

And what of her scandals? Of course, some of them 
are painted much worse than they are by her enemies; 
we must always be careful to hew close to the facts. But 
even so, what are we to say? How is it possible to see 
Christ at work in the midst of scandals? 

But, even in His visible life on earth, Jesus worked in 
the midst of scandals—the scandal of His disciples' in-
credulity, of Peter's denial, of Judas's treachery. He, the 
very Son of God, was borne in the arms of the evil spirit 
during His temptations in the wilderness. The kingdom 
of the Church, He tells us, is like a net which catches bad 
fish as well as good; it is like a field, where an enemy over-
sows the wheat with cockle, and both are allowed to grow 
until the harvest. 

If a person objects to the idea of Christ incorporated 
in His Church when that Church has members, and even 
rulers, who were men of great sin, he is like the Pharisees 
who objected to Christ's consorting with publicans and 
sinners. Let such a person ponder on Jesus' immortal re-
ply, "I am not come to call the just, but sinners" (Matthew 
ix. 13). 

In conclusion: Jesus is not only the Teacher of the 
Church, giving it the Wisdom of God; nor is He only the 
Ruler of the Church, giving it commandments for its way 
to God. He is also the Life of the Church, making it one 
Body with Himself, identifying Himself with that Body, 
and fulfilling His mission through it in all nations until 
the end of time. 

Questions 

Part I 
1. Why is Christ called the "second Adam"? 
2. Through Whom did sin and death enter the 

world? 



33 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
3. Through whom did eternal life and forgiveness 

come? 
4. In whom are all Christians united and made one? 
5. Through what Sacrament does this unit ing occur? 
6. Quote two texts f rom the New Testament which 

show that there is a rebirth in Baptism. 
7. What do the words "born of God" mean? 

Par t I I 
1. What does the word "Gospel" mean? 
2. Read Jesus' w o r d s on the "Vine and the 

Branches." 
3. Explain the comparison which Jesus made by 

these words. 
4. What words of Jesus to St. Paul show us how 

closely we are united to Christ? 
5. Read the Bible passage in which St. Paul de-

scribes the oneness of the members of Christ. 
6. What is the name given to this communion of 

l ife between Jesus and His members? 
7. Quote St. Augustine's words on "the Whole 

Christ." 
8. What did St. Augustine mean by "the Whole 

Christ"? 
Par t I I I 

1. How is Jesus the Life of the Church? 
2. How ought we to picture the history of the 

Church in the world? 
3. Name two scandals that occurred among the 

apostles. 
4. Explain the scandals in the Church by using 

Christ 's parable of the wheat and the cockle. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE FORGIVENESS OF S I N S 

Doctrine: By mortal sin, the Christian severs the 
life-line of sanctifying grace between himself and 
Christ. He loses the Christ-Life. He becomes a dead 
branch on the Vine of Christ—a dead member of the 
Body of Christ. But if he is repentant, God's mercy 
forgives him through the merits of the blood of Christ. 
He is reinstated in vital union with Christ, and is made 
once again a living member of Christ's Body. 

INTRODUCTION—THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON 
(Luke xv. 11-32) 

PART I. The Prodigal Christian. 
1. His Inheritance Squandered. 
2. His Position in God's Family Lost. 

PART II. The Repentant Prodigal. 
1. God's Search for the Sinner. 
2. The Sinner's Contrition. 
3. His Confession. 

PART III. The Father's Mercy. 
1. The Restoration of the Prodigal. 

CONCLUSION. Three Wrong Attitudes. 
1. Laxity. 
2. Scrupulosity. 
3. "It 's impossible to stay in the state of 

grace." 
34 



35 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
INTRODUCTION 

The Parable of the Prodigal Son 

c * o f \ 
If being a Christian means being 

incorporated into Christ and living in 
Christ's life, we might suppose, offhand, 
that sin (and, in particular, grievous 
sin) inflicts more drastic damage in the 
Christian than in the non-Christian. 
And we might also suppose that the 
forgiveness of the Christian's sins is 
effected under conditions which are 

different from the forgiveness of the non-Christian's sins. 
It will be the purpose of this chapter to explain the 

special malice of the Christian's sin, and the special condi-
tions of the Christian's repentance and forgiveness. 
Christ's parable of the Prodigal Son will serve as a simple 
and dramatic illustration.2 

I 
The Prodigal Christian 

The prodigal son asks for his share of the inheritance 
from his father. He goes off with it and spends it waste-
fully on riotous living. He is finally reduced to such pov-
erty that he must be content to hire out as a feeder of 
swine. 

The Christian receives an inheritance from his Father 
in heaven. It is a sharing in the inheritance of God's own 
Son, Jesus. By it the Christian is made one with Jesus, 
and receives a divine nobility: God lives in him, and he 
lives in God. At the same time, the Christian is united 
with his fellow Christians in the bond of Christ's Social 
Body: the Divine Life circulates through him, and its 

2 This famous parable is recorded in St. Luke's Gosp.el, chapter IS, verses 11-32._ It should be read in full for the study of this chapter, especially at the beginning of the discussion meeting. 



¿ 6 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
influence goes out from him to the other members, just 
as it goes out from them to him. 

His Inheritance Squandered 

Such is the Christian's inheritance from his heavenly 
Father. Now suppose he commits a mortal sin. Like 
the prodigal son, he "wastes his substance, living riot-
ously." With sufficient reflection, and full consent of his 
will, he chooses to disobey God in a grievous matter. He 
prefers a forbidden satisfaction of self to his fellowship 
with Christ and with his fellow Christians. He squanders 
his sharing in the life of Christ, and pays it off to satisfy 
his own lust of pride or passion. That life was made 
available to him by Jesus' spending of it in His agony and 
death: but the prodigal Christian holds cheap his Re-
deemer's sufferings. Like a gambler with his father's life-
time savings, he stakes all for one evil choice. 

As a result, the prodigal Christian is a dead member 
in the Body of Christ: a dead branch on the Vine of 
Christ. The life of Christ is no longer in him. No longer 
does it radiate from him to the other members of Christ's 
Body. Like a dead limb, he is a burden and a hindrance 
to the rest of the Body, and he is cut off from all its vitality. 

It is hardly enough to say that mortal sin is a griev-
ous offense against God. Of course, it is that, and that is 
terrible enough. But it is more than that for the Chris-
tian. It severs the lifeline with Christ; it cuts off from 
fellowship in Christ's Body; it injures the Church by iso-
lating a precious member, bought with Christ's Blood. 

Worst of all, it uses what is Christ's for base purposes. 
As St. Paul says in his first Epistle to the Corinthians (vi. 
IS) about one kind of mortal sin: 

Know you not that your bodies are the members of 
Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and 
make them the members of a harlot? God forbid. 



37 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
His Position in God's Family Lost 

The sight of the prodigal son working in the pen of 
swine will give us some idea of the "come-down" of the 
prodigal Christian from the state of grace. He is living in 
shame and disgrace. His inheritance is gone. He is the 
shadow of his former self, cut off from his home and his 
father, and from the fellowship of his people. It would 
not be so bad if he had not had all these good things to 
begin with. But having all these, and casting them away 
"in one throw," makes his sin more drastic and more 
bitter. 

It is not God Who has separated Himself from the 
sinner, but the sinner who has separated himself from God. 
God cannot give grace back without the consent of the 
sinner. If the sinner dies, separated from God—a dead 
member of Christ's Body, a withered branch of Christ's 
Vine—his will is fixed in his sin for all eternity. God can-
not save such a man. The damned soul has damned itself 
to irrevocable loss. His bitterest punishment in hell is 
the eternal isolation from his loving Father and from His 
merciful Redeemer. 

There is little point in saying that God is too good to 
punish so severely. The unrepentant sinner puts a limit, 
so to speak, on the power of God: he is set against God, 
and God cannot save Him. We can get a dim idea of 
what this means when we see a stubborn child refusing all 
the kind words and comfort of its mother: the mother is 
powerless. God, of course, is all-powerful, and could force 
the sinner's will to repentance. But as the gift of God is 
free, so is it given only to man's free choice. Although 
love and union with God in Jesus is the Christian's des-
tiny, God will not force that love. But if the Christian 
refuses it, up to his death, he must face eternal isolation 
from God. That is hell's worst punishment, and he has 
no one to blame for it but himself. 



38 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
II 

The Repentant Prodigal 

God's Search for the Sinner 

But God "does not will the death of the sinner, but 
that he be converted, and live" (Ezechiel xviii. 23). There-
fore, God sends him reminders, warnings, hints—in a thou-
sand ways. Passing a church, seeing an accident, getting a 
letter from his mother, suffering an illness, finding no peace 
of mind, the sinner hears God tracking him down in the 
"labyrinthine ways" of his mind and heart. 

God caught up with the prodigal son in the swine pen. 
All things have failed the poor sinner, because he has failed 
God. What thought does God send him now to wake him 
up? 

How many hired servants in my father's house abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger! 
Now is a critical moment for him. Will he harden his 
heart, or will he swallow his false pride and admit he is 
in the wrong? Everything depends now on his answer. 
If he refuses this call of his father, he may never get an-
other: he may die an outcast. 

The Sinner's Contrition 

What does he say? 
I will arise, and will go to my father, and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee: I am not worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. 

This is his act of contrition, sincere and humble. It is 
not a wish: it is a decision. He rises up, shakes off the 
slough of his shameful life, and sets his face toward his 
father. 

But what will his father say? Will he close the door 
against him? Will he take him at his word, and make him 



39 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
like one of the hired servants? The prodigal son knows 
that whatever reception he gets he has deserved. 

When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, 
and was moved with compassion, and running to him 
fell upon his neck, and kissed him. 
No one knows the heavenly Father like Jesus, His Son. 

How carefully Jesus paints these details in the parable! 
Surely He is intent on having us understand how rich in 
mercy His Father is. It would be mercy enough for the 
prodigal's father to stand on his dignity, to wait until the 
servants had cleaned off the dirt of the sty from his son, 
to hold the offender in suspense, and then, finally, after 
accepting the confession, to give him room and board in 
the servants' quarters. But his love and his joy are too 
great for such cold mercy. No sooner does he see the 
familiar figure coming over the distant hilltop, than he 
goes out to meet him halfway, to embrace him, and give 
him the kiss of reconciliation—and this, even before the 
boy has said a word. "Such," Jesus teaches us, "is My 
heavenly Father toward His prodigal children." 

His Confession 

But the confession is necessary. The offender must 
accuse himself of his misdeeds. Now, in his father's em-
brace, he repeats the confession he had prepared before 
he started. 

Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before 
thee: I am not now worthy to be called thy son. 
The prodigal Christian makes his confession directly 

to one of God's priests. Some people say, not appreciat-
ing God's expressed will, "But why should I confess my 
sins to a man? I will confess them directly to the Father." 
That, of course, is choosing one's own way of going back 
to God. But the Father's will has been made known to 



40 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
us by Jesus; and Jesus entrusted the ministers of His 
Church, which is His Body, with the power of forgiving 
sins. 

Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are re-tained (John xx. 23). 
No matter how private a Christian's sin may be, it has 

a social consequence. As was said earlier in this chapter, 
the Christian's sin injures the Body of Christ of which he 
has been a member; it takes away from the Church his 
power of merit and grace; it often causes scandal and loss 
of grace to the other members of the Body. It is fitting, 
therefore, that confession be made, not only to God, but 
also to the Church which is Christ's Body on earth. The 
priest is, at one and the same time, God's minister and 
the Church's representative in receiving the confession of 
the Christian. 

This explains, also, the meaning of the penance which 
is assigned to the penitent. In union with Christ's merits, 
the prayers and good works given as a penance satisfy for 
the temporal punishment which is still due to sin even after 
the mortal guilt has been absolved; and at the same time, 
they help to pay back to the Church the good which was 
lost to her during the time of sin. 

I l l 
The Father's Mercy 

After the prodigal's confession, the father's forgive-
ness is complete and dramatic. He calls his servants: 

Bring forth quickly the first robe, and put it on him and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and make merry: because this my son was dead, and is come to life again: was lost, and is found. 



41 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
The Restoration of the Prodigal 

So does the heavenly Father to His prodigal Christians 
when they have sincerely repented, and confessed their 
sins. There is no stinginess in the divine Mercy. The 
first robe of grace again clothes the soul; the ring of the 
divine union again adorns it; the shoes of the divine pro-
tection again shield it from the roughness of the road; 
the banquet table of the Eucharist is again set for it; and 
there is joy in the Church, "more than for ninety-nine just 
who need not penance" (Luke xv. 7). 

When the builders were all but finished on the Panama 
Canal, there remained one last, obstructing dam. To re-
move it, twelve hundred and twenty-seven drills were used, 
and forty tons of dynamite. The power was turned on 
by a switch in the White House, three thousand miles 
away. One turn of the arm, and two oceans were joined. 

The priest's arm traces the sign of the cross in the 
shadows of the confessional, as he pronounces the words 
of absolution. Instantly, the ocean of God's mercy meets 
the ocean of the sinner's misery. Even if the sinner can-
not go to confession, but desires with all his heart to do 
so, and tells God he repents of his sins because they have 
offended a kind Father's love, God forgives him instantly 
and restores grace to him, so rich is God's mercy in His 
Son's sufferings and death.3 

CONCLUSION 
Three Wrong Attitudes 

Despite this bountiful mercy of God, there are many 
Christians whose attitude toward it is very unjust to Him. 

There is the careless person, flippant, easy-going, who 
rushes into, through, and out of confession, on the way to 
a show or a date. Innocent enough, perhaps, but very 

8 Even so, the intention of going to confession must be fulfilled: because it is the will of God that all mortal sins be submitted to sacramental absolution, even though they have already been forgiven by a perfect act of contrition. 



42 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
childishly thoughtless of Jesus' sufferings and of the heav-enly Father's embrace. 

Then there is the scrupulous person, distressed about 
his chances of salvation, struggling but never satisfied with 
his confessions, finding (or thinking he finds) sin in the 
most innocent occasions. He makes the sacrament of 
mercy and of peace an instrument of torture for himself, 
For him the kind father of our parable is a tyrant, easily 
offended, laying down hard conditions, never satisfied. 
Since this is not a treatise on scrupulosity, all that can be 
said here is, that when the trouble has gone very far the 
only remedy is absolute obedience to the confessor and 
blind trust in God. 

Lastly (and men, particularly, are like this) there is 
the person who thinks it easy to lose the state of grace, 
and so he goes to confession the last moment before going 
home, so that he may be sheltered until Communion the 
next morning; and then, after Communion, he breathes 
easier again for another month. But: God means the state 
of grace to be like fresh air and food: His Life flowing 
through our veins. It is not a hot-house plant that wilts 
in the heat and cold of daily living. It is a hardy peren-
nial, and if it is torn out of the soul, we have torn it out 
ourselves, knowingly and deliberately choosing a grievous 
sin. 

Questions 

Part I 
h What inheritance does the Christian receive from his heavenly Father? 
2. How does the Christian sin against his Father? 
3. Why is the Christian who is in mortal sin, a 

dead "branch" on the Vine of Christ? 
4. From what does the Christian in mortal sin cut himself off? 



43 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
5. What is the punishment of a Christian who dies 

in mortal sin? 
6. Does God force sinners to repent? 

Par t I I 
1. What warnings does God send the sinner to call 

him to repentance? 
2. Quote the words of the prodigal son in making 

up his mind to return to his father. 
3. What means must the Christian use in repenting 

of his sins? 
Par t I I I 

1. How was the prodigal son received by his father? 
2. What two reasons did the father give for rejoic-

ing in the return of his son? 
3. How does the heavenly Father receive the sinner? 
4. W h y can't we merely tell our sins secretly to 

God, without having to go to confession? 
5. Wha t should the Christian do when he cannot 

get to confession? 
Conclusion 

1. What is the only remedy for a scrupulous person? 
2. Wha t should be the normal state for the Chris-

tian, the state of sin or the state of grace? Why? 



CHAPTER V 

C H R I S T I A N W O R S H I P 

Doctrine: Christian Worship is the offering of Jesus 
to the Father, and the offering of ourselves through 
Jesus. 

PART I . The Offering of Jesus to the Father. 
1. The Glory of God in Nature. 
2. Perfect Glory of God through Jesus. 
3. Christ's Devotion to the Father. 
4. C h r i s t i a n W o r s h i p — "through Jesus 

Christ our Lord." 

PART I I . The Offering of Ourselves to the Father. 
1. Offering of the Whole Christ—Head and 

Members. 
2. Offering of Self with Jesus. 

PART I I I . The Mass: the Perfect Act of Christian 
Worship. 
1. Offering of the Head to the Father. 
2. Offering of the Members to the Father. 

4 4 



45 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
I 

The Offering of Jesus to the Father 

Right before the Pater Noster of 
the Mass, the priest takes the Body of 
Jesus, holds It over the chalice of the 
Blood, and says the majestic words: 

Through Him, and with Him, and 
in Him, is to Thee, God the Father 
Almighty, in the unity of the Holy 
Ghost, all honor and glory. 

Meditate seriously on this scene and on those words. 
They form the real essence of Christian worship. No other 
religion has anything remotely like it. Without an under-
standing of it, you cannot have a true notion of Christian 
prayer. 

The Glory of God in Nature 

The supreme purpose of life is the glory of God. All 
creatures were made for the honor and glory of God. Even 
the creatures without a soul bear silent witness to the 
glory of their Creator. The Psalmist knew this when he 
sang, 

The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the 
firmament declareth the work of His hands (Psalm 
xviii. 1). 

Each creature small or great, from stones to stars, is a 
reflection of the power and beauty of its Maker. It pays 
tribute to Him, as a fine statue does to its sculptor, or a 
beautiful painting to its painter. 

Higher up in the scale of creation is the realm of crea-
tures with life—the plants and the animals. Since they 
possess life, they bear greater witness to God's glory. In 
fulfilling the laws of their being, they give unwitting hom-
age to their Creator. 



46 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
We cannot have a whole view of the universe, great 

and small, unless we regard it as a marvelous symphony 
of order and power and beauty, bearing witness to the 
glory of God. 

God made man the master of this visible world, with 
a soul to know the True, a will to choose the Good, and a 
heart to love the Beautiful. Man is the mirror of creation, 
discovering with his mind its harmony and power. He is 
the voice of creation, expressing with words of understand-
ing and love its hidden meaning and its silent praise. The 
Holy Bible says, 

Hath not the Lord made the saints to declare all His wonderful works, which the Lord Almighty hath firmly settled to be established for His glory? (Ecclesias-ticus xlii. 17.) 
Perfect Glory of God Through Jesus 

Perfect glory is given to the Father by Jesus, His Son. 
Even at best, man's praise of God must fall far short of 
the ideal. The Scripture says, 

Glorify the Lord as much as ever you can, for He will yet far exceed, and His magnificence is wonderful (Ecclesiasticus xliii. 32). 
The praises of even the noblest philosophers and poets 
cannot do God justice. They are but men, and God is 
God: their praises in His presence are like sparks before 
the sun, or like a child's whisper in the surging music of 
a symphony orchestra. 

But in our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, the Father has 
given human beings an instrument of perfect worship. As 
the Son of God, He is the Word in the bosom of the 
Father Who perfectly expresses the Father's perfections. 
As the Epistle of the Third Mass on Christmas puts it, He 
is "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the figure of 
His substance, upholding all things by the word of His 



47 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
power" (Hebrews i. 3). As man, Jesus is one of us, hum-
bling Himself to the level of our humanity. As God, He 
is equal to the Father: as man, He is less than the Father, 
and can offer Him a true worship of humility, submission, 
and obedience. In Jesus, this worship is perfect, because 
it comes from the humanity of the God-Man. 

Christ, therefore, has at His disposal the only worship 
worthy of the Father. 

Christ's Devotion to the Father 

It will be instructive for us to consider, even briefly, 
what the Gospels tell us about Jesus' devotion to His 
Father. Like a concentrated flame, Jesus' whole being 
is directed to His Father: 

As the Father hath taught Me, these things I speak, 
and He that sent Me, is with Me, and He hath not left 
Me alone: for I do always the things that please Him 
(John viii. 28, 29). 
The Will of the Father is the supreme law to Jesus: 

Not My will, but Thine be done (Luke xxii. 42). 
My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that 

I may perfect His work (John iv. 34). 
Jesus' whole mission is to glorify His Father, by restoring 
all things to Him: 

I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished 
the work which Thou gavest Me to do (John xvii. 4). 

Jesus came into the world, therefore, not only for our sal-
vation, but also to give glory to His Father. The Re-
demption is not only Jesus' gift to man, but also His gift 
to the Father. Through it, He gives to the Father a wor-
ship which is without flaw or limit; and at the same time, 
He gives Himself to man as a Mediator and a High Priest 
of human worship. 



48 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
Christian Worship—"Through Jesus Christ 

Our Lord" 

Christ has incorporated His Christians into Himself: 
He has made them "one Body" with Himself. When they 
pray, the Father sees Jesus in them, praying with them 
and for them, and He cannot refuse the face of His beloved 
Son. 

If you ask the Father anything in My Name, He will give it you. Hitherto you have not asked any-thing in My Name. Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full (John xvi. 23, 24). 
When the Christian prays, the Father hears the voice of 
Jesus, for Jesus and His Christian are "one Body," one 
voice, one worshiper. 

We must remember, therefore, that even though Jesus 
is true God and is, consequently, worthy of divine worship, 
He has come among us not to be worshiped, but to wor-
ship: to unite Himself, the perfect Worshiper, with us poor 
human beings, so that we may give perfect glory to His 
Father. In our name, He has satisfied the Divine Justice 
with His wounds, spending His life's blood to purchase us 
from the bondage of sin; and in our name, He unites 
Himself with us to present to the Father a perfect homage 
of worship. 

How well the Church's prayer recognizes this doctrine! 
Almost all her orations end with the appeal: "through 
Jesus Christ our Lord." Many of us are very careless 
when we say this familiar conclusion in our prayers. We 
should say it thoughtfully, aware of our union with Jesus, 
and of the power which that gives to our prayer. 

II 
The Offering of Ourselves to the Father 

At this point the thought may bother some people: 
"This seems like a lazy kind of worship. Jesus makes all 



49 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
the offering, and all that's left for us to do is to offer up 
what He has offered. That's like spending someone else's 
money: it doesn't cost much. It seems that Christian wor-
ship should cost us something, too, as it did Jesus." 

The doctrine of Chapter III gives the answer to this 
difficulty. 

Offering of the Whole Christ 

Jesus offers His whole Self to the Father, i. e., Head 
and members, His Social Body. Jesus offers Himself, not 
alone as Head, but as Head and members. When Jesus 
presents Himself as the perfect offering to His Father, it 
is His complete self that He presents — Himself united 
with His members. You and I and every fellow Christian 
are gathered up into this offering of Jesus. 

Offering of Self With Jesus 

Now our action, when we offer Jesus to the Father, 
should correspond to Jesus' action, when He offers us. 
When we offer Jesus to the Father, we must offer ourselves 
with Him. We belong to Jesus, and we cannot offer Him 
without at the same time offering ourselves. This demands 
sacrifice; it demands generosity. Jesus' Sacrifice is com-
plete: so must ours be, in union with Him, holding noth-
ing back. 

We do not have to become priests or nuns to do this. 
Our heavenly Father expects the complete gift of self from 
every Christian, in union with the gift of His Son, Jesus: 
ourselves as we are — laborers, housekeepers, students, 
craftsmen, artists, in youth, in age, in sickness, in health, 
in poverty, in riches — ashamed of our sins, struggling, 
maybe falling, but rising again—hopeful and needy human 
beings. United with Jesus in one Body, we are not ashamed 
to present ourselves to the Father: as "one with Jesus," 
we are confident that we are "well pleasing" in the sight 
of the Father. 



s o T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
The M a s s — T h e Perfect Act of Christian Worship 

Hanging on the Cross, His life's Blood pouring out of 
His wounds for our salvation, our Redeemer completed His 
perfect offering to the Father. He wished that offering 
to be perpetual in His Church, and so He instituted the 
Eucharist as its living memorial. According to His com-
mand, His priests consecrate bread into His Body, and 
wine into His Blood. Each time the Holy Mass is offered, 
Jesus renews the Victim state of His separated Body and 
Blood.4 The offering of Calvary is made once again on 
our altar each time a priest celebrates the Holy Mass. 

Offering of the Head to the Father 

In the Mass, we offer Jesus to the Father. At the Con-
secration of the Mass, the Victim Body and Blood of our 
Redeemer become ours to offer to the Father, in adoration, 
in atonement, in thanksgiving, and in petition. Jesus gives 
Himself to us as an instrument of divine worship. At that 
precious time we can say to the Father: "This is Thy be-
loved Son in Whom Thou art well pleased: hear Ye Him, 
as we offer Him to Thee, and as He offers Himself for us." 

Offering of the Members to the Father 

In the Mass, we offer ourselves to the Father through 
Jesus. At the Offertory, the priest offers up the bread and 
wine which are to be consecrated into Jesus' Sacrifice. 
Bread and wine are the traditional symbols of the staff of 
life: they represent man's nourishment and man's handi-
work. For that reason (we may say) Christ chose them 
as the materials of His great Sacrament. 

When the Church, at the Offertory of the Mass, offers 
4 Not physically, as if He were again nailed and pierced, but sacramentally, "in an unbloody manner." 



51 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
the bread and the wine to God, she means at the same 
time to offer us. Our lives are represented by that pre-
cious food. Those who are assisting at the Mass are 
expected to offer themselves at that moment—the life of 
that day or of that week, with its devotion, its labor, its 
trials and temptations, its sufferings and its joys. We 
should place ourselves, in spirit, upon the holy plate and 
within the sacred cup in which the priest is offering the 
bread and wine. We should be generous, holding nothing 
back from the gift of ourselves to the Father. 

Now comes the wonderful exchange: Jesus changes 
our gift of bread and wine into His Body and Blood, by 
the consecrating words of the priest. At the same mo-
ment, He identifies our sacrifice of self with His: He 
gathers up our labors and sufferings and joys, which we 
had already presented at the Offertory, and He joins them 
with His own great Sacrifice of Calvary, and presents ours 
and His, together, to His Father. 

This is the supreme moment of Christian worship. It 
is the essence of the Christian Liturgy. Mortal man can 
do nothing more powerful, this side of the grave. Wars 
and treaties, conquests and discoveries and inventions, 
have been mighty instruments to change the human des-
tiny of the world. But all of them together cannot be com-
pared with the power of one Mass, in which the redeemed 
people of God, standing around their priest at the altar 
of the Holy Sacrifice, offer themselves to the Father in 
union with Jesus, as the priest lifts the Saviour's sacrificial 
Body and Blood, and prays, 

Through Him, and with Him, and in Him, is to Thee, 
God the Father Almighty, in the unity of the Holy 
Ghost, all honor and glory, forever and ever. Amen. 



52 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
Questions 

Par t I 
1. What is the supreme purpose of life? 
2. What part does man have in this supreme pur-

pose? 
3. What part does Jesus have in giving glory to the 

Father? 
4. How can Jesus, Who is equal to His Father, give 

adoration to the Father? 
5. Repeat three sayings of Jesus which show His 

devotion to the Father. 
,6. What does this phrase mean at the end of our 

prayers, "through J esus Christ our Lord"? 
7. Is this statement r ight or wrong: "The main ob-

ject of Christian worship is to adore Jesus"? 
Give a reason for your answer. 

Par t I I 
1. Wi th Jesus as our Mediator before the Father, 

is any part lef t to us in Christian worship? 
2. Can we offer ourselves to the Father without be-

ing joined to Jesus? Explain. 
Par t I I I 

1. What is the perfect act of Christian worship? 
2. At what part of the Mass do we offer ourselves 

to the Father? 
3. How do the g i f t s of bread and wine express the 

offer ing of our lives to the Father? 
4. At what part of the Mass does Jesus offer Him-

self and us to His Father? 
5. W h y is the Mass the most wonderful thing on 

earth? 



CHAPTER VI 
C H R I S T I A N LIFE 

Doctrine: In his labors, and trials, and death, the 
Christian expresses the Christ-Life within him. " I live, 
now not I, but Christ liveth in me." These works bene-
fit the Christian who performs them, by increasing 
within him the fruits of the Redemption. They also 
benefit the Church, the Body of Christ, by giving it an 
increase of grace and energy. 
INTRODUCTION. Holy Communion. 

1. The Food of the Soul. 
2. "Ite Missa Est"—"Go and live the Mass." 

PART I. The Christian's Work. 
1. His Vocation. 
2. His Way to Perfection. 

(a) Penance. 
(b) Imitation of Christ. 

PART II. The Christian's Suffering. 
1. Jesus' Acceptance of Suffering. 
2. Suffering—An Instrument of Redemp-

tion. 
3. Christ Suffers in Us. 

PART III. The Christian's Death. 
1. Dying with Jesus. 
2. Birthday Into Full Life. 
3. "Face to Face" with God. 

S3 



54 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 

1 INTRODUCTION Holy Communion Our heavenly Father accepts the offering we make to Him at Mass, of Jesus and of ourselves. He knows we will need strength to be faithful to it throughout the pressure and tedium of daily living. So He gives us a Divine Food. It is His gift in return for ours. We have offered Him the Body and Blood of His Son as a Sacrifice. He 
returns them now as our Food . . . "Come and eat." 

Our action at Mass is not complete if we do not go to 
Holy Communion. We have finished making our gift to 
God. Now that God is ready to respond to us, by giving 
us the Flesh and Blood of His Son as our Food, we cut 
Him short. We stay away from His Table. We as much 
as say, "I do not want your Gift." 

The Food of the Soul 

Communion is not a prize for being good. It is Food 
for the hungry; it is Medicine for the sick; it.is Nourish-
ment for the weak. We should not say, "I'm not good 
enough to go to Holy Communion." Who is good enough? 
No one: not even the holiest priest; not even the Popé. 
We should rather say, "I'm a poor sinner, wayward and 
weak—just the kind of unsatisfactory beggar for whom 
God has made Holy Communion." 

The only spiritual conditions which the Church re-
quires of us for receiving Communion are, that we be free 
of mortal sin,5 and that we have a desire for this sacred 
Food. 

5 I.e., certain that we are guilty on the three counts: grievous matter, suffi-cient reflection, full consent. 



55 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 

We will please God, then, if we approach the Holy Table 
more often, and so complete our part in divine worship. 

" G o and Live the M a s s " 

At the close of the Mass, the priest says to the people, 
"Ite Missa Est." This is a signal for dismissal, like the 
tap of a chairman's gavel. But it is at the same time a 
challenge to the congregation: "Go now, out into your 
world, and live your Mass. Be a living Eucharist—in your 
home, on the street, in the shop and office—with your 
friends, with your superiors, with your fellow workers, 
with your enemies. You are a living Christ wherever you 
go. It is in you, and with you, that He still goes about^ 
the world, doing good." . 

This last chapter will develop the theme of the Christ-
life as it works itself out in the daily life of the Christian. 

I 
The Christian's Work 

His Vocation 

In a certain sense it is true to say that the Christian's 
vocation is in whatever way of life God's Providence has 
led him to. For some people, the will of God is expressed 
in a clear bent of the soul to the religious life, or to mar-
riage, or to some career. For others, the will of God is in-
directly manifested by an unavoidable combination of cir-
cumstances—for instance, as when a parent becomes an in-
valid, and no one is left to give support and care except an 
unmarried son or daughter. < 

Whatever it may be, the fact remains that the Chris-
tian brings to his" way of life a special character. It is the 
character of the Christ-life. He is Christ at work. Christ 
works with his hands, speaks through his voice, looks 
through his eyes. It is worse than the Judas-kiss, when 
his hands do evil, when his lips speak evil, when his eyes 



56 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
dwell on evil. That is taking Christ's members and using 
them for Satan. 

Does this being a ,Christ-bearer seem a hard burden? 
But think of the immense compensations it brings. Our 
way is hard and toilsome, full of nettles and dust; we grow 
weary, discouraged; we are battered by temptation; we 
are beaten hard by life. But Christ is in us. He bears it 
all with us. He makes it part of His own Calvary. He 
asks us to bear the cross—not after Him, but with Him. 

In Christ, we are one with the whole Body of our 
fellow Christians. Our labors are not sterile. Whether 
it be on the assembly line, or at the mangle of a laundry, 
or behind the wheel of a truck, if the Christian does his 
work in union with Christ, it receives a heavenly value 
from Him, and the power of it goes out from us to our 
fellow members in Christ's Body. Perhaps economically, 
or socially, we seem to get nowhere. But spiritually, we 
are "laying up treasures in heaven." 

This community of our labors with those of Christ and 
of our co-members in His Body gives them a dignity which 
raises them above the dinginess of their surroundings, and 
makes them dynamic with spiritual power. 

"Workers of the world, unite!" is the Communist ral-
lying cry. The Christian worker knows that he is united 
with his fellow workers by a stronger bond than that of 
his drudging work: for he has the bond of kinship with 
Christ and all Christians. He has more than the brawn 
and sweat of his body in common with them: he has the 
life of Christ coursing through his soul. He says to his 
fellow workers, not "Comrades!" but "Brothers!" 

His Way to Perfection 

In the Christian's daily living, there is a discipline and 
an order which are aimed to help him overcome evil habits, 
and to acquire more and more a likeness to Christ. There 
are many traces of the old Adam still within us. Our Cate-



57 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 

chism calls them the seven Capital Sins: Pride, Covetous-
ness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy, and Sloth. These work 
the opposite way to the grace that is within us. They are 
forces on the side of death. Grace is on the side of life. 

(a) Penance 
The issue depends upon us. Shall we work with the 

one, or with the other? If we give way to the vicious side 
of our nature, the Christ-life in us will die out, like a plant 
strangled by weeds. But if, by discipline and penance, 
we mortify the deeds of the flesh, the Christ-life in us will 
increase and be strengthened. _ _ 

The Christian, then, is a man of discipline. This is not 
to say that he has no joy in life, or that he may take no 
•pleasure in the good things of God. He has the "good 
news" of salvation; he has the Christ-life in his soul; he 
has found genuine happiness. By comparison, the pleasures 
of the world, the flesh, and the devil are a cheap price to 
pay. But like the wise merchant of the parable, he pays 
them gladly that he may possess "the pearl of great price." 

Our monks go robed in rain and snow 
But the heart of flame therein, 
But you go clothed in feasts and flames 

When all is ice within; 
Nor shall all iron dooms make dumb 

Men wondering ceaselessly, 
If it be not better to fast for joy 

Than feast for misery. 
So sang King Alfred to the pagan Danish invaders of 

his kingdom, in G. K. Chesterton's Ballad of the White 
Horse. It is true not only of the monks, but of every 
faithful Christian. He mortifies himself, particularly on 
the prescribed days of fast and abstinence, and in the 
Lenten season; he makes it a point, on occasion, to give 
up an innocent pleasure—a show, or a party, or a dance. 



58 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
If he is a true Christian, he lives in the spirit of St. Eliza-
beth of Hungary, who could not bear to wear her golden 
crown when she beheld her Crucified Saviour with a crown 
of thorns. If we possess Jesus within us, we must have 
some portion of His Cross, by voluntary penance and self-
denial. 

(b) The Imitation of Christ 
Besides mortification, the Christian must practice the 

imitation of Christ, if he wishes to become perfect. "Learn 
of Me," Jesus said (Matthew xi. 29). We must study the 
Gospels, to see how Jesus spoke and acted. They are, so to 
speak, our book of etiquette. It ought to be in our hands 
frequently, to be meditated on, to be mastered by heart. 

In the social etiquette books you have the portrait of. 
the perfect lady, and of the perfect gentleman. In the 
Gospels, you have the portrait of the perfect Christian. 
But never forget that you already bear the perfect Chris-
tian within you, by the state of grace. Your program of 
conduct should aim simply to give Him more and more 
freedom of action through you: less and less of your own 
Ego, more and more of Christ. "I must decrease; He 
must increase," as John the Baptist said of Jesus (John 
iii. 30). 

II 
The Christian's Suffering 

I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His Body, which is the Church (Colossians i. 24). 
The note of joy in suffering is something special to the 

Gospel: you do not find it in the world before Christ. The 
ancient philosophers taught two ways of facing the ills of 
life: one of them was the way of pride—"keeping a stiff 
upper lip," and shedding no tears; the other was the way of 



59 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
distraction—"eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you 
die." They regarded misfortune and suffering as a waste. 
They accepted it in a spirit of defiance. There is a line in 
one of their greatest dramas, "Who but a god goes wound-
less all his way?" (Aeschylus, "Agamemnon.") 

Jesus' Acceptance of Suffering 

Jesus gave the world a new view of suffering: 
(1) He Himself accepted suffering with all its anguish. 

Even God now bears the wounds of pain. We may know 
very little about the dark mystery of suffering; but one 
thing we do know with joy: that ever since Calvary, suf-
fering has the power to make men like unto Jesus. 

Suffer ing—An Instrument of Redemption 

(2) He made suffering the instrument of the Redemp-
tion. One prayer of Jesus would have been enough to save 
the world. But He chose to drain the chalice of bitterness. 
By so doing, He gave all human suffering the power of re-
demption. No longer need it be a waste. When it is of-
fered in union with Jesus' sufferings, it bears the fruit of 
salvation. 

Christ Suffers in Us 

(3) He undergoes our sufferings with us. This is a 
direct consequence of the Christ-life within us. St. Paul 
said, "I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Galatians 
ii. 20). Christian sufferers can say, "I suffer, now not I, 
but Christ suffereth in me." When St. Felicitas, the slave-
girl whose name we honor in the Canon of the Mass, was 
groaning in prison with the travail of her pregnancy, one 
of the jailers mocked her, asking her how, if she cried with 
that pain, would she expect to endure death by the wild 
beasts. Her answer is one of the golden texts of Church 
History: "Now I suffer what I suffer; but then, Another 



6 0 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
will be in me Who will suffer for me, as I shall suffer for 
Him. 

Since, therefore, Jesus and I are yokemates in suffer-
ing, it will be rude and ungracious of me to be peevish in 
misfortune, to complain and whine under the cross. If that 
is my reaction, I deprive myself of salutary penance; and 
I deprive the Church of fruitful graces. But if I have the 
right spirit, I will say, "After all, I have been a scapegrace 
to God, an unprofitable child. He asks me now to bear 
the cross of Jesus in penance. It is not more than I de-
serve, for I have been a sinner; and yet it is more than I 
deserve, for it is a great privilege to be crucified with 
Jesus. Over and above what I need to atone for my sins, 
I offer the rest for the Church, like those hundreds of sick 
who are brought on Pentecost to the basilica of Mont-
martre in Paris that they may offer their pains, like a great 
sacrifice around the altar of the Mass, for the Missions of 
the Church." 

I l l 
The Christian's Death 

The poet, Browning, says in "Rabbi Ben Ezra": 
Grow old along with me! 
The best is yet to be, 
The last of life, for which the first was made. 

Death is the last great penalty of Adam which all his 
children must pay. The Redemption, which Jesus, the sec-
ond Adam, accomplished by His death, changes this final 
penalty from defeat to victory. 

Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? 0 death, where is thy sting? (1 Corin-thians xv. 54, 55.) 
In the Requiem Mass, the Church consoles us with this 

reminder: 



61 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
Unto Thy faithful, O Lord, life is changed, not 

taken away, and, the abode of this earthly sojourn be-
ing dissolved, an eternal dwelling is prepared in heaven. 
—(Preface of the Dead.) 

Dying With Jesus 

Jesus died for our sins: we also, His members, ought 
to die. 

Jesus gave us life and resurrection by His death: it is 
by our death, also, that we shall live. 

The Christian's death should not be a collapse, or a de-
feat. In Christ and with Christ, it should be an act of 
sacrifice, a "beau geste," a handing over to God: "Into Thy 
hands, 0 Lord, I commend my spirit." 

A special, unmerited grace is necessary for it: the grace 
of final perseverance. A.special Sacrament of Redemption 
is ordained for it: the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. By 
this Sacrament, Christ's grace anoints and seals the five 
senses, which were the instruments of sin, and fortifies the 
soul for its last sacrifice. 

Each day, the faithful Christian should pray the in-
vocation of the Litany, "From a sudden and unprovided 
death, O Lord, deliver us." When he joins himself to 
Jesus' Sacrifice at the Holy Mass, he should offer up, not 
only his life, but also his death, with all the pains and 
sufferings which may precede it. 

To any Christian who, with true love of God, makes 
the intention of accepting patiently from the hand of God 
whatever kind of death it may be his lot to bear, the 
Church grants a plenary indulgence, applicable at the hour 
of death under the prescribed conditions of Confession, 
Communion, and prayers for the Holy Father's intentions; 
as often as that intention is made, there is granted a fur-
ther indulgence of seven years: so careful is the Church to 
have us prepare for a holy death in Jesus Christ. 



62 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
Birthday Into Full Life 

The Christians of the early Church spoke of the day 
of death as a birthday. For indeed this life is like a life in 
the womb: a life of shadow; where we see "as in a glass, 
darkly"; where we live by faith, not by sight; where our 
Christ-life is restricted and confined. 

"Face to Face" With God 

But death is our birth into eternity: a life of light, 
where we see, "face to face"; where we live by sight; 
where our Christ-life reaches its fullness, and "Christ is all 
in all." Then we shall see God, even as now He sees us, 
and seeing Him shall be our unending joy: we shall see Him 
with the eyes of Jesus, praise Him with the voice of Jesus, 
know Him with the mind of Jesus, love Him with the love 
of Jesus—all of us, one Body in Jesus, the Communion of 
Saints, the chorus of the Redeemed, the Family of God's 
children united in the life of the Divine Son to the unend-
ing glory and praise of the Father. 

Questions 

Introduction 
1. How is Holy Communion the completion of the Mass? 
2. Why is it incorrect to regard Holy Communion as a reward for the good? 
3. What should the "Ite Missa Est" tell the con-gregation? 

Part I 
1. What does the Catholic worker have different 

from his non-Christian comrade? 
2. What is the chief good of penance and self-sacrifice? 



63 T H E R E D E M P T I O N 
3. W e know that Christ dwells within us, by the 

state of grace. Wha t light does that throw upon 
our imitation of Christ? 

Par t I I 
1. W h y does the Christian's suffer ing have a re-

demptive power? 
2. Expla in : " I suffer , now not I, but Christ suffers 

in me." 
3. W h y is it wrong for the Christian to complain 

about his suffer ings and trials? 
Par t I I I 

1. Does our death contribute to our Redemption? 
Explain. 

2. Wha t special grace is given by God for a good 
death? 

3. Wha t special Sacrament do we receive in danger 
of death? 

4. W h y is it correct to speak of "a happy death"? 
5. Explain the special indulgence which the Church 

grants to those who make an act of resignation to 
God concerning their death. 

6. What t ru th was there in the early Christians' 
calling the day of death a birthday? 



Christian, acknowledge thy dignity! 
Thou art a partner in the Divine na ture : refuse to re-

turn to the old baseness by degenerate conduct. 
Remember the Head and the Body of which thou art a 

member. 
Recollect that thou wert rescued f rom the power of 

darkness and brought into God's light and kingdom. 
By the mystery of Baptism thou wert made the temple 

of the Holy Ghost : do not put such a guest to flight by 
base acts, nor subject thyself once more to the devil's 
thraldom: because thy purchase money is the Blood of 
Christ ; because He shall judge thee in t ru th Who ran-
somed thee in mercy.—From a Christmas Sermon of Pope 
St. Leo the Great (died 461 A. D.).