Ecce ascendimus Ierosolymam: Lent Is coming...

Ecce ascendimus Ierosolymam, et consummabuntur omnia quæ scripta sunt per prophetas de Filio hominis. (From the Gospel for the Sunday in Quinquagesima, Luke xviii, 31: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things shall be accomplished which were written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man.)

Christianity is as old as the world; for it consists, essentially, in the idea of a God -- Creator, Legislator, and Savior -- and in a life conformable to that idea. Now, God manifested himself to the human race from the beginning under the threefold relation of Creator, Legislator, and Savior, and from the beginning, from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Jesus Christ, there have been men who lived conformably with this idea of God.

Three times before Jesus Christ, God manifested himself to men in this threefold character: by Adam, the first father of the human race; by Noah, the second father of the human race; and by Moses, the lawgiver of a People whose influence and existence have mixed them up with all the destinies of mankind.

There exists, however, a fact not less remarkable, namely, that Christianity only started its reign in the world eighteen hundred years ago, with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ appears to have been the first who brought light into the world. Before him, as Saint John said, "it shined in darkness". But what is the cause of this? How is it that Christianity, vanquished in the world before Jesus Christ, has been victorious in it since his coming? How is it that Christianity, before Jesus Christ, "did not hinder the nations from following their ways", and that Jesus Christ, on the contrary, was able to pronounce that sentence of eternal victory, "In mundo pressuram habebitits, sed confidite, ego vici mundum"?

What new thing is it then that Jesus Christ has accomplished? Is it the sacrifice on Calvary? The Lamb of God that takes aways the sins of the world "was slain from the beginning of the world". ... Is it the Gospel? The Gospel, after all, is but the Word of God, and that word, after many trials, did not change the world. Is it the sacraments? The sacraments are only the channels of grace, and the grace of God, although less abundant, without doubt had not ceased continually to flow to men before Jesus Christ. What new thing, then, did Jesus Christ accomplish? By what means did he secure the eternal duration of the victory obtained on Calvary?

Listen to his own words, he will say them to you: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her". This is the work which was to subjugate forever hell and the world, which would everyday renew the Sacrifice of the Savior, maintain and diffuse his doctrines, distribute his grace! ... this Church, "the pillar and ground of the truth"...[is] destined to the universal and perpetual instruction of the human race.

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences à Notre-Dame de Paris (1835)

Lent and Transfiguration: "The miracle of our transfiguration is accomplished in Catholic doctrine"

Assumpsit Iesus Petrum, et Iacobum, et Ioannem fratrem eius, et duxit illos in montem excelsum seorsum: et transfiguratus est ante eos. Et resplenduit facies eius sicut sol: vestimenta autem eius facta sunt alba sicut nix. (From the Gospel for Ember Saturday in Lent and for the Second Sunday in Lent, Matthew xvii, 1-2: "Jesus took Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart: and He was transfigured before them. And His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became white as snow.")

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It is easy for me... to show that Catholic doctrine enjoys a superhuman moral efficacy, even as a consequence of the interaction which it keeps between man and God. Now, in virtue of what does Catholic doctrine operate this superhuman transformation in the soul? Is it directly? Is it simply because it says to us, "Be humble, be chaste, be apostles, be brethren"?

Natus ad hoc

Hæc dicit Dominus Deus: Egredietur virga de radice Iesse, et flos de radice eius ascendet. (From the Lesson for Ember Friday in Advent, Isaias xi,1: "Thus saith the Lord God: There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.")

[T]he Messianic idea assumed in Isaias a clearness and an abundance of expression which it is impossible to render to you, since I should weary you by the number and length of the passages I should have to cite.

It is he who sees the Messiah springing from the race of Jesse, the father of David, and who at the same time describes, as if from Calvary or the Vatican, the glory of the sufferings and triumphs of Jesus Christ. "Arise, arise, put on thy strength, O Sion; put on the garments of thy glory, O Jerusalem, the city of the Holy One: for henceforth the uncircumcised and unclean shall no more pass through thee"; "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, and that preacheth peace: of him that showeth forth good, that preacheth salvation, that saith to Sion: Thy God shall reign". "The Lord hath prepared His holy arm in the sight of all the Gentiles, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God." "Behold my servant shall understand, he shall be exalted and extolled, and he shall be exceeding high. As many have been astonished at thee so shall his visage be inglorious among men, and his form among the sons of men. He shall sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouth at him: for they to whom it was not told of him have seen, and they that heard not have beheld."

Lent Ember Week with Lacordaire: Catholic doctrine cannot speak "to man only of man"

Assumpsit Iesus Petrum, et Iacobum, et Ioannem fratrem eius, et duxit illos in montem excelsum seorsum: et transfiguratus est ante eos. Et resplenduit facies eius sicut sol: vestimenta autem eius facta sunt alba sicut nix. (From the Gospel for Ember Saturday in Lent and for the Second Sunday in Lent, Matthew xvii, 1-2: "Jesus took Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart: and He was transfigured before them. And His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became white as snow.")

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It is easy for me... to show that Catholic doctrine enjoys a superhuman moral efficacy, even as a consequence of the interaction which it keeps between man and God. Now, in virtue of what does Catholic doctrine operate this superhuman transformation in the soul? Is it directly? Is it simply because it says to us, "Be humble, be chaste, be apostles, be brethren"?

Ah..., but everyone says this to us more or less earnestly: there is not a man steeped in pride who has not invoked the humility of others; not a man drowned in sensuality who was not invoked the purity of his victims; not a man who has not invoked apostleship to propagate his ideas, and fraternity to establish his empire! But the ear of man remains closed to those invitations of selfishness, or to those dreams of reason; it listens to them without hearing; it hears, without obeying.

Catholic doctrine would have succeeded no better, if it had spoken to man only of man; if it had proposed to him, as the spring of its action, only his interest, his duty even, and his dignity. To render man humble, chaste, apostle, brother, it has taken its basis outside of him: it has placed it in God.

It is in the name of God, by the power of the relationship which it has created between God and ourselves, by the efficacy of its dogmas, of its worship, and of its sacraments, that it changes within us that corpse which rebels against virtue; that it reanimates it, resuscitates it, purifies it, transforms it, clothes it with the glory of Tabor, and having thus armed it from head to toe, sends it forth into the distress of the world, as a new man, still feeble by nature, but strengthened by God, towards Whom his unceasing aspiration ascends.

It is thus ... that the miracle of our transfiguration is accomplished in Catholic doctrine: humility, chastity, charity, and all the interior elevations which result from these are but effects of a higher virtue giving the movement to all the rest. Without religion, without the interaction of soul and God, the whole Christian edifice crumbles -- consequently, that interaction, which is the keystone of the arch, is efficacious in a superhuman manner, since it bears man above humanity.

[H]umility, chastity, the charity of apostleship and of fraternity, obedience, penitence, voluntary poverty...are but branches of a single stream. [T]here is a stream into which merge all those scattered virtues which I have named: and that stream is sanctity.

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris (1844)

Septuagesima: Christianity is as old as the world

Septuagesimatide is the Season of new beginnings: beginning with the first words of Genesis, in this Sunday's Matins, traditional Priests and religious, and all those who follow the prayers of the Breviary, receive the yearly teaching from the Traditional Liturgy of the Latin Church that 'Christianity is as old as the world'. From the Creation and the Fall of Adam this week, to the Redemptive Sacrifice in Calvary during Passiontide and Holy Week, the Church welcomes all Catholics to the immemorial lessons that flow from her ancient rites and prayers.

Christianity is as old as the world; for it consists, essentially, in the idea of a God -- Creator, Legislator, and Savior -- and in a life conformable to that idea. Now, God manifested himself to the human race from the beginning under the threefold relation of Creator, Legislator, and Savior, and from the beginning, from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Jesus Christ, there have been men who lived conformably with this idea of God.

Three times before Jesus Christ, God manifested himself to men in this threefold character: by Adam, the first father of the human race; by Noah, the second father of the human race; and by Moses, the lawgiver of a People whose influence and existence have mixed them up with all the destinies of mankind.

There exists, however, a fact not less remarkable, namely, that Christianity only started its reign in the world eighteen hundred years ago, with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ appears to have been the first who brought light into the world. Before him, as Saint John said, "it shined in darkness". But what is the cause of this? How is it that Christianity, vanquished in the world before Jesus Christ, has been victorious in it since his coming? How is it that Christianity, before Jesus Christ, "did not hinder the nations from following their ways", and that Jesus Christ, on the contrary, was able to pronounce that sentence of eternal victory, "In mundo pressuram habebitits, sed confidite, ego vici mundum"?

What new thing is it then that Jesus Christ has accomplished? Is it the sacrifice on Calvary? The Lamb of God that takes aways the sins of the world "was slain from the beginning of the world". ... Is it the Gospel? The Gospel, after all, is but the Word of God, and that word, after many trials, did not change the world. Is it the sacraments? The sacraments are only the channels of grace, and the grace of God, although less abundant, without doubt had not ceased continually to flow to men before Jesus Christ. What new thing, then, did Jesus Christ accomplish? By what means did he secure the eternal duration of the victory obtained on Calvary? Listen to his own words, he will say them to you: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her". This is the work which was to subjugate forever hell and the world, which would everyday renew the Sacrifice of the Savior, maintain and diffuse his doctrines, distribute his grace! ... this Church, "the pillar and ground of the truth"...[is] destined to the universal and perpetual instruction of the human race.

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences à Notre-Dame de Paris (1835)

Natus ad hoc: The Messiah

Ecce servus meus, suscipiam eum; electus meus, complacuit sibi in illo anima mea: dedi spiritum meum super eum: iudicium gentibus proferet. (Matins, First Reading, Tuesday in the Fourth Week in Advent. "Behold my servant, I will uphold him: my elect, my soul delighteth in him: I have given my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." Is., xlii, 1)

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At the approach of decadence and captivity — seven hundred years, however, before Jesus Christ — the Messianic idea assumed in Isaiah a clearness and an abundance of expression which it is impossible to render to you, since I should weary you by the number and length of the passages I should have to cite. It is he who sees the Messiah springing from the race of Jesse, the father of David, and who at the same time describes, as if from Calvary or the Vatican, the glory of the sufferings and triumphs of Jesus Christ. "Arise, arise, put on thy strength, O Sion; put on the garments of thy glory, O Jerusalem, the city of the holy One: for henceforth the uncircumcised and unclean shall no more pass through thee." " How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, and that preacheth peace: of him that showeth forth good, that preacheth salvation, that saith to Sion: Thy God shall reign!'" "The Lord hath prepared his holy arm in the sight of all the Gentiles, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God." "Behold my servant shall understand, he shall be exalted and extolled, and he shall be exceeding high. As many have been astonished at thee so shall his visage be inglorious among men, and his form among the sons of men. He shall sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouth at him: for they to whom it was not told of him have seen, and they that heard not have beheld." 

And, immediately afterwards, Isaiah begins the description of the sufferings and ignominies of Calvary, which he completes in twelve consecutive verses. Then he continues resuming his hymns of triumph: "He that hath made thee shall rule over thee, the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer, the holy One of Israel, shall be called the God of all the earth."

Lacordaire: A Protestant is his own unity

O altitudo divitiarum sapientiae et scientiæ Dei: quam incomprehensibilia sunt iudicia eius, et investigabiles viæ eius! Quis enim cognovit sensum Domini? (From the Lesson for Trinity Sunday, Rm xi: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible and His judgments and how unsearchable His ways! For Who has known the mind of the Lord?") 

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You will perhaps ask why God has left so many questions open to discussion. You might as well ask why God has not revealed everything. 

Now God has revealed the principles in order to serve as foundations, He has not done exactly the same with the consequences, in order to give our liberty play, like a mother who holds her child up by leading strings, but is delighted to see him try and walk like a man. You must bear in mind too, that this infallibility may, at any moment, transfer ideas from the realm of opinion to that of dogma, and consequently from the free to the necessary order. A simple decision of the Church works this change, and she never withholds that decision from the human race in case of need.

Seated in the midst of minds, unchangeable like God, whose Spirit she has, the Church diffuses in a wonderful manner light and heat, drawing to herself every soul of good will, judging human ideas by the standard of divine ones, and welding together in admirable peace the very differences she allows to exist among her children. Their liberty gives her no uneasiness, for she knows on the one hand, the point at which she will check them, and on the other she is certain they will stop at her bidding. It is much the same kind of feeling as that of God about the ocean.

On the contrary, Protestant liberty recognises no bounds, and is destructive of all unity. ... He [the Protestant] is his own unity: in other words, his unity is something essentially variable, a cloud, a dew drop. His individuality itself does not constitute unity: he is alone without the possibility of being one; God is one without being able to be alone, and His Church in like manner.

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire

Letter to a young man 

Solesmes, June 24, 1838

[Trans. Fr. James Trenor]

Lacordaire in Advent: The Messiah

Ecce servus meus, suscipiam eum; electus meus, complacuit sibi in illo anima mea: dedi spiritum meum super eum: iudicium gentibus proferet. (Matins, First Reading, Tuesday in the Fourth Week in Advent. "Behold my servant, I will uphold him: my elect, my soul delighteth in him: I have given my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." Is., xlii, 1)

Lacordaire in Advent: A Hidden God

Itaque nolite ante tempus iudicare, quoadusque veniat Dominus: qui et illuminabit abscondita tenebrarum, et manifestabit consilia cordium: et tunc laus erit unicuique a Deo. (From the Epistle for the Fourth Sunday in Advent - I Cor. iv, 5: "Therefore judge not before the time; until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall every man have praise from God.")

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God is the fullness of substance, the fullness of force, the fulness of law; he is infinite substance, absolute force, eternal law. He is yet more, he is the center of all substances, their creator and preserver; the center of all forces, their beginning and their end; the center of all laws, their principle, their sanction, and their majesty. 

As beings are thus formed, from the atom even to God, every being is able to manifest itself in a three-fold manner, namely, by its substance, by its force, or by its law. By its substance, thus bodies appear to us; by its force, thus the soul reveals itself to us; by its law, thus the heavenly bodies, even when invisible, are anticipated by the astronomer through the general movement that governs them, withholding or bearing them away from our view. And consequently God may manifest himself as substance, as force, and as law; as the center of all substances, of all forces, and of all laws. For if an atom possesses the magnificent power of disclosing itself, if from its very dust and nothingness it imposes itself upon our vision, enters our academies, provokes discussion, exhausts our learning for ages, how much more should God possess the right and power to disclose himself! A being that does not do this, is not. For the vocation of every being, without exception, is to appear, to take a field of action and to act in it: and as there is no action without manifestation, to appear is to live. And as God is life, his sole work is evidently his appearing, radiating, conquering; in a word, being in all what he is, namely, the king of substances, the king of forces, the king of laws.

It is true, he now hides his substance from us men, and we may exclaim with the prophet: "Verily, thou art a hidden God!" But if he withholds from us that direct vision of himself, it is not from weakness or from envy, it is from respect for our liberty and for the very relationship which he would have with us. Had we at once seen his substance, the overwhelming splendor of that manifestation would have taken from our soul all its freedom of action; we should have adored God in spite of ourselves, whilst the adoration which God claims from us, and which he has a right to claim, is an adoration of choice and love, springing from our soul and reaching to his own.

It was needful then that God should manifest himself without dazzling our vision and making us the slaves of his beauty; it was needful that we should see him without seeing him, that we should be sure of his presence without being oppressed by it; and this is why he has hidden his substance from us whilst he leaves to us his light, as the sun sometimes gathers clouds to lessen his splendor, remaining still visible in the midst of heaven.

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris (1846)

Lacordaire in Advent: "A star shall rise out of Jacob"

Montes Israel, ramos vestros expandite, et florete, et fructus facite: Prope est ut veniat dies Domini. (Response to First Lesson in Matins, Tuesday in the Second Week of Advent, Roman Breviary - cf. Ez. xxxvi)

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Isaac, the son of Abraham, hears the same promise and the same prophecy; they are repeated to Jacob, the son of Isaac. The three first Hebrew generations, thus confirmed in the hope of the Messiah, spread out in twelve patriarchs, fathers of twelve tribes; and Jacob, about to die, assembles them around his bed to close the first Messianic age by a solemn prophecy, which sums up the preceding ones, giving, at the same time, additional precision to them. Surrounded, then, by his twelve children, he announces to each of them, by some characteristic traits, what will be his lot in the future. 

Having arrived at Judah, he says these memorable words to him: "Judah, thee shall thy brethren praise: thy hands shall be on the necks of thy enemies; the sons of thy father shall bow down to thee. Judah is a lion's whelp: to the prey, my son, thou art gone up: resting thou hast couched as a lion, and as a lioness: who shall rouse him? The sceptre shall not be taken away from Judah, nor a ruler from his thigh, till he come that is to be sent, and he shall be the expectation of nations."

Thus, at the moment when the patriarchal inheritance becomes subdivided into twelve branches, the branch from which the Messiah is to be born is designated; it is to be that of Judah; and the day predestined for the appearance of the Messiah is marked by a sign which posterity will easily recognise.

Jesus Christ, "the immortal King of souls", and his Vicar

Gloria, laus et honor tibi sit, Rex Christe Redemptor: Cui puerile decus prompsit Hosanna pium. (from the Anthem for the Procession of Palms, on Palm Sunday: Glory, praise and honor to Thee, O Christ, King Redeemer: to whom children poured their glad and sweet hosanna's song.)

Jesus Christ claimed the soul; He claimed that it should be free to know Him, to love Him, to adore Him, to pray to Him, to unite with Him. He did not admit that any other than Himself had right over the soul, and above all the right of hindering the soul from communicating with Him.

Yet there is much more than this: Jesus Christ claimed the public union of souls in His service; He knew nothing of secrecy; He demanded a clear and social worship. The liberty of the soul implied the right to found material and spiritual churches, to assemble, to pray together, to hear in common the Word of God, that substantial food of the soul which is its daily bread, and of which it can be deprived only by an act of sacrilegious homicide. The liberty of the soul implied the right of practising together all the ceremonies of public worship, of receiving the sacrament of eternal life, of living together by the Gospel and Jesus Christ.

None upon earth possessed any longer the government of sacred things, but the anointed of the Lord initiated the chosen souls into a larger faith and love, tested by the successors of the apostles, sanctified by ordination. All the rest, princes and peoples, were excluded from the administration of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, that divine centre of the kingdom of souls, and which it was not meet to deliver to dogs, according to the forcible expression of the most gentle Gospel.

But as the soul is the basis of man, by creating the liberty of the soul, Jesus Christ, at the same time, created the liberty of man. The Gospel, as the regulator of the rights and duties of all, rose to the power of a universal charter, which became the measure of all legitimate authority, and which, in hallowing it, preserved it from the excesses into which human power had everywhere fallen. On this account, the kingdom of souls was absolutely the very opposite of the Roman Empire, and it was impossible to imagine a more complete antagonism. The Roman Empire was universal servitude; the kingdom of souls, universal liberty. Between them it was a question of being or not being. The struggle was inevitable; it was to be a deadly struggle.

Now, what force did the kingdom of souls dispose of against that empire covered with legions? None. The Forum? It was no more. The Senate? It was no more. The people? They were no more. Eloquence? It was no more. Thought? It was no more. Was it at least permitted to the first Christians whom the Gospel had raised up in the world to gather one against a hundred thousand for the combat? No, that was not permitted to them.

What then was their strength? The same that Jesus Christ had before them. They had to confess His name and then to die, die today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, to die one after another, that is to say, to vanquish servitude by the peaceful exercise of the liberty of the soul; to vanquish force, not by force, but by virtue.

It had been said to them: If for three centuries you can boldly say, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was dead, and is risen again"; if for three centuries you can say this openly, and die daily after haying declared it, in three centuries you shall be masters, that is to say, free.

And this was done.

And this was done despite the fury of the Roman Empire ... . I will say no more of the martyrs; they conquered, as the whole world knows. And this kingdom of souls, founded by their blood; this kingdom of souls, which was to destroy idolatry, and which has destroyed it, which was to overthrow the Roman Empire, and which has overthrown it in all that was false and unjust in it; where did this kingdom of souls set up its capital? In Rome!

The seat of virtue was placed in the seat of power; the seat of liberty in the seat of bondage; in the seat of shameful idols, the seat of the cross of Jesus Christ; in the seat whence the orders of Nero were issued to the world, the seat of the disarmed and aged pastor, who, in the name of Jesus Christ, whose vicar he is, spreads throughout the world purity, peace, and blessing.

O, triumph of faith and love! O, spectacle which enraptures man above himself by showing him what he can do for good with the help of God! My own eyes have seen that land, the liberator of souls, that soil formed of the ashes and blood of martyrs; and why should I not recall that which will confirm my words by reinvigorating my life?

One day, then, my heart all trembling with emotion, I entered by the Flaminian Gate that famous city which had conquered the world by her arms, and governed it by her laws. I hurried to the Capitol; but the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus no longer crowned its heroic summit. I went down to the Forum; the orator's tribune was broken down, and the voice of herdsmen had succeeded to the voices of Cicero and Hortensius. I mounted the steep paths of the Palatine Hill; the Caesars were gone, and they had not even left a praetorian at the entrance to ask the name of the inquisitive stranger.

Whilst I was pondering those mighty ruins, through the azure of the Italian sky, I perceived in the distance a temple whose dome appeared to cover all the present grandeur of that city upon whose dust I trod. I advanced towards it, and there, upon a vast and magnificent space, I found Europe assembled in the persons of her ambassadors, her poets, her artists, her pilgrims, a throng, diverse in origin, but united, it seemed, in common and earnest expectation. I also waited, when in the distance before me an old man advanced, borne in a chair above the crowd, bareheaded and holding in his two hands, under the form of mysterious bread, that Man of Judaea aforetime crucified. Every head bent before him, tears flowed in silent adoration, and upon no visage did I see the protestation of doubt, or the shadow of a feeling which was not, at least, respectful. Whilst I also adored my Master and my King, the immortal King of souls, sharing in the triumph, without seeking to express it even to myself, the obelisk of granite standing in our midst sang for us all, silent and enraptured, the hymn of God victorious: CHRISTUS VINCIT, CHRISTUS REGNAT, CHRISTUS IMPERAT, CHRISTUS AB OMNI MALO PLEBEM SUAM LIBERAT! [sic]

And, lest an enemy should have been found in that multitude, it answered itself by another celebrated hymn, which warned us to fly from the lion of Judah if we would not adore him in his victory. After many years, which have already whitened my brow, I repeat to you... those songs of joy; happy are you if ... drawing nearer, you repeat with us all, children of Christ and members of His kingdom: CHRISTUS VINCIT, CHRISTUS REGNAT, CHRISTUS IMPERAT, CHRISTUS AB OMNI MALO PLEBEM SUAM LIBERAT!

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris (1846)

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(Special repost for Palm Sunday)

Lacordaire: "That stream is sanctity"

Assumpsit Iesus Petrum, et Iacobum, et Ioannem fratrem eius, et duxit illos in montem excelsum seorsum: et transfiguratus est ante eos. Et resplenduit facies eius sicut sol: vestimenta autem eius facta sunt alba sicut nix. (From the Gospel for Ember Saturday in Lent and for the Second Sunday in Lent, Matthew xvii, 1-2: "Jesus took Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart: and He was transfigured before them. And His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became white as snow.")

It is easy for me... to show that Catholic doctrine enjoys a superhuman moral efficacy, even as a consequence of the interaction which it keeps between man and God. ... Now, in virtue of what does Catholic doctrine operate this superhuman transformation in the soul? Is it directly? Is it simply because it says to us, "Be humble, be chaste, be apostles, be brethren"?

Ah..., but everyone says this to us more or less earnestly: there is not a man steeped in pride who has not invoked the humility of others; not a man drowned in sensuality who was not invoked the purity of his victims; not a man who has not invoked apostleship to propagate his ideas, and fraternity to establish his empire! But the ear of man remains closed to those invitations of selfishness, or to those dreams of reason; it listens to them without hearing; it hears, without obeying.

Catholic doctrine would have succeeded no better, if it had spoken to man only of man; if it had proposed to him, as the spring of its action, only his interest, his duty even, and his dignity. To render man humble, chaste, apostle, brother, it has taken its basis outside of him: it has placed it in God.

It is in the name of God, by the power of the relationship which it has created between God and ourselves, by the efficacy of its dogmas, of its worship, and of its sacraments, that it changes within us that corpse which rebels against virtue; that it reanimates it, resuscitates it, purifies it, transforms it, clothes it with the glory of Tabor, and having thus armed it from head to toe, sends it forth into the distress of the world, as a new man, still feeble by nature, but strengthened by God, towards Whom his unceasing aspiration ascends.

It is thus ... that the miracle of our transfiguration is accomplished in Catholic doctrine: humility, chastity, charity, and all the interior elevations which result from these are but effects of a higher virtue giving the movement to all the rest. Without religion, without the interaction of soul and God, the whole Christian edifice crumbles -- consequently, that interaction, which is the keystone of the arch, is efficacious in a superhuman manner, since it bears man above humanity.

...humility, chastity, the charity of apostleship and of fraternity, obedience, penitence, voluntary poverty...are but branches of a single stream. ... There is ... a stream into which merge all those scattered virtues which I have named: and that stream is sanctity.

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris (1844)

The Sunday in Quinquagesimaand the Chair of Saint Peter

Ecce ascendimus Ierosolymam, et consummabuntur omnia quæ scripta sunt per prophetas de Filio hominis. (From the Gospel for the Sunday in Quinquagesima, Luke xviii, 31: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things shall be accomplished which were written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man.)

Christianity is as old as the world; for it consists, essentially, in the idea of a God -- Creator, Legislator, and Savior -- and in a life conformable to that idea. Now, God manifested himself to the human race from the beginning under the threefold relation of Creator, Legislator, and Savior, and from the beginning, from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Jesus Christ, there have been men who lived conformably with this idea of God.

Three times before Jesus Christ, God manifested himself to men in this threefold character: by Adam, the first father of the human race; by Noah, the second father of the human race; and by Moses, the lawgiver of a People whose influence and existence have mixed them up with all the destinies of mankind.

There exists, however, a fact not less remarkable, namely, that Christianity only started its reign in the world eighteen hundred years ago, with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ appears to have been the first who brought light into the world. Before him, as Saint John said, "it shined in darkness". But what is the cause of this? How is it that Christianity, vanquished in the world before Jesus Christ, has been victorious in it since his coming? How is it that Christianity, before Jesus Christ, "did not hinder the nations from following their ways", and that Jesus Christ, on the contrary, was able to pronounce that sentence of eternal victory, "In mundo pressuram habebitits, sed confidite, ego vici mundum"?

What new thing is it then that Jesus Christ has accomplished? Is it the sacrifice on Calvary? The Lamb of God that takes aways the sins of the world "was slain from the beginning of the world". ... Is it the Gospel? The Gospel, after all, is but the Word of God, and that word, after many trials, did not change the world. Is it the sacraments? The sacraments are only the channels of grace, and the grace of God, although less abundant, without doubt had not ceased continually to flow to men before Jesus Christ. What new thing, then, did Jesus Christ accomplish? By what means did he secure the eternal duration of the victory obtained on Calvary? 

Listen to his own words, he will say them to you: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her". This is the work which was to subjugate forever hell and the world, which would everyday renew the Sacrifice of the Savior, maintain and diffuse his doctrines, distribute his grace! ... this Church, "the pillar and ground of the truth"...[is] destined to the universal and perpetual instruction of the human race.

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences à Notre-Dame de Paris (1835)

UNDE ES TU?

"Ecce homo." Cum ergo vidissent cum pontifices et ministri, clamabant, dicentes: "Crucifige, crucifige eum." Dicit eis Pilatus: "Accipite eum vos, et crucifigite: ego enim non invenio in eo causam." Responderunt ei Iudaei: "Nos legem habemus, et secundum legem debet mori, quia Filium Dei se fecit." Cum ergo audisset Pilatus hunc sermonem, magis timuit. Et ingressus est praetorium iterum: et dixit ad Iesum: "Unde es tu?" Iesus autem responsum non dedit ei. (Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint John, from the Liturgical Action in Commemoration of the Passion and Death of the Lord - St. John, xix, 5-9: "'Behold the Man.' When the chief priests, therefore, and the servants, had seen him, they cried out, saying: 'Crucify him, crucify him.' Pilate saith to them: 'Take him you, and crucify him: for I find no cause in him.' The Jews answered him: 'We have a law; and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.' When Pilate therefore had heard this saying, he feared the more. And he entered into the hall again, and he said to Jesus: 'Whence art thou?' But Jesus gave him no answer.")

Besides friends and disciples, there is another tribunal before which every new doctrine must appear, namely, the tribunal of the people. After having spoken in secret to the chosen ones, it becomes needful to quit the chamber, to appear in public, to speak to mankind of all ages and conditions, to those who have not leaned upon the bosom of the Master, who have not received the education of friendship, who know not what is required of them, who oppose to the word of doctrine a host of passions blended with as many prejudices.

Jesus Christ did this; He heard the murmurs of the crowd around Him, and was undaunted before the account which He had to give them of Himself. "How long," cried they to Him, "dost Thou hold our souls in suspense? If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." Jesus Christ answered them: "I speak to you, and you believe not; the works that I do in the name of My Father, they give testimony of Me. ...I and the Father are one.".

At that saying, which expressed all, the Jews took up stones to stone Him, and Jesus said to them: "Many good works I have showed you from My Father; for which of these works do you stone Me?" The Jews answered Him : "For a good work we stone Thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that Thou, being a man, maketh Thyself God."

The language which Jesus Christ held towards the people in order to make known to them the origin and mission of their new spiritual Master, was, then, language free from all constraint and obscurity. He fearlessly uttered to them that terrible phrase : "I and my Father are one", EGO ET PATER UNUM SUMUS. But, above the people, that confused mass whose voice is at the same time the voice of God and the voice of nothingness, above the people who form at the same time the highest and the lowest authority rises, with calm vigilance and self-respect, the highest representation of right and truth, every nation possesses a supreme magistracy which concentrates in itself the glory and enlightenment of the country. And before it every doctrine claiming to rule, either by doing apparent or real violence to received traditions, must at last appear. Jesus Christ could not escape from this general law of the human order. He is called before the council of the elders, the priests, and the princes of Judea.

After hearing evidence more or less inconsistent, the high priest at length resolves to place the question in its true light; he stands up and addresses this solemn charge to the accused : "I adjure Thee by the living God that Thou tell us if Thou be the Christ, the Son of God." Jesus Christ calmly replies in two words: "EGO SUM", I am! And He immediately adds, in order to confirm His avowal by the majesty of His language: "I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming with the clouds of heaven."

Then the high priest tears his garments. "What need we any further witnesses?" he exclaims. "You have heard the blasphemy! What think you?" And they all condemn him, as guilty, to death. He is then brought before the Roman governor, who, not finding good reasons for His condemnation, wishes to release Him; but the princes of the people persist: "We have a law," say they, "and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." Pilate so fully comprehends this, that his Roman, and therefore religious, ear is all attention; he draws Jesus Christ aside, and timorously asks Him whence He is: "UNDE ES TU?" Jesus Christ is silent; He confirms by His silence all that He is accused of having said of Himself, and what, in fact, He has said.

The people who witness His crucifixion understand His condemnation in the sense in which it was pronounced; they insult Him even in death by these expressive derisions : "Vah, Thou that destroyest the temple of God, and in three days dost rebuild it: save Thy own self; if Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." And, when darkness covers the earth, when the rocks are broken in pieces, when the veil of the temple is torn in two, and all Nature proclaims to mankind that a great event is in action, the lookers-on and the Roman centurion strike their breasts, saying: "Indeed, this was the Son of God!" And the apostle St. John concludes his gospel in these words: "These [things] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God."

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris (1846)

Lacordaire in Holy Week: The Triumph of the Crucifixion

"Converte gladium tuum in locum suum: omnes enim, qui acceperint gladium, gladio peribunt. An putas, quia non possum rogare Patrem meum, et exhibebit mihi modo plus quam duodecim legiones Angelorum?" (from the Passion of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew, Mass for the Second Sunday in Passiontide or Palm Sunday: "Put back thy sword into its place; for all those who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or dost thou suppose that I cannot entreat My Father, and He will even now furnish Me with more than twelve legions of angels?")

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Jesus Christ despised all human means, or, rather, He abstained from employing any.

Politics rank among the highest of these. It is the art of seizing the tendency of minds at a given moment, of bringing together opinions and interests which seek to be satisfied, of anticipating the will of a people before they have a clear consciousness of it themselves; of assuming, by the help of circumstances, the post of their natural representative, and of placing them upon a course in which we shall be borne along with them for half a century. Such is the art of politics an illustrious art, which may be used for good or evil, and which is the source of prosperous and lamentable vicissitudes among nations.

Jesus Christ was admirably placed for becoming the instrument of a revolution favorable to His religious designs. The people from whom He had sprung had lost, under the Roman yoke, the remains of their ancient nationality; hatred of Rome was then at its height among them, and, in the deserts and mountains of Judea, bands of liberators were daily formed under the command of some patriot, distinguished for his boldness or some other characteristic. These movements were seconded by celebrated prophecies, which had long announced a chief and a savior to the Jewish people.

The relation of these ideas and interests to the new kingdom, the coming of which Jesus Christ proclaimed, was evident. Nevertheless, so far from conniving at and employing them, He trampled them under foot. In order to prove Him, He is asked whether it is needful to pay tribute to Caesar; He calls for a piece of money, and, on being told whose image and superscription it bears, He calmly replies: "Render then to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's." He goes still further. He announces the temporal ruin of His nation, He speaks against the temple, the object of religious and patriotic veneration among the Jews, and He openly predicts that there shall not remain of it one stone upon another; therefore, this charge was numbered amongst the accusations brought against him before the supreme magistracy.

His doctrine, so favorable to the people and to the poor, was of a nature to obtain great popularity for Him: this is a powerful mainspring for revolutions. In fact, He gained such an ascendancy over the people that they wished to elect Him King of Israel; but He fled in order to avoid that honor, and broke with His own hands an instrument which great men would commonly have valued as a gift and a sign from Heaven.

Next to the art of politics comes power, one of its adjuncts, but which may be considered without reference to the causes that generally communicate it. Jesus Christ had nothing so much at heart as to prevent His disciples from trusting to power and from exercising it. He sends them forth, He says, like lambs; He announces to them all kinds of troubles, without giving them any other help than patience, meekness, and humility. If, unmindful of His lessons, they would call down fire from heaven, he reproaches them with not yet knowing "of what spirit they are." At the moment of His arrest, when He might have defended Himself, and an apostle drew the sword, Jesus Christ says to him: "Put back thy sword into its place; for all those who take the sword will perish by the sword."

While the authors of other doctrines seek a sanction from victory rashly forgetting that victory is variable and conscience immutable, Jesus Christ chooses the Cross for His standard, and protests against all triumph of power by the triumph of His crucifixion.

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris (1846)

Natus ad hoc

Hæc dicit Dominus Deus: Egredietur virga de radice Iesse, et flos de radice eius ascendet. (From the Lesson for Ember Friday in Advent, Isaias xi,1: "Thus saith the Lord God: There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.")

[T]he Messianic idea assumed in Isaias a clearness and an abundance of expression which it is impossible to render to you, since I should weary you by the number and length of the passages I should have to cite.

It is he who sees the Messiah springing from the race of Jesse, the father of David, and who at the same time describes, as if from Calvary or the Vatican, the glory of the sufferings and triumphs of Jesus Christ. "Arise, arise, put on thy strength, O Sion; put on the garments of thy glory, O Jerusalem, the city of the Holy One: for henceforth the uncircumcised and unclean shall no more pass through thee"; "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, and that preacheth peace: of him that showeth forth good, that preacheth salvation, that saith to Sion: Thy God shall reign". "The Lord hath prepared His holy arm in the sight of all the Gentiles, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God." "Behold my servant shall understand, he shall be exalted and extolled, and he shall be exceeding high. As many have been astonished at thee so shall his visage be inglorious among men, and his form among the sons of men. He shall sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouth at him: for they to whom it was not told of him have seen, and they that heard not have beheld."

And immediately afterwards, Isaiah begins the description of the sufferings and ignominies of Calvary, which he completes in twelve consecutive verses. Then he continues, resuming his hymns of triumph: "He that hath made thee shall rule over thee, the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, shall be called the God of all the earth".

But it is at Babylon, during the captivity, six hundred years before Jesus Christ, that the Messianic idea becomes invested with a form which attains to mathematical clearness and precision. Must I recall to you the prophecy of Daniel? Listen then to it: "Seventy weeks are shortened upon thy people, and upon the holy city, that transgression may be finished, and sin may have an end, and everlasting justice may be brought, and vision and prophecy may be fulfilled, and the Saint of saints be anointed. Know thou therefore and take notice that from the going forth of the word to build up Jerusalem again unto Christ the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks: and the street shall be built again, and the walls in the straitness of times. And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain: and the people that shall deny him shall not be his. And a people with their leader that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary: and the end thereof shall be waste, and after the end of the war the appointed desolation. And he shall confirm the covenant with many, in one week : and in the half of the week the victim and the sacrifice shall fail: and there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation: and the desolation shall continue even to the consummation, and to the end."

I do not stop, gentlemen, to examine the striking features of this discourse, which resembles less a vision of the future than a narration of the past. The course of my subject bears me on and brings me to the foot of the second temple, to hear, five hundred years before Jesus Christ, those last words of the prophet Aggeus: "Yet one little while, and I will move the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land, and I will move all nations; and the Desired of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts. ...Great shall be the glory of this last house more than of the first, and in this place will I give peace."

What continuity, gentlemen, through so many eventful centuries! What fidelity to one and the same idea from so many men separated by ages !
...

It is then certain, gentlemen, that the Messianic idea was the life of the Jewish people during the course of the two thousand years which preceded Jesus Christ; and that idea was held among all the nations of the earth with such unanimity, that it is not even possible to account for it by the communications of the Hebrews with the Gentiles, but it is necessary to suppose a diffusion of that idea even anterior to Abraham. And that Messianic idea, so extraordinary in its universality, its progress, its perseverance, and its precision, is it at length fulfilled?

Yes, it is fulfilled; the one God, creator of the Hebrew Bible, has become the God of nearly all the earth; and the very nations that have not yet accepted Him render homage to Him by a certain number of adorers whom Providence elects from their midst. And who has accomplished this incredible revolution? One single Man, Christ. And whence came this Man, Christ? He was a Jew, of the tribe of Judah, of the house of David. And how has He accomplished this prodigious social and religious revolution? By suffering and dying, as David, Isaias, Daniel had foretold.

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris (1846)

"Lift up your eyes now: behold Jesus Christ!"

Levantes autem oculos suos, neminem viderunt nisi solum Iesum. (From the Gospel for the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew xvii, 8: And they lifting up their eyes saw no one, but only Jesus.)

Vice is so incompatible with the Christian faith, that that faith grows weak and languishes in those who will no longer combat their passions[...]. Neither the Muslim nor the heathen need to apostatize in order to be calm in the ignominy of their senses: the Christian alone has a God who forces him to blush.

And yet this God became man, He bore a flesh like our own; He was similar in His body to the idols of nations, and differing from all who had preceded Him, and from all who should follow him, He has exercised upon earth a regenerating power. In Him as their source, in His form as their center, are reflected all the characters which have made of Christianity an incomparable monument. Lift up your eyes now: behold Jesus Christ!

Who among you will blaspheme against Him without a certain fear that you may err? On emerging from infancy, perhaps, at an age when the eyes measure nothing because they as yet have compared nothing, you may pass before Him without halting or bowing your head; but wait a little.

The shadows of life will increase behind you; you will know man, and returning from man to Christ with regards more humble, because they will have seen more, you will begin to discover in that face signs which will trouble you. A day will come when you will say to yourselves: Is God really there? Whatever may be the answer, your conscience will have asked the question. And what a question! What a man must he be who constrains another man to propose to himself the question of his divinity!

And even should you not feel the foreboding of that doubt, think that for eighteen centuries it has moved and divided mankind. Now more than ever it is the great question of the world. Behind the political quarrels which resound so loudly, there is another which is the true and the last one: it is whether the nations civilized by Christianity will abandon the principle which has made them what they are, whether they will reach the point of apostasy, and what will be their lot. To be or not to be Christian, such is the enigma of the modern world.

And, however you may solve it in your minds, it exists, and I leave it there. It exists, Jesus Christ reigns by that doubt suspended over our destinies, as much as by the faith of those who have given Him their whole soul. His divinity is the riddle of the future, as it was of the past [...].

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris (1846)

Gospel for the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ: see also Lent with Lacordaire: Catholic doctrine cannot speak "to man only of man".

A Holy Meeting

Quasi stella matutina in medio nebulæ, et quasi luna plena in diebus suis, et quasi sol refulgens, sic iste effulsit in templo Dei (Capitulum for First Vespers, Lauds, Terce for the Feast of Saint Dominic, Breviarium iuxta Ritum Ordinis Prædicatorum - cf. Ecclesiasticus, l, 6-7: As the morning star in the midst of a cloud, and as the moon at the full, and as the sun when it shineth, so did he shine in the temple of God.)

While the life-giving stream of God’s Word welled forth from the pure and saintly depths of Dominic’s heart, another man had been called of God to revive in His Church, amid the soul-destroying luxury of the age, the love and observance of Poverty. This sublime lover of Jesus Christ was born in the town of Assisi, at the foot of the Umbrian hills, and was the son of a rich, but miserly, merchant. Having learnt French in the interests of his father’s business, they called him Francis, although it was neither his baptismal nor family name. Returning from Rome at the age of twenty-four, he, often solicited by the Spirit of God, was now wholly taken possession of by the same. Being led by his father into the presence of the Bishop of Assisi in order that he might renounce all his family rights, the heroic young man, stripping himself of all his clothes, lad them at the Bishop’s feet, saying, “Now I can say with more truth than ever, ‘Our Father who art in heaven.’” A little later on, being present at the Holy Sacrifice, he heard that part of the Gospel read where Jesus Christ tells His Apostles to take nothing for their journey, neither staff, nor scrip, nor bread, nor money, neither to have two coats. On hearing these words, he was filled with an inexpressible joy; he took off his shoes, cast aside his staff, with horror threw away the little money he possessed, and during the remainder of his life wore no other garment than an under one, a tunic, and a cord. Even these appeared too great riches, and before his death he had himself laid on the pavement in the presence of his brethren, nude as in the day when, on his final conversion, he had placed his garments at the Bishop’s feet.

Whilst these events were occurring, Dominic, at peril of his life, was evangelizing Languedoc, and crushing heresy by his apostolic labors. Unknown to themselves, a wondrous harmony had been established between these two men, and the similarity of their career extended even to the events which followed their death. Dominic was the senior by two years; and having been trained in a more learned manner for his mission, was in due time joined by this young brother, who needed no universities to teach him the science of poverty and love. Almost at the same instant that Dominic was laying the foundation of his Order at Our Lady of Prouille, at the foot of the Pyrenees, Francis was laying the foundation of his at Our Lady of the Angels, at the foot of the Apennines. An ancient sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, was the sweet and lowly corner-stone of both these edifices. Our Lady of Prouille was Dominic’s cherished spot; while Our Lady of the Angels was the one spot of ground for which Francis had reserved a place in the immensity of a heart detached from all things visible. Both had commenced their public life by a pilgrimage to Rome, whither they returned to solicit for their Orders the approbation of the Holy Father. At first Innocent III refused their appeal, but was afterwards constrained by the same vision to give a verbal and conditional approval to both. As Francis, so Dominic, embraced within the flexible austerity of his Rule, men, women, and people of the world, making three Orders on single power combating for Jesus Christ with the arms of nature and grace; the only difference was, that while the first members of Dominic’s Order were women, those of St. Francis’ were men. The same Sovereign Pontiff, Honorious III, confirmed their institutions by apostolic Bulls, and the same Pope, Gregory IX, canonized them both. Also the two greatest doctors of all ages arose from their ashes; St Thomas from those of Dominic, and St. Bonaventure from those of Francis. Yet these two men, whose destinies were so harmonious in the sight of heaven and earth, were strangers to one another, and although both were in Rome during the fourth Lateran Council, it does not appear that they ever heard of each other.

One night, when Dominic was praying, he beheld Jesus Christ filled with wrath against the world, and His blessed Mother presenting to Him two men, in order to appease Him. He recognized himself as one, but did not know the other, whom he regarded so attentively that the face was ever present to him. On the morrow, in a church, we know not which, he beheld, in the dress of a mendicant, the face seen by him the preceding night, and running to the poor man, embraced him with holy effusion, uttering these words, “You are my companion; you will walk with me; let us keep together and none shall prevail against us.” He then related his vision, and thus were their hearts blended into one.

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Vie de Saint Dominique

Palm Sunday with Lacordaire: Jesus Christ, "the immortal King of souls"

Gloria, laus et honor tibi sit, Rex Christe Redemptor: Cui puerile decus prompsit Hosanna pium. (from the Anthem for the Procession of Palms, on Palm Sunday: Glory, praise and honor to Thee, O Christ, King Redeemer: to whom children poured their glad and sweet hosanna's song.)

Jesus Christ claimed the soul; He claimed that it should be free to know Him, to love Him, to adore Him, to pray to Him, to unite with Him. He did not admit that any other than Himself had right over the soul, and above all the right of hindering the soul from communicating with Him.

Yet there is much more than this: Jesus Christ claimed the public union of souls in His service; He knew nothing of secrecy; He demanded a clear and social worship. The liberty of the soul implied the right to found material and spiritual churches, to assemble, to pray together, to hear in common the Word of God, that substantial food of the soul which is its daily bread, and of which it can be deprived only by an act of sacrilegious homicide. The liberty of the soul implied the right of practising together all the ceremonies of public worship, of receiving the sacrament of eternal life, of living together by the Gospel and Jesus Christ.

None upon earth possessed any longer the government of sacred things, but the anointed of the Lord initiated the chosen souls into a larger faith and love, tested by the successors of the apostles, sanctified by ordination. All the rest, princes and peoples, were excluded from the administration of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, that divine centre of the kingdom of souls, and which it was not meet to deliver to dogs, according to the forcible expression of the most gentle Gospel.

But as the soul is the basis of man, by creating the liberty of the soul, Jesus Christ, at the same time, created the liberty of man. The Gospel, as the regulator of the rights and duties of all, rose to the power of a universal charter, which became the measure of all legitimate authority, and which, in hallowing it, preserved it from the excesses into which human power had everywhere fallen. On this account, the kingdom of souls was absolutely the very opposite of the Roman Empire, and it was impossible to imagine a more complete antagonism. The Roman Empire was universal servitude; the kingdom of souls, universal liberty. Between them it was a question of being or not being. The struggle was inevitable; it was to be a deadly struggle.

Now, what force did the kingdom of souls dispose of against that empire covered with legions? None. The Forum? It was no more. The Senate? It was no more. The people? They were no more. Eloquence? It was no more. Thought? It was no more. Was it at least permitted to the first Christians whom the Gospel had raised up in the world to gather one against a hundred thousand for the combat? No, that was not permitted to them.

What then was their strength? The same that Jesus Christ had before them. They had to confess His name and then to die, die today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, to die one after another, that is to say, to vanquish servitude by the peaceful exercise of the liberty of the soul; to vanquish force, not by force, but by virtue.

It had been said to them: If for three centuries you can boldly say, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was dead, and is risen again"; if for three centuries you can say this openly, and die daily after haying declared it, in three centuries you shall be masters, that is to say, free.

And this was done.

And this was done despite the fury of the Roman Empire ... . I will say no more of the martyrs; they conquered, as the whole world knows. And this kingdom of souls, founded by their blood; this kingdom of souls, which was to destroy idolatry, and which has destroyed it, which was to overthrow the Roman Empire, and which has overthrown it in all that was false and unjust in it; where did this kingdom of souls set up its capital? In Rome!

The seat of virtue was placed in the seat of power; the seat of liberty in the seat of bondage; in the seat of shameful idols, the seat of the cross of Jesus Christ; in the seat whence the orders of Nero were issued to the world, the seat of the disarmed and aged pastor, who, in the name of Jesus Christ, whose vicar he is, spreads throughout the world purity, peace, and blessing.

O, triumph of faith and love! O, spectacle which enraptures man above himself by showing him what he can do for good with the help of God! My own eyes have seen that land, the liberator of souls, that soil formed of the ashes and blood of martyrs; and why should I not recall that which will confirm my words by reinvigorating my life?

One day, then, my heart all trembling with emotion, I entered by the Flaminian Gate that famous city which had conquered the world by her arms, and governed it by her laws. I hurried to the Capitol; but the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus no longer crowned its heroic summit. I went down to the Forum; the orator's tribune was broken down, and the voice of herdsmen had succeeded to the voices of Cicero and Hortensius. I mounted the steep paths of the Palatine Hill; the Caesars were gone, and they had not even left a praetorian at the entrance to ask the name of the inquisitive stranger.

Whilst I was pondering those mighty ruins, through the azure of the Italian sky, I perceived in the distance a temple whose dome appeared to cover all the present grandeur of that city upon whose dust I trod. I advanced towards it, and there, upon a vast and magnificent space, I found Europe assembled in the persons of her ambassadors, her poets, her artists, her pilgrims, a throng, diverse in origin, but united, it seemed, in common and earnest expectation. I also waited, when in the distance before me an old man advanced, borne in a chair above the crowd, bareheaded and holding in his two hands, under the form of mysterious bread, that Man of Judaea aforetime crucified. Every head bent before him, tears flowed in silent adoration, and upon no visage did I see the protestation of doubt, or the shadow of a feeling which was not, at least, respectful. Whilst I also adored my Master and my King, the immortal King of souls, sharing in the triumph, without seeking to express it even to myself, the obelisk of granite standing in our midst sang for us all, silent and enraptured, the hymn of God victorious: CHRISTUS VINCIT, CHRISTUS REGNAT, CHRISTUS IMPERAT, CHRISTUS AB OMNI MALO PLEBEM SUAM LIBERAT! [sic]

And, lest an enemy should have been found in that multitude, it answered itself by another celebrated hymn, which warned us to fly from the lion of Judah if we would not adore him in his victory. After many years, which have already whitened my brow, I repeat to you... those songs of joy; happy are you if ... drawing nearer, you repeat with us all, children of Christ and members of His kingdom: CHRISTUS VINCIT, CHRISTUS REGNAT, CHRISTUS IMPERAT, CHRISTUS AB OMNI MALO PLEBEM SUAM LIBERAT!

Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris (1846)

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