By Father James, O.F.M.Cap.
3—WHY OUR LORD DEPARTED
Even then, as He uttered these words, the thought of our blessed Lord was fixed upon the future. In the faces of these disciples He beheld the men and women who, accepting Him in faith, would be committed to the most magnificent programme of perfection ever preached. In the Beatitudes, Jesus had announced an ideal for life which, as He well realised, was entirely beyond the power of the natural man. And when He said majestically “Be ye perfect . . . . He was conscious that the Holy Spirit alone could bring the heroism of this ideal within their reach. But His own death, He also knew, would make effective His exhortations since, besides consecrating in His own Blood the paradoxes of His teaching, it would merit for humanity the Giver of Gifts, the Spirit of God. . .
If our Lord declared his intention of going away, His departure was in no sense radical or final. He had promised to remain with them all days ; He said He would not leave them orphans. His mind was filled, in fact, with the thought of the unity that must subsist between them and Him. “I am the true vine . . Every branch that beareth not fruit, he will take away . . Abide in me : and I in you.” But the grace of this abiding, by which followers should be one with Him, would need a Jiving Source and Principle, the Holy Spirit, Who, by virtues and gifts, would enlighten and empower His Church to be a witness to His enduring presence in the world of time and space. Our blessed Lord would depart only to return again to take possession of a new, a mystic Body, of which we are members, so that an eternal dream of God should be realised by the agency of His Spirit.
This dream is a humanity re-made, regenerated, “to the image and likeness** of the Perfect, Jesus, in Whom the Spirit of God had entire sway. This is a high ideal and who can hope to achieve it ? If the music of perfect life is to be heard upon the earth then men and women must have access to this music’s secret Inspiration so that no dissonance, no false and jarring notes, shall mar the harmony of the piece. This precisely is what the Spirit of Christ aims at doing in the sevenfold gift that ranges from fear to wisdom. Let a man, under the influence of Divine grace, but make his first poor efforts at reproducing in his life a music that has its source in the soul of his Master and he must find that a moment comes when the Spirit takes over and then there is heard, on earth, a music that has power to gladden heaven.
In the thirteenth century there lived at a place not far from Assisi a woman named Angela de Foligno. Out of shame she was unable to confess her sins, and “ many times communicated without confessing, until Saint Francis himself intervened from heaven and found for her a suitable Confessor. Absolved from her sins, she began a life of penance and from step to step she advanced in heroic holiness. At each step new sufferings came upon her by which she was purified and enlightened for the reception of greater things. And then, on one occasion, as she herself relates, “she walked with the Holy Spirit to the Basilica of Saint Francis.” From whom derives the inspiration of this booklet, with its borrowed title, should by now be sufficiently apparent and in gratitude let Blessed Angela de Foligno, reporting what was said to her on that occasion, have the last word : “ Thou hast asked of My Servant Francis, and I have been pleased to send another messenger. And I am the Holy Ghost . . because my servant Francis hath loved me much, therefore have I done much for him. And if, at the present day, there were any person who loved Me more, still more would I do for him . . .
