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Aug 31 13 7:19 AM
VII. THE THIRD EXISTENTIAL STATE: CHRISTIAN GRACE BY DERIVATION
We have spoken of the age in which Christ's coming was awaited; now we are to consider the age that followed his comung.
1. First of all, while he was actually present in the world. What was the Church then? There were no hierarchical powers, for these were all centred in Christ himself. Jesus promised to hand them on to his apostles, but so long as he was there, no one had authority. There was the bridegroom, Christ, and the bride, his Church; and the Church at that time consisted solely of the Virgin Mary. The Church will never be holier than it was at that time, and this concentration of grace in Our Lady gave the infant Church a complexion of its own, making it a 'Marial' Church.
I am not going to speak here of Our Lady, but of the state of the new Law, the age when Christ was come. We may call it the age of the Holy Ghost, for reasons which we shall shortly discover.
2. The Incarnation had its term in Christ, in whom is the fulness of grace: he was 'full of grace and truth' (John i. 14); and, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Ghost made this grace of Christ flow out abundantly over the world, so that 'of his fulness we have all received' (John i. 16). Thus the Church, which from the time of the Incarnation was definitely established in Christ, its Head, reached fulfilment in its Body on the day of Pentecost by a kind of pressure exerted by the Holy Ghost on the grace of Christ to make it flow out on mankind. And to the end of time the Holy Ghost will continue to pour out the grace of Christ in his Church.
From the moment of the Annunciation, from the moment that Mary gave her assent and the Incarnation took place, Christ was constituted Mediator of all graces. Till then, grace came directly from God, who gave it in view of the future merits of Christ's Passion; it was Christian grace by anticipation. From then on, all graces pass through the sacred humanity of Christ, they are Christ's by derivation; so that St John Damascene could say that Christ's humanity is the 'organ of the divinity', and St Thomas could call it the 'instrument conjoined to his divine Person'. Just as my hand is an instrument conjoined to my person and a pen or brush are instruments distinct from me, so Christ's humanity is an instrument conjoined to the Person of the Word, and the sacraments instruments distinct from his Person.
3. It is because all graces pass through his sacred humanity that Jesus said to the infirm woman, 'Who has touched me? . . . I know that a virtue has gone out from me' (Luke viii. 46; cf. vi. 19). For the same reason, he said, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee' (Mark ii. 5; Luke vii. 48, etc.). But Christ lived only in Palestine, and it was there that he entered into contact with men, by words, by a look (which is, in its way, a touch), by taking St John to his breast at the Last Supper. It is around Jesus, by graces of contact, that the Church began to exist fully and completely.
There were also at that time other people, all over the world, whom the grace of God, passing through the heart of Jesus, touched at a distance and not by direct contact.
We say, then, that in these two cases grace was given by derivation from Christ, in a superabundant outpouring. We have here a new existential state of gracc, the state of Christian grace, no longer by anticipation, but by derivation. And this may occur either by contact or at a distance.
4. This difference between contact and distance can be seen already in the time of Christ. He often healed the body by contact: putting clay on the eyes of the man born blind (John ix. 6), putting his fingers into the ears of the deaf mute and touching his tongue (Mark vii. 32-33). But sometimes he healed at a distance; for example, the ten lepers who were cured on their way back from meetingJesus (Luke xvii. 12), or the centurion's servant, whomJesus cured without going to him (Mt. viii. 7-13). We have only to move onto the spiritual plane, and we have the healing of souls both by contact and at a distance.
This derivation of grace at a distance is indeed mysterious. Consider the story of the raising of Lazarus. When Jesus heard he was sick, he remained where he was for another two days, in spite of the appeal of Martha and Mary. Why did he not go at once? He waited till Lazarus was dead and, on his arrival, the first thing Martha said to him was: 'Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died'. Mary said the same thing (John xi. 21, 32). Surely, had he been there, he would not have been able to resist the entreaties of the two sisters.
5. The reason for the mystery of the Incarnation is that we might have contact withJesus. Could not God simply have sent us his graces from heaven, as he did in the days of paradise? Certainly he could, but he wished to come into touch with us by a human contact, that could be seen and felt. Since the fall, man's balance is upset; he is, in a way, under the dominion of the things of sense. They are a temptation to him, and yet he needs them to be able to rise beyond them. So God willed to make of these dangerous things means of salvation for us, to free us from our prison-walls; therein lies the whole mystery of the sacramental system. In heaven, this immediate contact will no longer be necessary, since man's state will no longer be impaired; but on earth, since this is his condition, he needs to setting! Since the time our nature was wounded, we have had need of mediation.
6. With the Incarnation, mediation attained its fullness; and, since God, who could perfectly well have given grace directly from above, became incarnate and made the heart of Jesus the source of grace, the words of forgiveness now come from a voice on earth: 'Thy sins are forgiven thee' (Mark ii. 5). . . 'thy faith hath made thee whole. . . '. (Mt. ix. 22). The source of forgiveness has come down into time and space. Grace was never more intense than at the moment of the visible Mediation, and never had it overwhelmed man so powerfully. Mediation, then, is not a screen but a channel. Abraham received a grace that was powerful and profound, but it was grace given by anticipation, whereas the least of Christians has grace that comes to him by derivation. Our dispensation is better than Abraham's. We might apply what St Augustine says in a different context: 'Abraham was better than I am, but my state is better than his'. This explains Our Lord's words: 'Amen I say to you, there hath not risen among them that are born of woman a greater than John the Baptist; yet he that is lesser in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he' (Mt. xi. 11). Not, indeed, as to the degree of grace! John the Baptist had a grace far greater than any of us; but he belongs still to the age of the expectation of Christ, he is the finger pointing to Christ, as he appears in the liturgical hymn and in Grunewald's altar-piece at Colmar. He is the last of the night-stars, still shining when the day dawns. He belongs to the world of the prophets, and proclaims the New Covenant. Jesus said likewise (Luke x. 23): 'Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see. For, I say unto you, many prophets and kings have desired to see the things which you see and have not seen them, and to hear the things which you hear and have not heard them'. Just before this passage, we read (x. 21): 'He rejoiced in the Holy Ghost, and said: I confess to thee, Father, Lord of heaven and carth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent and revealed them to little ones.' The last age of the world has come; there will be no other.
7. When Jesus was about to leave this world, did he withdraw these graces of contact and return man to his former state? No; he established this contact definitively by setting up on earth hierarchical powers, both jurisdictional and sacramental: 'Go and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost' (Mt. xxviii. 19). Teach: here we have the power of jurisdiction, supported, in different degrees, by prophetical graces. Baptise: this is the sacramental power. It is Christ's voice that continues to instruct us through time; and Christ's hands stretching through time and space, that continue to touch us by the sacraments.
When I baptise a child, or rather when Jesus through me baptises a child, it is just as when he touched and blessed the little children in Palestine. And since the powers of jurisdiction and the sacramental power of order—which makes the priest the ordinary or exclusive minister of the other sacraments, excepting matrimony—belong to the hierarchy, we may say that the Church, in the fullness of her being, possessing grace which is fully Christian and makes us like Christ issues from the hierarchy. This grace is fully Christian for two reasons. First, it is orientated: since the power of jurisdiction gives directives, grace must operate along a prescribed course; secondly, it is sacramental.
8. Grace requires to be orientated. When it really lives in a soul, it wants to be active. It seeks out ways: 'Lord, I wish to submit my understanding to you, and to no one else, but what must I believe? And I long to know how to act as so to please you.' To be mistaken in such matters would be disastrous; so an answer is to be expected from outside oneself.
I know quite well that the virtue of faith is never deceived, but the believer himself may often be. I may clutter up my faith with all sorts of things which, without my knowing it, are opposed or alien to it, and it is always dangerous to be deceived about these. So God answers my call: 'Yes, I will tell you what to believe and how to act. By my Holy Spirit, Jesus will continue to teach you through those who have jurisdiction.' There are still many points on which we may be uncertain, and this may at times cause us great anxiety. It is for the virtue of prudence to decide; but the answer is already given as regards what it is essential for us to know.
Through the powers of jurisdiction grace is orientated in two distinct ways:
In the first the Church, by her power of proclaiming what Christ taught, speaks as the echo of the Bridegroom's voice: 'This is what Christ taught, and I proclaim it to you, not in my name, but in the name of God.' Then it is truly God's voice she brings to us, and she is assisted absolutely, infallibly, unalterably, to orientate the grace within us. This happens when she defines a doctrine, declares, that is, that something is part of revelation. Admittedly, you will not find this doctrine stated explicitly in Scripture, but you will find there the principle which, developed homogeneously in the course of time, has given us the truth, for example, of the Immaculate Conception. Of the Assumption too: when the Church tells us that Mary is in heaven, body and soul, that is a revealed truth contained implicitly in the deposit of revelation, as the solution of a problem is contained in its enunciation. It is the same when the Church defines for us that there are in Christ two natures, two wills, two intellects, one divine, the other human. These truths, contained in the deposit, are made explicit in course of time, and the Church, as bearer of the Bridegroom's message, hands them on to us. What should be our attitute in relation to this message? An obedience of faith, theological obedience, for it is on God's authority that I believe, not on that of the Church. The Church, however, is necessary for the exact presentation of the message. I believe on your word, O my God, all that you have revealed. Theological obedience corresponds to what St Paul demands when he says he is sent out into the world to bring all men to the 'obedience of faith' (Rom. i. 5).
There is a second type of teaching, when the Church, by her canonical power, speaks in her own name as Spouse. She herself decides, for Jesus gave her this power: 'He that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me' (Luke x. 16). The apostles, on the one hand, speak with the Bridegroom's voice and, on the other, have to settle a number of problems. The Church, too, takes up a definite attitude, even doctrinally, in a whole sphere of matters which are not of faith, or at any rate are not so yet. She may warn us: If you say such and such a thing, you run the risk of denying, some time or other, a truth already defined as of faith, or which later on may be. For example, Pius XII condemned polygenism. Why? According to St Paul, all mankind comes from a single man, Adam; but some people have tried to interpret Adam as a collectivity. That is not what the apostle meant, said Pius XII, in "Humani Generis." This he wrote in an encyclical; it is not yet defined as a truth of faith. This is the voice of the Spouse. When the Church speaks on such matters she is assisted to orientate the grace within us, not in an absolute manner, but prudentially. Suppose I bring you a message from someone who has your full confidence; you accept the message without troubling yourself about the person bringing it. If it is an order, you obey by reason of the authority that speaks to you. But I may perhaps go on to say: 'I know the content of the message and that you accept it, but I can tell you that its author is right for such and such a reason.' In saying this, I am putting forward my own ideas; we are no longer on the first plane. In this way the Church makes her own voice heard, the voice of the Spouse. And what should be our attitude when we hear her voice? When the Church gives us prudential directives, whether in papal encyclicals or in episcopal utterances, what is required of us is an attitude of 'intellectual' obedience, in the case of doctrinal propositions, and of 'practical' obedience in disciplinary matters. Obedience here is not of the theological, but of the moral, order. Would we sin mortally by disobeying? Yes, but it would not be a sin of heresy; it would be a sin of disobedience, against the virtue of prudence. (Whereas, if we disobey the Church when she speaks with the Bridegroom's voice, it would be a sin against faith—that is, of course, if deliberate. It goes without saying that, if a Protestant denies the Immaculate Conception, he may do so in good faith, without sin. But if I, a Catholic, say: 'It has been defined by the Pope, but I do not accept it', then my disobedience is theological, I am guilty of heresy, I make shipwreck of my faith, as was proclaimed by Pius IX of those who should refuse to accept the definition of the Immaculate Conception.)
The prudential assistance given to the canonical power to orientate grace is of various degrees: it can be infallible or fallible.
First of all, there are certain laws to be observed by all Christians. They concern, for example, the conditions for the administration of the sacraments, the obligation of hearing Mass on Sundays, the Friday abstinence, all, in fact, that we call the commandments of the Church, and that are really precise applications of the commandments of God. Whereas Jesus said: 'Unless you do penance, you will all likewise perish' (Luke xiii. 5), the Church applies this in detail by prescribing abstinence from meat on Friday, fasting on certain days, etc. We hold that, as regards all the general prescriptions of Canon Law, the prudential assistance given to the Church is infallible, in other words it will never be against prudence to observe these laws. There might perhaps be better laws than those actually in force. The Church, therefore, may eventually change them; but that does not mean that the previous laws, though less appropriate, were of themselves bad and apt to mislead. For instance, Pius X prescribed first Communion at a very early age. Suppose the rule had been laid down ten years earlier; that might have been a good thing, but it does not mean that the former rule was contrary to prudence.
The Church may pronounce on individual cases. Here, too, she is assisted by the Holy Ghost, but not infallibly. For example, in the question of whether a marriage was validly contracted or is to be declared null. There is a long procedure to be followed, investigations, interrogations and so on, in the course of which mistakes may be made, or even lies told. It is provided, for example, that, if a medical examination has to be made, and one of the parties chooses his own doctor, the tribunal should appoint another it considers trustworthy. Still mistakes and cases of false evidence may occur, and the Church may come to the wrong conclusion, declaring a marriage invalid when it is valid, or vice-versa. Are we, then, to do without such tribunals? No, that would involve far greater evils. The tribunal is assisted for the generality of cases, not of each individua] case. That is what is meant by a prudential assistance that is fallible.
This will suffice to show what is meant by the orientation of grace, and the different kinds of submission required by the directives of the Magisterium. The grace of the New Testament is orientated by the voice of Christ which speaks to us, in different accents, through the powers of jurisdiction—emphatic and clear in the pronouncements of the declarative power; subdued, yet recognizable, in those of the canonical power.
9. The grace which derives wholly from Christ is sacramental.
Christ is instrumental cause of grace, the instrumental cause conjoined to the divinity, as my hand is conjoined to my person. St Thomas makes his own the doctrine of the Fathers: God who took Eve from the side of Adam as he lay asleep in the earthly paradise, also raised up from the second Adam, in his sleep on the cross, the second Eve, the Church. The sacraments flow from the side of Christ; this is symbolized by the blood and water flowing from his heart, the water representing baptism, the blood the Eucharist. Baptism is the entry into the life of grace; the Eucharist is its consummation, the greatest of the sacraments. Thus the sacraments are, as it were, the prolongation of Christ's humanity, like a mist rising from the earth after rain, spreading over it and making it fertile. They act as instrumental causes separate from the person of Christ, as a tool is something separate from the person using it.
Those who do not belong to the Church, even those who know nothing of Christ, if they are in good faith and have a real desire for God, loving him more than they love themselves, are justified; which means that they have received grace in a hidden manner, the same grace as we have. One thing, however, they lack, something of particular excellence: the special complexion given to grace by the sacraments, which makes it, instead of being just sanctifying grace, a grace which is fully Christian, sacramental grace. In those outside the Church grace is as if in a foreign land, a place of exile; whereas the sacraments communicate to us not only the grace of Christ, but also the modalities it has in his heart. What, then, are these?
First of all, in the heart of Jesus grace is in its own chosen territory, as in its connatural place, specially prepared for it. Since the soul of Christ is so close to the person of the Word, grace finds there its true home, and there unfolds itself in perfect freedom. The result is that, to those who have the privilege of receiving it through the sacraments, grace brings a kind of enlargement, the liberty of the children of God. It is transmitted to them as already humanized in the heart of Christ; it enters them unforced, it becomes connatural to them, seeks to take root in them, it is in them, proportionately speaking, as it is in Christ.
Next, Jesus being Son of God by nature, the grace that fills his heart has a wonderfully filial quality. When he communicates it to us by the touch of his sacraments, it is to make us fully sons by adoption of his heavenly Father. God, says St Paul, 'hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ' (Eph. i. 5); 'The Spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God. And if sons, heirs also, heirs indeed of God and joint-heirs with Christ; if so we are to suffer with him, that we may be glorified with him' (Rom. viii. 17); 'Whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn amongst many brethren' (Rom. viii. 29). Sacramental grace is, then, a grace by which we are made Christ's brethren, at the same time as it makes us sons of the Father. If another Person had become incarnate, say the Holy Ghost, grace would have a different complexion, but it would not have been filial to the extent revealed to us in the great passage of the Epistle to the Galations (iv. 4): 'When the fulness of the 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. And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father.' From that time on, grace is more intensely filial than ever it was before. Those who lived before Christ were, indeed, sons of God, but not with the same filial intimacy proper to the new law. When I receive the sacraments, I utter the word 'Father' with a quality, an intensity long unknown in the world.
Thirdly and lastly, the grace received by the sacraments is plenary, grace in its perfect flowering. Consequently, it is capable of producing a sevenfold result.
Here, by way of parenthesis, albeit a rather long one, we will recall those points of the catechism that deal with the general doctrine of the sacraments.
First of all, to bring out the connexion between the seven sacraments, let us compare the phases of the natural life with those of the supernatural. We can distinguish, in the natural life, birth, growth and nourishment. Life must make its appearance, and develop through nourishment. That is all that would be needed if no accident arose, but sickness brings new needs. Then a remedy is needed, and, should the sickness leave behind any weakness, then a stimulant, too, is needed to bring convalescence to an end, a secondary remedy to complete the work of the first. All would then be complete if man were an isolated individual, but he lives in society, which calls for some kind of organization, and so arises the necessity to provide for its continuation.
It is the same in thc supernatural order. Birth is Baptism; growth of supernatural strength is Confirmation; nourishment is given by the Eucharist. This would suffice for the fulness of Christian life in the individual, were there no sin, and against sin two remedies are provided: Penance, which is able to restore life to the soul, and Extreme Unction in case, at the moment it is to appear before God, there still remains some weakness, a lack of transparency to the divine. Lastly, on the supernatural plane too, man lives in society. The organization of this society is provided for by the sacrament of Orders; and its continuation by Marriage, raised to the dignity of a sacrament, with two ends one an earthly one, the other heavenly, to increase the number of the elect.
In addition, three of the sacraments imprint on the soul an ineffaceable character, which is a power of validly performing the acts of Christian worship.
Consider the power of Orders. Suppose a layman takes bread and wine with the purpose of doing what Christ did, and pronounces the words, 'This is my body, this is my blood.' Nothing happens. But if the man is a priest, even though in a state of mortal sin, even though a heretic, he can, should he wish, consecrate. The act of Christian vorship would be performed sinfully, sacrilegiously, yet validly.
Next, the power given by Baptism. If an unbaptised person makes his confession, the absolution given will be invalid, since only Baptism enables one to receive the other sacraments validly.
What power is given by Confirmation? The formal power to confess Christ openly by continuing the witness he came into the world to give to the truth.
Here, then, we have three ineffaceable sacramental characters. If a priest apostatises and later returns to obedience, he may perhaps be forbidden to say Mass and exercise the ministry, but he is still a priest. Likewise, an apostate is not re-baptised, for he is a baptised person once and for all.
The sacraments of Marriage and Extreme Unction are, in a way, analogous to this. So long as the two parties to a marriage are living, a second union of either is invalid; and, so long as the same illness continues, Extreme Unction is not repeated.
So then three of the sacraments (Orders, Baptism, Confirmation) imprint a character—a technical word—and two (Marriage and Extreme Unction) a mark which is not indelible, but temporary.
Now suppose I receive one of these sacraments in a state of mortal sin. What is the result? I commit sacrilege, but the sacrament is valid. If I repent of my sins and make my confession, the grace the sacrament should have given revives. This is what is meant by reviviscence of the sacrament. If someone marries in a state of mortal sin, the marriage- ceremony has not to be repeated. The priest says to him: 'Confess your sins, make a sincere act of contrition; you have received the sacrament, not indeed in a state of holiness but validly, so the grace of the sacrament will come to life in you.'
Apart from the 'character' or 'mark' given by five of the sacraments, all seven give or increase grace. Two are instituted to give grace to those who are without it, Baptism and Penance; for that reason, they are called sacraments of the dead. The other five increase grace in those who already have it, and so are known as sacraments of the living. But the effects may be reversed. If I receive the sacrament of Penance when already in the state of grace, it does not give me grace but increases it in me. Correspondingly, a sacrament that exists for the increase of grace may, in certain circumstances, give it. I may have an accident that causes amnesia, and, not remembering any more that I am in a state of mortal sin, I go to Communion to thank God for having spared my life. Even if my contrition is not perfect but only imperfect, the Communion I receive in good faith takes away my sin and restores grace. These are examples of the reversal of the ordinary effects of the sacraments that might occur.
This concludes our long parenthesis, and we can now speak of the fulness of grace as making us like Christ when received through the sacraments.
Note, first, that the effect of this grace is not, like that given to Adam, to eliminate, but, since derived from Christ, to illuminate suffering and death. Jesus did not eliminate suffering and death for himself, but illuminated them; and the grace of the Redemption causes us to follow in his footsteps.
In this connexion, Baptism gives us a grace of initiation, which is why St Paul says (Rom. vi. 4): 'We are buried together with him by baptism unto death, that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life.' This means that the moment I was baptised, the grace that was in Jesus Christ flowed out over me, and began to exert in my soul an impulse similar to its impulse in him. Now Christ came to save the world through the cross. In the grace of Christ there are, as it were, two forces: one, of glory, impelling him towards the Trinity; the other, of the cross, urging him to redeem the world—'With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you before I suffer' (Luke xxii. 15). When Christ's grace comes to me it impels me, if I am faithful to it, to follow, on my own level, the path he trod to save the world. The germ of baptismal grace may be choked by my whole line of conduct, but in itself it tends, if I do not oppose it, to perfect itself by the other sacraments and to produce in my life effects like those it produced in the soul of Christ. Redemptive in Christ, it will be co-redemptive in me, summoning me to the great trials and the great deliverances spoken of by St John of the Cross.
Confirmation empowers me to confess the faith in close unity and profound continuity with the witness born by Jesus to the truth: 'For this came I into the world, to give testimony to the truth' (John xviii. 37). I shall testify to the faith, not just as a free-lance, but with a love of the kind that emanates from that of the Redeemer confessing the truth in the world. The characteristic of the grace of Confirmation, when properly received, is the proclamation of the truth in love.
The Eucharist is the sacrament of the consummation of the spiritual life; what Baptism has sown in the soul the Eucharist develops to maturity. It is sometimes said that we should receive the Eucharist to help us to avoid sin; that is true enough, but only secondary, for its real aim is to perfect the spiritual life. The most genuine Communions are those of the saints.
The sacrament of Penance gives a special grace of purification and, in consequence, a hunger for the Eucharist. That is the proper effect of Penance.
Extreme Unction is the last sacrament given by the Church to the soul about to depart to eternity. It purifies it from the remains of sin, that is from all the weaknesses left by original sin and actual sins, even though forgiven. It prepares the soul for its great meeting with God.
Matrimony gives those who receive it the power to love one another, not only with a mutual human love—itself a great thing—but as members of Christ. It will give to each of the partners a particularly tender respect for the grace of Christ in the other, or, at least, for the other's call to receive the grace of Christ which brings with it, as we have seen, the indwelling of the Holy Trinity. If each party respects this in the other, the character of their love will be completely Christlike :'This is a great mystery, but I speak of Christ and the Church' (Eph. v. 32).
As for the sacrament of Orders, the person who exercises its powers as Christ's instrument will be enabled, according to the intensity of grace in him, to administer them with the heart of Jesus himself.
Thus grace, in passing through the sacraments, is enriched with various modalities and hues, like light passing through a window of seven different colours. These different sacramental modalities of sanctifying grace constitute the splendour of the mystical Body of Christ. They are present already in the least of justified Christians, but in this life they show their power only in the great saints. It is their testimony to the effects in them of sacramental grace that the Church's theology tries to call forth and record, in order to bring out more fully and to illustrate one of her most mysterious and profound doctrines, still too little known, namely that of sacramental grace as alone being fully Christian and making us like Christ. For us this is still shrouded in the night of faith but, at the last day, at the end of the world, the full beauty of the Church will be revealed, a beauty which will never come to an end.
Such is the third existential state of grace, that of grace by derivation from Christ. Grace, on the one hand orientated by the powers of jurisdiction assisted by Christ, and, on the other, enriched by its passage through the sacraments of the New Law, is thereby enabled to be fully Christian and to make us like Christ. It is this grace that gives the Church her character of freedom, of newness, of eternal youth: 'The Jerusalem which is from above is free, who is our mother . . .' (Gal. iv. 26); 'We all, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord' (2 Cor. iii. 18); 'I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God . . .' (Apoc. xxi. 2).
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