• School [PDF]
• Table of Contents
• The School of Perfection
• One Thing Necessary
• The Interior Life
• The Universal Call
• Monasticism
• Lay Monasticism
• The Franciscan Ideal
• The New Monasticism
• The School of Christ
• Perfection
• Union With God
• Truth & Charity

SCHOOL   >   The School of Christ

“Where else can we go, you have the words
of eternal life.” – John 6:69

The Transitus “school of perfection” is not something to master but something by which one is mastered; and one cannot graduate from this school. In this school, all Oblates are students and disciples, and no Oblate is to consider himself a “teacher” or “master,” which is reserved for Christ  who, through the Holy Ghost, teaches His Church “all things.”

As Christians, we are pupils of the Lord’s service––we belong to the school of Jesus Christ. Our willingness to listen and to be formed by God’s Word is what constitutes us as members of Christ’s school. As long as our fervor remains intact we continue as learners. This image is not intended to emphasize our status as non-proficient as though we were to remain immature all our lives.  It means that as individuals and as members of an association, we are striving to acquire only one skill––to learn Christ. What other desire is at the heart of the vocation of every fervent Christian?

CHRIST'S RELIGION

“Did you not know that I must be about
My Father’s business?” – Luke 2:29

Our religion can glorify God only when it becomes part of Christ’s religion, that is, insofar as it is united with the honor, adoration, praise, and offering which are continually rising up from the heart of Jesus to His heavenly Father.

JESUS: THE PERFECT RELIGIOUS

Jesus was the perfect religious in the sense that all His affections, His activity and His will were so directed to the glory of the Father and to His service that His whole life was one continual act of worship and religion. “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”

This was the fundamental attitude of His spirit: Jesus, who in the secret of His heart continually adored the Trinity; who so often expressed His prayer even externally, raising His eyes to Heaven and calling upon His Father; who passed a good part of the night in solitary conversation with Him; who went punctually to the temple of Jerusalem for all the acts of external worship prescribed in the law; who died on the Cross to offer to the Triune God a sacrifice worthy of Him.

Yes, Jesus has shown us in what the true virtue of religion consists. It is interior worship, because “God is a spirit, and they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth,”  but it is also exterior, because our whole being, including our bodies, must take part in the worship we render to God.

All Christians––even those who are not bound by religious vows or who do not live in a monastery––should try in all their acts to have the intention of performing them for the glory, honor, and service to God. They should do them in such a way that they could be presented to Him as acts of worship, offering, and oblation––a living sacrifice. Thus the virtue of religion (and of monasticism) is not confined to the hours of prayer; it embraces our whole life, transforming it into one continual act of worship to God, in imitation of Jesus, and in union with Him––the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

THE WAY, TRUTH, & LIFE

“I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life;
no one comes to the Father, but by Me.” – John 14:6

Jesus our Savior, true God and true man, must be the ultimate end of all our meditations and devotions; otherwise they would be false and misleading. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end of everything. Thus in this our school of perfection, “We labor,” says St. Paul, “only to make all men perfect in Jesus Christ.”

For in Him alone dwell the entire fullness of the divinity and the complete fullness of grace, virtue and perfection. In Him alone we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing; He is the only Teacher from whom we must learn; the only Lord on whom we should depend; the only Head in whom we should be united and the only model that we should imitate. He is the only Physician that can heal us; the only Shepherd that can feed us; the only Way that lead us; the only Truth that we can believe; the only Life that can animate us. He alone is everything to us and He alone can satisfy all our desires.

We are given no other name under heaven by which we can be saved. God has laid no other foundation for our salvation, perfection and glory than Jesus. Every edifice that is not built on that firm rock is founded upon shifting sands and will certainly fall sooner or later. Every one of the Faithful who is not united to Him is like a branch broken from the stem of the vine. It falls and withers and is fit only to be burnt.

If we live in Jesus and Jesus lives in us, we need not fear damnation. Neither angels in heaven not men on earth, nor devils in hell, no creature whatever can harm us, for no creature can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Through Him, with Him, and in Him, we can do all things and render all honor and glory to the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost; we can make ourselves perfect and be the “living stones” that rebuild the House of God, the “living sacrifices” that redeem the world, and be for our neighbor a fragrance of eternal life.


JESUS: THE IDEAL OF THE MONK

“My God, my all!” – St. Francis of Assisi

Christ Jesus is the sublime Ideal of all holiness, the Divine Model presented by God Himself to the imitation of His elect. Christian holiness consists in the completion and sincere acceptance of Christ by faith, and in the expansion of this faith by hope and charity; it implies the stable and total hold exercised by Christ upon our activity through the supernatural influence of His Holy Spirit. Christ Jesus––the Alpha and Omega of all our works––becomes by the communication of His own life in the life of our souls.

The dogmatic truths, divinely revealed and contained in the Gospels and Epistles, required the concrete showing forth of the very existence of the Incarnate Word. This existence is manifested to us by the states and mysteries, the actions and words of the Sacred Humanity of Jesus, which we celebrate in the Church’s Liturgy and Sacraments, and through which we are united to Christ and His grace. Christ’s works during His earthly life are at once, now and forever, models to be imitated and sources of holiness––from them ever goes out a powerful and efficacious virtue to heal, enlighten, and sanctify those who by faith come in contact with the mysteries of Jesus with the sincere desire of walking in His footsteps.

But besides the precepts laid down by Christ to His disciples as condition of salvation and essential holiness, there are to be found in the Gospels some counsels  that Christ proposes to those who wish to make the ascension of the sublime heights of perfection. These are only counsels, undoubtedly: “If thou wilt,” said the Master. But the magnificent promises made by Him to those who follow them show the value that He Himself attaches to their observance––this observance has for its aim a more complete and more perfect imitation of the Savior. Here again, Jesus is the Way and the Model: religious (or monastic) perfection is but the full acquisition and the entire taking possession of the soul by the teaching and example of the Word incarnate. “My God, my all!” – St. Francis of Assisi

The religious (or monastic) state, taken in what is essential, does not constitute a particular form of existence on the borders or at the side of Christianity––it is the same Christianity offered to all, lived in its fullness and hidden brightness in the pure light of the Gospel. Therefore let us constantly place before our eyes the Divine Figure of Christ––nothing is so efficacious to souls called to walk in the path of the counsels; nothing is more powerful to touch and draw souls, and to obtain from them the necessary efforts to remain faithful to so high a vocation (calling), and one so rich in eternal promises as this contemplation of Jesus: the Ideal of the Monk.

JESUS: MASTER & MODEL

“In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.” – Hebrews 1:1-2

Jesus is not only the Master who teaches us how to attain to the perfection of His Heavenly Father, but He is also the living model of that perfection. Thus we shall be holy in the measure we are configured to Christ.

Men, on the other hand, are by their nature so limited and imperfect that they can never serve as perfect models for us. At the same time, we cannot see God, who is holiness itself. But the Son of God, His living image, by becoming man, has made infinite perfection incarnate in Himself. In Jesus, we see, we know, we touch, we experience the sanctity of God.

The divine perfections, which were beyond our grasp and inaccessible to our senses, we find as a living, concrete, tangible reality in Christ Our Lord. The Father has presented Him to the world as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased, because He sees in Him His own perfect image and all His own infinite perfections. The Father gives Christ to us, not only as our Master but as our Model, since from all eternity He predestined us “to be made conformable to the image of His Son.”

When we imitate Jesus, we are imitating our heavenly Father. When we endeavor to practice the virtues as He did, we are drawing nearer to God’s infinite perfection. When we become conformable to the image of Christ, we become conformable to the image of God. All spirituality, therefore, must be Christocentric; for the entire Christian life and all sanctity (holiness) can be reduced to becoming through grace what Christ was by nature: Son of God.

JESUS: THE SON OF GOD,
THE SON OF MAN

“The Son of God became the Son of Man
so that man could become sons of God.”

The Christian religion is not limited to the simple relations of the creature with the Creator, relations which––given the infinite distance between them––would remain only within the sphere of mere reverence and honor, without any character of intimacy or desire for communion. A Christian is conscious of the fact that he is not only a creature; he is a child of God redeemed by Christ. This gives to all his relations with God a quality of loving and affectionate devotion and zeal, which is the very soul of his religion.

Let us contemplate Jesus in His relations with God the Father: He knows He is a Son, a Son who lives for the Father who has given Him existence;  a Son who has no other ideal than to do the Father’s will, to which He adheres with all the strength of His heart; a Son who in all His actions, seeks only to please His Father. Jesus, the only-begotten of the Father, the only Son of God by nature, has by grace made us sharers in His divine life and love, so that “we should be called and should be the sons of God.” If we are sons of God, then it is right that we, too, strive to share Christ’s disposition toward His Heavenly Father; for it is this that truly characterizes our religion as given to us by our divine Master. We should love God as a child loves his father, trying to please Him in all things. If we are pleased to call Him Father, let Him in turn be pleased to call us sons.

If God has wished to raise us to the dignity of being His children, we should live as such and not like servants. The servant does only what is strictly necessary to obtain his salary and retain his position. The son, however, does not consider the reward, but loving his father dearly, puts himself at his disposal unreservedly, without restriction. The servant is lazy and selfish; he tries to spare himself as much as he can, and does not wish to give his employer anything more than what has been agreed upon. Not so the son; for him it is not a question of a time for work and a time for rest; nothing is too laborious when it is a question of giving pleasure to his father; he is always ready to carry out his orders, always attentive to his wishes, he is happy to be able to repeat at every moment, “Behold, I come to do Your will.”   

JESUS: THE WORD-MADE-FLESH

“I see nothing bodily of the Most High Son of God in this world
except His most holy Body and Blood.” – St. Francis of Assisi

“The Word was made FLESH and dwelt among us!”  Christians are not simply people of the Book, but People of the WORD--the Word  that is still among us, ever-present and alive in a truly ever living Word, i.e. “Tradition” or the “Deposit of Faith”: Sacred Scripture, oral tradition, the Ecumenical Councils, and the Liturgy. Christians may be certain they possess the one true Faith handed down to us by Christ through the Apostles and their Successors insofar as they remain living members of Christ’s Mystical Body and Spouse––the Church, in full communion with the Pope, who is the Successor of St. Peter and Vicar of Christ,  and in the spirit of charity, which is the bond of perfection. Yet even more so, Our Lord has given us his very Self in the most supreme Sacrament of Sacraments––the Holy Eucharist, i.e., Holy Communion. 
 
What we cannot do, Our Lord is able to do. Jesus Christ––perfect God and perfect Man––leaves us not a symbol, but a reality. He Himself stays with us. He will go to the Father, but He will also remain among men. He will not leave us not simply a gift that will make us remember Him; not an image that becomes blurred with time, like a photograph that soon fades and yellows, and has no meaning except for those who were contemporaries. Under the appearance of bread and wine, He is really present, with His Body and Blood, His Soul and Divinity.  Our Lord said, “I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will not have life in you.”

Eucharistic worship constitutes the soul of all Christian life. In fact, Christian life is expressed in the fulfilling of the greatest commandment, that is to say, in the love of God and neighbor, and this love finds its source in the Blessed Sacrament (Holy Communion), which is commonly called the Sacrament of Love. The Eucharist signifies this charity, and therefore recalls it, makes it present and at the same time brings it about. Every time that we consciously share in it with the proper disposition, there opens in our souls a real dimension of that unfathomable love that includes everything that God has done and continues to do for us. We not only know love, we ourselves begin to love, and since we are what we eat, we become love.

Eucharistic worship is therefore precisely the expression of that love which is the authentic and deepest characteristic of the Christian vocation. This worship springs from the love and serves the love to which we are all called in Jesus Christ. A living fruit of this worship is the perfecting of the image of God that we bear within us, an image that corresponds to the one that Christ has revealed in us. As we thus become adorers of the Father “in spirit and truth,” we mature in an ever-fuller union with Christ, we are ever more united to Him, and we are ever more in harmony with Him as we share in His very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. As the source, center, and summit of the Christian life,  the authentic and dynamic sense of the Eucharist becomes of itself the school of active love.