Soul of the Apostolate by Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard

Author:Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard [Chautard, Dom Jean-Baptiste]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Subject Value
ISBN: 9781618901408
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 1977-06-01T05:00:00+00:00

d. It Makes the Gospel Worker Truly Eloquent

What we are talking about is, of course, that eloquence which is effective enough as a vehicle of grace to bring about the conversion of souls and lead them to virtue. We have already treated of it in an incidental fashion. We will only add a few words to these considerations here.

In the Office of St. John we read this responsory: “reclining on the breast of the Lord, he drank in from the sacred fountain itself, of the Heart of the Lord, the fluency of his Gospel, and he spread the grace of the word of God over the whole world.”62

What a profound lesson is to be found in these few words for all those whose duty it is as preachers, writers, or catechists to spread abroad the word of God! In these powerful words, the Church reveals to the priests the source of all true eloquence.

All the Evangelists were equally inspired. All had their providential purpose. And yet, nevertheless, each one has an eloquence all his own. St. John, more than all the others, has the power to reach our wills by filling our hearts with the grace of God’s word, verbi Dei gratiam. His Gospel, together with the Epistles of St. Paul, is the favorite book of souls for whom life here below is meaningless without union with Jesus Christ.

Where did St. John get an eloquence of such power? In what mountain is the source of that great river whose life-giving waters spread their bounty over the whole earth? (Fluenta in toto orbe terrarum diffudit.)

The liturgical text tells us: he is one of the rivers of Paradise. Quasi unus ex Paradisi fluminibus Evangelista Joanne.

What is the use of so many high mountains and glaciers, in this earth? Some people who know nothing might perhaps come to the conclusion that it would be much more profitable if all these vast mountainous areas were nice fertile plains. But they would be forgeting that without these high peaks, all the plains and valleys would be as barren as the Sahara. For it is the mountains that give the earth its fertility, by means of the rivers for which they serve as reservoirs.

This great peak of Paradise, where springs the fount by which is fed the Gospel of St. John, is nothing else but the Heart of Jesus: Evangelii fluenta de ipso sacro Dominici pectoris fonte potavit. It was because the Evangelist, by his interior life, was able to detect the beatings of the Heart of the Man-God, and the immensity of His love for men, that his word is the vehicle of the grace of the divine Word: Verbi Dei gratiam diffudit.

In the same way it can be said that all men of prayer are in a way rivers of Paradise. Not only do they draw down from heaven, upon the earth, by their prayers and sacrifices, the living waters of grace, and deflect or mitigate the chastisements which the world deserves, but ascending

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.