October 9
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeTwelfth Wednesday after Trinity
Lord, increase our faith. S. Luke 17:5.
OFFER God your heart, to the end that He may make Himself the entire Master of it. Beseech Him to make you entirely faithful to Him, that you may possess more and more that faith which is the eye of the soul, which God has given us to behold Himself. Backward, we by faith behold God creating us, and we see our own fall; we behold His holiness and goodness and love forming us to love Him everlastingly; and when we had fallen, by faith we see Him, the Father, for us willing that God the Son should take our fallen nature, should be born, despised, crucified, die for us. By faith we see God the Son willing for our sakes to become Man. We see our dear Lord and Redeemer on the Cross. Faith sees past and to come in the light of God, and is sure of them. The death of our Lord is to faith the eternal counsel of the ever-blessed Trinity, the unceasing Source of all spiritual blessings. Each act of His sufferings is a part of the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God; each is a mystery of love, whereon the soul shall dwell in love for ever. Faith gazes on Him, because He has first caught and fixed its gaze. It sees, because He has given it eyes to see.
Bidding celestial brightness shine, Where else were but a formless mine. Where these dead walls her heaven-born aid And secret spirit shall pervade, Terrestrial things become Divine.