Carmelite

36. “It seems to me that all is loss since I have known the excelling knowledge of my Lord, Jesus Christ. For love of Him I have forfeited everything; I have accounted all else rubbish that I may gain Christ, so as to be found in Him, not with my own justice but with the justice that comes from God through faith. What I want is to know Him, to share in His sufferings, to become like Him in His death. I pursue my course, striving to attain to what Christ has destined me for by taking hold of me; my whole concern is to forget what is behind and to strain forward constantly to what is ahead; I run straight to the goal . . . , to the prize of the heavenly vocation to which God has called me in Christ Jesus.” 212 The Apostle has often revealed the greatness of this vocation: “God,” he says, “has chosen us in Him before the creation of the world that we might be holy and immaculate in His presence in love. . . . We have been predestined by the decree of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we may be the praise of His glory.” 213

37. But how do we respond to the dignity of this vocation? This is the secret: “Mihi vivere Christus est! . . . Vivo enim, jam non ego, vivit vero in me Christus. . . .” 214 We must be transformed into Jesus Christ; again it is St. Paul who teaches me this: “Those whom God has foreknown, He has predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” 215 It is important then that I study this divine Model so as to identify myself so closely with Him that I may unceasingly reveal Him to the eyes of the Father. First of all, what did He say when He came into the world? “Here I am, O God, I come to do your will.” 216 I think that this prayer should be like the bride’s heartbeat: 217 “Here we are, O Father, we come to do your will!”

38. The Master was truth itself in this first oblation! His life was as it were but the consequence of it! “My food,” He liked to say, “is to do the will of Him who sent Me.” 218 It should also be that of the bride, and at the same time the sword that immolates her. . . . “If it is possible, let this cup pass me by, yet not as I will but as You will.” 219 And then she will joyfully go in peace to every sacrifice with her Master, rejoicing to “have been known” by the Father since He crucifies her with His Son. “Your decrees are my inheritance forever; they are the joy of my heart”: 220 my Master sang this in His soul, and it should echo resoundingly in that of the bride! It is by her constant fidelity to these “decrees,” whether exterior or interior, that she will “bear witness to the truth” 221 and will be able to say “He who sent me has not left me alone. He is always with me because I do always the things that are pleasing to Him.” 222 And by never leaving Him, by remaining in closest contact with Him, she will radiate “this secret power” 223 which saves and delivers souls. Stripped and set free of self and all else, she can follow the Master to the mountain224 to pray there with Him in her soul, “a prayer of God.” 225 Then, still through the divine Adorer, He who is the great praise of glory to the Father, she will “ceaselessly offer a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips praising His name” 226 (St. Paul). And, as the psalmist sings, she will praise Him “in the expansion of His power, and for the immensity of His grandeur.” 227 we could find no other way to express the force of the text” (p. 205).

39. Then, when her hour of humiliation, of annihilation comes, she will recall this little phrase, “Jesus autem tacebat”; 228 and she will be silent, “keeping all her strength for the Lord”; 229 this strength which “we draw from silence.” 230 And when the hour of abandonment, of desertion, and of anguish comes, the hour that drew from Christ this loud cry, “Why have You abandoned Me?” 231, she will recall this prayer: “that they may have in themselves the fullness of My joy”; 232 and drinking to the dregs “the cup prepared by the Father,” 233 she will find a divine sweetness in its bitterness. Finally, after having said so often “I am thirsty,” 234 thirsty to possess You in glory, she will sing: “Everything is consummated; into Your hands I commend my spirit.” 235 And the Father will come for her to “bring her into His inheritance,” 236 where in “the light she will see light.” 237 “Know that the Lord has marvelously glorified His Holy One,” David sang. 238 Yes, the Holy One of God will have been glorified in this soul, for He will have destroyed everything there to “clothe it with Himself,” 239 and it will have lived in reality the words of the Precursor: “He must increase and I must decrease.” 240