INTERIOR LIFE Dr Canals, Salvador. Saint Thomas have seen already, in his excellent mind that all goods of nature are as smoke if compared to the minor of sobrenatural goods, and he expressed such concept, in metaphisic form, when he said “only one good of grace is greater than all good of the whole nature”. A contemporary writter, imbued by the enormous size of this feeling, has expressed the same concept in psicologic form: “God, our Lord –has said– looks more after a heart, in which can reign, than from the natural regime of the whole physic univers and the government of the all the empires of the world”. Then, today I want talk of this kingdon of God, where the Lord finds his delights; about this kingdom of God which is within us, than is so admirable as unknown. The heart of men is like a cradle where Jesus is born again; and by this, in all the heats wanting to receive him , the same Jesus, even though with different ways, grows in age, in knowledge and in grace. Jesus is not equal in every one, but, according the capacities of who receives him, He is manifested different in the life of men, he can be as a child or as an adolescent in full development, or as a mature man. To reign, be born and grow in the heart and in the life of the Christian is the desire of Christ, which wants with this way to do in each christian–in you, in me– alter Christus, an other Christ. In this vocatio to the grace, in this invitation of Jesus, every one would have to answer repeating the words of the Precursor:” it suits that He would grow and me decrease”. This transformatio in Jesucrist, this union with God, which is a fruit of interior life, embrace the whole of the entire life and makes we feel and savour the consolating and tranquillizer reality of the parabole of the grape and the vine shoots. “I am the grape and you the vine shoots: If some one keeps in Me, and I in him, he will give a lot of fruit;because without Me you can do nothing”.
Be a sarment unit to cep. Soul of a profund interior life. You will not No tardaràs in acomr-te that your thoughts de que els teus pensaments aniran transforming under the influx of the knowledge own of the sobrenatural life, what will take you to think with the ideas of God and to see the world and the life with the eyes of God. With this union of thinking
with
Jesucrist,
you
will
have
not
a
pagan
intelligence. And you will became a soul of of sobrenatural visiion and you will not merit the reproach of Christ: ¿The pagans are not doing that also? Your profundy sobrenatural vision, will give light and heat to your word. La lymph of sobrenatural spirit will fecundate also your affective life. You will understand the words of Saint Paul:”have in your hearts the same feelings of Jesucrist”. Because the feelings of Jesus, full of purity and the understanding, of love for the souls and the compassion for these which are faring off his way, they are inheritances of these men that have been transformed in Christ. Alter this unio of thinking and feeling with Jesucrist, alter this renovatio of the intellectual and afective life, the lymph of interior life will penetre in all your exterior activity: your works, flowers and fruits of your interior life, will be full of God, and will revel the super abundance of your love for Him. Only then, it will be tru “opera plena
coram Domino” works riches before the presence of the Lord. Your union with Jesús,
have to be, overall interior.
Because your thoughts, your wishes, your affects are the more delicate part and the more intime. And all this interior world– this handfull of thobbing ears – it is precisely what the Lord is asking to the souls. If you only gives to the Lord your external works, but you negates or messures the most refuses or you mesures the most innermost of your life – your wishings, your emotions, your thoughts–, you never will be an interior soul: if your affections and wishings take you far from God, it is a tru sign, that you are not a soul of interior life. Do you want to know, wether you are a soul of interior life? Do to yourself this question-: ¿where am I living continously with my thoughts, with my affections, with my wishings? If your affections, and wishings converge to Jesucrist, it is a tru proof of you are an interior soul. But if youe v, affections and wishings take youet far from God, it is a signe, also tru, that you are not a soul of interior life. Because you have not to forget: “where your tresaure is, there will be your heart”. Now the only tresaure of the souls of interior life is Jesus, that Jesus –they add– who I saw,who I loved,in which I believed, to whom I believed, and whom I prefered among all. As you see, the great batle field of the souls having high aims in a tru and deep interior life is the reart. The batles of God are wined and losen at heart. This is why the guard of the Heart is a fundamental norm of the fight for being better. When the souls want and do not put hindrances to the work of God, He transports them to a tru union, and founds within they His kingdom, what is the kingdom of justice, love and peace.
If these considerations have opened your eyes to the reality of a kingdom of God, which is totally interior, -the kingdom of God is within you– now is necessary, that your eye be opened before a new reality: this one: the kingdom of heavens. You have to remind that the kingdom of heavens suffers violence, it is the way which takes us to this interior kingdom, it is a way of mortification, and of purification. Now that you feel as a vine shoot unit to the grape, and you wish to be it, each day more, it is needed than you listen back the voice of Jesucrist:“I am the tru grape and my Father is the farmhand; the vine shoot which does not give fruit will be cut, and the one giving fruit will be pruned, for he will give still more. For you giving more fruit, for your union with the Lord would consolidate, it is needed the prune, the purification. Don’t fear the knife of the pruner:”my Fathe is the farmhand”. Because with this prune the Lord will purify your intelligence and your will, your heart and your memory. You will not be able to advance one step in the life of union with God without before necessarily, give an other step by the way of the purification. This is the reason for what you need to collabore with the Lord; when the moment arrives of pruning: ¡Let him do! And when you would see fall branches and leaves, be happy, thinking at the new and next fruits than this prune promises. The abundance of these fruits depends of your interior life, your degree of union with God.. “Who keeps on Me and I in him, gives a lot of fruit”. Be your exterior activity, your intense action, one which not takes you far from God. Listen a more time the Lord: “Keep you in Me”,. Remind that interior life is the soul of every apostolate. When greater would be your union with God, more abundant will be the fruit of your apostolate. On the understandind that it will be the fruit, and nor the exit, what is a completely different thing. It results more efficient a man of interior life with a few spontaneous words, than a persone not to much interior with a discurs exhausting the possibilities of the intellect.
I want remind you althought the sensibility of the apostle for the problems and the necessities of his apostolate are not depending of your degree of immersed in the external work, nor of his hability, but of his degree of union with God. Before finishing this short conversation with the Lord, we have to listen another time the words of Jesucrist; “Keep you in Me�