BY THE REV. H. NOLDIN, S.J.
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN.
REVISED BY THE REV. W. H. KENT, O.S.C
Whenever it was proposed to show Him any honour, to confer some mark of distinction upon Him, He withdrew in a miraculous manner from the sight of the multitude and retired alone to a mountain solitude. His Father's glory is His one all-absorbing thought. The chief, the single aim which He set before Himself throughout His life on earth was the greater glory of His heavenly Father. He declares the task given Him to fulfil on earth, to accomplish which He laboured for thirty-three long years, to be the restoration to His Father of the glory whereof man had deprived Him. At all times and in all places, whenever it was consistent with His mission, He turned the attention of His apostles and disciples away from Himself and directed it to His Father. He is the way, He says, that leadeth to the Father; the true home of His disciples is His Father's house, where there are many mansions; the parables whereby He instructs His disciples and the common people all relate to the Father; He is the King, the Householder, the Giver of the feast; when He speaks of His departure He says that He is going to the Father; He will prepare a place for His own, but in His Father's house; when He shall have gone from them, He will ask the Father, and He shall give them another Paraclete; whatsoever we shall ask the Father in His name, that He promises He will do; and He bids us, when we pray, to say: Our Father, who art in heaven.
Every deed of His whole life; every act of His childhood; His vigils, His sleep, His tears, His trials and privations; every action of His youth, His labours, His prayers, His obedience; every action when He had grown'to man's estate, His journeyings, His discourses, His intercourse with His apostles, His miracles, His bitter Passion, His death of ignominy—all this He did and suffered with full knowledge and consent for the greater glory of His heavenly Father, and in that intention He offered up all. Hence at the close of His life He could say to His Father: "I have glorified Thee on earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." John xvii. 4. That is the spirit of the Heart of Jesus, that is the true sacerdotal spirit, the spirit of the priest who forgets self and only lives, labours, and suffers for God.
