Union with Christ Sanctifies Your Actions

By St. Peter Julian Eymard, How to Get More out of Holy Communion (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2000) pp. 115-120. Reproduced by permission.

By Communion, Jesus comes to take possession of us and make us His. To enter into His plan, we must abandon to Him all rights over and all ownership in ourselves; we must leave to Him the direction and initiative of all our acts; we must do nothing by ourselves nor for ourselves, but everything by and for Him.

By this union, there takes place within us a new incarnation of the Word, who then continues in us for the glory of God what He did in the human nature of Jesus.

I command the faculties of my soul; my members obey me; it is I, the complete man, who act, who call forth action, and it is I who am responsible for all the movements as well as for all the actions of my being. My powers serve me blindly; the principle that causes them to act is alone responsible for what they do, because they work only by it and for it, and not for themselves.

This being so, it follows that in our Lord, who had two natures but only one Person, that of the Word, these two natures acted at the behest of the Word, and that the least of our Lord's human acts was at the same time a divine act. It was an action of the Word, who alone could inspire it and give it value - an infinite value which it received because it had for its end a divine Person. It also follows therefrom that the human nature of our Lord could not originate anything, that it had no self-interest, and that it acted not for itself but solely as the servant of the Word, who alone was the moving force of all its acts. The Word willed in both His divine and His human nature and acted through each.

It must be the same with us. Or, at least, we must make every effort to approach this divine ideal by which man acts only as a passive instrument moved and guided by a divine force, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, toward the one goal God can set for His activity - that is, Himself and His own glory. We must therefore be dead to every desire and interest of self and have in view only the desires and interests of Jesus within us. He is there only to live again for the glory of His Father. He gives Himself in Holy Communion in order to foster this ineffable union and make it closer.

When the divine Word says in the Gospel, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me," He seems to say, "In sending me into the world through the Incarnation to be the divine personality of a nature that would have no person of its own, the Father destroyed in this nature every root of self-seeking, in order that it should live for Him alone; likewise, through Communion, I unite myself to you to live in you and cause you to live only for me. In you I shall will and desire, putting myself in place of you; your faculties shall be my faculties; by your heart and mind and senses, I shall live and act; you will possess in me a divine personality, which will give to your actions a superhuman dignity, a divine merit, and make them worthy of God and deserving of beatitude, the intuitive Vision of God. What I am by nature, you will be by grace: sons of God, rightful heirs of His kingdom, His riches and glory."

When our Lord, through His Spirit, lives in us, we are His members, we are Himself. Our actions are acceptable to the Heavenly Father. Seeing them, He sees His divine Son's own actions and is well pleased with them. The Father, inseparably united to His Word, also lives and reigns in us. And this divine life, this divine reign, paralyzes and destroys the rule of Satan. Creatures now render to God the glory and honor He rightly expects from them.

Thus our Lord's primary object in desiring us to be united to Him supernaturally by the life of perfect charity is to give glory to His Father in His members. That is why St. Paul so often calls us "members of the Body of Jesus Christ" (Cf. Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 12:27). That is why our Lord at the Last Supper repeats over and over the words "Abide with me" (Cf. John 15:4, 5, 7). They imply the entire gift of self, for when one no longer lives in oneself, one labors for Him with whom one lives and is wholly at His disposition.

Our Lord also desires this union from love of us, that He may ennoble us through Himself and share with us one day His celestial glory with all that constitutes it: power, beauty, and perfect happiness. And as our Lord can communicate His glory to us only insofar as we become His members, and as His members are holy, He therefore desires to sanctify us in order to unite us to Him and give us participation in His glorious life.

Even here one earth, our actions become our Lord's actions and derive their value more or less from our Lord's according to the closeness of their union with His. And this union means conformity with the morals, the virtues, and the Spirit of Jesus within us. Hence these beautiful words: "The Christian is another Christ. And I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Cf. Gal 2:20). "Yet not I, but the grace of God with me" (1 Cor 15:10).

This union is the fruit of the love of Jesus Christ; it is the goal of the divine plan in its entirety in the natural and supernatural order. All the institutions of Providence tend to bring about and consummate this union of the Christian with Jesus Christ, tend to foster and perfect it; for in it is comprised the entire glory of God in His creature, all the sanctification of souls - in a word, the entire fruit of Redemption.

The union of Jesus Christ with us will depend upon our union with Him: "Abide in me, and I in you" (John 15:4). "He that eateth my Flesh abideth in me, and I in him" (John 6:57). So I may be sure that Jesus will abide in me if I will abide in Him. As the wind rushes into the void, water into the depths, so the Spirit of Jesus at once fills the empty place prepared by the soul.

In this union with our Lord consists man's dignity. I do not become part of the Divinity, something to be adored; yet I become something consecrated, holy. My nature is still nothing in the eyes of God and, of itself, may fall back into the abyss. But God, by His grace, by His presence within me, raises it to union with Him. This union makes me related to our Lord in a degree corresponding with its closeness and the measure of my purity and sanctity. In short, relationship with our Lord is simply participation in His sanctity, according to His words: "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father, who is in Heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Cf. Matt 12:50).

To this union, also, man owes his power. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. Without me you can do nothing" (John 15:4-5). Nothing - that is plainly spoken. Now, as the branch draws its fertility from union with the trunk and the sap, so also spiritual fecundity comes from our union with Jesus Christ, from the union of our thoughts with His thoughts, of our words with His words, of our actions with His actions. The members of the body draw their life from the heart's blood, and the blood is produced by nourishment. But our nourishment is Jesus, the Bread of Life, and only he who eats its has life in him.

This, then, is the source of our strength of holiness: union with our Lord. In the absence of this union, our works are vain, empty, sterile; the withered branch that no longer partakes of the life of the vine can bear no fruit.

Of this union is born the merit of our works. It is a merit of fellowship. Our Lord takes our action and makes it His, causing it to merit an infinite reward, an eternal recompense. This action, as it came from us, was almost nothing, but clothed now as it is with the merits of Jesus, it becomes worthy of God. And the closer our union with Jesus, the greater will be the glory of our holy works.

Oh, what is the reason for our unhappy neglect of this divine union? How many merits we have lost! How many actions we have rendered sterile by not doing them in union with Jesus Christ! How many graces have borne no fruit! What? With such resources at our command and in so easy a transaction, have we gained so little?

Let us then be united with Jesus Christ our Lord! As His human nature was united to the Person of the Word and was submissive and obedient to His rule, as also the complete Jesus Christ was to His Father, so let us be united to our Lord, submitting ourselves docilely to His will and direction, guided by His thought, following His inspirations, and offering Him all our actions. But in order that this may be, we must be united in a union of life - life received, renewed, and sustained by continual communion with Jesus.

It is with us as with the vine branch, which must be expanded and warmed by the sun in order that the sap may fully penetrate it. In like manner, we must be disposed to receive the divine sap by the sun which draws it and maintains it - that is, by recollection, desire, and prayer, by the constant gift of self, by love sighing without rest for Jesus and at every moment mounting impetuously toward Him. "Come, Lord Jesus!" (Apoc 22:20) And what is this sap but the blood of Jesus, which gives to us His divine life, strength, and fertility? This life of union may be expressed, therefore, in two terms: sacramental Communion and a life of recollection.