The Spirit of Catholic Action

Extract

Even in His manhood Christ Our Lord, being endowed with the fulness of grace and truth, enjoys a divine intimacy of love and vision which is incomparable. Since He is at the very apex of perfection made a “little less than the angels” but to Whom all things have been subjected, He “is able to save for ever them that come to God by Him.” Anointed with the glory of the Godhead the grace that is His is not only an endowment of His own sacred humanity but a fount of supernatural life which is meant to pervade all who are redeemed. The first among creatures to receive within herself the author of divine life was Mary the Mother of God, by whom God gives Himself to the world. “The Blessed Virgin,” says St. Thomas, “received such a fulness of grace that she was nearest of all to the Author of grace; so that she received within her Him Who is full of all grace; and by bringing Him forth, she, in a manner, dispensed grace to all.” And again he writes: “Indeed it is a great thing in any saint that he should have such an abundance of grace that it is enough for the salvation of many: but when it is so abundant as to be available for all it is in the highest degree, as is the case with Christ and the Blessed Virgin.” By the man-becoming of God, the God-man is consecrated priest and anointed as king.