Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/209

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THE PRIEST'S LIBERTY.
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and became of those who seek "the things that are Jesus Christ's."[1]

To these new aims and new interests are added also new tastes—that is, new interior and spiritual perceptions of pleasure and delight in things which in time past were, for us, without sweetness or attraction; as, for instance, prayer, the reading of Holy Scripture, the Holy Mass, the solitude of the sanctuary, when we are alone in His presence; or in anything we can do for His sake, however slight; or in self-denial, when we can make a greater effort in His service. These are the things of the Spirit of God which are foolishness to the mind which judges by intellect and by sense alone. Everything we shrank from then becomes attractive. Crosses, disappointments, vexations, losses, which are a slight tasting of the sharpness and sadness of His lot, become to us pledges of His love and proofs of our fidelity to Him.

3. Lastly, the law of liberty is the will become a law to itself. "The law was not made for the just man,"[2] but for the disobedient. "Love is the fulfilling of the law."[3] "He that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law."[4] Love anticipates all com-

  1. Philip. ii. 21.
  2. 1 S. Tim. i. 9.
  3. Rom. xiii. 10.
  4. Ibid. xiii. 8.