FR. BERNARD-MARIE DE CHIVRE
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For the joy and consolation it will bring to those who knew him (1902-84), for the younger generation who only knew him by his reputation, and for the sake of justice to honor a great and noble religious who passed through our vulgar and thankless age, I cannot resist this opportunity to tell what I remember of Fr. de Chivré (say Sheave-ray'). His own words present him best: "I know I could have had an incredible apostolate, but God preferred an incredible sacrifice, and it's much better that way."
He was born of one of the oldest and most noble families of France. As early as 800, history speaks of the first Baron de Chivré. Father never boasted of his origins; he accepted them as a great responsibility before God. He was tall, with chiseled features, and a certain modest dignity in his bearing. What he loved more than anything was nobility of character. He was noble in every sense of the word, but he tried to hide his natural dignity behind the voluntary humility of a Catholic and a religious. Sometimes, though, his quick and vehement nature got the better of him when he met with dishonesty or cowardice, and he could not always contain his indignation before a certain baseness of character.
After the World War I (which struck down his elder brother, voluntarily enlisted at 18), he entered the novitiate of the Dominican Fathers of the Province of France. But the modernist spirit had already begun to infect the Order, and the combat began for him at an early hour. But there was no question of fleeing the battlefield. He held strong, and fought every inch of the way to remain faithful to his vocation. There were times when indignation or discouragement seemed almost to pull him under, but his strong desire to be a Dominican brought him through every trial. He was persecuted by his professors at the Dominican college of the Saulchoir, not openly–perhaps not even deliberately–but two radically opposed mentalities could not help but collide.
His personal notes give a hint of these confrontations. They are more eloquent than if I were to describe his hidden suffering and the energy he deployed to overcome it:
"The man who has wept is like the land after a rain: he is soothed; the earth of his soul has been overturned. The brightness of interior light comes to shine like the sun over his moistened heart, and a springtime of new energies bring his life new reasons to sing."
In these same personal notes, written for no one but himself, we find this other moving revelation:
Oh! Above all, never speak of the beauty that sings to your soul....You will only meet more sarcasm....Stay buried in your shroud, and make sure that nothing of the real you can seep through. You have grown so used to this shroud that it will probably only come off at the resurrection. Then the songs of your heart and mind will burst forth, but for now the order of the day is the hardening of the reason and the heart: that's the modern way to be someone.
His self-mastery, his discretion, and his reluctance to speak of himself surely date from this period. He hid his deeper qualities as much as he was able, building a strong wall around his soul. Further, we read:
I rejoice–supernaturally, but also humanly–at the thought of those who have been fortunate enough to be loved by their brothers. Others have never known that balm of authentic affection which renews the forces of the soul, exhausted by interminable solitude. These, without ever speaking of it, associate themselves with the joy of their brothers by a prayer of thanksgiving uttered in their name. I need to accept the fact that I am not loved because of the ideas that I love and because of the ideal that has always inspired me. When you cling to the Truth you divorce yourself from a great many people. As soon as a soul gives itself fully to God, those who are most furiously bent on destroying it are those who have unknowingly conserved the roots of the spirit of the world, buried deep in their flawless piety.
In spite of certain confrontations, mostly with his superiors, he established strong friendships with his brother religious, especially those in his own monastery and often those under his authority. Thrown together in the common life, he won their hearts by his fidelity to the rule and by his profound goodness.
The confidences that Father let slip into his personal notes help us understand the graces that later gave such supernatural fruitfulness to his apostolate. Those early struggles formed his personality and drew souls to him. His moral attraction was sometimes astonishing and people found in him a guide and an inspiration.
He was ordained in 1930, purified in his emotions, his love of God forged in a trial by fire. Very quickly, he distinguished himself as a magnificent preacher. But his influence was stifled, and this was for him a cause of constant suffering. He was, however, appreciated by certain renowned religious figures and was quickly promoted to important posts. He was made prior of the convent at Lille, and his preaching was enthusiastically successful. He came to the attention of the future Cardinal Suhard during a series of Lenten sermons preached at the Cathedral of Reims. The cardinal later tried in vain to establish him as the preacher at Notre Dame in Paris. The Boy Scouts of France requested him as their head chaplain, but another was appointed in his place. He did not dwell on these disappointments but gave himself fully to the apostolate of every day. He was loved by the clergy and the faithful and soon all of his time was taken up by preaching and the ministry.
World War II came when he was at the height of his apostolic activity. He was not the type to stay in the wings when his country called for sacrifice. With the permission of his superiors, he became a military chaplain in the Air Force. These were days of profound joy for him in spite of the ravages of the war. He loved the military life: it was honest and direct, and he built strong friendships. He was in his element in the army discipline. Aviation is an elite army, but pilots are not little saints! He cared for the men, and was loved by them in return. He was present at Dunkirk, where he lived through the dark hours of June, 1944. He prayed and heard confessions in the shell craters, helping in any way he could the soldiers that fell like flies around him. Thanks to him, the hell of that battlefield became for many of them a gateway to Paradise. He held firm–so firm that the soldiers flocked to him for safety when the shells were falling. His calm reassured them and his prayer kept the bombs away. He arrived in England on the last boat to leave the beachhead; then he landed at Cherbourg, and finally was sent to Pau where he was discharged. In fact, he had been wounded in a car accident and was sent by his superiors to a little village in the Loire, near Vichy. There, too, he called down a shower of grace. A convent of Dominican sisters had taken refuge in a resort hotel and opened a boarding school on the premises. They established their novitiate in the same place. A new type of apostolate began for Fr. de Chivré, at the service of children and religious. At the same time, he was given charge over his brothers as Provincial Vicar for unoccupied France.
Things changed suddenly after two years of a fruitful ministry. Father was recalled to Paris and assigned to the convent of Le Havre. He was there when the liberation came and the war ended. He helped found the convent of Rouen, and was sent back to Le Havre as prior.
Those were years of constant activity: retreats, missions, preaching in parishes. He was always in demand–chaplain to religious communities, especially Dominicans and Carmelites, chaplain to the prisons; Lent preached in Paris, Le Havre, Dieppe; spiritual direction for many souls that were drawn to his kindness. He came to the assistance of all who suffered–in body or soul–and left no call for help unanswered. Without thinking of his fatigue, in spite of his overflowing schedule, he was always there, fulfilling his duties within the convent and at the service of those that called upon him from without.
Here's something he wrote in his own hand during that period:
Lord,
My day is over,
My books are closed, the visitors are gone,
There is no more noise around my cell,
My desk is clear, ready for tomorrow
With its ration of mail and piles of books.
I'm finally alone,
Or, rather, finally, the two of us,
You and I, we can chat to our heart's content,
The real day is just starting, because evening has come.
And after a day that must have been particularly exhausting:
Lord!
I was just praying to You, fast asleep in the choir,
Like a poor beggar
Dressed in black and white
That someone sat there, not budging, but that they still keep on:
That could always come in useful
For the humble chores,
To have a monk at hand who only knows how to sleep.
I was just praying to You with my sleep, Which I put in charge of talking to You;
Thinking, gazing–signs of being awake–
No longer help me think.
The only strength I still have is to be an absence
Whose love stubbornly refuses to be anything but
A painful presence, motionless, incapable of loving You;
I just fell asleep without the least compunction,
And Your goodness only thinks to smile:
"For once he must have really worked...."
You even think to bless me; I was just praying to You, asleep in the choir,
And I woke up loving You, my Lord.
He was a model religious, and for nothing in the world would he have broken the least point of the rule. He was present for the Divine Office, present for his hour of meditation in spite of the crush of the apostolate, present at recreations–which he animated with his contagious good humor. Fr. de Chivré was far from being gloomy or austere. Entirely given to God and therefore entirely free, with an excellent sense of humor, he was always concerned with the spirit and the morale of his companions. He entertained himself and entertained the others by seeing the humor in everyday life, and his laughter was catching.
Then, suddenly, at the height of his apostolate, when he was in the force of his age and in full possession of his intellectual faculties, God stepped in and everything crashed to a halt. In 1957, at the age of 55, he was brutally struck down by a double sarcoma; he was condemned by medical science, without appeal. But medical science isn't everything. To the utter amazement of the surgeon who operated without much hope of success, he did recover, but his life became a Calvary. He could no longer live in community, which had been his joy. He was forbidden to preach or do mission work, which had been his whole life until now. He had become a convalescent in need of constant assistance. Not once did he let slip a complaint or a sigh of nostalgia for the past, nor did he show any bitterness: God had chosen, God was leading him, and, like a child, Fr. de Chivré let himself be led. All his life, Father had never known how to say anything to God except, "Yes."
"Yes, My God"–the phrase is truly an echo of the Consecration. It is brief and full of mystery like the Consecration, containing the infinite variety of reasons to pronounce it, just as the Host contains the infinity of God through the Hoc est corpus meum–simple and direct like the Consecration. It is a simple little expression that opens the door to unimaginable acts of courage–"Yes, My God!"
Or take this other little sentence, which reveals one of his spiritual secrets: "If you want to taste the supernatural in suffering, do not pass your suffering through the filter of reasons to make it smaller."
The characteristic feature of his personality was a profound and delicate goodness. His kindness was a natural gift, but the grace of the priesthood seized upon it and raised it up to something supernatural. He was full of compassion, and his goodness welcomed souls. Whenever a soul called upon him, he gave himself totally. He was discreet, full of tact and respect, and did not pry for confidences. His kindness was accompanied by an astonishing gift of natural intuition. Grace took his intuition and raised it up into a true charism of understanding souls. He looked straight at you with a deep regard, then he said the words that were needed, going straight to the heart of the matter. They were truly the words of Christ, placing or confirming you on the road God wanted you to take. You left him filled with the peace and the strength of God. He considered that the light of the Holy Ghost should descend into the concrete, everyday details of our lives. It was not enough to bask in the light he gave. Once you knew what God wanted, you had to be honest and logical. Fidelity to grace was Fr. de Chivré's constant concern. His intention and the source of his energy was a desire to see God loved and served. He sacrificed himself for this and nothing human was ever able to overshadow it.
He was naturally quiet and detested chit-chat, considering it a sign of carelessness and superficiality. While good and kind, he could become ferocious when someone had been indiscreet. He wrote: "By discretion, we participate in the majesty of God, who knows everything and says nothing." His own discretion was heroic, and he sometimes preferred to endure calumny rather than reveal what he knew.
He spread a sort of serenity and peacefulness. This came from his union with God, since on a human level he was vigorous and choleric. He was mindful of those around him, and dominated his natural impatience and only thought and spoke of his companions with their sorrows and their crosses. With all his strength, he tried to console those who came to him. His charity watched for ways to bring joy.
His love of Christ crucified was tender and he had a childlike love for the Blessed Virgin. She was his light and strength. All of his writings bear the heading "Ave Maria" his favorite invocation; on one of his pages, he wrote Ave Maria in the margin at the beginning of every line. The Blessed Virgin visibly protected him and the souls confided to him.
God asked a great deal of him. At the height of his apostolic activity, he was a man consumed by others–which, in fact, was his favorite definition of the priesthood. He did not belong to himself for a moment, following the command of St. Dominic to the letter. He always "spoke to God or of God," and he was never idle. His traveling was not a cause of distraction or dissipation. As soon as he was comfortably installed in his railway car, even surrounded by other passengers, he took out paper and pen and wrote, completely absent from the outside world and absorbed by his subject.
Father's intelligence was quick and profound, and his way of thinking and expressing himself was extremely original. His thoughts were concise. He loved brief and pithy expressions. He was nourished on the Summa Theologica, which was practically his only reading besides Holy Scripture, particularly the New Testament. He was capable of passing two hours studying a single paragraph of St. Thomas. What he sought was a doctrine that would breathe life into souls–a contact of the intelligence with the truth, leading the soul to Truth itself. Sometimes the Holy Ghost stepped in, and his silent audience was then seized with something impossible to describe. Those who lived such moments know of what I speak.
Beginning in 1947, he preached five-day retreats. Five days, in the middle of the countryside, in complete silence. Two long conferences per day gave food for reflection, and a night of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament exposed set the tone. God sought after by souls and discovered through the grace of his priesthood consumed him. For Fr. de Chivré, these days were for him an oasis as well:
Spending several days with other souls in an entirely spiritual atmosphere, knowing that every one of you is in pursuit of God and His light and that you have come together for the sole end of coming to know Him better; living in an ambiance of silence–an atmosphere of joy without words and words without excess; living moments of profound conversation that are the sincere echo of our conscience and of those regions of the soul which are nearest eternity and which only rarely are drawn to the surface of daily existence: those days seem to be already Heaven, or at least its ante-chamber.
Father also loved to care for young souls, especially the students of his Order. After retreats of this type, the faculty would happily announce, "A shower of grace has come to this house!" Indeed, by his preaching, Fr. de Chivré could take 500 passionate, rebellious, back-talking, rowdy girls and turn them inward in conversation with themselves–or rather, in conversation with God.
Beginning in 1957, because of seriously weakened health, Father was forced to give up the conventual life. His superiors authorized him to live at Versailles. After a long convalescence, he was able to assume his activities again. Many took the road to his little lodging at Versailles and the apostolate resumed in the service of souls. Times were bad: it was around the death of Pope Pius XII. The crisis in the Church that Fr. de Chivré had foreseen was taking form in the shadows. The resistance was also mobilizing, and Father took an active part, working tirelessly to unite and reunite. These were the "Versailles dinners"–a monthly gathering of the leaders of the struggle against neo-modernism, around a convivial meal.
In the 1960, he made a retreat house of a home given to him by friends that would be his headquarters for the last 25 years of his life–Our Lady of the Granite, at Ecalles-Alix [say: Eh-cal-Aleex. Located in northern Normandy, northwest of Rouen, overlooking the Seine River. Population about 500.–Ed.]. Activity was intense here: retreats, conferences, days of recollection. Gifted and profound orators of like mind agreed to come to this little corner of Normandy to help Father. He spent his time between his center in Versailles and Our Lady of the Granite. Both fronts were extremely demanding, with conferences, meetings for different groups, spiritual direction, and confessions. He founded a monthly periodical for youth entitled All Together. Father wanted to make Our Lady of the Granite into a haven of intellectual and spiritual life. But God preferred a holocaust. One day in October, 1972, Father lost his ability to speak.
Speech! The very essence of his life and the way in which he served God. This time the sacrifice was complete, to the point of being absurd. He did not betray the least sign of despair. He took his courage in both hands and began a program of rehabilitation with unshakable energy. He was deprived of all means of expression, but his intelligence was intact. Father had always been silent by choice and was used to dwelling within himself, and so he retained his balance and even his joy and his peace throughout this trial where another would have succumbed. He also kept his good humor. The sessions of rehabilitation were broken by spontaneous bursts of laughter. Father practiced the virtue of eutrapelia–that virtue derived from charity which takes into account the joy of others, without considering one's own suffering. Thanks to the grace of God and his energy, he was able to speak in six months, contrary to every medical prognosis. He had to relearn everything: how to say Mass, how to pronounce the sacramental formulas. He resumed his preaching, first with great difficulty, then with more and more ease. Through the whole period, however, Father could always say the Ave Maria.
But the years of intense activity were over. After several more bouts of ill-health, he had to give up his rhythm of constant travel. He chose Our Lady of the Granite for his retirement. Souls continued to seek him. Our Lady of the Granite became a center of liturgy and prayer where one could be sure of finding the traditional Latin Mass and the help of a priest. Every month a group of students from Paris took the road to Ecalles-Alix for weekends of study and prayer. Here are some of their own testimonies to these weekends:
Our Lady of the Granite is on the front ranks of the battle, in everything that the Annunciation of the Angel sought in the soul of the Virgin.
Blessed be God who led us to Rev. Fr. de Chivré and by him shed light on our path.
Thank you to Fr. de Chivré for having given back to us the sense of mystery, as opposed to the spiritual darkness of modern thought.
First, homage and thanksgiving to Him, to whom you have given yourself without reserve so that His priesthood might take possession of you so that you no longer express anything but Him! Homage to her, our Virginal Mother, to whom you confided your priesthood and who was able to make it bear fruit for the benefit of the souls who owe you their salvation and who will tell you so for all eternity! Homage to you, Father, truly the Father of our souls, of our minds, and of our hearts, and thank you for all the future priests who owe it to you to have understood what a priest should be, even before you spoke a word to them!
Time passed quickly. He gave him back an apostolate which had always been dear to him in the service of the Teaching Dominicans of Fanjeaux. Fr. de Chivré compared his friendship with the Teaching Dominicans to "fresh baked bread." He preached retreats for the teaching sisters whose Dominican vocation to the "mixed" life of action and contemplation he understood: Contemplari, et contemplata aliis tradere–"Contemplate, and then, pass on to others what you have contemplated." He was given charge of those young souls from Fanjeaux who longed to be contemplative Dominicans.1
The tie between Our Lady of the Granite and Fanjeaux strengthened. After all, the village of Fanjeaux was the ultimate Dominican shrine.2 Here Father found a haven of friendship and the Dominican liturgy in all the fervor of its ceremonies and the beauty of Gregorian chant.
He was in Fanjeaux on Holy Thursday, 1984, his last Holy Thursday. He had traveled the length of France to be there, and God awaited him there with another trial. After having lived so many years at the foot of the Cross, Father found himself crucified, immolated by God alongside the Master he had so passionately loved.
He remained on the Cross for three months, and those were three months of his most eloquent preaching. He was caught unaware by this new suffering, but surely received a special grace of patience and abandon. "God said to me: Do not be afraid, you are not alone." From that moment a supernatural calm reigned in the small room of the clinic where he had to be hospitalized. Indeed, God accompanied him to the end, organizing the circumstances, day by day, maintaining the situation at a point that could be endured and keeping away the worst. For his part, Father revealed to what point his soul was united to God. His spirit dominated his body that had been so weakened by illness and he left it to its suffering, as it were, rising above his pain in a constant union with God. Here was tangible proof that a human being is body and soul; while the body wasted away, the soul dwelt in God, fully intact, and from that height he sometimes let descend a faint echo of inalterable peace.
During a conference for priests given exactly 50 years before, at the age of 32, Fr. de Chivré had described what death meant for a priest. What he had described then is what was seen by those assisting him when his hour finally came.
One great theme dominates and explains the life of the priest–to be a second humanity for Jesus Christ and continue His work of redemption. With the Mass, at every absolution and baptism, the life of the priest and all of his time are spent lending Christ his soul, his heart, his intelligence, his emotions, his lips, his hands, his body. Now we see this same priest objecting at the approach of death, astonished at such a sacrifice–the very sacrifice he had so often preached to others. His life was one continuous priestly action, fertile in sacrifice, in prayer, in expiation, in apostolate. His life was not tainted with the cowardice of fleeing Christ by selfishness or worldliness–and now he may fail to turn his death into the ultimate act of the priesthood. His death may slip through the hands of Christ, with no priestly value at all. When our own time finally comes, we always find that it is a little too soon, that the Church of God has a particular need of us right now, that there are still so many things to do....
Let us therefore ask God that our death may be a priestly act even more than was our life, that imitating the death of Christ, our own may be a sacrifice and the fulfillment of all our dreams when we longed to give ourselves. May our death be far superior to all the sanctity and the redemptive value of our life. May we live like Jesus Christ and die like Jesus Christ.
Have we ever realized the fact that the life of Jesus, which was infinitely pure, detached, devoted, patient, and good, was not judged by Him to be entirely redemptive until it was consummated by the immolation of all His being in death?–a consummation of purity by abandoning His body; a consummation of poverty by dying naked on a cross; a consummation of devotion by dying for others; a consummation of patience by enduring everything inflicted by others; a consummation of goodness by pardoning all that they had done to Him. Like the death of Jesus, our death should be the death of a man who knows how to die; the death of someone who, knowing that these moments are to be his last, spends them with a holy precaution in order to give them the greatest possible value of adoration and redemption, such as God alone can bestow.
A value of adoration. Like Jesus, let us die to give glory to God and to bear witness to His omnipotence, as we bore witness to it all our life by serving Him and preaching Him.Our death should be a cry of glory in honor of God: "Consummatum est....All is consummated": my childhood dreams, the hopes of my youth, my generosity as a seminarian, the joys and the tears of my priesthood: all of that, absolutely all, ought to prepare me for, draw me to, announce to me, and remind me of this invaluable instant in which, by a supreme act of love, I will bear witness to the Sovereign Power of God and His absolute rights over me, no longer by my speech but by my acceptance; no longer by my action but by abandoning myself.This priestly act of supreme obedience and supreme abandon is higher than all the actions of my past life because a human action is always limited. It is an infinitesimal effort by which we measure not our power but our weakness. Yet, abandon touches on the infinite. There is something limitless in abandon-limitless in time, limitless in the face of the unknown, limitless before the means God will use. We no longer choose, we accept. We no longer have what we prefer, we receive. We no longer calculate, we give. ''Consummatum est... All is consummated"–The priesthood cannot go any farther than that. In our life we used our priesthood for the greater glory of God, with our limited means. At our death, we let it take possession of our being without the interference of our own opinions. The fullness and the perfection of the priesthood can then act in us to the full, thanks to our acceptance of death in total liberty.
A value of redemption.In his life and in his death, the priest no longer belongs to himself, and he does not have the right to die for himself alone. He must not steal his death from the world which is standing in wait to benefit from the death of a priest as from a new Calvary. The world needs priestly deaths that are priestly in every way–I mean deaths offered like a final Mass for the intention of our own personal debts in order that, once we have been purified by this sentiment of expiation, our other intentions might acquire an irresistible value of supplication before the eyes of God. My role as a redeemer will not be complete unless I accept my death out of love, as a final action for all the souls that have been confided to me during my life, that is, a final expiation for the sins I have heard–"Father, forgive them..."; a final act of love against all the apostasies I have encountered–"Sitio....! thirst"; a final act of redemption for the souls that our efforts tried in vain to save–"[I] fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His body, which is the church:...."
A second humanity in life, and a second humanity in death: such is the priest.
Let us prepare our death by living according to a deeply sincere desire to be a second humanity for Jesus Christ. Let us live for Him without being surprised or discouraged at our weakness, and with a renewed intention to carry this resemblance to Our Lord into the details of every day to the greatest degree possible–into the life of our mind and our affections, and even into our material life. Then, if we are already detached, our death will only be the continuation of our priestly life–more perfect, more complete, and more holy.
The death of a priest is the consummation of an act of love that began on the day when a voice without words–but not without echo–whispered to us: "Come, follow Me, leaving your boat and your nets...." And then, "Come, follow Me because evening is coming for you, giving you one more reason to follow Me with a redoubled faith, the confidence of a child, and a generosity worthy of My own. The hour has come when you will no longer act, but will let Me act through the redemptive acceptance of your death."
The redemptive and lucid acceptance of death: such was the death of Fr. de Chivré. A holy action was taking place in that little room where a priest, renewing the sacrifice of his Master, was offering himself entirely. "I have given everything!" Indeed, He offered everything he had with absolute confidence. God answered this confidence by giving him back a little bit of what had been offered. Contrary to all expectations, he was able to return to his dear house at Our Lady of the Granite. After ten days of suffering, of peace, and of grace, he rendered his soul to this Master whom he had loved so entirely.
In the name of every one of us, this Master will rise up on the last day and say to Fr. de Chivré: "I was naked and you clothed Me, hungry and you gave Me to eat, in prison and you visited Me, ignorant and you taught Me, lost and you showed Me the way." Let us pray to him to open wide his cloak and introduce us by his assistance into that place of refreshment, of light, and of peace, the object of all his desires; the place from which he watches us in order to draw us after him into the heart of God.
Translated exclusively from the French by Angelus Press. The author is anonymous. First published as "Temoignage" in Le R.P. de Chivré, Frere Precheur: Un père spiritual pour le XXeme siecle, from the Cahiers, No. 2 of the magazine Controverses, 1994, pp. 9-22.
Since its doors were always open, only Fr. de Chivre would have been able to guess at how many people came through Ecalles-Alix. After his death in 1984, it was returned to its owners, then sold. Fr. Chivré is buried in the cemetery of the Basilica at Rouen among his Dominican confreres.
1 Translator's note: The Dominicans of Fanjeaux continue their apostolate, with six houses in France and one in the United States, at Post Falls, Idaho. The contemplative Dominicans have passed under the direction of the Dominican Fathers of Avrillé.
2 Translator's note: St. Dominic lived in the village of Fanjeaux for several years in the 13th century, and it was the first headquarters of his apostolate among the heretical Cathars.
The Goodness of God
Fr. Bernard-Marie de Chivré, O.P.
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"God is good." The expression has for become banal having been so often repeated, at least for those who have not yet understood that the qualities of God are never tainted with banality because of their intensity.
"God is intensely good." The expression applies most particularly to Christ on the Cross. "Dulces clavos–Sweet the nails." There is no need to use complicated words.
Gratuity and perfection are the two characteristics of a good action. We stoop to help someone who is miserable, expecting no reward. We stoop down to them with the most perfect simplicity possible, without which, rather than being good, we would be insolent. Goodness begins when we endeavor in all sincerity to put ourselves by our thoughts and actions in the place of the one we would help.
Christ put Himself entirely in our place.
We were the ones who should have been in that place, but we had none of what it would take to hold it. Our corrupted sentiments would not have known how to touch God. Our courage is short-lived, and we would have lost heart....
Then Jesus stepped forward.
"Let Me take their place, the place they should have occupied in the face of Your justice. You love Me; You will accept My apology."
The place was so well taken that He occupied it in the name of each and every one of us: our place. Through Him, God received the homage, repentance, and promises that justice required us to express, but which we could never have found in our memory or our heart to tell Him ourselves had He not come.
He was astonishingly good to us.
He deliberately thought of each of our faults. He deliberately accepted the suffering due to each one, and He accepted that suffering with perfect submission.
For each one of our stupid mistakes, He talked things over with God and knew just how to reach an "understanding" with the Father so that the affair could simply be dropped.
To each "objection" of Divine reasoning, He was able to respond: "I did reparation for them; it has been taken care of; let's not mention it.... I loved You for them."
Gratuity of Goodness.
And He took our place absolutely.
Think.The courage of Jesus in doing absolute reparation for our stupid mistakes. Not a single one escaped Him. He fulfilled His mission so conscientiously, with such awareness and such courage, that there is not a single one of our faults able to resist His Blood. He erases them absolutely; He does reparation for them absolutely.
The thought should inspire us with such gratitude and move us to tell Him thank you for His immense goodness to each one of us.
He did what we would have desired to do though we were without the capacity of doing it.
In Heaven, we will see which of His moans of pain earned us the desire to change. We will see which of His silences earned us the strength to confess. We will see which of the insults He accepted merited for us a longed-for humility. We will see which of His wounds was our wound-the wound for us; the wound because of us.
We will understand that all of our progress, our inspirations, and our efforts come from this source, that we owe them to Him, to His Goodness. And we will fall over ourselves to tell Him: "Thank You! Thank You! You were so good to me, who had been so slow to understand and so willful."
How His goodness should give us confidence because we can be sure of Him, though we are not sure of ourselves. Come and find Him as often as you need Him. He welcomes with goodness. We are sure of His compassion for us on account of His own Passion. He listens to us with kindness.
We are sure of Him. What a grace in a human life–to be sure of someone!
By His Passion, He enters into our weakness and misery in order to give them a meaning full of hope and a reason for us not to lose heart, since our very wretchedness earned us the example of such great courage.
"The goodness of Our Lord crucified, immobilized by the nails so that we might always come to Him. I have so many reasons to be grateful to You, and my gratitude fills me with reasons to give myself over to Your immeasurable Goodness."
Translated from the French exclusively for Angelus Press. First published as La Bonté de Dieu in Les Cahiers de Controverses, No.2, June, 1994, pp. 31-32. Expect to see more of Fr. Chivré's meditations in future issues of The Angelus.
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