If I am to fashion my zeal after the pattern of the zeal of JESUS, I
must be careful to see that my methods are the same as His. What were
His?
(1) _Solitude._ Such was His solitude that no one but Mary knew that He
was there. He chose solitude not only during this first stage but during
the greater part of His life on earth, and He chooses it still in His
Eucharistic life. It must then be a very necessary accompaniment to
zeal. "_Learn of Me._" What am I to learn? That if my zeal is to be
efficacious I must live a hermit's life far from the haunts of men? Not
necessarily. It would be possible to do this without finding the
solitude that begets zeal; and it is quite possible to find the
necessary solitude even in the midst of the world's tumult. To say that
I have no opportunities for doing good because I am in uncongenial
surroundings, or because I am obliged by my circumstances to lead a
lonely life or to live where there is apparently no scope for work for
souls is to fail to understand what zeal is. Why do people shut
themselves up in convents, cries the world, when they might do so much
good outside? Uniquely because of their zeal for souls--they have
sufficient courage to adopt Our Lord's methods. If I am one whom He has
trusted with the trial of loneliness in my life, let me cultivate a
devotion to Him in His Mother's womb, and let me take heart and be of
good courage. All the activity in the world that is of any use is of use
because of the prayer that is behind it. _Whose_ prayers who shall say?
They may be _mine_ if I live an interior life, for those who live in the
retreat of their own heart with God have a limitless scope for their
zeal.
(2) _Silence._ Zeal for God and His work does not depend then, on words.
I need not be troubled because I am not eloquent, or because I have an
impediment in my speech, or because I never know what to say. How could
such things matter to God, the Omnipotent God! He could alter them in a
moment if necessary. The Word Himself Who could have spoken so
attractively and with such power was silent for most of His life. The
time He chose for His Incarnation was "while all things were in quiet
silence and the night was in the midst of her course" (Wisdom XVIII.
14); and He is silent still in the Tabernacle; He loves silence, and the
more the soul is interior, the more it will adopt His method of silence
and the more it will understand what a marvellous help it is to zeal.
How can this be? Because the silence that we choose to keep for God
means shutting out all else, that we may talk to Him alone. Could there
be a better method than this for making us zealous for the work so dear
to His Heart?
(3) _Obedience._ Think of His obedience in the womb of His Mother. His
very Incarnation was an act of obedience, He waited for Mary's _Fiat_.
His waiting for nine months was purely an act of obedience to the laws
of nature, for His Soul and Body were perfect from the moment of His
conception. All the time that He lived in Mary, He obeyed all whom she
obeyed--St. Joseph, the Roman Emperor, the people at Bethlehem. He gave
up His own Will to others.
This was His method of being zealous. This is how He did the work that
He had come to do. Can I adopt this method? It is not easy. I do so love
to follow my own sweet will especially when I am working for the souls
of others. I feel that no one has a right to dictate to me, that my work
ought to be spontaneous, not cramped nor confined nor limited nor any
other adjective that the devil can persuade me to use, if only he can
make me believe that it is a blessed thing to be independent! If my zeal
for God is to be worth anything, let me follow the methods of God
Incarnate in the womb of His Mother and be absolutely obedient to God,
to His Holy Church and to those whom I ought to obey.
(4) _Poverty._ "You know the grace of our Lord JESUS Christ, that being
rich, He became poor for your sakes, that through His poverty you might
be rich" (2 Cor. VIII. 9). In His zeal for our wealth, He made Himself
poor, He deliberately adopted poverty as one of His methods in His life
of zeal. Poverty is the voluntary laying aside of all that we might
have, in order that our purpose may be single. All can do this whether
rich or poor, for all have much that they would rather not lay on one
side, and _all_ have _self_. Let us think what the Eternal Word was as
God, and then what He was in Mary's womb, and we shall understand what
poverty means. If we are to be zealous in His service, we must not only
understand, but copy.
(5) _Patience._ Patience is a twofold grace, that of _waiting_ and that
of _suffering_, both are a great aid to zeal. The Eternal Word's zeal
for the salvation of men had existed in all its perfection and all its
fulness from all eternity, yet think how long He waited! When the
conditions were changed and He had at length become incarnate, He still
waited patiently for nine months, and after that He waited for thirty
years! This was zeal, zeal in its _perfection_. Is my zeal tempered with
patience? Am I patient with souls, patient with myself, patient above
all when God says: _Wait_, do nothing?
JESUS showed His patience in the womb of His Mother not only by waiting;
but by suffering, as we have already seen, all the inconveniences that
were incident to His new existence. He doubtless also forestalled all
the sufferings that were in store for Him and offered them all to His
Father. Zeal without the aid of suffering cannot go far and it was one
of the methods He chose. If I have not courage enough to _choose_ it, I
must, if my zeal is to be at all like His, be ready for it when He
chooses it for me.
It will probably be seen one day that those whose lives have been lives
of suffering, and who have never been able to do any active work for
Him, are those whose zeal has effected the most for His glory and His
Kingdom.
Those of us who are not entrusted with this wonderfully blessed gift of
suffering, can at any rate offer to Him for souls all the many little
inconveniences and incommodities of our lives, and so copy to some small
extent the life of JESUS hidden in Mary.
O my little JESUS, help me, at whatever cost to self, to copy Thee.
_Colloquy_ with JESUS hidden in Mary, asking Him for grace, so to adopt
His methods that He may use me as an instrument of His zeal.
_Resolution._ Not to shrink from adopting His methods.
_Spiritual Bouquet._ "Every one that hath zeal ... let him follow Me" (1
Macc. II. 27).