Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

The manifold sufferings of this life make it clear that man was not primarily created to enjoy the delights of sense. The highest end of creation is the revelation of the Divine perfections, and man is here on earth to be an expression of the Divine will. In this vocation his happiness lies, a happiness which finds its consummation in the life to come, but which the faithful service of God brings with it in some measure even here.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Life has its evils certainly, but if our hearts were only open to rejoice in the good which God prepares for us day by day, we should have strength enough to bear with the evils. The good things which God has appointed to us will meet us half-way if we go out to seek them.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Save thyself from eternal death and from the horrible abyss! Save thyself amid the manifold perils which beset this time of earthly probation! These perils are so great that thou hast no hope of overcoming them if left to thine own resources. Save thyself then by holding fast to thy God!--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Will any prince, however beneficent, continue to shower down benefits for ever on a subject who offends against him, not only daily, but of set purpose? God will doom the proud soul to that same hell which it has wrought out for itself.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Whatever the weight of a man's sins, God wills, not that he should die, but be converted and live. If the soul wills otherwise than God, He does not coerce it. Woe to him who appears as a rebel in the presence of his Creator!--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

When God created the universe, He did not thereafter forsake the work of His hands, as an architect who has fulfilled his task. No, God is very near to me—near to my understanding and my heart. He upholds all things by the word of His power. In Him we live and move and are. If, in virtue of my proper being and activity, I am distinct from God, yet there is nothing nearer to me than God. Apart from Divine Being, nothing exists; apart from Divine activity, nothing moves; without Divine light there is no knowledge; without Divine love no heart can love. God is near to us even in nature.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

In the Catholic Church alone do we find steadfast belief in a supernatural revelation, and in the Divine aid which is vouchsafed to meet human needs.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

The knowledge which faith unlocks to us is a great gift to every reflecting mind.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Faith sets bounds to error; to true knowledge it sets none.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

God requires man to co-operate with His grace, for He is wise, and desires to lead His creatures to their appointed end by means of, and in harmony with, the nature He has given them; He is just, and wills to grant them eternal happiness as a reward; He is good, and concedes them the joy of winning Heaven for themselves, with the aid of Divine grace.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

It is essential that man should co-operate with Divine grace in the work of his salvation. God has made the well, but we must draw from it in our own bucket. He gives superabundantly, but we must stretch out our hand to receive His gift.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Throughout the Christian revelation, our eternal destiny is clearly shown to be dependent on our actions here on earth. Each one of us makes or mars his own happiness.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Grace is like dew which falls from the fountain of Divine truth and justice upon our poor hearts, lest they should wither away in the waterless desert of human life.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

The Catholic Church was founded not by man, but by God.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Thou art God's debtor: He requires and exacts from thee a life of piety.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

He who has courage to subject his pride and sensuality to the love of truth will assuredly attain to the knowledge of God.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

To do the will of God is to be truly worthy; to do other than the will of God is to be barren of all worth.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

There are two facts which ought to attract all thinking minds irresistibly towards the Church—man's inherent consciousness of his need of help, and the reality of the Christian revelation.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

In Christ, God became not only our deliverer, but our Father, our Brother and our Life, in order that He might bring us the joyful tidings of the gift of His eternal love, of our adoption as sons, and of the heritage of Divine felicity which awaits us.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Can we conceive of truth and error as being alike to a God Who Himself is infinite truth? Can order and lawlessness find equal acceptance in the eyes of Him Who is infinite holiness?--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

If I were to gather together every pain that I have suffered, every misery that has pierced the inmost depths of my soul, and then to take my stand in spirit beneath the Cross on which my Lord and Saviour hangs, what a mere nothing it would seem!

Yet my own sufferings may be a means to realising something of what the dying Christ underwent when he hung there upon the Cross.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Why did our Lord elect to reveal Himself in poverty and humility? In the first place, out of a spirit of obedience to His Father; the seeds of that infinite glory which it was the Father's will to prepare for the Godhead lay hidden in this self-abasement of the Son of God. In the second place, out of a spirit of love and mercy towards the human race which He desired to save from eternal condemnation.

Two infirmities beset man's nature which, in consequence of human perversity, had developed into mortal wounds. They are the pride which sets too high a value on self, and the love of the world which sets too high a value on all that is temporal. Both these wounds must be healed by the Divine choice of poverty and humility.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Turn thy gaze on thine own weaknesses. It is pride which leads us to close our eyes to our defects, or to find excuses for them. How much better we appear to ourselves than we really are! Of how many sins have I been guilty which none know, save myself? What will it profit me if I am nothing but a whited sepulchre?

The measure of thy perfection is not that virtue which thou believest to exist in thyself, but that which God sees in thee. It beseems thee, therefore, to flee presumption and to fear. --Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

It is characteristic of Divine grace to work by slow degrees in the soul; it does not transform men into angels at a stroke but takes them as they are, in order to make them what they ought to be by a process of gradual enlightenment. Not all at once did Saul become the saintly Paul.

Man is naturally predisposed to pride and selfishness, and to the love of sensual enjoyments; his intelectual limitations react upon his will, whilst a tendency to faulty exaggeration besets him at every turn.

Against these and like weaknesses Divine grace contends, by eliciting effort within the soul, and by the employment of every means which the conditions of human existence afford. But this co-operation on man's part is marred by much failure and imperfection.

We are not unreasonable enough to expect that the traveller should be at his journey's end whilst he is still toiling along the road that leads to it.

The Catholic Church here on earth is not a company of celestial beings, but a society of mortal men, struggling amid the storm and stress of life, yet secured from the perils of that abyss into which the waves of our troubled human existence are for ever threatening to plunge them.

The Saints too had their imperfections and their hindrances, but they converted them all into material for a higher sanctity. Beware of captious criticism where a great soul is concerned. Its steps on earth may perchance be hampered by the very wings that bear it heavenward. --Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

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True piety is never sanctimonious; it neither neglects the duties of its state nor wears a forbidding aspect in the eyes of its fellow-men. Just as a liquid takes the form of the vessel into which it is poured, so veritable piety beseems every calling and rank in life. Fidelity to the duties of one's state constitutes a part of that adoration which we owe to God.

To be in bondage of any creature is to be guilty of idolatry. The miser worships his gold, the sensual man bows down before a god of flesh, the drunkard's god is alcohol.

There is a respect due to God which must in nowise be violated. Above all, we must beware of using the holy name of God to invoke evil upon our fellows, of uttering, whether directly or indirectly, words which are derogatory to the Divine majesty, or of disparaging anything specially set apart for the service of God. He who violates an oath or a solemn vow is guilty of no light offence in the sight of God. "Be not deceived: God is not mocked" (Gal. vi. 7). --Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Many are the cares with which man is burdened; even if for a moment he is free of them, he is ever prone to create them for himself. Amid all his cares there can be none of such cardinal importance as the maintenance of purity of conscience and the fulfilment of every claim which conscience makes upon him.

Think not, O mortal man! to find true happiness in the realisation of thy desires, but in the fulfilment of thy duties. Apart from the consciousness of duty, life is but an empty thing. --Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

God, therefore, and God alone, is the source of that holy imperative which makes itself heard in our hearts. Reason, it is true, shows us what our duty is, but there is One mightier than reason, Who enjoins that duty upon us under penalty of chastisement, and inspires us with the love of it. Conscience is the light of Divinity shining in the human soul. Man is made sensible of the fact that he who voluntarily traverses this inward law of his being will one day be called upon to render an account before the sovereign majesty of God; he learns than sin and the penalty of sin are inseparable things.

He who obeys the voice of conscience is true to his vocation; he is a good man, and in the end he must necessarily be a happy man. He who disregards the voice of conscience is an evil man, and the author of his own evil lot, for misery is begotten of sin as the worm is born of corruption. --Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Pride is the most prolific source of disastrous errors. St. Augustine speaks of certain men as so blinded by it as to pass the bounds of sanity in their utterances (hominis superbe delirantes). It is undeniably true that the various framers of non-Christian philosophies are ready enough with mutual imputations of folly, and worse than folly.

Happiness and pride cannot co-exist. The happy man is he who receives every gift that comes to him with joy; the proud man is for ever querulous. What he himself possesses seems por and scant; what others enjoy he looks on with grudging eyes, as if it had been robbed from him by stealth.

Heaven's highest places are destined for the humblest - hell's lowest dungeons for the proudest - souls. --Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

A man has made no small progress in humility when he has learned to keep his heart at peace in the midst of a tempest of calumny and unmerited reproach. --Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

He is truly a man of peace who is willing to make sacrifices in order to maintain peace with his fellow-men, and to restore it when lost. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God" (Matt. v. 9).  "Fulfil ye my joy," says the Apostle, "that you be of one mind, having the same charity, being of one accord, agreeing in sentiment" (Phil. ii. 2) .

Be on thy guard. Men naturally tend to give expression to their opinions in the way which best serves their own interests, and to allow preconceived notions to bias their judgement in regard to what is new to them. If this applies to others, it applies with no less force to thyself.

Two are needed to make a quarrel. In all the daily circumstances of life, take good care that thou art never the second.

Avoid the sharp clash of conflicting opinions; yet there are none the less occasions when duty impels us to choose war rather than peace.

Contradict no one except when thou hast adequate reasons for so doing. First be clear in thy own mind as to what is good and just and what is bad and false.

Cherish no personal animosities. If thou hast inflicted a wound, it is good, as a rule, to seek to heal it, but let prudence dictate the nature and measure of thy remedies.

A magnanimous mind always seeks to excuse others in the first instance, if not in actual words, at least by passing the matter over. Yet there are limits to such extenuation. We may bear with, and even esteem one who has erred through no fault of his own, without exalting his errors to the level of truth.  --Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Christ's Passion was a voluntary Passion. Of His own
free will He went out to meet it ; He had made known its
every detail beforehand to His Apostles, yet the clear prevision
of it all had no power to make Him leave undone any
fraction of His life's task. When His Passion drew near, He
gave Himself up to His enemies because He chose to die.

He bore his sufferings with fortitude and majesty. No
faltering word crossed His lips. No one of His enemies had
cause to reproach Him with the least omission ; He accorded
every man his due. He suffered with great humility. We
can see in Him no trace of a proud stoicism—of that scorn
which claims to triumph even over death. He allowed the
weakness of His human nature to assert itself to the full,
holding His Divinity, as it were, in abeyance. From the
Cross He spoke words which voiced all the dying anguish of
a soul forsaken alike by God and man. Such a death
rendered Him an object of derision to His foes, and stirred
every generous heart to feelings of compassion.

Christ's Passion reveals the sublimity of His virtue ; in
Him, subjection to God is ideally complete. As He hung on
His Cross, in torturing anguish and devoid of all consolation,
He prayed ; abandoned by His Heavenly Father to the
bitterest of deaths, He gave back His spirit humbly into His
hands.

Love, alike for His foes and for those to whom He was
bound by natural ties, the spirit of obedience towards His
Heavenly Father, and the acknowledgment of His entire
dependence upon Him—all found expression at this supreme
hour.

The Passion of Christ is the passion of Christianity, of
each several disciple of that Church which He instituted.
"I am the Vine: you the branches" (John xv. 5). "You
are the body of Christ, and members of member" (1 Cor. xii.
27). Every Christian must echo the Apostle's words : "With
Christ I am nailed to the Cross : And I live, now not I, but
Christ liveth in me " (Gal. ii. 20). How can the mystery of
the Church's life be understood unless it is recognised as the
Church of the Crucified ?

Finally, Christ's Passion was unique because of the
supreme triumph which it presaged. Men's eyes looked on
a dead Christ, but death was followed by resurrection and
the recompense which Heaven had in store.

--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

Affliction serves a threefold purpose : it is a chastisement,
a means to amendment, and a trial which deepens our spirit
of submission to God.  --Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

God deals with us sometimes as a father with his children ;
first He speaks, then He administers a gentle reproof, finally
He grasps the rod.--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)
 

It is for the sake of our soul's health that He permits
affliction to fall upon us ; He acts like a loving mother who
gives up her child to the surgeon's knife.

God finds no joy in the sufferings of His creatures, but
it is impossible for Him to impart His spiritual and supernatural
favours to a soul which seeks as yet nothing but self,
and the gratification of self. Before the holy temple of virtue
can be set up within the soul, the sorry habitation of egotism
must be levelled to the ground. This is a task which only
the Cross and suffering can accomplish, and of which nature
must pay the cost.

He whose sins are not chastised in this present world
merits our compassion. When God scourges thee, beware of
denying that He loves thee ; His purpose is a purpose of
grace, and the number and severity of the blows He deals thee
are the measure of the love which prompts them. --Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

The problem of suffering was solved once and for all
when Christ revealed to us its supernatural significance. Of
His own free-will, and impelled by infinite love to God and
man, He chose suffering in its bitterest form, that by joining
issue with evil, and wresting victory from apparent defeat,
He might bring glory to God, deliver us from the power of
sin, and exalt us into the region of supernatural love.

To be one with Christ is to be united to Him in His
sufferings and to be made conformable to His death (Phil. iii.
10). The Christian life is fruitful in afflictions. True, many
a source of suffering is excluded by the fact that the Christian
has declared war against sin and his passions, and leads a
sober, self-restrained life. But, on the other hand, new
sources of suffering are opened up as a result of that very
warfare, and of his fidelity to God and earnest endeavours
after virtue. The Apostle Paul speaks of the daily dying of
the Christian (1 Cor. xv. 31); of his bearing about in his
body the mortification of Jesus (2 Cor. iv. 10). In this he
finds ground for rejoicing, since the Passion of Christ teaches
us that those whom God loves best He tries most, and this
for the very reason that He loves them best.

It is by sufferings that the soul enters into close union
with Christ, and is made as truly one with Him as the
member is one with the head (Romans viii. 17). This truth
makes plain to us with what an incomparable significance the
Christian's sufferings are charged.

We can understand now why enlightened souls have
always prayed for the Cross and its sufferings, why they
looked upon pain and persecution and obloquy as the surest
proof of the Divine love. This is the sublime note which is
struck in the apostolic epistles. True, the note of sorrow, the
heart's sighing, is audible there, for not alone the Apostles, but
our Lord Himself, knew what it was to experience to the full
the bitterness of suffering. Yet beneath all its burdens, the
Christian heart lifts itself up to God with the words, " Not
my will, but Thine be done," and thereupon the fountains of
joy are unlocked (2 Cor. i. 5 ; iv. 16 ; vii. 4; Romans viii. 35 ;
1 Thess. v. 16, &c).

By the recognition of this truth, the Christian, who has
been left to tread the ordinary path of salvation, finds
himself preserved from the temptation to despair in hours
of bitter suffering, and from the idle endeavour to drown
it in sinful excesses, or to blunt the keen edge of his
sensibilities. Of its own free choice the soul assumes the
burden of suffering, and submits to the knife, convinced
that it is in the hands of a good and wise surgeon, and that
even though it cut deep into the living flesh, it will only
wound to heal. --Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

God's service is an exacting service; it demands not only
the worship of man's heart, but the consecration of his
entire being, and is inseparable from much that is hard
and toilsome, from many sacrifices and trials. It was
because He desired to show us with what armour God's
true servant must be clothed that our Lord suffered in the
flesh (i Pet. iv. i). He who would conquer must learn to
endure.

Whatever trials befall thee in the path of duty, thou canst
always say : My Lord and Saviour endured far more than
this, and that, not as One who was compelled, but as One who
chose to suffer.

What are my sufferings in comparison with the sufferings
of Jesus Christ ?

Behold the pitiable form of thy Saviour when He was
led out to face the people's gaze. Ecce Homo ! Wounds
covered Him from the crown of His head to the soles of His
feet.  --Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

As soon as they had bound Him they began to drag
Him from one tribunal to another, showering ill-treatment of
every kind upon Him.
His Body was torn by pitiless scourging.
What exquisite torture He endured when the crown of
thorns was set on His brow!
See Him led forth and exhibited to the people, in very
truth a Man of Sorrows !
Worn almost to the point of death, a heavy Cross is laid
on His bleeding shoulders ; He is forced to carry it, and to
endure the cruellest treatment that an inhuman soldiery can
devise.

Then comes the nailing of hands and feet, the setting up
of the Cross!

Then the long hours through which He hangs upon it.
Each several sense has its own special torture : touch,
smell, taste, hearing—in that it is compelled to listen to
fearful curses and blasphemy—most of all sight, for the Lord
beholds His beloved Mother weeping.

It was not alone in his Sacred Body that Christ suffered ;
as Man, He endured still more piercing anguish by reason of
the humiliations and shame which were His portion.
Many a one has found his sufferings lightened by the
consciousness of success achieved, by the glory and honour
which his fellow-men accorded him. Christ experienced no
such consolation.

Little visible success attended His continual and laborious
toil ; injustice, calumny, misconception awaited Him at every
turn. If He preached, men reproached Him with His lack
of learning (John vii. 15); if He showered benefits on the
people, He was accused of seducing them (John vii. 12) ; if
He went into the houses of the rich, He was a glutton (Matt,
xi. 19) ; if He worked miracles, His power was derived from
Beelzebub (Mark iii. 22 ; Luke xi. 15); if He proclaimed Himself
the Son of God, He was adjudged a blasphemer (John
x. 36). Wherever He went, evil eyes watched Him (Matt.
xii. 2 ; Luke xi. 16 ; xiv. 1) ; insults of the most public and
shameful kind fell to His lot (John vii. 20 ; viii. 48).
Calumny dogged Him in every shape and form (John
vii. 12). The more He toiled for the people's welfare, the
bitterer grew the hatred against Him ; His life was repeatedly
imperilled.

--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

The sufferings and lamentations of Christ, His sorrow
and His prayer are fraught with deep teaching for us.
Insensibility is no part of virtue. Weep! Thou needest not
to blush for thy tears ; it is the heart's privilege to feel, only
succumb not to thy weakness.

The sense of dereliction and utter lack of consolation
which had weighed upon our Lord throughout the hours of
His Passion finds its culminating point on the Cross. He
hangs there in unspeakable torments. Men of every class
are stirred to hatred against Him, and mockery and
blasphemy assail His ears continually. The blindness and
misery of so many human souls, the sufferings and sacrifices
of His own true followers, are all vividly present to His mind,
and gradually there flows in on Him such a full tide of
anguish as makes Him feel that God Himself has forsaken
Him. The most miserable soul has always one last remaining
comfort ; it may turn to God in trustful prayer and pour
out its woes, but to Christ even this consolation was denied.
To see oneself forsaken by men is terrible indeed, but what
is this in comparison with the anguish of the soul that feels
itself forsaken by God ?

It is this interior agony of desolation which imprints the
stamp of a supreme self-annihilation upon the sufferings of the
Passion.  

--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)

1. During the awful hours of Christ's Passion, His
Divinity remained, so to speak, obscured, yet It was none
the less present, and by Its presence an infinite value was
imparted to His sufferings. It shines forth again in the
Resurrection, to the end that our hearts may be filled with
joy.

Christ truly rose from the dead. Abundant evidence is
forthcoming to attest the fact : the testimony of His own
prophetic words (Matt. xvii. 23 ; xx. 19 ; Mark ix. 31 ; x. 34;
Luke xviii. 33) ; of the sacred Scriptures (Mark xvi. 9) ; of the
angels, the holy women, the Apostles, and many other eyewitnesses.

In all their preaching, the Apostles habitually
dwelt on the fact of the Resurrection as the groundwork of
Christian doctrine (1 Cor. xv. 14).
God hath " raised Him up from the dead, and hath given
Him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God
(1 Pet. i. 21).

Our whole life must rest on God ; to God alone can we
entrust ourselves, our future, our death and our eternity.

2. The Resurrection brings Christ's redemptive work to a
close, and sets the Divine seal upon it ; this is the reason why
our faith is grounded in God Himself.

Only Divine omnipotence can recall the dead to life. The
Saviour had predicted His coming Resurrection to the Jews,
referring to it as the greatest of all His miracles, and the most
convincing proof of His Divinity. Now His words are fulfilled,
and the miracle is wrought. This, His supreme miracle,
is the confirmation of all those other miracles which had gone
before. The Resurrection, therefore, constitutes the last and
mightiest proof of Christ's Divinity.
With the Resurrection, the glorification of our race has
already begun ; our hope, then, no less than our faith, is
grounded in God.

We seek for peace and happiness ; we yearn for that which
abides, which is great enough and beautiful enough to satisfy
our heart and our entire being to the full. Such a longing as
this only God can meet.

We who are Christians look with eager desire for the fulfilment
of those rich promises which Jesus Christ has made to
us His followers. If our hope were not rooted in God, we
might well despair because of our littleness and sinfulness.
But Christ's Resurrection is a sure proof to us that our hope
is set in God Himself.

True, we are not as yet partakers of the felicity of which
the Resurrection is an earnest, but we behold in it the first
beginnings of the glorification of Christ, and Christ's glory is
our glory.

The glorified soul is a new source of life to the body it
informs, a life which has ceased to be natural, and become
supernatural. By the operation of Divine omnipotence, the
body enters into possession of all those spiritual attributes
which are in harmony with its glorified state. It becomes
immortal, free of the limitations which natural life imposes,,
endowed with unearthly beauty and radiance, subtle and
mobile, able to penetrate where it wills, and possessed of a fulness
of power to which neither matter, nor space, nor time can
set bounds, even for a moment. The Resurrection is the first
step in the glorification, the abiding glorification, of Christ.

This is why Easter is the Feast of Feasts ; why the Alleluia,
that great cry of joy, springs naturally to our lips.
We, Christ's disciples, share in His glorification ; what He
is now is a revelation of what all those are destined to become
whom the Divine Workman has wrought and fashioned in the
furnace of tribulation here on earth. This glorified life was
the supreme end which the God Man had in view ; it is the
archetype, the pledge, and the actual source of the glorious
life which will one day be our portion.

In Christ we behold our Captain, our Brother, our Head,
our Crown, and our Life. Where He is, we too shall be.
The Resurrection is a confirmation not only of our faith
and hope, but of our love as well. It teaches us who He was
who did and suffered so much for us men.

--Fr. Tilmann Pesch S.J. (1836-99)