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II – The French School of Spirituality and reconciliationAmong the authors of the French School (except for John Eudes), there are few biblical texts that speak explicitly of reconciliation …
But texts used by Bérulle and his disciples are clearly directly in line with what has already been said about the whole of the Bible, especially the New Testament (St. Paul and St. John in particular).
A – Christ has reconciled us in the New Covenant.
Through Christ’s death on the cross and his resurrection, the relationship between God and humanity was re-established, and the texts used by the French School insists on the consequences of this reality, essentially by an affirmation: “We live for God, in Jesus Christ”. We see it through the texts that are the most often used in their writings:
We live for God
Rom. 6,11
See yourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Rom. 12,1; 14,7-8;
2 Cor. 5,14-15
In Jesus Christ
Eph. 1:10
God’s plan: “to bring all things together under a single head, Christ.”
Eph. 1, 13, 5, 30; 3, 17
Rom. 8,29
Gal. 2,20: “It is no longer I that live, it is Christ who lives in me.”
Gal. 4,19;
Phil. 1, 21; 2,5; 3, 10-11;
Col. 1, 14; 3, 1-4
For the masters of the FrenchSchool of Spirituality, the Incarnation was central, and it is indeed here, in Jesus, at once God and man, that the “reconciliation” between God and his creation is achieved.
B – Bérulle
Bérulle does not speak directly of “reconciliation”, but he often evokes God’s plan to renew his creation, less in a perspective of buying back and redemption than in a dynamic of accomplishment: to prepare a new man, to establish a new covenant.
“The world is in chaos and man is in sin. God therefore, contemplating his work, saw the misfortune that had come upon the world and the disaster in the work of his hands. He wanted to repair it; he wanted to make a new Adam, holier, stronger, and more solid than the first. He wanted to form a new man, man and God both together …”
(God so great, Jesus so near, Nº 6)
By the Incarnation, God “entered into our poverty”, so as to establish a new bond between humanity and God:
“The mystery of the Incarnation was accomplished, not only in human nature, but also for all human nature, and so as to bind the human species to God from whom it had been separated by sin.” (id. Nº 72)
Bérulle underlines clearly the strength of the love of the Father capable,in Jesus, of filling in the infinite distance existing between the Creator and his creature:
“…so great is the power of this love to raise up base things, to abase high things, to draw close things so distant, to balance things so unbalanced and even to deify the created human being, in such a way, that one is God by nature, the other is God by love.” (id. Nº 34)
It is the mediation of Christ that has re-established in all its force the bond between God and man, through the truth of the Incarnation. It really needed a total gift of God, and a total gift of man (in Jesus), so that a relationship between God and man which was a relationship of love be rebuilt in all its plenitude. Jesus, “giving all so as to have all…” is the mediator and redeemer who “offers us all to the Father”.
(id. Nº 27).
For Bérulle the world, now reconciled in Christ, moves towards its end. The earth is no longer the same since God walked about it and made his home there for a time… So much so that, in Jesus, God and man meet each other, the material itself is sanctified and become a channel for the transmission of grace…the whole of creation participates in the effusion of grace and in the realization of the new man in the new Covenant…
The relationship of Jesus Christ does not introduce new structures into humanity. However, something specific happened: in Jesus Christ, God made peace with humanity, which is called to let itself be reconciled in him, to welcome a new liberty, to be opened to the exigencies of universal communication, for each one is no longer a stranger to God but a son.
“He (Jesus) passed through all the degrees of our nature … thus we have a death that gives life to the world …a death which is the life of the universe, and which fills death itself with life. For it is the death of a God living and dying in our humanity which gives eternal life to sinners ….” (id. Nº 96)
It is indeed in Jesus and in him alone, that is found our life, our capacity to be bonded to God and to each other:
“Jesus alone is our fulfillment, and we must be bonded to Jesus as to him who is the foundation of our being by his divinity; the bonding of our being to God by his humanity; the spirit of our spirit, the life of our life, the plenitude of our capacity.” (id. Nº 54)
Bérulle is indeed directly in line with what Saint Paul says of the “new creation”, of the vital necessity to be “in Christ”, he who is our bond with God. For this, he insists on the fact that the Incarnation is indissoluble from the resurrection.
“God entered into our poverty and man entered into the greatness of God. … At the point of the resurrection, the only Son of God gave humanity a new immortal life. And God will live in this humanity eternally …” (id. Nº 88)
It is in the contemplation of the person of Jesus, only Son of God the Father that we have the revelation of man, fulfilled and living in truth his relationship to the Father:
“The Son of God, our life, our salvation and our example, died for all, and for each one as perfectly as if he had only to work the salvation of that one in the world: Jesus who loved me and gave himself up for me.” (Letter X, id. P. 197)
It is therefore by communion with Jesus that we establish our own relationship with the Father, a relationship of son, from now and in eternity …
“You must look at Jesus unceasingly, and look at him as the one who is all, who must be your all, and who called himself the life and your life; and you must only look at yourselves as something that is nothing … except by the great mercy of Jesus … you must offer yourselves and give yourselves to him, you must be and live only in him and for him; you must be simply pure capacity for him …” (id. Nº 117)
Our relationship to God must tend towards that which Jesus in his humanity had with his Father, and our attitude towards our neighbour must tend towards that of Jesus himself towards the people he met.
“Each soul (person) is a member belonging to the body of the Son of God. For we are all grafted on to him like the stock on to the vine, and we are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh …” (id. Nº 123)
Finally, one could say that for Bérullethe Incarnation leads to ecology, not for the simple survival of man, but as a harmonious, respectful managementfor man, of all God’s creation:
“The earth was honoured with his presence, was marked by his steps, was taught by his word, was watered by his blood, and was honoured in his mysteries.” (Elevation. Ste. Madeleine, quoted in id. P. 203)
C – Olier
To live for God in Jesus Christ: this is the title of a book on Olier (M. Dupuy, Cerf 1995). For him, this title well defines the orientation of the spirituality of Jean-Jacques Olier, even if it seems to me more difficult to extract very significant texts that would link up directly to the theme of reconciliation.
I note two of them:
The spirit of resurrection given to all Christians
Olier commented on the text of St. Paul in Rom. 8.15: “…you have received a Spirit that makes of you sons and by which we cry out: Abba, Father.”
He thus underlines that baptism makes us die to our former life, which was under the influence of sin, and makes us enter into the life of grace “by the intervention of the Holy Sprit who comes to us to animate a new life, of new sentiments and movements, which are divine sentiments and movements because they come from the Holy Spirit who is God and who can not pour out on us anything that is not divine …” (Memoires, 15)
“By the regeneration of baptism, the eternal Father is our Father, who communicates his inclinations, his sentiments and his sanctity to us by virtue of his Spirit which he gives us, and which in us is the principle of the holy and divine life that then bursts out in our works like those of God, which glorify him on the earth …” (catechisme chretien pour la vie interieure, lecon VIII)
These two texts show off God’s initiative and the newness of the life that is given by Baptism, which grafts us onto Christ.
Elsewhere, Condren (a disciple of Bérulle and spiritual director to Jean-Jacques Olier) and Olier himself often quote the letter to the Hebrews regarding the priesthood and the sacrifice of Jesus, which allowed us to enter into the New Covenant.
Regarding this letter, we must not forget that the radical change in the situation due to the mediation of Christ will only be verified for those who accept this mediation, in a movement of faith.
Conclusion
Through these different texts, we can well see that our FrenchSchool authors (Bérulle and Olier) do not talk directly of reconciliation.
But they evoke with force, the framework which makes possible the putting into practice of reconciliation in our lives: reconciled with God and among ourselves by the gift that Jesus Christ made of his life, it is only if we commit ourselves in our turn to “live for God in Jesus Christ”. that reconciliation will become possible in all our human relationships, and with the universe itself.
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