|
WE have spoken of the second conversion, which is necessary for
the soul if it is to leave the way of beginners and enter upon the
way of proficients, or the illuminative way. As we have seen, many
authors hold that this second conversion took place for the
Apostles at the end of the Passion of Christ, and for Peter in
particular after his triple denial.
St. Thomas remarks in his commentary on St. Matthew [81] that this
repentance of St. Peter came about immediately, as soon as his
Master had looked upon him, and that it was efficacious and
definitive.
Nevertheless, Peter and the Apostles were slow to believe in the
resurrection of Christ, in spite of the account which the holy
women gave them of this miracle so often foretold by Jesus
Himself. The story they told seemed to them to be madness. [82]
Moreover, slow to believe the resurrection of the Saviour, they
were correspondingly anxious, says St. Augustine, [83] to see the
complete restoration of the kingdom of Israel such as they
imagined would come to pass. This may be seen from the question
which they put to our Lord on the very day of the Ascension:
|
'Lord
wilt thou at this time again restore the kingdom of Israel?'
|
|
But
there was still much suffering to be undergone before the
restoration of the kingdom; and that restoration would be far
superior to anything that they suspected.
And so spiritual writers have often spoken of a third conversion
or transformation of the Apostles, which took place on the day of
Pentecost. Let us see first what this transformation was in them,
and then what it ought to be, proportionately, in us.
The Apostles were prepared for their third transformation by the
fact that from the time of the Ascension they were deprived of the
perceptible presence of Jesus Himself. When our Lord deprived His
Apostles forever of the sight of His sacred Humanity, they must
have suffered a distress to which we do not perhaps sufficiently
advert. When we consider that our Lord had become their very life
-- as St. Paul says:
|
'Mihi vivere Christus est'
|
|
-and that they had
become daily more and more intimate with Him, they must have had a
feeling of the greatest loneliness, like a feeling of desolation,
even of death. And their desolation must have been the more
intense since our Lord Himself had foretold all the sufferings
that were in store. We experience something of the same dismay
when, after having lived on a higher plane during the time of
retreat, under the guidance of a priestly soul full of the spirit
of God, we are plunged once again into our everyday life which
seems to deprive us suddenly of this fulness. The Apostles stood
there with their eyes raised up to heaven. This was no longer
merely the crushing of their sensibility, as it was during the
time of the Passion; it was a complete blank, which must have
seemed to take from them all power of thinking. During the Passion
our Lord was still there; now He had been taken away from them,
and they seemed to be completely deprived of Him.
It was in the night of the spirit that they were prepared for the
outpouring of the graces of Pentecost.
|
|