The hand of the Lord and the child of pure grace

Quis, putas, puer iste erit? Etenim manus Domini erat cum illo (Luke 1:66). "What kind of child will this be? For the hand of the Lord was with him." The hand of the Lord means the Holy Spirit, for two reasons. First, because work is done with the hand. Second, because the hand is one with the arm and with the body. All human actions begin in the heart, reach out through the limbs, and are carried out by the hand. So the soul has her seat chiefly in the heart, and in the heart is the source of her powers. In the same way the Father is the fountain and origin of all divine activity, and the Son is pictured as his arm, as the Magnificat says, "he has shown strength with his arm." Divine power moves from the body through the arm to the hand, and the hand stands for the Holy Spirit, just as the soul, moving through the body and through material things, shows her spiritual nature there. So we say that the Holy Spirit is meant by the hand that worked in this child.

Now notice the condition of the soul in which God is ready to work. He speaks of a child, which suggests pure joy, a state without blemish. The soul that God works in must be pure and clean. A master says, "Eternal wisdom stays in Zion, her resting place is in that pure city"; Zion means a height, a watchtower, a place of rest. Again, the soul must be set apart from things that pass away and die. And third, she must watch for hindrances that are coming. God comes out of kindness, because of the love he has for the soul. He has given her a godly light, a reflection of himself, so that he can work freely in her, in his own likeness. Love cannot exist without finding likeness or making it. Suppose I call a man to follow me: unless he has come to like me, he will never follow me willingly. It is the same with the soul that follows God. All of God's members must do what he asks, whether they want to or not. If they do it against their will, it troubles him, for no work done without liking is ever pleasant.

No creature can do more than what lies within her. The soul makes progress only by the light God has given her, which is her own, a wedding gift presented to her by God. God comes in love so that the soul may rise, so that in love she may work above herself. For love cannot exist without finding her like or making her like, except so far as God himself works in love beyond the soul. The soul does not do the work of grace, since that is not her own nature, until she has reached that place where God is at work in himself, where the work is as noble as the worker, namely his own nature. Take light as an example. In wood it produces something like itself: heat and fire, and the harder the wind blows, the fiercer the flame grows. Now put love in place of the fire, and the Holy Spirit in place of the wind. The more strongly the Holy Spirit breathes, the more consuming the fire becomes, though not all at once. It grows at the same pace as the soul. If the whole person were consumed all at once, that would not be good, for one could live a thousand years and still keep growing in love. Light works on flowers, making them grow and bear fruit. In living creatures it works for life. In man it works for happiness. This happens through the grace of God, which lifts the soul to a higher power, for if the soul is to be like God she must go beyond herself. Amen.