Rapt in Admiration of the Divine Majesty

Across the Catholic globe, many celebrated the feast of the Epiphany yesterday, while others will do so two days from now on 6 January. Here is a Carthusian reflection for this glorious feast. Like many Carthusian writings, there are gems here which are more relatable for those called to the contemplative life. But each of us can take something of what is shared here and apply it to our own lives.

The birth of our Lord is a renewal of creation. The Fathers of the Church have compared the Infant-God hidden under the triple veil of the maternal womb, of a cave and of night, to a secret seed whence a new Flower will blossom, for the joy of the world. All life, it so happens, is born in secret and is veiled in its beginnings with mystery and silence. And our Lord is Life itself: Ego sum vita… I am Life (John 14:6). We shall never meditate enough on this name, so rich in its meaning, that God has given to Himself.

The life He communicates to us is not the life of nature but of grace. Nevertheless, the first is the figure of the second, and the latter the fullness of the former. All life is freely given. In a living person life is the first and fundamental gift for which there can be neither preparation nor merit. It is not for nothing that the supernatural life is called grace, for it is life essential: a birth more mysterious, a gift more pure and unmerited, than that of nature, for it is a participation in the divine prerogatives that no created intelligence would have thought possible. We must possess the spirit of grace, the spirit of divine liberality which, when we receive God’s gifts, makes us welcome without hesitation all that He offers us so lavishly, and when we give, constrains us by a consummate generosity to imitate the divine abundance of that living water, sharing it with others, whilst we ourselves drink deeply of the source.

Among the faithful generally, it is by prayer and recollection that grace is diffused. With us, it must do so above all under the form of the interior life. Interior-ness is a characteristic of all life. An inanimate stone has a kind of activity, but it is only on the surface; it only resists shocks from without. Living things, on the other hand, discern and utilize whatever is good for them: an inner sense guides their conduct and growth. The spiritual life is even keener and more powerful still: there is nothing from which it cannot draw profit. The faithful soul finds its good in everything that affects it; a principle more profound than that which governs the life of nature causes it to derive strength and development from its contact with everything. When it is not so with us, when we allow the accidents of life to upset us and turn us from our path, it is surely because our life is not sufficiently interior. We must descend into the depths of our being, remain patient and still and re-find in the solitude where God dwells, that divine intelligence, that mysterious force, thanks to which we are again able to assimilate harmoniously without exception all that happens to us and around us.

As for us, the life of grace, the interior life, is developed under the form of the contemplative life. Perhaps, in order to make this union and fusion of man with his Creator clearer, we should express ourselves more simply, and it would be truer to say in general that we lead a life of union and love. Nonetheless, we rightly speak of it as the contemplative life to denote the ideal of a love essentially direct and disinterested. For contemplation is the act of a soul rapt in admiration in the presence of something more beautiful than itself. Such, indeed, is the nature of admiration, the force of beauty thus contemplated, that it can make us lose ourselves, utterly unconscious of our self. The act of contemplative love is at once the simplest and most direct. Here again we cannot help remarking the continuity of the processes of nature and grace. All life is love, and all life is forgetfulness of self. Life consists in losing oneself so as to gain a higher good. In all nature life can only be perpetuated by the immolation of the individual, sacrificed generation after generation, so that the flame of life it has received may be passed on and continued, undiminished, a living flame.

But it is, above all, in the realm of grace that abnegation is both a necessity and a joy. Qui perdiderit animam suam… he that shall lose his life for Me shall find it (Matthew 10:39). The soul has the power to forget itself more than any other living thing: it has, if it so desire, the absolute limpidity of a mirror. Possessing no longer any form of its own, it reflects all the splendor of the infinite Majesty. To contemplate God thus, in the calm of recollection, is the source of all true wisdom. We are not masters of ourselves, we shall never know true justice or prudence, until by a brave and sincere gesture of welcome, we allow God to fulfill His will in us, and be in us all He wants to be.

May Mary, whose feast it is also, Mary full of grace, the most interior and hidden of virgins, whose soul is lost in pure admiration of the divine Majesty and thus utterly free, teach us to receive Him, and to love and contemplate Him, as she herself does.

The Most Holy Name of Jesus

Below are teachings from a series by Saint Cyril of Jerusalem titled the “Mystagogical Catecheses” which is a series of instructions given to new converts to Christianity in Jerusalem during the fourth century. In this particular part of his series, Saint Cyril explains Who Jesus is, and what we believe about Him. Cyril calls the Name of Jesus, “Wondrous”. In our glorious history there have been great promoters of the Holy Name of Jesus. Certainly Saint Bernard of Clairvaux is one among those, as he spoke of it in many of his homilies. Also great promoters of this devotion were Saint Bernardine of Siena and Saint John Capistrano. Today in many of our church buildings are seen the letters representing the Holy Name of Jesus: “IHS”. This Sunday, 3 January, the Carthusians as well as other monastic communities and those who offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the Extraordinary Form will celebrate this “wondrous” feast. Liturgically, however, this celebration truly begins today, Saturday, with First Vespers.

We believe in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of God. We say One Lord Jesus Christ, that His Sonship may be Only-begotten: we say One, that you may not profanely diffuse the many names of His action among many sons.

He is called a Door; but do not take the name literally for a thing of wood, but a spiritual, a living Door, discriminating those who enter in.

He is called a Way, not one trodden by feet, but leading to the Father in heaven.

He is called a Sheep, not an irrational one, but the One which through its precious Blood cleanses the world from its sins, which is led before the shearers, and knows when to be silent.

This Sheep again is called a Shepherd, who says, I am the Good Shepherd: a Sheep because of His manhood, a Shepherd because of the loving-kindness of His Godhead.

There is One Lord Jesus Christ, a wondrous Name, indirectly announced beforehand by the Prophets. For Isaiah the Prophet says, Behold, your Saviour comes, having His own reward. Now Jesus in Hebrew is by interpretation Savior. For the Prophetic gift, foreseeing the killing of Him by the Jews, veiled His name, lest from knowing it plainly beforehand they might plot against Him readily. But He was openly called Jesus not by men, but by an Angel, who came not by his own authority, but was sent by the power of God, and said to Joseph, Fear not to take unto you Mary your wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a Son, and you shall call His Name Jesus. And immediately he renders the reason of this name, saying, for He shall save His people from their sins.

Consider how He Who was not yet born could have a people, unless He was in Being before He was born. This also the Prophet says in His person, From the womb of My Mother has He made mention of My name; because the Angel foretold that He should be called Jesus.

Jesus then means according to the Hebrew Savior, but in Greek The Healer; since He is Physician of souls and bodies, Curer of spirits, curing the blind in body , and leading minds into light, healing the visibly lame, and guiding sinners' steps to repentance, saying to the paralyzed, Sin no more, and, Take up your bed and walk. For since the body was paralyzed for the sin of the soul, He ministered first to the soul that He might extend the healing to the body.

If, therefore, any one is suffering in soul from sins, there is the Physician for him: and if any one here is of little faith, let him say to Him, Help my unbelief. If any is encompassed also with bodily ailments, let him not be faithless, but let him draw near; for to such diseases also Jesus ministers, and let him learn that Jesus is the Christ.

This is Jesus Christ Who came a High-Priest of the good things to come; Who for the bountifulness of His Godhead imparted His own title to us all. For kings among men have their royal style which others may not share, but Jesus Christ being the Son of God gave us the dignity of being called Christians.

If there is any one who formerly believed not, let him now believe; and if any was before a believer, let him receive a greater increase of faith, by believing in our Lord Jesus Christ, and let him understand Whose Name he bears.

You are called a Christian: be tender of the name; let not our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, be blasphemed through you, but rather let your good works shine before men that they who see them may in our Lord Christ Jesus glorify the Father Who is in heaven.

To Him be the glory, both now and forever. Amen.

Goodness must be poured out and sent beyond Itself

Today is the feast of Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory of Nazianzen. Below are words from Saint Gregory of Nazianzen and his “Oratio XXXVIII.” It is a marvelous reflection on creation and the Creator; and the Word becoming man and the significance of that great and eternal event. In this oration the word “Festival” appears, which is understood as the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Saint Gregory presided over the Second Ecumenical Council which was the council that gave the Church the Nicene Creed. Both Saint Basil and Saint Gregory are revered as Doctors of the Church.

The Goodness of God cannot be satisfied alone by Self-contemplation because Good must be poured out and sent beyond Itself to multiply the objects of Its beneficence, for this was essential to the highest Goodness. Thus God first conceived the angelic and heavenly powers. This conception was a work fulfilled by His Word and perfected by His Spirit. Thus were created these beings of light as the ministers of the Primary Splendor.

Are we to conceive of them as intelligent spirits, or as Fire of an immaterial and incorruptible kind, or as some other nature approaching this as near as may be? I should like to say that they were incapable of movement in the direction of evil, and susceptible only of the movement of good, as being about God, and illumined with the first rays from God -- for earthly beings have but the second illumination.

I am, however, inclined to think that these spirits are not truly incorruptible, but only difficult to corrupt. I think of Lucifer, the bringer of light, who turned to darkness through his pride, and the apostate hosts who are subject to him, creators of evil by their revolt against good and our inciters.

After creating the world of heavenly spirits, He gave being to the world of thought. Then when His first creation was in good order, He then conceived a visible and material world, of earth and sky and all that is contained therein. Each part is commendable for its elegance, but more beautiful is its harmony, order and the calm that reigns over everything. Each reality beautifully agrees with the other, and all with the whole, tending to the perfect completion of the world as a unit.

With the creation of the material world, God shows that He could call into being, not only a nature akin to Himself, but also one altogether alien to Himself. For akin to Deity are those natures which are intellectual, and only to be comprehended by mind; but all of which sense can take cognizance are utterly alien to It; and of these the furthest removed are all those which are entirely destitute of soul and of power of motion. I hear you say: What has all this to do with us? We are here to talk about the Festival, and the reasons for our being here today. Yes, this is what I am about to do, although I have begun at a somewhat previous point, being compelled to do so by love, and by the needs of my argument.

Mind, then, and sense, thus distinguished from each other, had remained within their own boundaries, and bore in themselves the magnificence of the Creator-Word, silent praisers and thrilling heralds of His mighty work. Not yet was there any mingling of both, nor any mixtures of these opposites, tokens of a greater Wisdom and Generosity in the creation of natures; nor as yet were the whole riches of Goodness made known.

But then the Word condescended to show in a living visible and invisible dimension, created man; and taking a body from already existing matter, and placing in it a Breath taken from Himself which the Word knew to be an intelligent soul and the Image of God. God placed man on earth; a new angel, a mingled worshipper, fully initiated into the visible creation, but only partially into the intellectual; a king of all upon earth, but subject to the King above; earthly and heavenly; temporal and yet immortal, visible and yet intellectual, half-way between greatness and lowliness; in one person combining spirit and flesh; spirit, because of the favor bestowed on him; flesh, because of the height to which he had been raised; the one that he might continue to live and praise his Benefactor, the other that he might suffer, and by suffering be put in remembrance, and corrected if he became proud of his greatness. A living creature trained here, and then moved elsewhere; and, to complete the mystery, deified by its inclination to God.

For to this, I think, tends that the Light of Truth which we here possess but in measure, that we should both see and experience the Splendor of God, which is worthy of Him Who made us, and will remake us again after a loftier fashion.

Sancta Dei Genitrix

Below are words taken from homilies on the Dormition of Mary by Germanus of Constantinople. He was the subject of a Wednesday General Audience of Pope Benedict XVI back in April of 2009 at Saint Peter’s Square. In that catechesis, the Holy Father said of Germanus that “he played an important role in the overall history of the controversy over images during the ‘Iconoclastic Crisis’: he was able to resist effectively the pressures of an Iconoclast Emperor, in other words opposed to icons, such as Leo III.” In the excerpt below, Germanus speaks about the material colors of the icons of the Mother of God and how they dazzle us with the representation of her gifts. Also interesting is the patriarch’s remembrance that the temple of Solomon was once looked upon as an earthly representation of heaven; and now our church buildings, our places of worship should be thought of with that same dignity. This thought, perhaps, may bring to many of us a new excitement in our worship, especially during Eucharistic Adoration. Germanus of Constantinople delivers his words in these homilies, not so much as addressing crowds, but more as a personal prayer to our Blessed Mother. Happy New Year everyone!

O Mary, you have given birth to the Word of God the Father, at the end of time, to the One Who is “in the beginning.” Immediately after Him coming into the world, the angels looked down from heaven singing the praises of God born from your womb. Crying out that glory had been added to the heights of heaven, they greeted the earth with the peace which at last had come. Enmity could no longer be called a barrier between angels and men, heaven and earth; there was now a reign of harmony, one mutually complimentary song of praise sung by both angels and men to the Triune God. The Father, Who turns to His only Son bearing witness to your Motherhood without need of a husband, says to Him: “Today I have begotten You.” And again: “From the womb before the morning-star, I have begotten You.”

These are revealing words of the mystery of God. If before He was begotten of you, O Virgin and Mother, how does the Father say to Him: “Today I have begotten You?” It is clear that “today” does not indicate that the existence of the Only-begotten’s divinity is something new, but reveals His bodily presence among men. The words “I have begotten you” show that the Holy Spirit, Who shares the Father’s substance, is also in the Father, the source of divine life and the sharer in His activity. The Spirit is inseparable from the Father, and when He places His home in you, Virgin and Mother, by the Father’s good pleasure, makes His own the activity of His Holy Spirit. That is why, when the Father along with the Spirit, inaugurates the coming-forth of His Son, from you in bodily form, He says to the Son: “Today I have begotten You.” The same is true of these other words: “From the womb, before the morning-star, I have begotten you.” For in our faith we grasp the essence of the eternal deity of the Son, co-Eternal with the Father before all ages, and His taking on natural human flesh, from you, the ever-Virgin.

By “the womb before the morning-star,” the Scripture refers to the birth of light which exists before the heavens, but which has now appeared on earth, in order to show that before all creation, visible and invisible, the Only-begotten was brought forth from the Father without beginning, as light is born of light; and “the womb” here signifies your own body, in order to show that the Only-begotten One also came forth from you in flesh. “Before the morning-star” also refers to the night before that dawning, for day is fittingly referred to as “the morning-star”; and since you brought forth light in the night, “for those who sit in darkness,” Scripture calls the hour of your Child bearing, “before the morning-star.”

O Mother of God, your care is for all people. Even if our eyes are prevented from seeing you, you love to dwell in the midst of us all, and you show yourself in a variety of ways to those who are worthy of you. For the flesh does not stand in the way of the power and activity of your spirit; your spirit “blows where it will” since it is pure and immaterial, an incorrupt and spotless spirit, a companion of the Holy Spirit, the chosen one of God’s Only-begotten. Your virginal body is all-holy, all pure, the dwelling-place of God. It is preserved and supremely glorified.

Who would not admire you for your unwavering care, your unchanging readiness to offer protection, your unsleeping intercession, your uninterrupted concern to save, your steady help, your unshakable patronage? Who does not recognize you as the treasury of delight, the garden free from reproaches, the citadel of safety, the harbor of storm-tossed ships, calm for the distraught, welcome for the exiled, dew for the soul’s dry season, a drop of rain for the parched grass? You are Mother of the Lamb Who is the Shepherd, the recognized patron of all the good.

But it is enough praise, O most admirable one, if we simply admit that we do not have the resources to praise all your gifts. You have received from God your exalted position, as a cause for triumph; therefore you have formed for Him a Christian people from your own flesh, and you have shaped them to be conformed to His divine image and likeness. Your light outshines the sun, your honor is above that of all creation, your excellence before that of the angels. For there is no place that you are not called blessed, no tribe from which fruit has not been borne for God from you. Even the peoples of this world who have not known you will themselves, at an acceptable time, call you blessed, O Virgin.

The angels luxuriate in their heavenly dwellings, but we rejoice to take our leisure in your holy temples. For if the temple of Solomon once represented heaven in an earthly image, will not the temples built in honor of you, who became the living temple of Christ, all the more be rightly celebrated as heaven on earth? The stars speak out with tongues of flame in the heavenly firmament; and the material colors of your icons, O Mother of God, dazzle us with the representation of your gifts.

You have your own proper praise within yourself, in that you were designated Mother of God. You did not inherit the title, “Mother of God,” simply because we heard this with our own ears; nor was it simply that our fathers proclaimed this to us in a tradition of utter truthfulness. Rather, the work you have accomplished in us confirms that you are Mother of God in very fact, literally and without deceit, not by some verbal self-indulgence, but in the way of true faith.

He's captured me, forever I'm in chains

The poem below was written by a beautiful Carmelite soul – Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity. She wrote it for Christmas – the Christmas of 1903 to be exact. Appearing in this poem four times are the Latin words: “Amo Christum” (I love Christ), which was the motto of Dijon Carmel, where Elizabeth entered religious life. “Amo Christum” was inscribed on the crossbeams of the crucifixes given to the Sisters at their profession. Elizabeth is hailed as the “Saint of the Divine Indwelling” and this poem certainly reflects that.

There is this One Who knows all mysteries
And Who embraced them from all Eternity
And this same One… the Father’s Word He is
Splendor, that Word, of His Divinity

See that One come with Love’s excess
With charity so urgent
Say: Son of the Father’s tenderness
God gives us Him on this great day

O Word may lifelong now
I listen to You
So possessed by You
That how to love be all I know
Amo Christum

In me, a house that God is living at
This Jesus Christ, Divine Adorer there
Takes me to souls, as to the Father
That being the double movement of His prayer
Co-Savior with my Master here

Whose call to me still drives me on
For this I ought to disappear
I’m lost in Him, with Him as one
One Word of Life, with You
For always and above
Your virgin host anew
All shining forth with love
Amo Christum

His sanctuary, He rests in me
There is the peace one looks for and attains
In silence, and in deepest mystery
He’s captured me, forever I’m in chains

Ah, to Your every word to cling
Calm in the faith I’m anchored to
Adoring You, through everything
As one who only lives by You

Beneath Your splendent Light
O Word, by night and day
May I be now, outright
To Your great love, a prey
Amo Christum

Mother of God, tell me your mystery
Oh how your earthly life was spent
The way, right from the time of ‘Fiat’
How you’d be buried in adoration, Mary

Say how, in a peace, a silence, you
What mystery could enter in
To deeps that none but you could do
Bearing the guilt of God within

Secure in God’s embrace
Keep me, I ask
In me, His imprint may He place
For wholly Love is He
Amo Christum

O Truly Incarnate Wisdom!

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, in this homily extracted from a Christmas sermon, speaks of things that might surprise you at first. He says, “Let the mouths of others praise you” when we have been taught not to seek the praises of men. Saint Bernard tells us to “hide the gifts and graces” we have received when we have been taught to let our light shine. The great saint is not suggesting that we ignore what we have been taught, but instead is laying out for us the message and example of Jesus as an Infant. It’s an interesting piece of his sermon – I hope you like it.

Christ is born in a stable, and lies in a manger. Yet is He not the same that said, "The earth is mine and the fullness thereof?" Why, then, did He choose a stable? Plainly that He might reprove the glory of the world, that He might condemn its empty pride. The Infant Jesus is silent. He does not extol Himself; He does not proclaim His own power and greatness, and behold, an angel announces His birth, a multitude of the heavenly host praise and glorify the new-born King.

You that would follow Christ do in like manner imitate His example. Hide the gifts and graces you have received. Love to be unknown. Let the mouths of others praise you, but keep your own lips closed. His Tongue has not spoken, and, behold, every where He is proclaimed, preached, made known. These infantine members will not be silent; they have another kind of language: in all of them the judgment of the world is reproved, subverted, and set at naught.

What man with intelligence, being free to choose, would not prefer a full-grown, robust body rather than that of an infant? O Divine Wisdom! You are manifested by Your preference for what was hidden and abject. O truly Incarnate Wisdom, veiled in the flesh! This is nevertheless what was long ago prophesied by Isaiah: "The child will know how to refuse evil and choose good." The pleasures of the body are the evil which He refuses; affliction is the good He selects. And assuredly, He that makes His choice is a wise Child, a wise Infant. He is the eternal Word of God, for the Word was made flesh, infirm flesh, tender flesh, the feeble, helpless flesh of an Infant, incapable of its own nature of any good work, feeling a repugnance to labor and hardships. Truly the Word was made flesh, and in flesh dwelt amongst us.

When in the beginning the Word was with God, He dwelt in light inaccessible, and there was none that could bear that light. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counselor? The carnal man of His own nature perceives not those things which are of the Spirit of God; but now he can perceive them though still carnal, for the Word was made flesh. Since man, on account of the flesh, could understand nothing but what was of the flesh, behold, the Word was made flesh that man might be able even by the flesh to hear and understand the things of the Spirit. O man, behold that wisdom which was heretofore hidden is shown forth to you! It is now drawn forth from its hiding place, and is laid open to you, and it penetrates into the very perceptions of your nature.

The True Marks and Qualities of the Elect

The words below are excerpted from a homily by the fourteenth-century German Dominican theologian and mystic, Johannes Tauler. In this particular sermon, he reflects on Christmas and how we as God’s human creation ought to respond to our Lord’s love. And we do this by exhibiting the qualities of true children of God which have been demonstrated to us by the example of Jesus Christ. Johannes Tauler makes use of the wisdom of Saint Augustine, Dionysius, and Saint Anselm in this homily.

Dear children, God has wrought a great wonder, and manifested the greatness of His love towards us, in that He has looked down upon us, who were His enemies, aliens and far off from Him, with such mercy as to give us power to become His sons and children; therefore it behooves us not to show ourselves ungrateful for such kindness, but to put on the true marks and qualities of the elect, beloved children of God.

He who would be a son of our Father in Heaven must be a stranger among the children of this world, and must have an earnest mind and a single eye, with a heart inclined towards God. Now such a one is made a son of God when he is born again in God, and this takes place with every fresh revelation of God to his soul. A man is born of the Spirit when he permits God's work to be wrought in his soul; yet it is not this which makes the soul to be perfectly blessed, but that revelation makes the soul to follow after Him Who has revealed Himself to her, and in Whom she is born anew, with love and praise.

The beloved children of God renounce themselves, and hence they do right without effort, and mount up to the highest point of goodness; while he who will not let go of himself, but does right by labor and toil, will never reach the highest that he might. Men who live on the outside of things are a great hindrance in the way of goodness by their many idle words. Therefore those who wish to foster the inner life of their souls, are in great danger of receiving hurt from things which are said without thought, especially when many are together. He who repents of what he has said as soon as the words are out of his mouth, is one of the careless speakers. He only is a good son who has cast off his old sins and evil habits; for without this it is impossible that he should be created anew in Christ Jesus.

It is a mark of the children of God that they see their own little faults and shortcomings to be great sins. We must let all things be to us merely the supply of our wants, and possess them in their nothingness. The great work and aim of the beloved children of God is to shun all sin, deadly or trifling, that they may not grieve God's spirit; for they know, as Saint Augustine says, that for the smallest habitual sin which is not punished and laid aside in this present life, they will have to suffer more than all the pains of this world. Hence Anselm says, that he would rather die, and that this world should be destroyed, than commit one sin a day knowingly. And Augustine says: "The soul is created eternal, and therefore she cannot rest but in God."

Dionysius says: "To be converted to the truth means nothing else but a turning from the love of created things, and a coming into union with the uncreated Highest Good. And in one who is thus converted there is a joy beyond conception, and his understanding is unclouded and not perverted by the love of earthly things, and is mirrored in his conscience, in the mirror of God's Mind. Love is the noblest of all virtues, for it makes man divine, and makes God man."

A certain teacher has said that if a man will give his heart and life to God, God will give him in return greater gifts than if he were to suffer death over again for him.

Now that man shall attain unto the Highest Good who is ready to descend into the lowest depths of poverty. And this comes to pass when he is cast into utter wretchedness and forsaken of all creatures and all comfort. And let him ask help of none; let him be as knowing nothing, and as though he had never been anything but a fool; let him have none to take compassion on him, even so much as to give him a cup of cold water to drink; yet let him never forget God in his heart, and never shrink from God's searching Eye of judgment, though he knows not what its verdict will be; but with a cheerful and thankful spirit yield himself up to suffer whatever God shall appoint unto him, and to fulfill according to his power, by the grace of God, all His holy will to the utmost that he can discern it, and never complain of his distresses but to God alone with entire and humble resignation, praying that he may be strong to endure all his sufferings according to the will of God. Dear children, what glorious sons of God would such men be! What wonders would God work through them to the magnifying of His glory! These are the true and righteous men who trust in God, and cleave to Him in spirit and in truth! That we may thus become His sons, may God help us by His grace! Amen.