The Interior Soul Radiates The Supernatural
Each day after Holy Communion, the Missionaries of Charity of St. Teresa of Calcutta recite the Radiating Christ Prayer written by St. John Henry Newman:
“Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance wherever I go. Flood my soul with Your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly, that my life may only be a radiance of Yours. Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul….”
Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard wrote, “One of the most formidable obstacles to the conversion of a soul is the fact that God is a hidden God: Deus absconditus. But God, in His goodness, reveals Himself, in a certain manner, through His saints, and even through fervent souls. In this way, the supernatural filters through and becomes visible to the faithful, who are thus able to apprehend something of the mystery of God.”
Dom Chautard pointed out that the interior life makes the apostle radiate faith, hope, charity, kindness, humility, firmness, gentleness, and mortification.
Regarding the radiation of faith, Dom Chautard wrote, “Never has there been so much preaching, and arguing, or such a spate of learned works of apologetics as in our day, and yet never, at least as far as the bulk of the faithful is concerned, has the faith been so dead. Those whose job it is to teach too often seem to see nothing in the act of faith but an act of the intellect; but as a matter of fact the will also has a large part in it. They forget that belief is a supernatural gift, and that there is a deep gulf between merely seeing the motives of credibility and making a definite act of faith. This gulf can be bridged by God alone, together with the will of the one who is being instructed: but the divine light reflected by the sanctity of the instructor is of immense assistance in accomplishing this task.”
Dom Chautard pointed out that it is impossible for a man of prayer not to radiate hope. He wrote, “The best way to get men to listen to you is to hold out to them the secret of carrying the Cross, which is the lot of every mortal, with joy. This secret lies in the Eucharist and in the hope of heaven.”
St. Joseph Cafasso was able to talk about heaven with so much conviction that people who feared death would experience a complete change of heart after speaking with him. They would even exclaim: “I no longer fear death; I even desire that it come soon, provided that I have Don Cafasso somewhere near at that moment.”
The love of Christ is the best means to detach a soul from sin and lead one to perfection. St. Francis de Sales said, “A zeal that is not charitable comes from a charity that is not genuine.”
A pulpit orator wrote, “God has willed that no good should be done to man except by loving him, and that insensibility should be forever incapable either of giving him light, or inspiring him to virtue.”
Father Frederick W. Faber said, “Kindness is the overflow of self on others. To be kind is to put others in one's place. Kindness has convinced more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning, and these three things have never converted anybody without kindness having something to do with it.”
Dom Chautard pointed out that the apostle without interior life, and, therefore without humility, will be at the mercy of his passions. He wrote, “Humility alone, by keeping him to the path of right judgment and preventing him from acting on impulse, will maintain a more perfect balance and stability in his life.” He added: “Only an apostle who is disinterested, humble, and chaste can lead souls on into the battle against the ever-growing forces of greed, ambition, and impurity.”
St. Faustina prayed: “Let Your divinity radiate through me, O You who dwell in my soul.”