Jesus Christ as our Creator and our God is our Sovereign, Master and Lord. He has an absolute dominion over us. He possesses us unconditionally. We depend essentially upon Him and He is ever exercising over us His universal and plenary empire.
Jesus Christ holds His complete power in right of His divinity and of His eternal birth: ‘The Lord hath said to Me: Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me and I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance.’
But Jesus Christ also possesses the empire of the world by right of conquest and redemption. His sufferings, His blood, His cross, His death, all that mission fulfilled by Him, have seemed to Him an unimpeachable right of ownership. He is our Master and only Lord, the God-man born of the Virgin Mary Who died upon the Cross. ‘Dominus regnavit a ligno’: the cross is His sovereign throne and His rights are written and signed with His blood.
Baptism, by applying to us the merits of His Passion, by delivering us from the shameful slavery of satan, has placed us in the honorable mystery slavery of Jesus. And by Baptism He has acquired fresh rights to our service and to the ownership of us. To serve Him, love Him, adore Him, to do His good pleasure and His will, to die for Him, and all this without expecting from Him any reward, any wage, save the bliss of serving and loving Him more, these are our duties. And we must refer everything to Him, actions, words, thoughts, sufferings, health, strength, work, prayers, prospects, and so on, everything to Him Who permits us to do so, because we are His conquest, His property, His chosen people, His spiritual and eternal heritage.
All this is indeed to belong to Him, to be His slaves. Slaves, I say, and not servants, namely, entirely His, His chattels, res Domini, with which He can do what He pleases.
(To be continued.)
holymarymotherofgod 