The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 206

HOLY SCRIPTURES

i66

IN

NEW TESTAMENT

Iith God's mercy, that the whole treasure of saving truth was g^ven to the

Church directly

To accomplish

in the first century.

was the mission of the apostolate. It is like medical science in this respect, which makes constant progress in the knowledge of herbs. But however great that progress, no new herb has been produced. Those that exist now, existed always, having the same medicinal properties. The only difference is, that this

we know better than our ancestors how to apply them. In like manner, since the days of the apostolate no new remedy for the healing of souls has been created or invented. Indeed, some of the powers then at work are lost to us, e.g., the charisma of tongues. All the difference between the Church then and now is, that we, according to this thinking and emotional age, understand more profoundly the connection between the effect of the remedy and the

healing of our wounds.

This difference does not ple peasant

he

is

it is

make us

richer or poorer.

For the sim-

sufficient to receive the prescribed medicine, altho

ignorant of

its

ingredients and effects upon blood and nerves.

But the man of thought, understanding the connection between cause and effect, has no confidence in any medicine unless he knows something of its working. To him, this knowledge is a positive need, and to the psychological In his world this need does not exist.

it is even indispensable. This is likewise true of the Church of Christ it has not been always the same, neither have its needs. The development of our knowledge has been such that every age has received an insight adapted to satisfy its necessity. More than this the very fermentation of the age has created the modified need, and has been used

effect

;

:

of

God to give a clearer understanding of the truth. And yet, whatever the increased clearness and maturity

of the

knowledge concerning the secret of the Lord during the ages, the secret itself has remained the same. Nothing has been added to it. And the mystery of the apostolate is. that by the labors of its members the whole secret of the Lord was made known to the Church, under the infallible authorship of the divine Inspirer, the Holy Spirit.

This

the great fact accomplished by the apostolate

the pubwhole secret of the Lord, by which the revelation in the Old Testament, to John the Baptist and Christ was enlarged and worked out. For to complete a thing means to add that which beis

lication of the

:

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