Where Our Heart Is

Create a clean heart in me, O God:  and renew a right spirit within me.  This verse corresponds with, "Thou shalt wash me and I shall be made whiter than snow"; for he asks not only for a remission of his sins, but for such an infusion of grace as may renew his soul, and make it bright and beautiful, a petition, telling against those who make justification to consist solely in the remission of sin.  We are not to take it that a new heart is asked for, when he says, "Create"; the expression merely expresses a wish that his heart may be thoroughly cleansed and purified, and made, as it were, a new heart.  The meaning, then, is create cleanness in my heart; and there is a certain point in the word "Create," to imply that God finds nothing in the heart of a sinner, whence to form cleanness in it; but that entirely, through his own great mercy, without any merit on their part, it is that he justifies men; for, even though sinners are disposed to justification by faith and penance, still, faith, penance, and all such things are purely the gift of God...  "Creating a new heart" is nothing more than creating cleanness in the new heart...  a "right spirit" means a right affection, in other words, charity;  for by avarice or cupidity the affections of the heart become distorted, turn to creatures, especially to self, while charity or love directs them to the things above, especially to God.  "A right spirit," then, is renewed in me when the heart having been cleansed by grace, an ardent love of God, that had been displaced by sin, is renewed in the soul.

Saint John Fisher

-Saint John Fisher (1535) was chancellor of Cambridge University and a cardinal.  He was beheaded for the faith.

Love and Perfection

Let anyone truly possessed by the love of Christ keep his commandments.  Who can express the binding power of divine love?  Who can find words for the splendor of its beauty?  Beyond all description are the heights to which it lifts us.  Love unites us to God; it cancels innumerable sins, has no limits to its endurance, bears everything patiently.  Love is neither servile nor arrogant.  It does not provoke schisms or form cliques, but always acts in harmony with others.  By it all Gods chosen ones have been sanctified; without it, it is impossible to please him.  Out of love the Lord took us to himself; because he loved us and it was God's will, our Lord Jesus Christ gave his life's blood for us - he gave his body for our body, his soul for our soul.

See then, beloved, what a great and wonderful thing love is, and how inexpressible its perfection.  Who are worthy to possess it unless God makes them so?  To him therefore we must turn, begging of his mercy that there may be found in us a love free from human partiality and beyond reproach.  Every generation from Adam's time to ours has passed away; but those who by God's grace were made perfect in love have a dwelling now among the saints, and when at last the kingdom of Christ appears, they will be revealed.

Happy are we, beloved, if love enables us to live in harmony and in the observance of God's commandments, for then it will also gain for us the remission of our sins.  Scripture pronounces happy those whose transgressions are pardoned, whose sins are forgiven.  Happy the person, it says, to whom the Lord imputes no fault, on whose lips there is no guile.  This is the blessing given those whom God has chosen through Jesus Christ our Lord.  To him be glory forever and ever.  Amen.

Saint Clement of Rome

-Saint Clement (96) was the third successor of Saint Peter.

Why We Turn the Other Cheek

Having poured out his precious blood for our sake, Christ himself will deliver us from our sin.  Let us not despair about ourselves, nor be cast down into a state of utter hopelessness.  It is a terrible thing not to believe that there is hope of repentance.  A person who does not expect salvation recklessly adds sin to sin, but one who has hope of healing will readily take care of himself thenceforward.  The thief who does not expect such a gift goes off into a frenzy, whereas the one who has hope of forgiveness will often come to repentance.  If a snake sloughs off its skin, can our sin not be sloughed off too?

God loves us, and loves in no small measure.  Do not say, then, "I have fornicated and committed adultery, I have done terrible things, and not once but many times.  Is it possible that he will make a concession for me, that he will grant me an amnesty?"  Listen to what the psalmist has to say:  "How great is the abundance of your goodness, Lord!"  Your accumulated sins do not prevail against the wealth of God's compassion; the supreme physician is too experienced to be defeated by your wounds.  Just hand yourself over in faith and tell the doctor your disease.  Make David's words your own:  "I said, I will confess against myself my transgression to the Lord."  Then what he speaks of next will happen equally to you:  "And you have forgiven the sin in my heart."

Do you want to contemplate God's kindness and great forbearance?  Then listen to what is said of Adam.  Adam, God's first-formed creature, disobeyed.  Could not God have put him to death at once?  Yes, but see what the Lord did in his exceeding love for humankind.  He did indeed cast Adam out of paradise, but he resettled him a little distance off, so that Adam, keeping view that state from which he had fallen and realizing what a change for the worse there had been in his circumstances, might thereafter be saved through repentance.

Truly this is an instance of God's loving kindness, but a small one in comparison with what follows.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem

-Saint Cyril (386), bishop of Jerusalem, was expelled three times from his see by heretics who opposed his unfailing orthodoxy.

Mary's Immaculate Heart

The holy Heart of the Blessed Virgin is the living image of the adorable love of the Eternal Father, because as the Son of God has ever dwelt and will never cease to dwell in his Father's love, so, too, he has always lived and will ever live and dwell in the Heart of his Mother.  His Father's divine felicity is a paradise of delight, love, and glory for him, and his Mother's Heart is a heaven, a heaven of heavens, in which he is, in a way, far more loved and glorified than in the empyrean sphere. 

Furthermore, the Father of Mercies and the God of all consolation, in his exceedingly great and Fatherly love, gave us his well-beloved Son at the time of his Incarnation, and gives him to us daily in the most Blessed Sacrament.  So, too, the most Blessed Mother of Mercy and Consolation, in the boundless charity of her maternal Heart, gave us her dear Jesus at his birth, and does so continually in the Holy Eucharist, because being one with him in spirit, in love, and in will, she wills all that he wills and does all that he does.

Finally, the Eternal Father himself accomplished in the holy Heart of his beloved daughter, the glorious Virgin Mary, that which he commands all faithful souls to do when he says:  "Put me as a seal upon thy heart" (Song 8: 6).  With his own hand he has impressed on her Heart a perfect semblance of the divine qualities of his love, which consequently is a perfect image of the sanctity, wisdom, goodness, mercy, benignity, charity, and all the other perfections of the infinite love of our heavenly Father.

Saint John Eudes

-Saint John Eudes (1680) is largely responsible for initiating and popularizing devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Whoever Obeys

Christ did what a dove does in winter when it goes down into the valleys and dwells molting in the hollows of tree trunks; but in the summer the dove returns to the mountains.  So, in the wintertime of unbelief and the frigid weather of demonic persecution, Christ came down into the womb of the lowly Virgin, and dwelt poor and abject in this world as if he were stripped of his feathers.  It is of this turtle-dove that Solomon says in the Canticle:  "The voice of the turtle-dove is heart in our land" (song 2: 12).  The voice of the dove is mourning and plaintive.  Christ came down to mourn and weep - never do we read that he laughed - in order to teach us to mourn and weep.  "The voice of the dove," therefore, "is heard in our land," saying:  "do works of penance" (Mt 3: 2).  But when summer arrived and the cruel persecution began to heat up and the trial of his Passion burst into flames, then he returned to the mountain, i.e., to the Father.  And then he said: "I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me: 'Where are you going'" (Jn 16: 5).  Were we to ask Christ by what way he is going to the Father, he would answer:  "By the way of the cross."  Which is why he said:  "Did not the Christ have to suffer these things, so as to enter his glory?"  (Lk 24: 26).

Christ had two quite different inheritances:  one was from his Mother, and this was struggle and sorrow; the other was from his Father, and this was joy and peace.  From the fact that we are co-heirs with him we must accept the same double inheritance...  In the earth of humanity, founded on the seven pillars of a sevenfold grace, he planted the heavens of the divinity.  Let us, then, take possession of the first inheritance which Christ left us, so that we may deserve to come to the second.

Saint Anthony of Padua

-Saint Anthony (1231) was a renowned Franciscan preacher.

"They will respect my Son"

The fear of the Lord does not originate in terror, but is based on learnings; it has nothing to do with natural timidity, but is gained by observing the commandments, following the prescriptions of a blameless life and by acquiring knowledge of the truth.  For, if God is feared merely because of the numerous fires caused by lightning and the havoc wrought by thunderbolts, or because of the widespread destruction occasioned by earthquakes, when gaping chasms swallow everything up, that fear is in no way related to faith, since it is prompted by the fear of misfortune.  Our fear of God, on the other hand, is wholly rooted in love; in fact, the perfect love of God puts an end to terror.  This love of ours for God, moreover, is fully expressed by our obedience to his commands, our compliance with his statutes, and our confidence in his promises...  Those who fear are not blessed on account of their natural timidity, which engenders fear in other men as well, nor on account of the we they feel before the One who can rightly command their awe; rather their blessing results from their walking in the ways of the Lord.  Fear produces obedience, not panic; submission is the hallmark of fear. 

Many indeed are the ways of the Lord, yet he himself is the Way.  He called himself the Way and then explained his meaning by saying:  "No one can come to the Father except through me..."

How many paths we must inquire into if we would discover the one way that is good!  How many ways we must walk if we would find with the help of numerous guides the only way which leads to everlasting life!...  Blessed are they who walk in them in the fear of God. 

Saint Hilary of Poitiers

-Saint Hilary (367) is called the Doctor of the Divinity of Christ.

How to Approach Christ's Passion

I appeal to you by the mercy of God.  This appeal is made by Paul, or rather, it is made by God through Paul, because of God's desire to be loved rather than feared, to be a father rather than a lord.  God appeals to us in his mercy to avoid having to punish us in his severity.  

Listen to the Lord's appeal.  In me, I want you to see your own body, your members, your heart, your bones, your blood.  You may fear what is divine, but why not love what is human?  You may run away from me as the Lord, but why not run to me as your father?  Perhaps you are filled with shame for causing my bitter passion.  Do not be afraid.  This cross inflicts a mortal injury, not on me, but on death.  These nails no longer pain me, but only deepen your love for me.  I do not cry out because of these wounds, but through them I draw you into my heart.  My body was stretched on the cross as a symbol, not of how much I suffered, but of my all-embracing love.  I count it no loss to shed my blood:  it is the price I have paid for your ransom.  Come, then, return to me and learn to know me as your father, who repays good for evil, love for injury, and boundless charity for piercing wounds.

Saint Peter Chrysologus

-Saint Peter (450), Doctor of the Church, was the archbishop of Ravenna, Italy.

Feeding Christ's Sheep

By the frequent occurrence of his bodily manifestations our Lord wished to show that he is present by his divinity in every place to the desires of those who are good.  He appeared at the tomb to those who were grieving; he will also be present to us when we are salutarily saddened at recalling his absence.  He came to meet those who were returning from the tomb so that, having learned of the joy of his resurrection, they might proclaim it; he will also be present to us when we rejoice in faithfully announcing the good things that we know to our neighbors.  He appeared in the breaking of bread to those who, supposing that he was a stranger, invited him to share their table; he will also be present to us when we willingly bestow whatever goods we can on strangers and poor people; and he will be present to us in the breaking of bread, when we partake with a chaste and simple conscience of the sacrament of his body, namely, the living bread.  He appeared in secret to those who were speaking of his resurrection; he is also present to us now, whenever we do this same thing by his gift; he will always be present to us when, free for a time from outside works, we come together in order to speak of his grace.  He appeared when they were staying inside, with the doors closed out of fear of the Jews; he appeared when this same fear abated and they sought him with steps unconcealed on the top of the mountain.  Formerly he was present in order to comfort his Church with his Spirit when it was oppressed by unbelievers, and was being prevented from coming out in public and being spread abroad; he is present to the same [Church] even now when royal personages in political power are well-disposed toward the faith, the terror of persecution has died away, and the whole superior portion of the world is predisposed to following in the apostles' footsteps.  He appeared to those who were fishing, and, by appearing to them aided them by his divine goodness; he will also be present to us when we are taking care of the necessities of our lives here on earth with an upright intention, and he adds his benevolent help to our righteous labors.  He appeared to those who were reclining [at table]; he will also be present to us when, in accordance with the apostle's suggestions, whether we eat or drink, or whatever else we do, we do all for the glory of God.  

Saint Bede the Venerable

-Saint Bede (735) was an English Benedictine monk, a biblical scholar, and the first English historian.

It was I who chose you

I am convinced, my friend, that in some people God takes over completely...  We have depths reserved to God who alone fully knows our hidden weaknesses, our secret desires and needs...

It's only in the heart of Jesus that we will find the ultimate support, profound strength, and complete understanding of what we need in order to grow closer to him.  One thing is sure, namely, the divine will always wants what is good for us, whether in giving, refusing, or measuring out for us whatever we truly need...

You tell me you are becoming more and more aware of "your powerlessness, your poverty, and your ignorance."  Dear sister, this proves that in contrast to what is occurring with your human vision, your spiritual vision is becoming sharper and stronger.  Do we not make another observation when we examine ourselves seriously, in good faith?  The saints themselves - and we are not saints - cried out in distress and humility when they measured their misery against God's greatness and beauty.  How great and how infinite is the abyss between the Creator and the creature, God's limitless strength and our weakness, God's being and our insignificant selves.  So, dear sister, how peaceful and even joyous it can be for us to examine ourselves with such humility.  Yes, let's rejoice in being nothing since for us God is everything.  Let's be happy in being truly poor, begging for the help of the one who is rich, and let us take pleasure in being ignorant, since divine wisdom knows us and provides for our needs.  Let us be glad at the very thought of our powerlessness.  It is because of this that we can ask our Lord to take on the entire task, using our sufferings, our poor work, and our miserable prayers.  It is only in heaven that we will realize how wonderfully God made us of the labor of these little workers:  the multitude of small duties, the daily acts of self-sacrifice, the acceptance of pain, offered to the heavenly Father, poor worthless metal transformed by God into gold for others, that pure gold of love enriching others and ourselves.

Elisabeth Leseur

-Elisabeth Leseur (1914) was a French married laywoman whose cause for canonization is under way.

Remain in Me

With regard to the fear about whether or not I was in the state of grace, the Lord told me:  "Daughter, light is very different from darkness.  I am faithful.  Nobody will be lost unknowingly.  They who find security in spiritual favors will be deceived.  True security is the testimony of a good conscience.  But people should not think that through their own efforts they can be in light or that they can do anything to prevent the night, because these states depend upon grace.  The best help for holding on to the light is to understand that you can do nothing and that it comes from me.  For even though you may be in light, at the moment I withdraw, the night will come.  This is true humility:  to know what you can do and what I can do..."

In explaining the nature of union to me, he said:  "Don't think, daughter, that union lies in being very close to me.  For those, too, who offend me are close, although they may not want to be.  Neither does it consist in favors and consolations in prayer, even though these may reach a very sublime degree.  Though these favors may come from me, they are often a means for winning souls, even souls that are not in the state of grace."

Saint Teresa of Avila

Saint Teresa (1582), Doctor of the Church, reformed the Carmelite Order.

Do Not Let Your Hearts be Afraid

Complete freedom from fear is one of those things we owe wholly to Our Lord.  To be afraid is to do him a double injury.  First, it is to forget him, to forget that he is with us, that he loves us, and is himself almighty, and second it is to fail to bend to his will.  If we shape our will to his, as everything that happens is either willed or allowed by him, we shall find joy in whatever happens, and shall never be disturbed or afraid.

So then, we should have the faith that banishes all fear.  Beside us, face to face with us, within us, we have Our Lord Jesus, our God, whose love for us is infinite, who is himself almighty, who has told us to seek for the kingdom of God and that everything else will be given us.  In that blessed and omnipotent company, we must go straight along the path of the greatest perfection, certain that nothing will happen to us that we cannot use as a source of the greatest good for his glory and the sanctification of ourselves and others, and that everything happens is either willed or permitted by him, and that therefore, far from lying under the shadow of fear, we have only to say, "Whatever happens - God be praised!" praying that he will arrange everything not in accordance with our ideas, but for his greater glory.  We should never forget the two axioms:  "Jesus is with me" and "Whatever happens, happens by the will of God."

Blessed Charles de Foucauld

-Charles de Foucauld (1916), contemplative and mystic, lived among the Tuareg people of Algeria.  Beatified in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Call of the Shepherd

The shepherd is everything to his flock; their life, their sustenance, and their care is entirely in his hands, and if the shepherd is good, they will have nothing to fear under his protection, and they will want for nothing.  

Jesus is preeminently the Good Shepherd: he not only loves, feeds, and guards his sheep, but he also gives them life at the cost of his own...  It is by means of the grace, faith, and charity, which the Good Shepherd acquired for us by his death, that we arrive at such intimacy with our God - so deep that it makes us share in his own divine life.

A close relationship of loving knowledge is here established between the Good Shepherd and his sheep - one so intimate that the Shepherd knows his sheep one by one and can call them by name; and they recognize his voice and follow him with docility.  Each soul can say: "Jesus knows me and loves me, not in a general abstract way, but in a concrete aspect of my needs, of my desires, and of my life; for him to know me and to love me is to do me good, to encompass me more and more with his grace, and to sanctify me.  Precisely because he loves me, Jesus calls me by name:  he calls me when in prayer he opens to me new horizons of the spiritual life, or when he enables me to know my faults and weaknesses better; he calls me when he reprimands me or purifies me by aridity, as well as when he consoles and encourages me by filling me with new fervor; he calls me when he makes me feel the need of greater generosity, and when he asks me for sacrifices or gives me joys, and still more, when he awakens in me a deeper love for him.  Hearing his call, my attitude should be that of a loving little sheep who recognizes the voice of its Shepherd and follows him always.  

Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.

-Father Gabriel (1952) was a Belgian Carmelite priest, teacher, and spiritual director.

Our Good Shepherd

What does amaze me is that God should be so affected when we stray.  He knows quite well that we are nothing, and suffers no real loss when we break away from him.  Yet he shows profound grief at our separation and makes every effort to win us back.  Nor is that mere fantasy; it is the teaching of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ himself.

Would you care to know what the Savior of the world feels every time you lose the grace of God?  He is distressed to the very depths of his soul; he is troubled as a poor shepherd who has lost one of his sheep, or a poor woman who mislays one of the ten gold coins that are all her worldly wealth.  The Son of God uses these two comparisons to make us understand his own sorrow at losing us.

Imagine the desolation of the poor shepherd whose sheep has gone astray.  The entire countryside resounds with the cries of the unfortunate man; neglecting the rest of his flock, he runs through woods and over hills, combing thickets and undergrowth, lamenting and shouting at the top of his voice.  He cannot bring himself to give up until he has found his lost sheep and brought it back to the fold.  That is how the Son of God acted.  When disobedient humanity had escaped from the creator's guidance, the Son of God came down to earth and spared neither toil nor trouble to restore us to the position from which we had fallen.  He still does the same thing daily for those who have strayed from him through sin.  He follows their trail, so to speak, calling them again and again until he succeeds in getting them back on the road to salvation.  And indeed, if he had not taken such care of us, our fate as you know would have been sealed after the first mortal sin.  We could never have recovered from it.  It is he who must make all the advances, who must offer us his grace, pursue us and beg us to take pity on ourselves; otherwise we should never think of asking him for mercy.

God's ardor in pursuing us is no doubt born of his very great mercy.  But the gentleness with which he exercises that zeal shows an even more wonderful kindness.  Despite his intense desire to win us back he never uses force, but only the gentlest of ways.  I find no sinner in the entire Gospel story who was induced to repent by anything other than gentleness and kindness.

Saint Claude la Colombiere

-Saint Claude (1682) was a French Jesuit priest and the spiritual director of Saint Margaret May Alacoque.

To Whom Shall We Go

Those who follow the world, on the contrary, urge each other to continue in their evil ways without scruple, calling to one another day after day, "Let us eat and drink, sing and dance and enjoy ourselves.  God is good; he has not made us to damn us.  He does not forbid us to amuse ourselves.  We shall not be damned for so little.  We are not to be scrupulous.  No, you will not die."

Dear brothers and sisters, remember that our loving Saviour has his eyes on you at this moment, and he says to each of you individually, "See how almost everyone deserts me on the royal road of the cross.  Pagans in their blindness ridicule my cross as foolishness; obstinate Jews are repelled by it as by an object of horror; heretics pull it down and break it to pieces as something contemptible.  

"Even my own people - and I say this with tears in my eyes and grief in my heart - my own children whom I have brought up and instructed in my ways, my members whom I have quickened with my own spirit, have turned their backs on me and forsaken me by becoming enemies of my cross.  'Will you also go away?'  Will you also desert me by running away from my cross like the worldlings, who thus become so many antichrists?  Will you also follow the world; despise the poverty of my cross, in order to seek after wealth; shun the sufferings of my cross, to look for enjoyment; avoid humiliations of my cross in order to chase after the honors of the world?  'There are many who pretend they are friends of mine and protest that they love me, but in their hearts they hate me.  I have many friends of my table, but very few of my cross.'"

Saint Louis de Montfort

-Saint Louis de Montfort (1716) was a great French missionary preacher especially renowned for fostering devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Wound of Thomas

So you, too, come up, Thomas.  Come forth from your cave of sorrows.  Put your finger here and see my hands.  Extend your hand and place it in my side.  And do not think that your blind suffering is more clairvoyant than my grace...

But since you are so wounded and the open torment of your heart has opened up to the abyss of your very self, put out your hand to me and, with it, feel the pulse of another Heart:  through this new experience your soul will surrender and heave up the dark gall which it has long collected.  I must overpower you.  I cannot spare exacting from you your melancholy - your most-loved possession.  Give it to me, even if it costs you your soul and your inner self thinks it must die.  Give me this idol, this cold stony clot in your breast, and in its place I will give you a new heart of flesh that will beat to the pulse of my own Heart.  Give me this self of yours, which lives on its not being able to live, which is sick because it cannot die.  Let it perish, and you will finally begin to live.  You are enamored of the sad puzzle of your incomprehensible ego.  But you have already been seen through and comprehended, for look:  if your heart accuses you, I am nevertheless greater than this your heart, and I know everything.  Dare to make the leap into the Light!  Do not take the world to be more found than God!  Do not think that I cannot make short work of you!  Your city is besieged, your provisions are exhausted:  you must capitulate.  What could be simpler and sweeter than opening the door to love?  What could be easier than falling to one's knee and saying:  "My Lord and my God!"?

Father Hans Urs von Balthasar

-Father Balthasar (1988) was an eminent Swiss Catholic theologian who wrote prodigiously.  

What We Must Do

"I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Mt 28: 20).  This assurance, dear brothers and sisters, has accompanied the Church for two thousand years.  From it we must gain a new impetus in Christian Living, making it the force which inspires our journey of faith.  Conscious of the Risen Lord's presence among us, we ask ourselves today the same question put to Peter in Jerusalem immediately after his Pentecost speech:  "What must we do?"  (Acts 2: 37)

We put the question with trusting optimism, but without underestimating the problems we face.  We are certainly not seduced by the naive expectation that, faced with the great challenges of our time, we shall find some magic formula.  No, we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person, and the assurance which he gives us:  I am with you!

It is not therefore a matter of inventing a "new program."  The program already exists:  it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever.  Ultimately, it has its center in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem.  This is a program which does not change with shifts of times and cultures, even though it takes account of time and culture for the sake of true dialogue and effective communication.

Pope John Paul II

-Pope John Paul II (2005) reigned from 1978 until 2005.

The Glory of Jesus

When Christ decided to give sight to a man blind from birth, he placed mud on the man's eyes, an action that was much more suited to blinding those who see than to giving sight to the blind who could not see.  So, too, the passion and death of Christ was more likely to destroy the faith of those who believed that he was the only-begotten Son of God, as was clear in the case of the apostles and disciples, than to commend faith to non-believers.  And yet as he says:  "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself (Jn 12: 32).  After the cross, after my suffering, after my disgraceful, shameful, repulsive death of the cross, I shall turn the world to faith in me, so that the world will believe that I am the Son of God, the true Messiah."

We see with utter clarity that this is what has happened.  Christ came into this world to do battle against Satan, to do away with idolatry, and to turn the world to faith and piety and the worship of the true God.  He could have accomplished this by using the weapons of his might and coming as he will come to judge, in glory and majesty, just as he manifested himself in his transfiguration.  Who would not then have believed in Christ?  But in order that his victory might be more glorious, he willed to fight Satan in our weak flesh.  It is as if an unarmed man, right hand bound, were to fight with his left hand alone against a powerful army; if he emerged victorious, his victory would be regarded as all the more glorious.  So Christ conquered Satan with the right hand of his divinity bound and using against him only the left hand of his weak humanity.

Saint Lawrence of Brindisi

-Saint Lawrence of Brindisi (1619) was minister general of the Capuchins.  He is a Doctor of the Church.