Transcription
Thanks again for tuning in to another video here, and thanks for leaving your comments on previous videos as well.
Now, for this time, I'd like to share this clip of Father Iani on voids in our souls. Listen to this.
In Louis's writings, the term void that I began to address signifies this spiritual place within our soul that was in Adam's soul, in Eve's soul, in Mary's soul, in Jesus' soul, in all souls of all rational creatures. There is a void. When we perform our divine acts, when we perform human acts that are patterned after the actions of Christ, they become divine by virtue of God's one eternal will operating in our finite human will. And the more we repeat our actions and God's divine will in this way, the more we fill this void.
The term void in Louisa's text signifies a spiritual place within our soul that God placed within us at the moment of conception and that we are to fill with the divine acts of all human generations that Christ contained in his soul and with the acts of all creatures. This is something Adam failed to accomplish with original when he committed original sin and Eve failed to accomplish when she cooperated in that original sin as well.
Now, this void is expressed in different ways in Louisa's writings. It is referred to as, I mentioned earlier, a great void that's mentioned in volume 15. It's also referred to as an an an invisible void. This is found in volume 35, December 21st, 1928. And it is referred to as voids in the plural. This is found in volume 4, September 4th, 1901.
And let us now analyze these expressions. Okay, I already mentioned the great void in Adam's soul, in our soul, and the invisible void that God placed within us at the moment we were conceived and that we are to fill with actions patterned after those of Christ. All right.
Now, what about the expression voids? Voids Jesus refers to in relation to creation, creation of the cosmos, for example. Also, it refers to a series of empty caverns, spiritual caverns in the soul that we are called to fill by remaining united to Jesus. Divine life, right now, this is referred, divine life is filling these caverns is mentioned in volume 5, November 18th, 1904, or spiritual voids that are being filled with Jesus' divine life for because, um, it is Christ who is operating in us when we are doing our divine acts. The Father is operating in our will, the Son in our intellect, the Spirit in our memory. Thereby, it is God who fills these voids through our consent or cooperation with God's operation in us.
God progressively expands and enlarges our souls as we perform divine acts. The filling of the voids in our souls leads to the expansion of the soul itself. As we fill these voids, the soul increases. Now, this is novel to many of us because we never in our catechism spoke of the soul's propensity, the soul's ability to expand or grow or increase or enlarge. And yet Jesus addresses this in Louisa's text.
Take, for example, volume 17, May 10th, 1925. Louisa relates, "I was saying to my Jesus, 'Tell me, my love, what is this void that comes before my mind when I fuse myself in your most holy will?'" My sweet Jesus with sheer kindness set, "My daughter, the empty space is my unrequited will placed at your disposal, which should be filled with as many divine acts as there are souls who would have accomplished their own divine acts if they had fulfilled our will. This is why we call you to a special mission so that this void may be returned and filled with all that which others should have given us."
This teaching is also reiterated in, um, in volume 15 on January 2nd, 1923. If God empowered Adam to fill the void of his soul that he placed within him at creation, well, it means that man allows God to progressively fill this void and expand it through his union with God's divine life of the Son with the divine life of the Son of God. Remember, God is filling the voids in our soul and thereby expanding our souls to contain more of his divine life. And it is this life of God that is increasing in us and producing another humanity of Christ.
Remember in Louisa's text when Jesus spoke to her about the Eucharist and how we can consecrate hosts, spiritually consecrate hosts. Only the ordained male priest, male individual ordained a priest, can consecrate bread into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. We know that that is a teaching of the church. But Jesus, when he speaks to Louisa about consecrating hosts, he's not speaking of physical bread. He's speaking of the soul. We can consecrate our souls into Christ by our divine acts. Remember well, he, Jesus tells Louisa that God is the one who performs this consecration, but we cooperate in the act, just like the priest cooperates with God's divine power in the consecration of the bread to the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ and the wine to the blood of Christ. Yes, the priest recites the prayer of consecration and he avails himself of the bread and wine, but unless the power of God accompanies the priest's words, there is no consecration.
Well, similarly, the soul cooperating with God's grace, patterning its own thoughts, words, actions after those of Christ under the influence of God's eternal divine will, consecrates, co-consecrates with Christ, whereby it becomes another humanity of Christ. What is taking place here is the divine life of God, which is common among the three persons, is filling the voids of the soul as it performs its actions on earth in the body, thereby transforming its humanity into the humanity of Christ. In this transformation, the soul does the person does not lose his or her creaturehood. We do not become divine persons. We remain human persons, but our nature becomes divine, right, without losing our human nature. So grafted to our human person and human nature is a divine nature that is brought about by the operation of the three divine persons with the cooperation of our human person. It's a little theology of what goes on when we perform divine acts.
And so that is all for the video this time. I hope all of you have learned a lot from this one. And if I made any mistakes with the subtitles, please let me know in the comments below. Until the next one, thanks again for listening, and may God bless you.