The Christian life is pre-eminently a hidden life. This is a commonplace, but it seems difficult to grasp in our noisy time, which worships publicity and confuses activities with action. Yet God Himself has set before us the beauty and power of the hidden life when he chose to be born in a stable in an unknown tqwn of an obscure province of the Roman Empire, and to live in a carpenter’s family for thirty years. The devil, too, knew the strength of hiddenness, when he tempted our Lord with the prospect of spectacular success, the miraculous flight from the pinnacle of the Temple, the possession of all the kingdoms of the earth. But our Lord chose to hide himself on the Cross between two thieves, and thenceforth has remained hidden even more deeply and impenetrably under a little Bread and Wine: In Cruce latebat sola Deitas, At hic latet simul et humanitas. . . .

Yet, what power on earth has ever equalled the power of the Figure hidden and lifted upon the Cross and in the Mass? It is one of the scandals of Christianity, this mysterious hiddenness which the world ever derides: “ Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his Mother called Mary? . . . Whence therefore hath he all these things? And they were scandalized in him.” And he shares this hiddenness with his friends, and the nearer they are to him, the more they love to hide their lives with him in God.

When Moses saw that the bush was on fire and yet not burnt, and went to look at this marvel, God told him to put off his shoes, for the place on which he stood was holy ground. (Exod. III). This must be done by those who would gaze on God within this lowly bush of our humanity amid the thorns of his wounds and afflictions. For in order to contemplate this sublime Mystery, so far above our power of reason, a man must put off all that is human: his faults, his weaknesses and human affections, with the judgements, surmises and laws of human prudence, in order that he may contemplate this mysteiy with greater purity. For to seek to measure God’s works by the same measure as our own, with the rod of reason, especially his work of the Redemption, which is that of his infinite goodness and charity, with the goodness and charity to be found in men, however perfect and holy, would be utter folly. It would be to cheapen and depreciate the works of this infinite Grandeur and to set them on a level with our pettiness; for as it is certain that his Being infinitely surpasses ours, so do his actions surpass our own. Hence there could be no greater error than for a man to seek to judge and investigate God by what he sees in himself. These, then, are “ the shoes ” he must put off, these the human weaknesses from which we must free ourselves when we wish to consider the works of sovereign Goodness and Charity that shine forth in this Mystery.