The Key Interests of Jesus: Four Pillars of Devotion
The interests of Jesus: the glory of His Father, the fruit of His Passion, the honor of His Mother, and the esteem of grace, as taught by Fr. Faber.
The Four Interests of Jesus
All For Jesus: Ch 1
by Father FW Faber
Fr. Faber outlines the interests of Jesus in his book All For Jesus (#ad4amazon) as follows: the glory of His Father, where Jesus’ actions honor God; the fruit of His Passion, emphasizing the prevention of sin and the promotion of repentance; the honor of His Mother, highlighting Marian devotion; and the esteem of grace, urging believers to value divine grace over worldly achievements.
El Greco: Christ Carrying the Cross
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The Glory of His Father
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Jesus' primary mission is to glorify God the Father.
“As it is said of Him on one occasion that the zeal for God’s house ate Him up, so may we say that He was eaten up continually with hungering and thirsting after His Father’s glory.”
This emphasizes that Jesus’ primary mission and passion were to glorify God. His entire life, from childhood to His last moments on the cross, was dedicated to honoring and uplifting God’s name. This serves as a model for us to prioritize God’s glory in our own lives.
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The Fruit of His Passion
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Preventing Sin as a Service to Jesus
“Every sin we can prevent, no matter how venial, is a great thing for the interests of Jesus.”
This emphasizes that preventing any sin, even minor ones, significantly serves Jesus’ mission. By stopping sin, we honor the sacrifice Jesus made and contribute to the spiritual well-being of the world, showing that every action against sin is valuable.
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The Honor of His Mother
Mary's Special Role in the Incarnation
“It was the love of her that specially drew Him down from heaven, and it was she who merited the time of the Incarnation. She was the chosen one of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity, the elected daughter of the Father, the predestinated Mother of the Son, and the chosen Spouse of the Holy Ghost.”
This highlights Mary’s unique and pivotal role in Christian theology. She is honored as the Mother of Jesus, chosen by the Holy Trinity, emphasizing her exceptional status and the deep reverence that Jesus and the Church hold for her.
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Esteem of Grace
Comparative Value of Grace and Earthly Achievements
“To receive (this is what theologians tell us) all the natural gifts and ornaments of St. Michael, his power, strength, wisdom, beauty, and all the rest, would be nothing compared with one additional degree of grace.”
This quote illustrates the incomparable value of grace, even over the most extraordinary natural gifts and attributes. It emphasizes that a single degree of grace is more valuable than the combined virtues and powers of St. Michael, highlighting grace as a divine participation.
All for Jesus by Fr. Faber
CHAPTER I
The Interests of Jesus
(The following is the opening paragraph only, see other buttons on this page to read more from this chapter.)
Jesus belongs to us. He vouchsafes to put Himself at our disposal. He communicates to us everything of His which we are capable of receiving. He loves us with a love which no words can tell, nay, above all our thought and imagination; and He condescends to desire, with a longing which is equally indescribable, that we should love Him with a fervent and entire love. His merits may be called ours as well as His. His satisfactions are not so much His treasures as they are ours. His sacraments are but so many ways which His love has designed to communicate Him to our souls. Wherever we turn in the church of God, there is Jesus. He is the beginning, middle, and end of everything to us. He is our help in penance, our consolation in grief, our support in trial. There is nothing good, nothing holy, nothing beautiful, nothing joyous, which He is not to His servants. No one need be poor, because, if he chooses, he can have Jesus for his own property and possession. No one need be downcast, for Jesus is the joy of heaven, and it is His joy to enter into sorrowful hearts. We can exaggerate about many things; but we can never exaggerate our obligations to Jesus or the compassionate abundance of the love of Jesus to us. All our lives long we might talk of Jesus, and yet we should never come to an end of the sweet things that are to be said about Him. Eternity will not be long enough to learn all He is or to praise Him for all He has done; but then that matters not, for we shall be always with Him, and we desire nothing more.
All for Jesus by Fr. Faber
CHAPTER I
1. The Glory of the Father
The glory of His Father. “When we study our Blessed Lord as He is represented to us in the Gospels, nothing, if we may venture to use such an expression, seems so like a ruling passion in Him as His longing for His Father’s glory. From the time when at the age of twelve He left Mary, and stayed behind in Jerusalem, to His very last word upon the Cross, this devotion to the glory of God comes up at every turn. As it is said of Him on one occasion that the zeal for God’s house ate Him up, so may we say that He was eaten up continually with hungering and thirsting after His Father’s glory. It was as if God’s glory had been lost upon the earth, and He was come to seek it and to find it, and how was His Sacred Heart straitened until He did find it! Thus was He our example! For this end does He give us grace, that we may glorify our Father who is in Heaven. Now, who can look into the world, and not see how God’s glory is lost upon the earth? It is the interest of Jesus that we should seek and find it. Apart from clear acts of great and grievous sin, how is God forgotten, clean forgotten, by the greatest part of mankind! They live as if there were no God.
It is not as if they openly rebelled against Him. They pass Him over and ignore Him. He is an inconvenience in His own world, an impertinence in His own creation. So He has been quietly set on one side, as if He were an idol out of fashion, and in the way. Men of science and politicians have agreed on this, and men of business and wealth think it altogether the most decent thing, to be silent about God; for it is difficult to speak of Him, or have a view of Him, without allowing too much to Him. Here is a desperate, if it were not for grace we should say altogether desperate, obstacle to the interests of Jesus, this great huge impenetrable mass of forgetfulness of God, of ignoring of God. Oh, how it turns our hearts sick, and makes us long for death; for what can we do in so hopeless an affair as this? Yet we must try. A string of beads and a blessed medal! There is no saying what they cannot do! And a single Mass, is its power far short of infinite? Then unfortunately there are a great many religious people who by no means give God’s glory its fitting place; many, called spiritual, who give Him but the second best of everything. They want light to know God’s glory when they see it. They want discernment to detect the world and the devil under the show of reason and moderation, whereby they would defraud Him of His glory. They want bravery to set the world’s opinion at defiance, and consistency to make their lives all of a piece with their religion. Good souls! they are the very pestilence of the Church, and yet they never for one moment suspect it; and it is very much for the interests of Jesus that they should see themselves, and other things as well, in their true light. So here also we have some work to do, to pray that all good men, and men trying to be good, should be able to see what is for God’s glory and what is not. Oh, what ground we lose every day for the want of this discernment!
Then, there are religious orders, set apart with the blessing of the Church, each in its own particular way, to work out this glory of God. There are bishops and priests, all supposed to be toiling with a single aim and an exclusive perfection for this one thing. There are guilds and confraternities without number, and is not this their end? Calamities have to be endured, dangers faced, scandals exposed, the Church has to knock under to the world to-day, and to rough-ride it to-morrow; and Jesus has interests in all these things; and it is our work to help Him. Half-a-dozen men, going about God’s world, seeking nothing but God’s glory,—they would remove mountains. This was promised to faith; why should not we be the men to do it?