One With Jesus: The Life of Identification With Christ

by Paul De Jaegher

One With The Life of Identification With Christ. Paperback edition. by Paul de Jaegher

Genres: Spirituality

93 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1993

Reviews

[Carson Gorton · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best spiritual guidebook I have ever read. Must read for all. S/o Fr. Gary for convincing a publisher to get it back in print and then giving me a copy!

[Clement · Rating 5 out of 5]

After I read in the biography he wrote of Mother Teresa, Something Beautiful for God, that Mother Teresa gifted this book to Malcolm Muggeridge, I knew that I had to find this book that Mother Teresa said that she often read and, apart from her Bible, was one of the few items that she "owned." I figured that it would be an inspirational quick short read but, I didn't expect it to be a life-changing read with truths that will take a lifetime to aspire unto. The second chapter of this short book should be essential reading for every believer and is the best explanation of Galatians 2:20 that I have ever heard or read of in my entire life. I could quote massive portions of this book that I have highlighted and will be reflecting on and trying to apply to my life for the rest of my life but, I'll leave it at just this one lengthy quote from the second chapter:

What then does Jesus wish? He wants hearts that will surrender themselves up to him, that will abandon themselves completely to him and allow him freely to satisfy, in them and by them, his infinite passion of Divine Love. In order to enter into a closer union with each one of us, his members, he asks for the entire possession of our being : our body, and our soul with all its powers, that he may make them his own, appropriate them, and live through them his life of devotion to his beloved Father.

The thirty-three years of his earthly life did not suffice him. The insatiable ardour of his love would ever continue to love, labour, pray and suffer. From each one of us he demands another humanity, according to the beautiful expression of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity. He says to us: "My son, give me your heart, that in you and through you, in a life of union I may love, or rather we may love the Father ardently : give me your lips that together we may sing his praises; give me your mind, your eyes, your hands, your whole being. I wish, in you and by you, to live as it were a second life wholly of love, which will be the complement and continuation of my earthly life at Nazareth and in Palestine.

How unspeakably sublime, then, is the Christian life! — a sublimity undreamt-of by so many souls! How ardent the desires of the heart of Jesus, too little known even to generous souls! The Christian is not only himself, not only a mere human personality ; there is in him something of Jesus ; he is in a way Jesus himself; he is divinized through his incorporation with Christ. The life of each one of us is not merely our own petty personal life with its restricted horizon, it has a much deeper signification. It is, and must be, before all and above all the life of Christ within us, the continuation of the life of Jesus. Such a magnificent ideal is well calculated to transform and render our whole life sublime.

What must we then do in order to realize it? One thing only. In every action we perform, every prayer we say, every suffering we endure, in our every act of love, we must bear in mind that we are “Christ," that Christ wishes still to act, pray, suffer and love in us. We shall then instinctively get rid of our inordinate, mean, cramped desires, in order to clothe ourselves with the breadth of view and the unbounded desires which animated Christ in his actions, prayers and sufferings during his mortal life.

We are to surrender ourselves to Christ so completely as to become purely his instrument ; to give him absolute freedom of action in us, all but losing our personality in the completeness of our abandonment ; to live only on his behalf and in his Name ; to see all from the point of view of Jesus; in a word to surrender ourselves wholly to him, allowing him to live and grow without hindrance in us, till our life be one with his.

If that excites your heart, which it should if you are a lover of Jesus, then grab a copy of this book, a .pdf copy of it is available for free on the Internet Archive, and spend some time reading and praying the contents within!

[Kyle Kowalczyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful and simple exposition of something that many saints (especially Paul and Teresa) write about, but for some reason was said in a way that clicked for me more than before.

Basically, Jesus lives in the soul by way of sanctifying grace. This is a real presence of the Holy Trinity. Not only can the soul learn to live in this real presence, but he can and must learn to allow Jesus living in him, to live through him. Jesus took on our humanity, but it wasn't enough for him to live in it for 33 years; he wants to continue to live in it now in you and me. He wants to love his Father through my heart. He wants to love my neighbor through my actions. He wants to sanctify the world through my suffering.

It's been a game changer for me, and I've already begun reading it again.