Jerusalem (says the Holy Psalmist) is built as a city which is compact together. This has a true application to the upright and faithful Christian, and in proportion as he corresponds with the work of divine grace in his soul. For that grace more and more reduces all the faculties of the soul into subjection to itself. God, as known in and through Christ, is a being so holy, so good, so lovely, so attractive, so adequate to the largest capacities of the highest creature, that where His grace is truly operative, it unites to Himself the whole renewed man. The old things are passed away: all things are made new. The entire life becomes under the sweet rule of supreme goodness. This is the true rest of our souls, when all our faculties with their various exercises and movements, meet like so many lines in one and the same centre, God. If there were not this centre, and if the fallen creature, man, could not return to it, he would be a most wretched and distracted being. There could be no true abiding satisfaction for him: but the words of Isaias would have their application to him, as they have to all without religion: Why do ye spend money for that which, is not bread, and your labour for that which doth not satisfy you? Incline your ear and come to me (says God), hear and your soul shall live. When the knowledge of God or Christ enters into the soul and possesses it, it subdues its self-will, lulls its sinful and worldly appetites, and shewing to it the fountain of supreme goodness and happiness, gives it in drawing water out of the wells of salvation, a peace that passes understanding; a joy unspeakable and full of glory, a true contentment in an experienced recovery of the divine image, which is the great design of God in our redemption and calling.
- text taken from Daily Bread - Bring a Few Morning Meditations for the Use of Catholic Christians by Father Richard Waldo Sibthorp