The Church Triumphant and the Church Militant.—The relations of these two consist in the veneration of angels and saints on the one hand, and on the other in their intercession for us and the application to us of the merits of the saints. It is a fundamental principle of the Church’s teaching that adoration belongs to God alone. From the account of St. Polycarp’s martyrdom (xvii, 3), which is our earliest evidence for the veneration of the martyrs, through St. Augustine and St. Jerome, both eloquent advocates of the veneration of the saints, down to St. Thomas Aquinas, who has defined with unequaled lucidity the nature of this Catholic practice, the theology of the Church is plain, and emphatically insists that the veneration which we give to angels and saints is essentially (specifice) different from the worship which we offer to God. The difference is in fact the whole difference between the creature and the Creator. To God alone belongs the complete service of the whole man, the worship of adoration, that worship and prayer which are inspired by awe before the mystery of God (cultus latriae). To God alone do we cry, “Lord, have mercy on us!” since God alone is the All- perfect, the Infinite, the Lord. But so pervasive and so creative is God’s glory that it does not shine only in the face of His Only-begotten Son, but is reflected also in all those who in Him have become children of God, and therefore illuminates with unfading radiance the countenances of the blessed. So we love them as countless dewdrops in which the sun’s radiance is mirrored. We venerate them because we find God in them. “Their name liveth unto generation and generation. Let the people shew forth their wisdom and the church declare their praise.” (Ecclus. xliv, 14-15). And because God is in them, therefore are we confident that they can and will help us; for where God is, there is our help. They do not help us through any strength of their own, but through the strength of God, and they help us only so far as creatures may. They cannot themselves sanctify us. For sanctification, the new life in God, is to be obtained only from Him who is Himself the divine life, that is from our divine Redeemer. St. Augustine tells us that the power of awakening souls to this life belongs to God alone[1] So the Catholic knows that he belongs to God alone, is related only to Him and lives only in Him, and that not only in the substance of his natural being, but also in his supernatural life. In comparison with our intimate and vital conjunction with God, and with that marvelous contact with the Infinite Being, where difference is annulled and where the Divine Life penetrates our souls and continually pervades them anew, the activity of even angels and saints pales into insignificance. For it is God and God only who redeems us and gives us life. Yet angels and saints have the power to accompany the great work of our redemption with their fostering love and by their “intercession” (intercessione) to elevate our prayers for help into the great solitary prayer of the whole Body of Christ. It is true that God knows our necessities, and needs no saints to tell Him. And it is true also that His Only-begotten Son by His sacrifice on the Cross merited His grace and mercy for us once and for all, so that they are ever near us. Yet, for the very reason that Jesus Christ, the God-man, is the Mediator of our redemption, the saints also have a share in it. For they are members of our Redeemer. He is not without them, and they are not without Him. No help comes to us, but that the members of Christ in their manner co-operate with their Head. We say “in their manner,” that is, otherwise than the Head. This is the fulfillment of the law of love, the great structural law of the Kingdom of God. God redeems men in such a way that every love-force in the Body of Christ has its proper share in the work. The Body of Christ of its very nature implies communion and co-operation, and so the divine blessing never works without the members, but only in and through their unity. God can help us without the saints; but He will not help us without their co-operation, for it is His nature and will to be communicative love.