Berulle and High Christology Essay

Berulle’s Discourses

At a time when Europe was rushing blindly into reform, rationalism and naturalism via the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific Revolution and later during the Enlightenment, Berulle and the French School represented a return to the kind of mysticism of the medieval world (Howells). Berulle’s focus was on the Incarnation, the mystery of God Made Man through the union of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary. Berulle and the French School, including St. Francis de Sales, placed a profound emphasis on the intercession of the Blessed Virgin in the spiritual journey to God. Since Christ came to man through the Virgin Mary it only made sense that man should seek God through the Mediatrix of Divine Grace in return (Leo XIII). What Berulle accomplishes in “Discourse on the State and Grandeurs of Jesus” is a kind of middle-ground Christology that brings high and low Christology together, emphasizing the mysterious nature of the union between the human and the divine.

Berulle’s discourses provide little pockets of thought that serve as kernels of devotion for his Christian audience. He does not attempt to overwhelm with scholasticism (this is not the Summa of Aquinas), neither does he attempt to overwhelm with emotionalism (this is not a modern work of sentimentality). Berulle recognizes that Christology that focuses too much on the divine nature of Christ (or high Christology) can lead souls away from the human reality of Christ and that too much focus on the human nature of Christ can lead souls away from His divine nature. Therefore, while Berulle may seem like high Christology to some, his approach is certainly grounded in the Divine Intervention that is the Incarnation—the moment in history when God Himself became Man and lived on the earth. To miss the importance of this fact is to miss what Berulle calls the mysterious moment in which “heaven is opened, earth is made holy and God is adored” (109). To know God, one must know Christ and understand His human and divine natures. One cannot, however, comprehend the union of these two natures in one Man—for it is a mystery that stretches beyond the use of reason. One’s reason may take one to this mystery, though. It is akin to the mystery of faith: faith rests upon reason, but reason is only the guide that gets one to the shoreline, at which point faith must be placed entirely in God for the soul to reach the other shore. Berulle does not shy away from this mystery: he embraces it and calls attention to it, reminding his readers then as now that there is more to heaven and earth that is dreamt of in the philosophies of the rationalists, the eager reformers, and the so-called enlightened. All things depend upon God, who is the source of this mystery and the only One who understands it wholly. To think otherwise is to be overly optimistic about one’s own powers—that is the point that Berulle makes again and again in the Discourse.

Berulle himself had been one of the eager reformers in his youth, animated by a spirit to cleanse the Church—but he saw as he matured in his spirituality that all things depended on God and not on Berulle (Howells). Thus he turned his attention more and more to the things of God, to focusing on the mystery of God that should propel men to meditate more on their relationship with God and to contemplate if possible the holy mysteries of their religion. Berulle states, “The church should be caught up in this mystery in a holy and divine way” (110) and asserts that the Christian religion “will never be changed or removed from the earth” (110). Christ came to the earth—God Himself came to mankind—not just in a mythical way or in an abstract, spiritual way—but in a real, tangible way: He took on human flesh, spilled His precious blood and died for mankind. The scope of this narrative is so all-encompassing that Berulle cannot emphasize the point enough: this should be the daily meditation and food for thought and inspiration for one’s prayer.

Berulle places emphasis on the uniqueness of the Christ, of the God-Man: he notes that there is no other story or instance in history like it in the slightest. It is the single most important moment in all of history—the moment when the angelic and the human became one to rectify a situation that man and a fallen angel had created. Berulle is not focusing solely on the divinity of God by pointing out these facts; he is focusing on how the divine God became human and why it matters. He is bringing high Christology down to low Christology…

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…“his birth in the womb of the Virgin in time” (the Incarnation), and “his birth in the tomb to immortality” (His Resurrection and victory over death) (150). Berulle deftly summarizes the essence of Christianity in these three births and uses them as a starting point for a discussion of meaning of the eternal Word and the need for man to consider the tremendous wonder that is this gift of life that God has given.

Berulle truly succeeds most when he is touching on the role that the Virgin Mary plays in this holy mystery: “the heart of the Virgin is the first altar on which Jesus offered his heart, body and spirit as a host of perpetual praise” (161). This amazing depiction of Mary’s heart as an altar serves to connect the present sacrifice of the Mass in which the priest or alter-Christus celebrates the unbloody sacrifice and the altar of the church, assisting in the transubstantiation of the Eucharist into the body and blood of Christ, which is then placed within the tabernacle, where God’s presence is communicated to the faithful through the burning of a small flame in a red-glass encased candle. The tabernacle in which Christ is present in the Church is thus linked to Christ’s presence as a child growing in the womb of Mary (her womb serving as the original tabernacle). Her heart was the very first altar, Berulle asserts—the first altar even before the Last Supper, before the Cross. Mary was the high priestess before there was a priest. She is thus singled out by Berulle as deserving of honor, praise, and adulation—and he identifies her as the one upon whom all Christians should continuously rely, for her son never denied her anything. It was for her sake that He first revealed Himself to the world at the wedding feast at Cana. It is for her sake that He listens to her petitions, which she makes on behalf of those who turn to her in supplication. It is for this reason that Berulle’s greatest accomplishment in his discourses is not discussion of the hypostatic union or the life of Christ but rather the role that the Virgin Mary plays in the mystery of redemption and the role that she continues to play in the lives of followers of Christ to this day. Through Mary, Berulle inspires the most…