Christmastide:
O Marvelous Exchange!
O Admirable Exchange!
By Abbot Marmion, O.S.B.

[Obviously, Abbot Marmion refers to the prayers and rubrics as laid down for the liturgy by Pope Saint Pius V.]

Summary.

The mystery of the Incarnation is a wonderful exchange between divinity and humanity.

I. The Eternal Word asks of us a human nature in order to unite it to Himself by a
personal union: Creator . . . animatum corpus sumens. (The Creator . . . has deigned
to become an inspirited (living) body.)

II. In becoming Incarnate, the Word brings us, in return, a share in His Divinity:
Largitus est nobis suam deitatem. (He bestowed upon us His Godhead.)

III. This exchange appears still more wonderful when we consider the manner in
which it is wrought. The Incarnation renders God visible so that we may hear and
imitate Him.

IV. It renders God passible, capable of expiating our sins by His sufferings and of
healing us by His humiliations.

V. We are to take our part in this exchange by faith: those who receive the Word
made-flesh by believing in Him have “power to be made the sons of God.”
The coming of the Son of God upon earth is so great an event that God willed to prepare the way for it during centuries. He made rites and sacrifices, figures and symbols, all converge towards Christ; He foretold Him, announced Him by the mouth of the prophets who succeeded one another from generation to generation.
And now it is the very Son of God Who comes to instruct us:
Multifariam multisque modis olim Deus loquens patribus . . . novissime locutus est nobis in Filio (Heb 1:1-2). “At sundry times and in divers manners, God spoke in times past to our fathers . . . last of all, in these days he has spoken to us by his Son.”

For Christ is not only born for the Jews of Judea who lived in His time. It is for us all, for all mankind, that He came down from Heaven:

Propter nos et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis. (For our sakes and for our salvation He descended from heaven.) He wills to distribute to every soul the grace that He merited by His Nativity.

This is why the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, appropriates to herself, in order to place them upon our lips and with them to fill our hearts, the longings of the patriarchs, the aspirations of the just of ancient times, and the desires of the Chosen People. She wills to prepare us for Christ’s coming, as if this Nativity was about to be renewed before our eyes.

See how when she commemorates the coming of her Divine Bridegroom upon earth, she displays the splendor of her solemnities, and makes her altars brilliant with lights to celebrate the Birth of the “Prince of Peace” (Is 9:6), the “Sun of Justice” (Mal 4:2), Who rises in the midst of our darkness to enlighten “every man that comes into this world” (John 1:5 and 9). She grants her priests the privilege, almost unique in the year, of thrice offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

These feasts are magnificent; they are likewise full of charm. The Church evokes the remembrance of the Angels singing in the sky the glory of the new-born Babe; of the Shepherds who come to adore at the manger; of the Magi who hasten from the East to offer Him their adorations and rich presents.

And yet, like every feast here below, this solemnity, even with the prolongation of its octave, is ephemeral: it passes by. Is it for the feast of a day, howsoever splendid it may be, that the Church requires such a long preparation from us? Certainly not! Why then? Because she knows that the contemplation of this mystery contains a special and choice grace for our souls.

I said at the beginning of these conferences that each one of Christ’s mysteries constitutes not only a historical fact which takes place in time, but contains a grace proper to itself wherewith our souls are to be nourished so as to live thereby.
Now what is the intimate grace of the mystery of the Nativity? What is the grace for the reception of which the Church takes so much care to dispose us? What is the fruit that we ought to gather from the contemplation of the Christ Child?

The Church herself indicates this at the first Mass, that of midnight. After having offered the bread and wine which, in a few moments, are to be changed, by the consecration, into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, she sums up her desires in this prayer:

“Grant, O Lord, that the oblation which in we offer today’s festival may be
acceptable unto You, and, by Your grace, through this most sacred and holy
intercourse, may we be found like unto Him (in form) in Whom is our substance
united to You.”

(Accepta tibi sit, Domine, quaesumus, hodiernae festivitatis oblatio: ut tua gratia largiente, per haec sacrosancta commercia, in illiusi inveniamur forma, in quo tecum est nostra substantia. Secret prayer {after the Offertory} of the Midnight Mass.)

The word ‘forma’ is here taken in the sense of “nature,” “condition,” natura, as in the text of St Paul: Christus cum in forma Dei esset . . . exinanivit semet ipsum formam servi accipiens et habitu inventus ut homo.) ‘Christ Who being in the form of God . . . emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man.’ (Phil 2:6-7)

We ask to be partakers of that divinity to which our humanity is united. It is like an exchange. God, in becoming incarnate, takes our human nature and gives us, in return, a participation in His Divine nature.
This thought, so concise in its form, is more explicitly expressed in the secret prayer of the second Mass: “Grant, O Lord, that our offerings may be conformed to the mysteries of this day’s Nativity, that as He Who is born as man is also God made manifest, so this earthly substance (which He unites to Himself) may confer upon us that which is divine.” (Munera nostra, quaesumus, Domine, nativitatis hodiernae mysteriis apta proveniant, ut sicut homo genitus idem refulsit et Deus, sic nobis haec terrena substantia conferat quod divinum est. (Secret prayer of the Mass at Break of Day.)

To be made partakers of the Divinity to which our humanity was united in the Person of Christ, and to receive this Divine gift through this humanity itself, — such is the grace attached to the celebration of today’s mystery.
Our offerings will be “conformed to the mysteries of this day’s Nativity,” according to the words of the above quoted secret, if — by the contemplation of the Divine work at Bethlehem and the reception of the Eucharistic Sacrament, — we participate in the eternal life that Christ wills to communicate to us by His Humanity.

“O admirable exchange,” we shall sing on the octave day, “the Creator of the human race, taking upon Himself a body and a soul, has vouchsafed to be born of a Virgin, and, appearing here below as man, has made us partakers of His Divinity”: O admirabile commercium! CREATOR generis humani, ANIMATUM CORPUS SUMENS, de virgine nasci dignatus est; et procedens homo sine semine, LARGITUS EST NOBIS SUAM DEITATEM (Antiphon of the Octave of Christmas). [Another translation: ‘O marvelous exchange! The CREATOR of the human race HAS DEIGNED TO BECOME AN INSPIRITED (living) BODY of a man, born of a virgin without admixture of seed. HE BESTOWED UPON US HIS GODHEAD. (We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity).’]

Let us, therefore, stay for a few moments to admire, with the Church, this exchange between the creature and the Creator between heaven and earth, an exchange upon which all the mystery of the Nativity is based. Let us consider what are the acts and the matter of it;-under what form it is wrought; — we will afterwards see what fruits are to be derived from it for us; — and to what it engages us.

I.

Let us transport ourselves to the stable-cave at Bethlehem; let us behold the Child lying upon the straw. What is He in the sight of the profane, in the sight of an inhabitant of the little city who might happen to come there after the Birth of Jesus?

Only a new-born Babe to Whom a woman of Nazareth had given birth; only a son of Adam like unto us, for His parents have Him inscribed upon the register of enrolment; the details of His genealogy can be followed. There He lies upon the straw, a weak Babe Whose life is sustained by a little milk. Many Jews saw nothing more in Him than this. Later on you will hear His compatriots, astonished at His wisdom, ask themselves where He could have learnt it, for, in their eyes, He had never been anything but “the son of a carpenter”: Nonne hic est fabri filius? . . . (‘Is not this the carpenter’s son?’) (Mt 13:55; and see Mark 6:3; Luke 4:22).

But to the eyes of faith, a life higher than the human life animates this Child: He possesses Divine life. What does faith, indeed, tell us on this subject? What revelation does it give us?

Faith tells us that this Child is God’s own Son. He is the Word, the Second Person of the Adorable Trinity; He is the Son Who receives Divine life from His Father, by an ineffable communication: Sicut Pater habet vitam in semet ipso, sic dedit et Filio habere vitam in semet ipso (‘For as the Father has life in himself, so he has given the Son also to have life in himself.’) (John 5:26). He possesses the Divine nature, with all its infinite perfections, ‘In the heavenly splendors’, in splendoribus sanctorum (Ps 109:3 in the Vulgate or Psalm 110:3 in the Hebrew). God begets this Son by an eternal generation.

It is to this Divine Sonship in the bosom of the Father that our adoration turns first of all; it is this Sonship that we extol in the midnight Mass. At day-break, the Holy Sacrifice will celebrate the Nativity of Christ according to the flesh, His Birth, at Bethlehem, of the Virgin Mary; finally, the third Mass will be in honor of Christ’s coming into our souls.

The Mass of the night, all enveloped with mystery, begins with these solemn words: Dominus dixit ad me: Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te (Introit or entrance antiphon of the Mass of Midnight), ‘The Lord has said to me: You are my son, this day have I begotten You’. (See Psalm 2:7.) This cry that escapes from the soul of Christ united to the Person of the Word, reveals to earth for the first time that which the heavens hear from all eternity. “The Lord has said to Me: You are My Son: this day have I begotten You.” “This day” is first of all the day of eternity, a day without dawn or decline.

The Heavenly Father now contemplates His Incarnate Son. The Word, although made man, nevertheless remains God. Become the Son of man, He is still the Son of God. The first glance that falls upon Christ, the first love wherewith He is surrounded, is the glance, the love of His Father. Dilixet me Pater (John 15:9) ‘the Father has loved me’. What contemplation and what love! Christ is the Only-begotten Son of the Father; therein lies His essential glory. He is equal to and “consubstantial with the Father, God of God, Light of Light . . . by Whom all things were made,” “and without Him was made nothing that was made.” It is of this Son that these words were spoken: “You in the beginning, O Lord, did found the earth, and the works of Your hands are the heavens. They shall perish, but You shall continue; and they shall all grow old as a garment; and as a vesture shall You change them, and they shall be changed; but You are the self-same, and Your years shall not fail!” (Epistle for the Mass of Christmas Day. Hebrews 1:10-12.)
And this “Word was made Flesh”: Et Verbum caro factum est.

Let us adore this Word become Incarnate for us: Christus natus est nobis, venite adoremus (Invitatory antiphon for Christmas Matins – Early Morning Prayer or ‘Office of Readings’.) ‘Christ has been born for us, come let us adore.’ . . . A God takes our humanity: conceived by the mysterious operation of the Holy Ghost in Mary’s womb, Christ is born of the most pure substance of the blood of the Virgin, and the life that He has from her makes Him like unto us! Creator generis humani de virgine nasci dignatus est, et procedens homo sine semine. ‘The Creator of the human race has deigned to become a living body of a man, born of a virgin without admixture of seed.’

This is what faith tells us: this Child is the Incarnate Word of God; He is the ‘Creator of the human race’ become man. Creator generis humani; if He needs a little milk to nourish Him, it is by His hand that the birds of heaven are fed. Parvoque lacte pastus est Per quem nec ales esurit (Hymn of Christmas Lauds – Morning Prayer.) 
‘and with little milk he was fed, Who does not allow even the birds to hunger.’

Let us contemplate this Infant lying in the manger. His eyes are closed. He sleeps. He does not manifest outwardly what He is. In appearance, He is only like all other infants, and yet, being God, being the Eternal Word, He, at this moment, is judging the souls that appear before Him. “He lies upon straw, and as God, He sustains the universe and reigns in heaven”: “Jacet in praesepio et in caelis regnat” (12th response at Matins on the Sunday of the Octave of Christmas). This Child is just beginning to grow, ‘Puer crescebat . . . et proficiebat aetate’ (Luke 2:40, 52). ‘The boy grew . . . and he advanced in age.’ 
Yet He is the Eternal Whose divine nature knows no change: ‘Tu idem ipse es, et anni tui non deficient.’ ‘You are always the selfsame, and your years shall not fail’. (Psalm 101:28 in the Vulgate, or Psalm 102:27 in the Hebrew.) 
He Who is born in time is likewise He Who is before all time; He Who manifests Himself to the shepherds of Bethlehem is He Who, out of nothing, created the nations that, “are before Him as if they had no being at all” (Is 40:17).

‘Palamque fit pastoribus, Pastor creator omnium’. (Hymn of Christmas Lauds – Morning Prayer.) 
‘And to the shepherds is now made known, The Shepherd who is the creator of all.

To the eyes of faith, there are two lives in this Babe; two lives indissolubly united in an ineffable manner, for the Human Nature belongs to the Word in such wise that there is but a single Person, that of the Word, Who sustains the Human Nature by His own Divine existence.

Undoubtedly, this human nature is perfect: perfectus homo (Creed attributed to St. Athanasius) “the perfect human man”: nothing of that which belongs to its essence is lacking to Him. This Babe has a soul like to ours; He has faculties: — intelligence, will, imagination, sensibility — like ours. He is truly one of our own race, Whose existence will be revealed, during thirty three years, as authentically human. Sin, alone, will be unknown to Him. ‘Debuit per omnia fratribus similare’ (Heb 2:17) ‘it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren . . . absque peccato (Heb 4:15) ‘without sin’. Perfect in itself, this human nature will keep its own activity, its native splendor. Between these two lives of Christ — the Divine, which He ever possesses by His eternal birth in the bosom of the Father; the human which He has begun to possess by His Incarnation in the bosom of a Virgin — there is neither mingling nor confusion.

The Word, in becoming man, remains what He was; that which He was not, He has taken from our race; but the divine in Him does not absorb the human, the human does not lessen the divine. The union is such, as I have often said, that there is however but a single Person — the Divine Person, — and that the human nature belongs to the Word, is the Word’s own humanity: Mirabile mysterium declaratur hodie: innovantur naturae, Deus homo factus est; id quod fuit permansit et quod non erat assumpsit, non commixtionem passus neque divisionem (Antiphon of Lauds in the Octave of Christmas.) ‘A wondrous mystery is declared today, an innovation is made upon nature, God is made man; that which he was, he remains, and that which he was not, he takes on and assumes, suffering neither commixture nor division.’

II.

This then, if I may so express myself, is one of the acts of the contract. God takes our nature so as to unite it to Himself in a personal union.
What is the other act? What is God going to give us in return? Not that He owes us anything: Bonorum meorum non eges (Psalm 15:2 in the Vulgate or Psalm 16:2 in the Hebrew). ‘For you have no need of my goods’. But as He does all things with wisdom, He could not take upon Himself our nature without a motive worthy of Him.

What the Word Incarnate gives in return to humanity is an incomprehensible gift; it is a participation, real and intimate, in His Divine nature: Largitus est nobis suam deitatem. (‘He bestowed upon us His Godhead’.) In exchange for the humanity which He takes, the Incarnate Word gives us a share in His Divinity; He makes us partakers of His Divine Nature. And thus is accomplished the most wonderful exchange which could be made.

Doubtless, as you know, this participation had already been offered and given, from the creation, to Adam, the first man. The gift of grace, with all its splendid train of privileges, made Adam like to God. But the sin of the first man, the head of the human race, destroyed and rendered this ineffable participation impossible on the part of the creature.

It is to restore this participation that the Word becomes Incarnate; it is to reopen to us the way to heaven that God is made man. For this Child, being God’s own Son, has Divine life, like His Father, with His Father. In this Child “dwells all the fullness of the Godhead corporeally” (Col. 2:9); in Him are laid up all the treasures of the divinity (Col 2:3). But He does not possess them for Himself alone. He infinitely desires to communicate to us the Divine life that He Himself is: Ego sum vita (John 14:6). ‘I am the life.’ It is for this that He comes: Ego veni UT vitam habeant (John 10:10). “I am come THAT they may have life.” ‘It is for us that a Child is born; it is to us that a Son is given’: Puer natus est NOBIS et Filius datus est nobis (Introit antiphon of the Mass of the day).

In making us share in His condition of Son, He will make us children of God. “When the fullness of time was come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, . . . that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal 4:4-5). What Christ is by nature, that is to say the Son of God, we are to be by grace; the Incarnate Word, the Son of God made man is to become the author of our divine generation: Natus hodie Salvator mundi DIVINAE NOBIS GENERATIONIS est auctor (Post-communion prayer of the Mass of Christmas Day). ‘Today the Savior of the world is born; He is the author of the Divine generation to us.’ So that, although He be the Only-begotten Son, He (Himself) will become the First-born of many brethren: UT sit IPSE PRIMOGENITUS in multis fratribus (Rom 8:29).

Such are the two acts of the wonderful “bargain” that God makes with us: He takes our nature in order to communicate to us His divinity; He takes a human life so as to make us partakers of His divine life: ‘He (God) is made man so as to make us gods’: Factus est Deus homo, ut homo fieret Deus (Sermon attributed to St. Augustine, number 128 in the appendix to his works). And His human Birth becomes the means of our birth to the divine life.

In us, likewise there will be henceforth two lives. The one, natural, which we have by our birth according to the flesh, but which, in God’s sight, is not only without merit but, before baptism, is stained in consequence of original sin; which makes us enemies of God, worthy of His wrath: we are born filii irae (Eph 2:3) ‘children of wrath’. The other life, supernatural, is infinitely above the rights and exigencies of our nature. It is this life that God communicates to us by His grace, since the Incarnate Word merited it for us.

God begets us to this life by His Word and the infusion of His Spirit, in the baptismal font: Genuit nos Verbo veritatis (James 1:18) ‘He has begotten us by the Word of truth’ . . . Per lavacrum regenerationis et renovationis Spiritus Sancti. (‘He saved us, by the laver of regeneration, and renovation of the Holy Ghost.’) (Titus 3:5) It is a new life that is superadded to our natural life, surpassing and crowning it; In Christo nova creatura. (‘If then any be in Christ he is a new creature.’) (2 Corinth 5:17; Gal 6:15). It makes us children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, worthy of one day partaking of His beatitude and glory.

Of these two lives, in us as in Christ, it is the divine that ought to dominate, although in the Child Christ, it is not as yet manifested, and in us, it remains ever veiled under the outward appearance of our ordinary existence. It is the divine life of grace that ought to rule and govern, and make agreeable to our Lord, all our natural activity, thus deified in its root.

Oh! if the contemplation of the Birth of Jesus and participation in this mystery by the reception of the Bread of Life would bring us to free ourselves, once and for all, from everything that destroys and lessens the divine life within us; from sin, wherefrom Christ comes to deliver us: Cujus nativitas humanam repulit vetustatem ‘Whose birth caste away all the old things of human nature’(Post-communion prayer for the Mass of Day-break); from all infidelity and all attachment to creatures; from the irregulated care for passing things: Abnegantes saecularia desideria (‘that we should be denying ungodliness and worldly desires,’) (Tit 2:12; Epistle for the midnight Mass); from the trying preoccupations of our vain self love!

If we could thus be brought to give ourselves entirely to God, according to the promises of our baptism when we were born to the divine life; to yield ourselves up to the accomplishment of His will and good pleasure, as did the Incarnate Word in entering into this world: Ecce venio . . . ut faciam Deus voluntatem tuam (Heb 10:7) ‘Behold I come . . . that I should do your will, O God.’ Oh that we to abound in those good works which make us pleasing to God: Populum acceptabilem, sectatorem bonorum operum (Tit 2:14. Epistle for the midnight Mass.)!

‘Christ gave himself for us that he might cleanse to himself a people acceptable, a pursuer of good works’.

Then the divine life brought to us by Jesus would meet with no more obstacles and would freely expand for the glory of our Heavenly Father; then “we who are bathed in the new light of the Incarnate Word should show forth in our deeds what by faith shines in our minds” (Da nobis quaesumus omnipotens Deus; ut qui nova incarnati Verbi tui luce perfundimur, hoc in nostro resplendeat opere, quod per fidem fulget in mente. ‘Grant to us, we beseech you, almighty God: that, as we are bathed in the new radiance of your incarnate Word, the light of faith, which illumines our minds, may also shine through in our deeds.’ Collect prayer for the Mass at Daybreak).

Then, “our offerings would befit the mysteries of this day’s Nativity”. Munera nostra nativitatis hodiernae mysteriis apta proveniant (Secret prayer for the Mass at Day-break). “Grant, O Lord, that our offerings may be conformed to the mysteries of this day’s Nativity, that as He Who is born as man is also God made manifest, so this earthly substance (which He unites to Himself) may confer upon us that which is divine.”

III.

What further renders this exchange “admirable” is the manner in which it is effected, the form wherein it is accomplished. How is it accomplished? How does this Child, Who is the Incarnate Word, make us partakers of His divine life? By His Humanity. The humanity that the Word takes from us is to serve Him as the instrument for communicating His divine life to us; and this for two reasons wherein eternal wisdom infinitely shines out; the humanity renders God visible; it renders God passible.

It renders Him visible.

The Church, using the words of St. Paul, celebrates with delight this “appearing” of God amongst us: Apparuit gratia Dei Salvatoris nostri omnibus hominibus (Tit 2:11. Epistle for the midnight Mass): “The grace of God our Savior has appeared to all men.” Apparuit benignitas et humanitas Salvatoris nostri Dei (Tit 3:4, Epistle for the Mass at Day-break). “The goodness and kindness of God our Savior has appeared.”
Lux fulgebit hodie super nos, quia natus est nobis Dominus (Introit antiphon of the Mass at Day-break): “a light shall shine upon us this day: for our Lord is born to us”; Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14.)

The Incarnate Word brings about this marvel: men have seen God Himself abiding in the midst of them.

St. John loves to dwell upon this side of the mystery. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life: For the life was manifested; and we have seen and do bear witness and declare unto you the Life Eternal which was with the Father, and has appeared in us. That which we have seen and have heard, we declare unto you that . . . your joy may be full” (1 John 1:1-4).

What joy indeed, to see God manifesting Himself to us; not in the dazzling splendor of His omnipotence, nor in the unspeakable glory of His sovereignty, but under the veil of humble, poor, weak humanity, which we can see and touch!

We might have been afraid of the dreadful majesty of God: the Israelites fell on their faces to the ground, full of terror and fear, when God spoke to Moses upon Sinai, in the midst of lightnings. We are drawn by the charms of a God become a Babe. The Babe in the Crib seems to say to us: “You are afraid of God? You are wrong: Qui vidit me, vidit et Patrem (John 14:9). ‘He that sees me, sees the Father also’. Do not heed your imagination, do not form yourselves a God from the deductions of philosophy, nor ask of science to make My perfections known to you. The true Almighty God is the God that I am and reveal; the true God is I Who come to you in poverty, humility and infancy, but Who will one day give My life for you. I am ‘the brightness of {the Father’s} glory, and the figure of His substance’ (Heb 1:3). I am His Only-begotten Son, God as He is; in Me you shall learn to know His perfections, His wisdom and His goodness, His love towards men and His mercy in regard to sinners: Illuxit in cordibus nostris . . . in facie Christi Jesu (2 Corinth 4:6) ‘For God has shined in our hearts . . . in the face of Christ Jesus’. Come unto Me, for, God as I am, I have willed to be a man like you, and I do not reject those who draw near to Me with confidence: One of your Christmas prayers says: ‘He who was born as man, shone forth also as God,’ Sicut homo genitus IDEM refulsit et Deus.”

Why did God thus deign to render Himself visible?

First of all so as to instruct us: Apparuit erudiens nos. ‘(God) has appeared, instructing us’ (Titus 2:11-12). It is indeed God Who will henceforth speak to us by His own Son: Locutus est nobis in Filio (Heb 1:2 ‘(God) has spoken to us by his Son); we have but to listen to this beloved Son in order to know what God wills of us. The Heavenly Father Himself tells us so: Hic est Filius meus dilectus: ipsum audite (Mt 17:5 ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear him, all of you’); and Jesus delights in repeating to us that His doctrine is that of His Father: Mea doctrina non est mea, sed ejus qui misit me (John 7:16 ‘My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me’).

Next, the Word renders Himself visible to our sight so as to become the Example that we are to follow.

We have only to watch this Child grow, only to contemplate Him living in the midst of us, living like us as man, in order to know how we ought to live in the sight of God, as children of God: for all that He does will be pleasing to His Father: Quae placita sunt ei, facio semper (John 8:29 ‘for I do always, the things that please him.’).
Being the Truth Who has come to teach us, He will point out the way by His example; if we live in His light, if we follow this way, we shall have life: Ego sum via, et veritas et vita (John 14:6 ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’).

Thus, in knowing God manifested in the midst of us, we shall be drawn by Him to the love of invisible things: Ut dum VISIBILITER Deum cognoscimus, PER HUNC in invisibilium amorem rapiamur (Preface for Christmas “So that while we acknowledge God in VISIBLE FORM, we may THROUGH HIM be drawn to the love things invisible.”).

IV.

The humanity of Christ renders God visible, and above all — and it is in this that Divine Wisdom is shown to be “admirable” — it renders God passible.

Sin which destroyed the divine life within us demands a satisfaction, an expiation without which it would be impossible for divine life to be restored to us. Being a mere creature, man cannot give this satisfaction for an offence of infinite malice, and, on the other hand, the Divinity can neither suffer nor expiate. God cannot communicate His life to us unless sin be blotted out; by an immutable decree of Divine Wisdom, sin can only be blotted out if it be expiated in an adequate manner. How is this problem to be solved?

The Incarnation gives us the answer. Consider the Babe of Bethlehem. He is the Word made flesh. The humanity that the Word makes His own is passible; it is this humanity which will suffer, will expiate. These sufferings, these expiations will belong, however, to the Word, as this humanity itself does; they will take from the Divine Person an infinite value which will suffice to redeem the world, to destroy sin, to make grace super-abound in souls like an impetuous and fructifying river: Fluminis impetus laetificat civitatem Dei. (Psalm 45:5 in the Vulgate ‘The stream of the river makes the city of God joyful.’ It is Psalm 46:4 in the Hebrew.)

O admirable exchange! Do not let us stay to wonder by what other means God might have brought it about, but let us contemplate the way wherein He has done so. The word asks of us a human nature to find in it wherewith to suffer, to expiate, to merit, to heap graces upon us. It is through the flesh that man turns away from God: it is in becoming flesh that God delivers man:

Beatus auctor saeculi, Servile corpus induit, Ut carne carnem liberans, Non perderet quod condidit (Hymn for Lauds – Morning Prayer – at Christmas. ‘Blest Author of this earthly frame, To take a Servant’s form (body) he came, That liberating flesh by flesh, Whom he had made might live afresh and Not perish’.)

The flesh that the Word of God takes upon Himself, is to become the instrument of salvation for all flesh. O admirabile commercium! ‘O admirable Exchange!’

Doubtless, as you know, it was necessary to await the immolation of Calvary for the expiation to be complete; but, as St. Paul teaches us, it was from the first moment of His Incarnation that Christ accepted to accomplish His Father’s will and to offer Himself as Victim for the human race: Ideo ingrediens mundum dicit: Hostiam et oblationem noluisti: CORPUS autem aptasti mihi . . . Et tune dixit: Ecce venio . . . ut faciam Deus voluntatem tuam (Heb 10:5, 7. ‘Wherefore when he comes into the world, he says: Sacrifice and oblation you would not: but a BODY you have fitted to me. . . . Then said he: Behold I come . . . that I should do your will, O God’. See Psalm 39:8 in the Vulgate or Psalm 40: 6-8 in the Hebrew). It is by this oblation that Christ begins to sanctify us: In qua voluntate sanctificati sumus (Heb 10:10 ‘In the which ‘will’ we are sanctified’). It is from the Crib that He inaugurates this life of suffering such as He willed to live for our salvation, this life of which the term is at Golgotha, and that, in destroying sin, is to restore to us the friendship of His Father. The Crib is certainly only the first stage, but it radically contains all the others.

This is why, in the Christmas solemnities, the Church attributes our salvation to the temporal Birth itself of the Son of God. “Grant, we beseech You, Almighty God, that the new Birth of Your Only-begotten Son in the flesh may deliver us who are held captive by the old bondage under the yoke of sin” (Concede quaesumus, omnipotens Deus, ut nos Unigeniti tui nova per carnem nativitas liberet, quos sub peccati jugo vetuita servitus tenet. Collect prayer for the Mass of Christmas Day.). This is why, from that moment, “deliverance, redemption, salvation, eternal life,” will be spoken of constantly. It is by His Humanity that Christ, High Priest and Mediator, binds us to God; but it is at Bethlehem that He appears to us in this Humanity.
See, too, how from the moment of His Birth, He fulfils His mission.

What is it that causes us to lose divine life?

It is pride. Because they believed that they would be like unto God, having the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve lost, for themselves and for their race, the friendship of God. Christ, the new Adam, redeems us, brings us back to God, by the humility of His Incarnation. Although He was God, He annihilated in taking the condition of the creature, in making Himself like unto men; He manifested Himself as man according to all appearances (Phil 2:6-7). What a humiliation was that! Later, it is true, the Church will exalt to the highest heavens His dazzling glory as the conqueror over sin and death; but now, Christ knows only self-abasement and weakness. When our gaze rests upon this little Child, Who is in no way distinguished from others, when we think that He is God, and that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge, we feel our souls deeply moved, and our vain pride is confounded in the face of such abasement.

And what besides pride? Our refusal to obey. See what an example of wonderful obedience the Son of God gives. With the simplicity of little children, He yields Himself up into the hands of His parents; He allows Himself to be touched, taken up and carried about; and all His Childhood, all His Boyhood and Youth are summed up in the Gospel in these few words which tell how He was subject to Mary and Joseph: Et erat subditus illis. (See Luke 2:51 ‘And he was subject to them.’)

And next, there is our covetousness “the concupiscence of the eyes” (1 John 2:16), all that appears, glitters, fascinates and seduces; the essential inanity of the passing trifles that we prefer to God. The Word is made flesh; but He is born in poverty and abjection. Propter vos egenus factus est cum esset dives (2 Corinth 8:9 ‘Being rich he became poor, for your sakes; that through his poverty you might be rich.’). “Being rich, He became poor.” Although He is “the King of ages” (1 Tim 1:17), although He is the One Who drew all creation out of nothing by a word, and has only to open His hand to fill “with blessing every living creature” (Psalm 144:16 in the Vulgate and Psalm 145: 16 in the Hebrew), He is not born in a palace; His Mother, finding no room in the inn, had to take refuge in a stable cave: the Son of God, Eternal Wisdom, willed to be born in destitution and laid upon straw.

If with faith and love we contemplate the Child Jesus in His Crib, we shall find in Him the Divine Example of many virtues; if we know how to lend the ear of our hearts to what He says to us, we shall learn many things; if we reflect upon the circumstances of His Birth, we shall see how the Humanity serves the Word as the instrument to instruct us, but likewise to raise us, to quicken us, to make us pleasing to His Father, to detach us from passing things, to lift us up even to Himself.

“Divinity is clad in our mortal flesh . . . and because God humbles Himself to live a human life, man is raised towards divine things”: Dum divinitas defectum nostrae carnes suscepit, humanum genus lumen, quod amiserat, recepit. Unde enim Deus humana patitur, inde homo ad divina sublevatus. (Saint Gregory, Homily I, on the Evangelical Gospels.) ‘While divinity received (is clad) in the defects of our (mortal) flesh, the human race is given back the light that was lost. Because hence, God is acted upon (humbles himself) as a human (a man), consequently the human (man) is raised up to the divine things.’

V.

Thus from whatever side our faith contemplates this exchange, and whatever be the details of it that we examine, it appears admirable to us.
Is not this child-bearing of a virgin indeed admirable: Natus ineffabiliter ex virgine? (Antiphon for the Octave of Christmas: ‘Born from a virgin in a way that cannot be described’.)

“A young Maiden has Brought forth the King Whose name is Eternal: to the honor of virginity she unites the joys of motherhood; before her, the like was never seen, nor shall it ever be so again” (Genuit puerperal Regem, Cui nomen Aeternum, et gaudia matris habens cum virginitatis honore, nec priman similem visa est, nec habere sequentem. Antiphon for Lauds – Morning Prayer – at Christmas.) “Daughters of Jerusalem, why do you admire me? This mystery that you behold in me is truly Divine” (Filiae Jerusalem, quid me admiramini? Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis. Antiphon for the Feast of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the coming Birth – ‘Expectatio partus virginis’, on December 18 – a feast emerging from Spain which originally recalled the Annunciation).

Admirable is this indissoluble union, that is yet without confusion, of the divinity with the humanity in the one Person of the Word: Mirabile mysterium: innovantur naturae. ‘A Wonderful mystery: It is the restoration of nature’. Admirable is this exchange, by the contrasts of its realization: God gives us a share in His divinity, but the humanity that He takes from us in order to communicate His divine life to us is a suffering humanity, “acquainted with infirmity,” homo sciens infirmitatem (Is 53:3 ‘A man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity’), that will undergo death and, by death, will restore life to us.

Admirable is this exchange in its source which is none other than God’s infinite love for us. Sic Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum Unigenitum daret (John 3:16). “God so loved the world as to give His Only-begotten Son.” Let us, then, yield up our souls to joy and sing with the Church: Parvulus natus est nobis et filius DATUS est NOBIS. ‘A Child is born to us, and a Son is GIVEN, yes, TO US.’ – Isaiah 11:6. And how is He given? “In the likeness of sinful flesh.” This is why the love that thus gives Him to us in our passible humanity, in order to expiate sin, is a measureless love:

Propter NIMIAM caritatem suam, qua dilexit nos Deus, misit Filium suum in similitudinem carnis peccati. (Antiphon for the Octave of Christmas ‘By reason of his GREAT love, wherewith he has loved us, God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,’).

Admirable, finally, in its fruits and effects. By this exchange, God again gives us His friendship, He restores to us the right of entering into possession of the eternal inheritance; He looks anew upon humanity with love and complacency.

Therefore, joy is one of the most marked characteristics of the celebration of this mystery. The Church constantly invites us to it, remembering the words of the angel to the shepherds: “Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy . . . for this day is born to you a Savior” (Luke 2:10-11). It is the joy of deliverance, of the inheritance regained, of peace found once again, and, above all, of the vision of God Himself given to men: Et vocabitur nomen ejus Emmanuel (Is 7:14 ‘And his name shall be called Emmanuel.’; and see Mt 1:23).

But this joy will only be assured if we remain firm in the grace that comes to us from the Savior and makes us His brethren. “O Christian”, exclaims St. Leo, in a sermon that the Church reads during this holy night, “recognize your dignity”: ‘Agnosce, O Christiane, dignitatem tuam’. “And made a partaker of the divinity, take care not to fall back from so sublime a state.” (Sermon I de Nativitate – ‘About the Birth of Christ’.)

“If you did know the gift of God” (John 4:10), said our Lord Himself. If you did know all that this Son is Who is given to you! If, above all, we were to receive Him as we ought to receive Him! Let it not be said of us: In propria venit, et sui eum non receperunt (Gospel for the Mass on Christmas Day: John 1:11). “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” By our creation, all of us are “His own”; we belong to God; but there are some who have not received Him upon this earth. How many Jews, how many pagans have rejected Christ, because He has appeared in the humility of passible flesh! Souls sunk in the darkness of pride and sensuality: Lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt. ‘The light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.’ (John 1:5.)

And how ought we to receive Him? By faith: His qui credunt in nomine ejus, ‘to them that believe in his name’ (John 1:12). It is to those who — believing in His Person, in His word, in His works, — have received this Child as God, that it has been given, in return, to become themselves children of God: Ex Deo nati sunt. ‘Who are born out of God’. (John 1:13.)

Such is, in fact, the fundamental disposition that we must have so that this “admirable exchange” may produce in us all its fruits. Faith alone teaches us how it is brought about; wherein it is realized; faith alone gives us a true knowledge of it and one worthy of God.

For there are many modes and degrees of knowledge.

“The ox knows his owner, and the ass his Master’s Crib,” wrote Isaiah, in speaking of this mystery (Is 1:3). They saw the Child lying in the crib. But what could they see? As much as an animal could see: the form, the size, the color, the movement, — an entirely rudimentary knowledge that does not pass the boundary line of sensation. Nothing more.

The passers-by, the curious, who approached the stable-cave saw the Child; but for them He was like all others. They did not go beyond this purely natural knowledge. Perhaps they were struck by the Child’s loveliness. Perhaps they pitied His destitution. But this feeling did not last and was soon replaced by indifference.

There were the Shepherds, simple-hearted men, enlightened by a ray from on high: Claritas Dei circumfulsit illos (Luke 2:9 ‘the brightness of God shone round about them’). They certainly understood more; they recognized in this Child the promised Messiah, long awaited, the Exicctatio gentium (Gen 49:10 ‘the expectation of nations.’); they paid Him their homage, and their souls were for a long time full of joy and peace.

The Angels likewise contemplated the New-born Babe, the Word made Flesh. They saw in Him their God; this knowledge threw these pure spirits into awe and wonderment at such incomprehensible self-abasement: for it was not to their nature that He willed to unite Himself: Nusquam angelos, but to human nature, sed semen Abrahae apprehendit (Heb 2:16 ‘For no where does he take hold of the angels: but of the seed of Abraham he takes hold.’ He never took upon him the nature of angels, but that of the seed of Abraham.).

What shall we say of the Blessed Virgin when she looked upon Jesus? Into what depths of the mystery did her gaze penetrate — that gaze so pure, so humble, so tender, so full of bliss? Who shall be able to express with what lights the soul of Jesus inundated His Mother, and what perfect homage Mary rendered to her Son, to her God, to all the states and all the mysteries whereof the Incarnation is the substance and the root.

There is finally — but this is beyond description — the gaze of the Father contemplating His Son made flesh for mankind. The Heavenly Father saw that which never man, nor angel, nor Mary herself could comprehend: the infinite perfections of the Divinity hidden in a Babe. . . . And this contemplation was the source of unspeakable rapture: ‘You are My Son, My beloved Son, the Son of My delight in Whom I have placed all My pride and delights’ (Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22). The Son of His delectation.

When we contemplate the Incarnate Word at Bethlehem, let us rise above the things of sense so as to gaze upon Him with the eyes of faith alone. Faith makes us share here below in the knowledge that the Divine Persons have of One Another. There is no exaggeration in this. Sanctifying grace makes us indeed partakers of the divine nature. Now, the activity of the divine nature consists in the knowledge that the Divine Persons have the One of the Other, and the love that they have One for the Other. We participate therefore in this knowledge and in this love. And in the same way as sanctifying grace, having its fruition in glory will give us the right of seeing God as He sees Himself, so, upon earth, in the shadows of faith, grace enables us to behold deep down into these mysteries through the eyes of God: Lux tuae claritatis infulsit. (Preface for Christmas ‘The new Light of Your glory has shone upon the eyes of our mind,’).

When our faith is intense and perfect, we do not stay to look only at the outside of the mystery, but we go deeply into it; we pass through the Humanity to penetrate as far as the Godhead which the Humanity at the same time hides and reveals; we behold divine mysteries in the divine light.

And ravished, astounded at such prodigious abasement, the soul, vivified by this faith, falls prostrate in adoration and yields herself up entirely to procure the glory of a God Who, from love for His creature, thus veils the native splendor of His unfathomable perfections. She can never rest until she has given all, in return, to fill up her part in the exchange that He desires to contract with her, until she has brought herself wholly into subjection to this “King of Peace Who comes with so much magnificence” (Antiphon at Vespers – Evening Prayer – on Christmas Day) to save, sanctify and, as it were, to deify her.

Let us then draw near to the Child God with great faith. We may wish to have been at Bethlehem to receive Him. Yet He is here giving Himself to us in Holy Communion with as much reality although our senses are less able to find Him. In the Tabernacle, as in the Crib, it is the same God full of power, the same Savior full of tender mercy.

If we will have it so, the admirable exchange still continues. For it is likewise through His Humanity that Christ infuses divine life into us at the Holy Table. It is in eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood, in uniting ourselves to His Humanity, that we draw at the very wellspring of everlasting life: Qui manducat meam carnem, et bibit meum sanguinem, habet vitam aeternam (John 6:55 ‘He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has everlasting life.’)

Thus, each day, the union established between man and God in the Incarnation, is continued and made closer. In giving Himself in Communion, Christ increases the life of grace in the generous and faithful soul, making this life develop more freely and expand with more strength; He even bestows upon such a soul the pledge of that blessed immortality of which grace is the germ and whereby God will communicate Himself to us fully and unveiled: Ut natus hodie Salvator mundi, sicut divinae nobis generationis est auctor, ita et immortalitatis sit IPSE largitor. (Post-communion prayer of Christmas Day ‘Grant, O merciful God, that just as the Savior of the world born today is for us the author of divine generation, so too may He, HIMSELF be the bestower of immortality.’)

This will be the consummation, magnificent and glorious, of the exchange inaugurated at Bethlehem in the poverty and humiliations of the Crib.

The Divine Coming
Frank Duff

The time of Christmas and Epiphany is one of unmixed happiness. It is one of the few seasons of the Church year which have that purely blissful note. The sorrowful sequel to the events of this time is still far ahead; we are able to put the thought of it out of our mind and to immerse ourselves in the sheer joy of this period. It is a grace, I think, to be able to feel that joy, because it is an indication that, whatever our defects may be, we are attuned to the Church and its life.

The very thought of the coming of Our Lord should have the effect of stirring us to our depths. Of all events it is really the central one—that divine coming among us promised from the very beginning. How many years before was it that those words were uttered which promised the Redeemer: “I will set enmities between Thee and the Woman!” What hopes rested on that prophecy!

Those words spoken by Almighty God to the Serpent resounded down the ages and through all peoples. As the races dispersed over the world, they brought with them that promise. North, east, south or west, it went with them, and it became the heart of their religious systems. Every pagan mythology had that idea of a Redeemer who was to be born of a Virgin. In most of them it became much disfigured with the passage of time, but still we are able to trace the outline of it clearly enough.

But the theme was distinct, and remained so, in the Jewish books. In fact, as time went on and each new prophet arose, it was given greater clarity. “A Virgin shall conceive and bring forth a Son and they shall call his name Emmanuel”, that is, “God with us.‟ Then in the Book of Daniel the very time of the Birth is foretold in terms which are obscure to us but precise to the experts. And the place in which the paramount event is to take place is foretold by the Prophet Micheas in these words: “And thou, Bethlehem, art not the least among the princes of Juda; for out of thee shall come forth the captain that shall rule my people Israel.”

And now at the time that we are commemorating the long-foretold event is about to take place. We would expect that around such a portentous happening there would be a setting that could be regarded as appropriate, something impressive. Should not that Woman and her Child of intertwined destiny appear in the heavens, clad in light, an astounding, even terrifying spectacle, overpowering the emotions of men? But as we are aware, things worked out in very different fashion. The reality strikes the opposite pole. It is not tremendous, but painfully simple; not divine-looking but abjectly human; not royal or rich, but poor—penniless. No palace, not even a habitation. Truly God‟s ways are not our ways.

Beautiful Thoughts and Memories

It is not about the doctrine of this wonderful Nativity that I am going to talk, but about its picturesque side, the one that stirs us, that rejoices us at this time of beautiful thoughts and memories.

I am going to pick some little of the symbolism, the legend, the literature, and perhaps even the fable, which love has woven around that eternal event. We must not decry those things just because they do not appear in the inspired narrative. Sometimes one hears people speaking lightly about that picturesque side. What is in the New Testament is very brief, a skeleton. We have to clothe that skeleton with flesh. Bear in mind that on that skeleton there really was a tissue. We do but piously try to restore it. The Nativity had its retinue of facts and circumstances, just as every item of history is so surrounded. But more than any other, this one was linked to men‟s lives. It determined the fate of all generations. Everything about it had a profound meaning. Everything down to the smallest detail had the purpose of fulfilling some prophecy, teaching some lesson, or making some eloquent pointing to the future. Recall the Scripture which tells us that not a sparrow falls without the Father‟s will; nor is there a hair of your head that is not numbered. That is the manner in which God descends into detail. The detail is infinite. We see too little of it and not too much. Especially this is the case in regard to anything which bore on the Messiah. Everything in the Old Law was symbolic of Him and of the Woman who was to bear Him. We see but a fraction, and it will be one of the sweet occupations of heaven to see all.

Every flower and stone and living thing, the water and the air, all are for Him and tell of Him and somehow reflect Him. It is not rash but a reasonable process to try to fill in what is not told, to endeavor to glimpse the divine pattern. Christmas is drawing nigh. The days of the expectation of the Child have arrived. Our Lady‟s preparations are advanced. Her sewing is done. The hearts of St. Joseph and herself are full of rapture. The long-awaited One, the Hope of Nations, the Salvation of the World, He that is Wonderful, the Counsellor, God the Mighty, Father of the World to come, the Prince of Peace (all these are epithets from the Prophet Isaias, among others), is shortly to appear to eyes.

The Road To Bethlehem

But at this point something asserts itself, something which appears to be purely human but which was foreseen by the prophets seven hundred years before. The merciless power of Rome steps in and takes a hand in the game. The Emperor Augustus decreed a census of his Empire. Of that dominion, the Holy Land had become part; because the scepter, that is sovereignty, had departed from Judea. This was one of the signs specified by the prophets of the coming of the time of Our Lord: that Judea would have ceased to be independent.

The imperial decree proclaimed that all must register without exception and that each one should do so in the city of his tribe. Mary and Joseph were of the tribe of David. The central city of the tribe was that place, the name of which is now so wonderful, Bethlehem. And so to Bethlehem they prepared to go.

The distance to Bethlehem is 86 miles. The road goes through Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is six miles from Bethlehem. It was winter time. Contrary to what we might imagine, winter there is cold and that cold could be severe. Probably there will be snow, and tradition clothes Bethlehem with snow on that great night. Here I remind you of the foretelling by Our Lord of the destruction of Jerusalem when He said: “Pray that your flight may not be in the winter time.” But He reserved that very fate for His most beloved, His Mother. He did not spare her. Her destiny was part of His; it came out of His just as His Body came out of hers.

That journey could have dangers as well as discomforts. The Bible is full of references to lions in Palestine. Leopards and bears and wolves lurked at that time in the caves and in the forests, particularly in the Valley of the Jordan. Night, of course, was their prowling time and the Holy Family would probably not then be abroad. In addition to the savage wild animals, there was a greater danger from the savage wild men, the brigands who then abounded.

While the Holy Family was not then unduly exposed to those kind of dangers, especially as there were crowds journeying by reason of the census, I point forward to the Flight into Egypt when they will have to face those perils in their grimmest form. Then they will be by themselves, moving by night, keeping away from the tracks that other travelers would follow. Because they will be flying from the pursuing power of Herod.

The Search For Room

It is reckoned that on the fourth or fifth day from Nazareth they would reach Jerusalem. Then they would of course hurry on to Bethlehem, which is the final short leg of the journey. They were days of immense fatigue, because Our Lady was not fit to travel. One old painting shows the scene. The little donkey bears that beloved woman. She is drooping. One arm is round St. Joseph‟s neck as he walks beside her, supporting her. An angel is holding the bridle of the donkey and steering it on its way. The saddle is just a folded cloth. Contrary to the common custom of portraying him as older, St. Joseph would probably have been about thirty years old.

One old legend said Our Lord was born a little prematurely, so anxious was Our Lady to see His face. This might have a bearing upon the seeming catastrophe of the refusal of Bethlehem to accommodate the wayfarers. More than other women do, Mary knew when her Babe should be born. She would not have deliberately placed that event in Bethlehem at the moment of great crowding. So it could be that Our Lord arrived a little sooner than expected.

We can imagine the anguished search through Bethlehem for accommodation. The position at the moment was that every member of the House of David was concentrated on that comparatively small town. Though they did not realize it, they were the playthings of a divine maneuver in being thus brought together. They were fulfilling their significant part in redemption. They were being assembled to be present at the birth of their greatest Child. The crowding of course was extreme. Imagine, for instance, what Cork would be like if every Cork man and woman had to return there for a day! We can see, too, that the exodus from the countryside, which we are so much deploring today, was a feature then as it is now. As Solomon declared, there is nothing new under the sun.

Bethlehem was—and I think continues to be—a place of about three thousand persons. It consisted of an amphitheater in a valley surrounded by hills, the town nestling into the bosom of those hills. It is an extraordinary thing that although Bethlehem had innumerable advantages of a type that we would call tactical or strategic for warfare, it possesses no title to fame other than the fact that it brought forth King David who was born there, and later, Him of Whom King David was the progenitor, the Prophet and the type, that is Our Lord. One thing which all travelers talk about and have talked about since that day has been the beauty of the women of Bethlehem. Some of the writers have not hesitated, probably with reason, to ascribe this to the blessing imparted to the place by her who was the most beautiful of them all.

There was no room for them in the inn at Bethlehem! Awful words, showing a shocking situation! “He came unto His own and His own received Him not.” First, they were seeking for ordinary accommodation, and in a little while they were seeking for any accommodation. Then they had to strike out further afield, and finally the celebrated stable was their sanctuary.

The Stable

Let us beware of thinking that this stable was a wooden structure of the crib type. It was a dugout or cave. It was a shelter for sheep or oxen in bad weather. In that least of places, which Papini in his well-known Life of Our Lord refers to as the dirtiest spot on earth, was born the Lord of the World. This series of frustrations and humiliations looks fantastic, but it is not quite as bad as we are inclined to think it. There is no question whatever, I would say, of Our Lady being just ruthlessly turned away from doors.

Living was a simpler matter in those days. The traveller brought along a rug or blanket; found a little spot between two other people in any shelter or under some sort of roof; squeezed in and slept. It is most certain that Our Lady could have been provided for in that manner. But in her case, privacy was necessary, and Bethlehem was like a tin of sardines that night.

But the amazing, the providential fact is that alone in all that land were the Holy Family unable to find a corner. Even on that night of over-crowding not one other person was relegated to that stable. However, they had in it the privacy that they needed, a privacy of the selects character, reserved to themselves alone.
It was not the picturesque haven shown by the cribs, with fragrant straw and nice cradle-like manger. The reality was very different. It is described by St. Jerome as being little better than a hole in the ground, and he should know because he lived in it for thirty years when he was translating the Bible into Latin. The place was the refuge of animals. We can imagine the rest. It was piercingly cold that night and miserably dark. How did they give themselves a light? We must assume that St. Joseph had a lantern.

One author tells us something that we would not have thought out for ourselves but which must have been the case. It is that in that abode were swarms of vermin and that these would at once rush to welcome anything warm and offering nourishment. Thus the new-born Child was destined to shed His blood the moment He was born. Contemplate the distress of the mother, helpless to save Him from this terrible affliction! Thus did Mary bring forth her Son and by the instruction of Gabriel call His name “Jesus”, because He would save the people from their sins.

Symbols And Legend

This happening is brimful of symbolism. As we have said, we cannot see too much symbolism in it. In fact we are only just scraping at the surface of it. The very name of Bethlehem is full of symbolism. It means “the House of Bread,” and its older name was “Ephrata,” which means “ the House of Flesh.” Here are two overwhelming prophetic paintings. Truly was Our Lord the House of Flesh in which the Divinity dwelt. Likewise you will recall that quotation in the Hand-book which points to the fact that Our Lord was laid in a manger because He was destined to be the Food of the world, and on straw which typified that He was the Divine Wheat later to be made into the Eucharistic Bread.

Present with the supreme personages in the cave were members of the animal order. They were there in a representative capacity. They were the faithful ass and an ox which was sheltering there. The ass was a biblical symbol of the Israelites, the chosen people, and the ox was a biblical symbol of the Gentiles. Here you have again this meaningful pointing to the mission of Our Lord to the chosen people and then to the whole wide world.

The legends go on to say that the cave was the ruin, or part of the ruins of an old palace of King David himself, who had been born there. Imagine if this should be true: that the excluding of Jesus from Bethlehem itself should bring about His being born in the palace of King David whose great Successor He would be.
Yet what meets the eye is degradation and rejection. Not only that, but one really could say, having regard to the defects of that habitation, that it was not a habitation at all; that He was born publicly.

Then the thought jumps to mind that He was likewise destined to die publicly. At that moment He will be even more deprived. Instead of the straw-filled manger, He will lie on the bare wood of the Cross. Instead of the rocky roof, He will only have the canopy of heaven. Instead of His Mother‟s soft fingers, the cruel nails will hold Him. As He was born publicly and rejected, He would die in the same way.

Shepherds Worship The Lamb

But on neither occasion would He be absolutely rejected. There would be a faithful few around the Cross, as there were around the manger. Scripture in its beautiful accents says to us: “ There were in the same country (actually it refers to the poor place called Beit-Sahur some little distance off) shepherds watching and keeping the night-watches over their flock. And behold an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the brightness of God shone round about them, and they feared with a great fear. And the angel said to them: Fear not; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all people. For this day is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest. and on earth peace to men of goodwill. (St. Luke ii. 8-14.)

Tradition says that there were three shepherds. I wonder what proportion of the cribs give effect to that tradition? The shepherds hastened and found Mary and Joseph and the Infant lying in the manger, and they paid homage. This was of an importance that they did not remotely glimpse. Unconsciously they were the representatives of the chosen people: and very appropriately shepherds—for the Jews had been a pastoral race throughout their earliest history. Again the note of significant imagery is struck. Is it not shepherds who fittingly should be the first to honor the Lamb of God? The breathtaking detail of the whole thing!

And there is more. We are told that the Lord came to those who were least. Into that category entered the shepherds of Judea. These were a despised and rejected caste. The Courts of Justice were forbidden to receive their testimony and they were placed almost on the same level as the heathen. Yet, out of all mankind, it is to those that the Babe stretches out His arms first, and it is they of all mankind who yield the first tribute of homage to Him who has been the expectation of all nations. This is a fortifying thought to us Legionaries whose attention turns so instinctively towards the lesser elements in the population.
Still afar at that moment. but journeying ever nearer and nearer led by their star, were the Magi, the representatives of the Gentile races. They too were coming to salute the new-born King, second in time to the chosen people, but discharging their role better, more worthily, nobly, and meriting for the Gentiles the higher destiny which would descend upon them later.

His Mother

Jesus in His birth did his young Mother no hurt, no harm. In most other ways He implicated her in His own desperate fate. It was not His plan to spare her in any way, as was evident from the subsequent course of her life. His life was a privilege and in that privilege she was to share most fully.

But on this occasion He did spare her for some reason deeply connected with His plan, and when those eager shepherds came they found a radiant young woman in no way exhausted, but blissfully happy in possession of her Treasure, which she offered for their inspection and adoration. But she did not speak to them, because she was at the height of the time of ritual uncleanness prescribed by the Old Law. She was unclean according to the Law and she must not speak.

May we not suppose that she gave the shepherds the first Benediction ever given before they departed praising and glorifying God! St. Francis of Sales says that Mary and Joseph did not hear the angelic chanting that the shepherds had heard, but were left to the operation of pure faith.

Why did the shepherds‟ story, when they went forth proclaiming those things, not cause a greater excitement than apparently was the case? People seem not to have bothered. The Holy Family was not besieged, and later they went to Jerusalem for the Presentation without any fuss or even interest. It was left to a couple of people who were animated from within by the Holy Spirit to notice the Child and to take an interest in Him. Herod did not then take any action. Some of the old accounts say that rumors did circulate and that investigators were sent to Bethlehem to see what they could pick up. Noting the simplicity of the persons and the commonness of the whole business, he went away in absolute contempt. And that, no doubt, would represent the general attitude. Also remember what I have said on the subject of the alleged unreliability of the shepherds. When they talked, probably people believed that it was not the Divine Spirit, but a very much more ordinary type of spirit which was moving them. We must also take count of the normal human incredulity. It is difficult to make mankind believe anything that is supernaturally marvelous. Witness our own coldness towards the Eucharist and the scoffing attitude of the remainder of the world.

The apocryphal Gospels place on St. Joseph‟s lips a statement that at the birth, time itself stopped short for a moment: that everything in nature went into suspended animation; even the birds remained stationary in the air! That is one of the details which is more than an exaggeration and which we need not accept.
In the same line of thought is the captivating theme, dear to the poets, that on this unique day peace brooded over the world; no war-trumpet profaned the air; no sound was heard of clashing arms: no bloody streamlets stained the clay.

We are told pointedly by the Gospel that Mary kept all those things, pondering them in her heart. Why is this so significantly stated? Obviously in everything that was happening she was seeing, to a depth that we cannot probe, the realization of every prophecy and every symbol, and the total fulfillment of the Old Law. In particular she was remember- ing for St. Luke, because she was the main human source of the happenings concerning the Annunciation, the Birth, and all those earlier details of Our Lord‟s life that St. Luke sets down. It was from Mary, the Mother of God, that St. Luke learned all those things.

How To Have Confidence In God
Fr. M. J. Huber, C.SS.R.

I.

Early in our childhood, in catechism class, we learned that there are three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity. The second of this set of three virtues has been selected as the subject of this pamphlet, namely, the theological virtue of hope.

When we were children in catechism class, we could snap off the names of the three theological virtues quite briskly and expertly, but perhaps we had only a hazy idea or picture of what was meant by a theological virtue, or even of what was meant by the name of each of the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity.

Now that we are grown up, we should like to tell ourselves: “Surely, I must have some definite idea of what is meant by faith and hope and charity. I must have some idea of what is meant by a theological virtue. Above all, I am sure that, as a Catholic, I must be practicing the virtues of faith, hope and charity in some way or other.”

That is true. It is impossible to live a good, genuine Catholic life without faith, without hope, without charity. We practice the virtue of faith when we believe what God has told us and tells us through His Church and live according to our belief, because we rely on the truthfulness of God, Who cannot deceive us.

We practice the love of God or charity when we live in His friendship and prove our friendship by keeping His commandments.

But where does the theological virtue of hope fit into our life?

I remember that, when I was a boy, it was customary to give the boys who were receiving their first Holy Communion a little cluster of emblems, to be worn on the coat lapel, a cross, an anchor and a heart: the cross for faith, the anchor for hope and the heart for charity or love of God.

It may help us in our effort to discover what part hope plays in our life to remember that hope was represented in this group of emblems by the anchor, which the sailor drops into the water, so that it may go down deep into the bottom of the sea and fix itself there firmly to steady the ship against the winds and waves of any storm.

But our hope is an anchor which we throw upward, into the skies of heaven, so that it can settle firmly in the faithfulness of God, Who will never abandon us…God, Who will give us the help and strength and security we need against the winds and waves and storms and trials that we meet on our voyage to heaven, God, Who will, at last, guide us safely into the harbor of salvation and into His arms in heaven.
We use the word “hope” often and freely in our daily speech. We say, “I hope we’ll have good weather tomorrow.” At the end of a letter we say, “Hoping you are well… .

Do we really know what hope is?

A mother hopes her bright little boy will some day be, if not president, at least a great man. We hope sometimes, when we are very tired, to be able to sleep for three days without interruption. We hope there will be onions on the hamburgers the hostess is passing around to the crowd for a snack.

None of these things has anything to do with hope; they are only desires not hope. Desires reach out for the little things which are not so hard to get. Hope reaches out for the great things which are hard to get.

But even this kind of hope that reaches out seriously for some great good, away out in the future, is not a virtue; it is an appetite or inclination of human nature—a natural inclination. This inclination, if nourished, this human hope gives us strength and courage and enthusiasm and makes us capable of almost any effort if we believe that our work, our trying, will be rewarded with success.

The hope of once more seeing home and loved ones bears up the soldier in time of war. The hope of a bountiful harvest gives strength to the farmer in his heavy labors. The hope of being well again encourages the sick man to swallow bitter medicines or to undergo a serious operation.

In all these things we see the natural hope of man, the human inclination to reach out into the future to get possession of some great good and to be willing to face and overcome great difficulties to get the good for which he is reaching.

This natural hope inspires strength; it converts a wish into expectation; it rallies our listless energies with the warm breath of courage and enthusiasm and makes us capable of the greatest efforts.

But the kind of hope we are discussing is something more than this natural inclination, more than this natural hope.

The theological virtue of hope is something supernatural, which, according to the word, means that it is something which is above our human nature to have as its own. It does not belong to us as human beings; it is not something which we can do as human beings, like talking, or seeing, or hearing.

This kind of hope is called an infused virtue, because it is communicated or poured into us by God and resides in us as a habit and not merely as a momentary act.

This kind of hope is called a theological virtue to signify that it turns us habitually toward God.

This virtue of hope enables us to trust firmly that God, Who is all-powerful and faithful to His promises will in His mercy give us the things He has promised us, namely, eternal happiness and all the helps we need to reach eternal happiness.

This supernatural gift of hope enables us to have absolute confidence that heaven and the perfect joy of seeing God face to face are within our reach, and that while we are here on earth, God will give us the help we need to get to heaven; that He will grant us the forgiveness of our sins, the grace to resist temptations and to perform good actions deserving a reward in heaven; that He will grant all these things to us if we do what He asks of us if we pray, keep His law and avoid the dangers of sin.

And all this hope and confidence rests on the faithfulness of God, Who has promised us all these things, Who never breaks a promise and Who never can or will deceive us.

Yes, hope is the anchor which we throw up into the skies of heaven so that it can settle firmly in the faithfulness of God, Who will never abandon us, so that we may find strength and security against the winds and waves and storm and trials of life that we meet on our voyage to eternity.

II.

So far we have been trying to get some kind of understanding of what we mean when we talk about the theological virtue of hope of what we mean when we talk about hoping in God.

It is good to have some clear, fundamental ideas about the virtue of hope, but it is much more important really to understand how to make use of this virtue of hope in a practical way.

We can learn our first lesson from the man we meet in the fifth chapter of the Gospel written by St. John. This man was lying beside a wonderful pool of water. From time to time, an angel of the Lord came down and stirred the water, and the first sick person who stepped into the pool after the stirring of the water was cured. This man had been lying there for thirty-eight years without being cured, because he had no one to help him and could not move quickly enough by himself; and someone always got to the pool ahead of him.

In all those years many came and were healed at the stirring of the waters. They went away joyfully with their friends, and laughter sounded in his ears from a distance. What years and years of waiting!

But one day a stranger stood beside him, looked at him and asked: “Do you want to be cured?”

The sick man looked up. He did not know Jesus.

“I have nobody to help me. I have no one to let me down into the pool when the water is stirred,” he answered. And there was that stranger, his Lord and God, standing at his side, ready to help him!
What happened? Our Lord, even without being asked, made the sick man well again.

It does not take many years of life to realize how weak and sick in soul we can become. How often we feel the reproach of our conscience for the past and tremble when we merely think vaguely about the future! Word comes of the death of a relative or friend, and we cannot help wondering, “How will it be with me when my turn comes?” Oh, if there were only someone who could assure us, help us, steady us how happy we would be!

How blind we are! How foolish!

Where is that anchor of hope that we are supposed to throw up into the clouds to fix itself firmly in the faithfulness of God? That anchor of hope which helps us firmly to trust that God, Who is all-powerful and good and faithful to His promises, will in His mercy give us eternal happiness and the helps we need to get eternal happiness in heaven? Where is that anchor? All kinds of baggage piled on top of it? Chain on the anchor all rusty and weak-looking? Too heavy to throw up into the clouds?

But look! You don’t have to go around throwing actual heavy anchors into the clouds. Look, I said. Look! Look with faith! There is God standing besides you all the while. He is not only far away in heaven. He is not only up in the clouds. He is right there beside you. He is within you! “After all,” says St. Paul, “He is not far from any one of us; it is in Him that we live and move and have our being. For, indeed, we are His children.”

All we need do is lift our trembling, tired hand, and He will grasp it as he clasped the hand of St. Peter, when he grew afraid and was being swallowed by the waves.

And He asks us: “Do you want to be helped? Do you want to feel secure? Do you want someone to comfort you? See, I am willing to help. Trust in Me. Keep your hand in mine, and we shall go safely on together.”

“I believe. I do believe!” we say. “I do hope. I want to hope. I want to have confidence. But I still feel as though I am looking at God as I would look at a stranger, with unrecognizing eyes. I still feel myself just shrinking together in my loneliness, and I am afraid that I am just wasting my time in being afraid.”
Well, I won’t tell you, “Don’t worry about that. It’s all right. Forget it.” No. But I will say this: if that is the way you feel about hope and confidence and trusting in God and worrying about the future and eternity, then you have a lot of company, you are not alone.

Even the great Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori, was tortured by discouragement and anxieties and scruples. When these fears came upon him, he would make a fervent act of faith and say: “God is all-powerful; He can help. God is good; He wishes to help. God has pledged His word, and He is faithful to His word; therefore He will help.”

But how often he had to renew this act of faith and hope!

St. Alphonsus, without doubt, made use of every means to make sure of his eternal salvation, as though the success of this great affair depended entirely upon himself. His life was a continual prayer, a constant effort to advance in the path of perfection, a constant devotedness to the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

Nevertheless his confidence was built not on his good actions but upon the goodness of God, the merits of Jesus Christ and the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Over and over again he would repeat, “My Jesus, You are my hope! Mary, my Mother, all my confidence rests in you!” And then he adds as a lesson to us, “When temptations attack us, we have no other recourse than to abandon ourselves into the hands of God. All other means are deceitful.”

One of the members of his congregation tried to quiet St. Alphonsus one day by reminding him of the multitude of the good works he had accomplished during his life. “What good works?” the saint said, interrupting him. “What good works, I ask you? Oh, no! Jesus Christ is all my hope and after Him, my good Mother Mary.”

Two years before he died, St. Alphonsus called the lay brother, who took care of him, and told him to write: “I, Alphonsus Liguori, profess that I am certain to die in the grace of God.” He had the paper taken to his director for approval. Then he signed it and kept it on the table near him, and in his anxieties and doubts he read and re-read these words until his fears were calmed.

Well! Alphonsus was a saint, and still he had his troubles—and plenty of them! See how he had to struggle against them and how he had to repeat his acts of hope and confidence over and over again.

And we—such weak and toddling children on the rough road to heaven! Shouldn’t we expect trials and troubles, too? Then don’t forget that anchor of hope that we must throw up into the skies to rest securely in the faithfulness of God. Don’t forget that Stranger, Who is our God, standing at our side, asking, “Do you want to be helped? Place your hand in Mine, and we shall go safely on together.”

We need courage in our life and work, and for courage we need hope. We must persevere to the end, and for perseverance we need prayer but there will be prayer only if there is hope, only if there is confidence in the power of God to help us.

III.

What is the foundation, the solid rock upon which all our hope and confidence must rest? We don’t have to guess.

The rock on which confidence rests is love not the love which we have shown toward God in the past, but the love which He has shown toward us.

Open the Scriptures, and on the pages of the Old Testament we see how God loves us and asks for our confidence. He tells us that as a father he would take us upon His knee. As a mother and if she should forget her child, yet He will not forget us. As a bride and bridegroom, so the soul and He.

In the pages of the New Testament we learn how our divine Savior used all His wisdom in explaining and assuring us of the truth of the doctrine which He taught. But His love for His sheep His love for the one sheep which has not been an especially good sheep is repeated over and over again.

The shepherd brings the flock of sheep home to the fold in the evening. He counts them one by one as they enter the gate. 97-98-99……..One is missing! He does not say: “All right, Number 100! You bad little sheep, you can stay where you are. I’m too tired to go out looking for you. Besides, you had no business separating yourself from the flock. You knew better. You can look out for yourself now.”

No!

The shepherd locks up the ninety-nine good sheep and goes out to seek the straying one. No matter how long the search; no matter if his feet are torn by thorns! His heart is torn with love for the one that is lost. And when he finds it, does he drive it back before him with bitter words of blame and reproach? No, He takes the lost sheep in his arms lovingly and carries it back with him. And what joy does our Lord speak of them: more joy for the one that was found than for the ninety-nine who were safe and sound in the fold!

Do you remember the story of the Prodigal Son? He comes back to his father after squandering his inheritance; but he comes back repentant and seeking forgiveness. That was all that mattered to the heart of the good father. And the prodigal is embraced by the loving arms of the father and welcomed home with joy and high festivity.

Do you remember the story of the good shepherd and the hireling? The wolf comes, and he is hunting, not for the whole flock, but for the one sheep that is lagging behind the rest. That is the sheep which the good shepherd guards and loves. For that one silly sheep the good shepherd is willing to die.

Now our Lord was not just telling beautiful stories when He told us about these things. He was trying to tell us how much He loves us and how much He will do for us, and how much He wants us to expect of Him.

But that is not enough. Our Lord is not satisfied with telling us of His love for us. He leaves His heaven; He comes to earth to take human form so that we may see love in human eyes and hear it from human lips and feel it in the throbbing of His heart. He puts Himself in pain, on the cross, scourged and crowned with thorns and lets His heart be broken open to prove that He loves us and how much He loves us, to show us how much He wants us to trust in Him. How can anyone refuse?

Even in our own day He comes back into the world, showing Himself to us, letting His heart be seen on fire with the flames of love and marked with the cross and crown of thorns, gently complaining that this is the heart which has loved men so much and which is not loved in return.

We are children of God. He holds His arms stretched out to us. Can we refuse to find strength in the strong arms of the Sacred Heart Who is begging for the alms of our love and confidence?

And even now, even after all this, we may still be inclined to think: “When I look at the crucifix, I find it easy to see how He died for all men in general. But for ME? I am like a drop in the ocean; like a leaf in the forest; like a grain of sand in the desert. And He died for ME?”

And so we stand and look at the crucifix just as one of the crowd and say, “Yes, He died for us. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee, because by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.”

But let us suppose that we say the words of the little girl, who always looked at the crucifix during holy Mass and said over and over ungrammatically but very correctly theologically: “It was me that did it!” If we can say that and we do find it easy to say that then why can’t we say, “It was for ME that He died?”

We know that our divine Savior loved little children; that He loved the sick; that He loved the poor; that He loved sinners. Yes, we can understand His love for all. But look at that crowd of children around Him. Could you point to any ONE of those little children and say, “He did not love that child.” Of all the sick who were brought to Him and cured, of all the sick in the land who never saw Him, could you point to ONE and say, “The Savior did not love that sick man or that sick woman?” Of all the poor in the land, of all the sinners of city and countryside, would you dare to point to ONE and say: “Christ did not love him?”

Then why do we fail to apply this lesson to ourselves? Think of all the children in the world today; all the sick; all the poor. Can I point to any one of them and say, “Christ does not love him, Christ does not love her?”

And when we begin counting off the great crowd of sinners that He loves even today, and my own turn comes to be counted, and I see my finger pointing to myself, dare I even think of saying, “Christ does not love me?” Ah, no! I forget that I am one of millions of sinners. I remember only this: that I am a sinner and that Christ loves ME!

And then I can say, “Now at last I know, at least in some small way, that He suffered for me and for my sins; that He was scourged and crowned with thorns and fell on the way of the cross and was nailed to a cross and died on it for ME and for MY sins. It was me that did it to Him! And it was me for whom He died. I adore Thee, O Christ, and I bless Thee, because by Thy holy cross Thou has redeemed me. O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I put my trust in Thee!”

IV.

When Jesus loves, He loves eternally. He does not stop giving proofs of His love.

During the lifetime of Christ not many persons were granted the privilege of receiving Him into their home; only a chosen few had that privilege. But who is there today who cannot receive a much greater proof of His love in Holy Communion? For in Holy Communion we receive Him not into our homes but into our souls; and when He comes to ME, I need not share Him with anyone else. He gives Himself completely to me. His love found this way to prove that He loves ME.

And will He wait for me as He did for the Samaritan woman at the well? Will He grant me the opportunity even hours, if I want them for conversation with Him, as He did to Mary and Joseph and to His friends? Oh, yes! His heart still calls to me from the tabernacle, “Come to Me….and I will refresh you!” And there I find Him at any time of the day or night, waiting with a big welcome for ME.

Will He die again for me? Will He offer Himself again for me as once He offered Himself upon the cross? Yes— His love has found a way. When was that Sacred Host consecrated, under the appearance of which He gave Himself to you the last time you received Holy Communion? It was consecrated during the holy sacrifice of the Mass, in which He offered Himself for you in a deathless manner as He once gave Himself in death upon the cross. In this way He will offer Himself for you as often as the holy sacrifice is offered throughout the world.

Jesus loves me! What a mighty truth to give strength to my living; to give beauty to my loving; to give courage to my doing! He loves me whether I am alone or with others; at work or at prayer; tried by temptation and discouragement or happy and at peace. Then how much I can love Him in return not merely loving Him from the midst of the crowd, not only giving myself with the crowd; but forgetting all else except Him, I can look at Him face to face and trust in Him and give myself to Him because He loves ME!

A More Excellent Way
Archbishop Goodier, S.J.

I

It is important for us to bear always in mind that we learn Our Lord as He was, and therefore as He is, wholly from the Gospels. Other Lives of Him, other writings, books of meditation and the like, may help us to interpret Him; they may give us the fruit of the discoveries of others; but in the end even the most inspired and the most living of these must be referred back to the Gospels; if their picture differs from that given by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, then, however beautiful and fascinating and elevating it may be, it is not Jesus Christ, but some fine fancy of an artist’s imagination. On this account, whatever else one may read and study—Lives of Christ, works on the spiritual life, mystical books, the letters and other writings of saints, great biographies, inspiriting histories, records of martyrs, subtlest theology, annals of the Church, poetry the most sublime — all, it may be, written to enlarge and deepen our concept of Our Lord—still one can never lay aside the constant reading of the Gospel; the constant following of Him through their pages who alone, and in them alone, is set before us infallibly as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

And, in fact, in them we have enough; not, it is true, enough to satisfy our human curiosity, for we are keen, almost beyond endurance, to know everything that can be known, even to the most trivial detail, about this “most beautiful among the sons of men”; but enough to form a perfect picture, nay more, enough to bring up before us a living reality, the study of which will occupy us all our lives, will occupy all men all their lives, and even at the end the mine will not be exhausted.

Let us but look for Him there, allowing other books to help us as they may, but not making them our final source, and we shall find Him for ourselves. We shall find this Man, Jesus, stamped from the beginning with a strange directness and clarity of vision, which nothing can ever divert, or draw aside, or make to falter; He could meet His mother’s tears with a direct reply: “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” the remonstrance of John the Baptist, the first of saints, with the check:

“Suffer it to be so; for so it becometh us to fulfill all justice”; to the end there is never any confusion, any doubtful understanding; He walks through life and death knowing always what would be.

We shall find Him next, as a natural concomitant to this, always clear, and firm, and decisive in His judgements, speaking always “as one having authority,” always so that His enemies were forced to exclaim: “Never has any man spoken as this man speaks”; unhesitating, true, no matter what the circumstances against Him, no matter how men heckled Him, how they tried “to catch him in his speech,” no matter what tact He was at times compelled to employ.

We shall find Him unerring in His estimates of men. He is never deceived or drawn away by a surface impression, never yields unduly, or against His better judgement, to occasion, never confounds evil with misfortune; but distinguishes truth from falsehood, real evil from real good, the canker at the root of human life from the mere withered branches, the “ things that are for the real peace” of men as opposed to make-believe forms; He discriminates between reality and truth in all alike, whether in the heart of a disciple or in that of an enemy, in the saint or in the sinner, in the believer or the pagan, the conventionally good, those who pass muster among men, or the outcast criminal.

This stamp of utter, unerring certainty and of absolute trustworthiness because of certainty, is the first trait we discover. Alongside of this we shall find Him the tenderest of hearts, a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a true and not a patronizing or condescending friend, the exact equal of each and all, with an individual understanding and sympathy for every heart that opens out before him, yet never does He confuse one with another, never does He weary of one in preference for another, much less exclude one for the sake of another, never is the love or interest of anyone diminished because He has love for so many. On the other hand, never is He weak, or overindulgent, or soft, or too blinded by affection to see the evil or the limitations of His beloved. He gives love lavishly and to all who will have it, even the most debarred from human love, yet none would call Him languid or sentimental; He wins love from those who are conquered by His presence, because He is so true, so strong, so selfless in purpose, so single-minded, so unable to deceive. Men might call Him by bad names; they might accuse Him of other evil deeds; they might say that He worked by Beelzebub, that He was possessed, that He was an impostor, that He blasphemed; they could never say, though He loved so much and showed it, though His love went out to the most loathsome and abhorred so that some took scandal, that this His love was ever other than understanding, and true, and generous, and enduring, and uplifting, and in itself perfect.

Again, we shall find Him ever constant. He has a definite work to do, a definite life to live and death to die—that is written on every page of the record, in His journeys, in His teaching, in His attitude to men, as much as it is constantly and repeatedly expressed in his words—and never for a moment does He swerve in its accomplishment. Failure may depress Him, but He does not despond; opposition may alter His plan, but it does not slacken His effort; malice does not embitter Him; deceit, false-hood, trickery, deliberate misconstruction of His words or actions, desertion, treacherous friends, faithless or weak-kneed companions, fruitlessness of all He may do, even deliberate rejection—none of these things can lessen His endeavor, make His hand tremble, or the feet on the mountains falter. None of these things can alter Him; always and everywhere, from beginning to end, He is the same; He seems to give no thought to consequences, or fruits, or reward; whatever the results, He has a work to do, and the doing of the work is all that He considers; He tabours, not looking for reward; toils, not demanding rest; steadily He walks through life to His goal, “giving testimony of the truth,” speaking as one having authority,’’ always “going about doing good,” to all alike, deserving and undeserving, friend and enemy, alien and ally, who will deign to accept from Him the blessing He strews along His path as He goes.

With these three, His absolute truth of understanding, His boundless, tender heart, His constancy in action, we shall find Him, as a necessary consequence, looking out on men with infinitely tender eyes. Never a human being comes within His horizon, but He looks through it with the eyes, of accurate judgement it may be, but indefinitely tempered by love; with intimate understanding He interprets it, with the welcome of friendship He receives it; there is not a good thought thinkable about it, not a good interpretation possible to put upon its wayward deeds, but that thought and that interpretation will have found a place in His mind. While others find reason justly to condemn, He will find reason to save; while justice puts a limit to the time of repentance, and permits the law to run its course, He will wait till the very last moment, and in the end will rescue. He does not compel men; He has too much regard for them to drive. He offers them Himself and awaits the issue; when they look wistfully He invites them to draw near; once or twice only does He make the first step, usually He leaves that to them; but when they do come near, when they do let Him see that they want Him, then His eyes glisten, and His heart expands, and His hand opens, and there is interest, and sympathy and longing in every look and gesture; He was never so near seeming foolish, as when some pleading soul showed that it believed and responded, and the key was thus applied to the flood-gates of His bursting affection.

These are four main lines that go behind the portrait of him “that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra, this beautiful one in his robe, walking in the greatness of his strength,” as the four Gospels consistently describe Him. This is He who, when the Evangelist himself endeavors to depict Him in the abstract, can only be summed up in the words of the Prophet:

“The bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not extinguish”; yet whom that same Prophet also called “Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.” We see Him clearly enough before us, and we know we are not mistaken; this Man of firm, unflinching manner, yet with not a shadow of hardness; grave in His looks, inspiring silence, yet with it something that attracts; an eye that looks out to long distances, yet not a soul feels itself passed over; glistening as through tears, yet strong as the eye of an eagle; a lip that trembles as the lip of a quivering maiden, yet so firm set that the weakest has courage from its strength. We see Him wrapt in deep thought, speaking words that set the wisest pondering, yet withal in such simplicity that the children understand Him; looking out beyond the limit of life, yet not a flower in the field, or a bird of the air, or an outcast cripple on the roadside is forgotten; with a toiler’s hand, and brain, and heart, and ambition consumed with eagerness for labour, yet ever ready to yield up His task when His Companionship is needed; consumed with zeal for His Father’s house, with zeal for truth and justice, yet patient and pitiful even as He smites, gentle as the gentlest mother.

All this we see and much more: the love of loneliness, though “his delights are to be with the children of men”; the love of prayer, though He cannot tear Himself from the crowd, not even to take food; the love of peace, though His days are one long warfare; the love, seen in His every outside behaviour, to be one with all men, though He could not keep from them that which prompted them to make Him their king. But it is useless to carry on the portrayal; we go on and on, the fascination grows, at each new step we see more and more, for He is utterly transparent; and yet at every point at which we stop we feel that we have said nothing. The Evangelists knew him better than we, and they did not venture to describe Him. They were content to let Him walk through their narrative, preaching the Kingdom, healing the sick, having compassion on the multitude, or retiring into the mountain to pray, knowing well that in so doing He would not be lost amid the details; His personality would be too great for that; they knew they would, in their simple story of simple fact, leave behind them that on which all generations would ponder, yet which they would never exhaust.

And indeed it is so. The more we contemplate it, look at it with believing eyes, warmed by love, stirred by hope and trust, the more vivid does the portrait grow, the more living are the features. They are, we know them; “we have found him whom our soul loveth, we have held him and will not let him go.” Other portraits help, copies, facsimiles, drawn by more recent artists; but all these have their limitations, some have their exaggerations, none are exactly accurate; all have what life they possess from the great original, and only in so far as they reproduce its fire have they any inspiration in themselves.

II

This is some little shadow of Jesus as the Gospels show Him to us; more if we like, and, above all, more of the details, we can gather for ourselves. These are four guiding lines; we can easily cluster much else around them. For He is not difficult to discover; He needs no great effort of psychology or analysis; He is Himself just simple and true, just meek and humble of heart, and by truth and simplicity, by humility and meekness, He is best to be found; let us not forget His own prayer of thanksgiving wrung from Him at a moment when the learned turned away in scorn: “Heavenly Father, I give thee thanks that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones.” Nor again His other words of warning: “Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of God.”

It is worth our while to weigh the meaning of these words. We complain of our want of fruit in prayer; of its dryness, its emptiness; often we only mean, but we do not know it, that we are looking for fruit, not of prayer, but of study; we are watching for that reflex knowledge that comes of thought and study, not for that deeper insight, that fuller under-standing, that realization which is found in faith and love and hope, which is the real fruit of prayer, and which can no more be weighed and measured than life itself can be weighed in pounds or measured by yards. In other words, we judge by the standards of poor grown-up people, and not by the unerring standard of a child. A child needs but its mother’s company to know her, to love her, and to trust her, yet its knowledge, and love, and trust are not less true, or less complete, or less admirable on that account.

And in precisely the same way there is a knowledge of Our Lord which no books or pondering can give us; which can be gained only by living in His company; by living in His company as He glides through the pages of the Gospels; as he plies His daily trade at Nazareth, quiet, monotonous, till we become almost forgetful of His presence; or creeps away in silence up the mountain-side, till that, too, becomes a habit with us; or walks by the riverside, unnoticed in the crowd, except by one who alone has eyes to see.—how strange that those who fail to see Him claim this as proof of their superior knowledge! —or stands firm and frank before the people, now appealing, now commanding, now consoling, now rebuking, but always the same strong pillar on which all may lean; or sits at table, now with friends, now with enemies, familiarly treated, yet always reverenced, contemned by some, yet feared by others, held in awe, yet never losing that which is expressed in the phrase “only Jesus”; or sleeps in the boat, feeble, yet almighty; or compassionates by lowering Himself to the lowest, yet in such a way that because of it men would hail Him as their king; or denounces evil with a thunder that cows the most violent, yet all the while infants clamber on His knee—living with Him in the midst of all this, in busy streets or along lonely byways, in public Jerusalem or in the privacy of Bethany, we come to know Him as He is for ourselves, and we know that we know Him, whatever those who know Him not may say, and even though we have not, nor care to have, a single word with which to express it. “ It is the Lord!,’ “ I to my beloved and my beloved to me.” “I know in whom I have believed.” That is enough.

My Lord Jesus Christ, Thou Wonder of the world, most beautiful among the sons of men, before whom Thy very enemies bow down, acknowledging the marvel of Thy countenance, the perfection of Thy character, the invincible attraction of Thy whole self, how strange a thing it is that there can be those who pass Thee by unnoticed, how stranger still that even we can pass Thee by! Yet is it even so. We believe, we are certain, we know; we build our life here, and our hope hereafter, on Thee and Thy claim; we own Thee, not only to be perfect Man, but to be very God of very God; we see in Thee alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the climax of all for which this world was made, the source from which flows whatever of good this world contains; we can see all this, and know it to be true, and in our moments of emotion can think we would gladly give our lives to witness to its truth; and yet the next minute we can ignore Thee; we can go counter to Thee; we can go our way through life as if Thou hadst never been.

More than this. We who have the light can reach behind the simple story of the Gospels; with Thy Apostle St. Paul to guide us we can understand in part what Thy Resurrection signified; that “having once risen thou diest now no more, death can no more have dominion over thee”; that therefore Thou art living now as Thou wast living then, the same Jesus now as then, the same utter truth, the same fascination, the same understanding sympathy, the same beating heart: “Jesus Christ yesterday, today, and the same for ever.” We can realize all this, understand it sufficiently to know that it is true; we can accept the fact of Thy being, and of Thy nearness to us here and now; and yet we can think, and act, and build up our lives as if it were not or as if to us it meant nothing. We can, with eyes of faith, see Thy face glowing in the darkness; with consciousness of hope we can feel Thy hands stretched out to us to seize our own; with the instinct of love we can distinguish the very accent of Thy voice, even as did Thy fellow-countrymen of Galilee, calling to us, whispering our very names, telling us of love that human words cannot express—all this is ours, and by its very clearness we know it to be true; it is no fancy, it is the offshoot of no mere sentiment; and yet withal we can turn away, our vision obscured by the fascination of a trifle; and we can act as if we preferred to walk with Thee no more, as if we bad never learnt to “taste and see how sweet is the Lord!”

Nay, there is something more. We can hear Thee, in words that true hearing cannot misunderstand, giving Thyself to us to be our slave, to be our food, our life, our abiding companion; yet we can still remain unmoved. One or two among men in the ages past we can see who have learnt Thee, and, once they have learnt, have counted all else but refuse in comparison; who have loved Thee, and, once they have begun to love, have known for certain that no other love could draw them away, with this no other love could compare; who have given themselves to Thee, and, once they have made the surrender, have then proved what heroism, what a true man’s strength can accomplish—the strength that conquers torture, that makes a toy of death; the strength that magically turns everything to gladness. We can all see this; we can admire and approve; we can say that here is a man at his best, because he has found the true goal of his being, has become infused with the very life of life, has attained to that likeness to Jesus which is man’s ideal—all this we can see, and can say, and then can turn about upon our heel and go our way, as if for us these things had no meaning.

Truly, what a strange thing is man! Whether it be the man who believes, yet is not subdued, or the man who will not believe, as if to believe so grand and great a truth were in some way demeaning to himself. Demeaning to acknowledge Jesus Christ! Demeaning to own Him for my Brother, whose kinship makes me royal! To call Him my friend, whose great heart expands mine beyond the limits of the world! To take Him for my companion, whose comradeship gives life a new meaning! To accept Him for my Leader, whose service is a hallmark of nobility! To set Him up for my ideal than which neither God nor man could make anything more grand! Demeaning to be won by Jesus Christ! If man thinks so, or if in his meanness he acts so, can he be worth so great a gift? Can he be worth the offering of the life, the outpouring of the blood, of Jesus?

Yes; even to this Christ says, “ Yes”; and it is a last disclosure of His character, the crowning feature of all, a revelation which breaks down the heart of St. Paul, and would break down the heart of every man who would let himself be penetrated by it. “Christ loved me, even me, and gave himself for me, even for me.”

III

When I was younger, a novice in religion, and knew myself less, and knew others less, and was full of high ambitions in the spiritual life, and sought in books and in study, in thought-out plans and schemes on paper for guides to the summit of perfection, I set virtues before me, and meditated on their beauty, and proposed to myself to acquire them, sub-dividing them, analyzing them, arranging their degrees as the steps of a ladder. This week, as the good spiritual writers bade me, I would acquire the virtue of patience; next week it should be a carefully guarded tongue; the week after should be given to charity; then should come the spirit of prayer; and in a month or two, perhaps, I might have an ecstasy and “see the Lord.” But now, when I have grown older, and find myself still struggling for the first of these virtues, and that in a very elementary degree, and have been taught quite other lessons than I dreamt of, in part by the sorry disappointments in my own soul, in part by the progress seen in the souls of others, I am convinced that there is one road to perfection better than all else—in fact, that if we neglect this one no other will be of much avail. After all, it is possible to acquire perfection in virtues, and yet to be far from a saint; few men have made better use of the particular examination of conscience, for the acquiring of natural virtues, than a certain well-known atheist, and yet to the end he remained without a spark of religion in him.

On the other hand, it is possible to be a great saint, and yet to be imperfect in many respects: ask the saints themselves and they will all tell you of their many failures and shortcomings. But one thing is not possible; it is not possible to grow in the knowledge, and love, and imitation of Jesus Christ, without at the same time growing in the perfection of every virtue and becoming more a saint every day.
This, then, if I were allowed to begin my spiritual life over again, is the line along which I would try to live it; and is the line along which I would try to lead the lives of any whom God gave into my care. Particular virtues are good things— of course they are; it is much to be always patient, to be diligent in the use of our time, to be considerate with those who try us, to keep our tongue in control; nevertheless, “Do not the heathens this?” And is it not possible to possess all these, and yet, on their very account, to remain as proud as Lucifer? I would go further and say that the devil himself must possess many of these virtues; he can certainly bide his time, he can be very busy, he can speak honeyed words, he can accommodate himself to everybody’s needs, he can be the most attractive of companions. But these things are not the main issue; they are often no more than the paint on the surface; and truth, sanctity, only begins when the core of the creature is affected. And this is done, almost alone, by love; when the creature loves, then it is changed, and till then scarcely at all.

Thus it is that the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ goes deeper down than any Stoic striving after virtue; it is flesh and blood where the other is but bleached bones; it gives life and substance where the other is only dead perfection; the imitation of Jesus Christ includes every virtue, makes them unconsciously our own, produces them from itself, and does not merely put them on from without, even as the brown earth gives forth the beauty of spring flowers and does not know it.

Hence, in practice, were I to be asked for an application of all that I have been here pleading for, I would say:

1. Read spiritual books, yes, as much of them and as many as may be convenient; but do not measure growth in the spiritual life by the number of books you have read; do not even measure it by the amount of learning they give us. Remember the warning of St. Ignatius: “It is not abundance of knowledge that satisfies the soul, but to feel and to relish things with the inner man.” Read to provide material for this inward perception and relish; but do not count it necessarily loss that there are books we have not read, or authors of whom we know nothing. And, above all, read the Scriptures, especially the Gospels, with an eye less upon ourselves, and more upon Him whom they describe; in that, more than in any other reading, shall we find that knowledge and true spirituality grow together.

2. Hold spiritual conferences, yes, but less about ourselves and our own despicable faults, or even our little virtues and ideals; more, far more, about Him and His superb perfection, forgetting ourselves in the glory of His sunshine. By so doing it is true we may lose the satisfaction of watching ourselves grow in holiness—that is dangerous satisfaction at the best—but instead we shall grow the more naturally and fully, and He will know it, and that is enough.

3. Make meditation, yes; pray, yes; give the thirsting soul as much of this as it can take. But do not spend all the time lamenting our own littleness and our own shortcomings, patching up our petty, threadbare resolutions and will-o’-the-wisp ideals which, experience has taught us, are only set up that they may topple down again each day. Instead fill the hours of prayer with His absorbing presence, with His invigorating company, the loving admiration of this Beautiful of the sons of men, the joy of His friendship, the interpretation of His mind, sympathy with the gladness and sorrows of His heart. Fill our prayer with these things, creep through His wounds into His very soul, thence look out through His eyes upon heaven and earth, and our little selves prone at His feet, and though by the process we may forget our own spiritual ambitions, we shall instead unconsciously become what He was.

4. Examine our consciences, yes; but do not turn it into an everlasting pecking at the soul, ceaseless beating of this poor creature, which time has long since shown us comes to little good. Instead, let the eyes of Jesus look at us, let us see ourselves through those eyes, the joy we are to Him for our encouragement, the sorrow for our trusting contrition, the smile on His face or the wistful look of disappointment at the sight of us; and it will be strange if the constant sight of Him does not produce its lasting effect.

IV

There remains one more point on which human nature will ask to be assured. We may accept that growth in the knowledge, and love, and imitation of Jesus Christ is the all-important matter in our spiritual lives; we may also have grasped in some way how it may best be obtained; but human nature is tempted to ask a further question, and that is: Can we know, for certain, and if so, how can we know, that we have attained it? There are many tests of love, some true, many false; some good as far as they go, but inadequate; others indications only of temporary feeling; the signs of perfect love are usually far removed from these, usually devoid of all sentiment.

We may see this in ordinary life. A sign of understanding and love between two friends is a certain agreement, a sympathy of mind. They see things the same way, they look to the same ends, they share each other’s knowledge and views in order that they may think together; almost unconsciously their minds harmonise, become alike, and this is the best sign of all. So it is between the lover of Christ and His beloved. They see more and more alike as they come into communion, along the same perspective, towards the same goal; the interpretation of life given by the one becomes that accepted by the other. The sinner first sees his own sinfulness in all its hideous degradation; gradually he sees it with the eyes of Jesus Christ, and in that light it shows itself infinitely worse; soon those very eyes tone the horrid picture, for there come the tears of pity and mercy; self-hate softens to self- humiliation, self-humiliation to appeal—and the soul that before only knew itself unfit for any consideration, seeing itself as its Lover sees it, finds in its very unfitness a reason to cling, and to hope, and to love, and even to rejoice all the more.

Then with those same eyes it looks down the lane of life, and finds new ideals for which to live. What are those ideals? They are not far to seek, for He has fixed them as He walked before us. “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” “He that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.” “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father that is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.” “My food is to do the will of him that sent me.” “I seek not my own will, but the will of him that sent me.” “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.” “I have done the work thou gavest me to do.” “Father, not my will, but thine be done.” So in many places does the mighty Lover of mankind give to His beloved men the key to the problem of life. “In the head of the book it is written of me, that I should do thy will, 0 my God.”

In like manner the true lover of Our Lord finds himself, without any conscious effort, without even making of this a special virtue, simply, instinctively, because his heart beats in harmony with the heart of his Beloved, seeing ever more and more the will of God in all the circumstances of life, making this his one aim, longing for this as the cure of the ills of men, finding in its fulfillment his chief satisfaction. The man in whom the will of God becomes ever more his dominant ideal, the thing that is above all for his peace, may assure himself, whatever he may feel, however little display of love he may show, that his love of Jesus Christ, nevertheless, is real and fruitful and growing.

Again, we notice in those who truly love one another a tendency to become, not only of one mind, but also of one heart. Not only do they think and interpret alike, work towards the same ideals, and use the same means, but where the heart of one goes out, there the other’s heart will tend to follow. Love loves what its beloved loves, and because its beloved loves it; once it knows, it asks no further questions, or, if it does, they are only to discover ever more motives for love.

If, then, our knowledge and love of Jesus Christ our Lord are true, we shall find ourselves feeling what He feels, and as He feels it, suffering as He suffers, and for the same reasons bright when He is bright, and because we know there is gladness sparkling in His eyes, pouring out our love where He pours it out, and in the way that He bestows it. And, indeed, this is the one and only test that He Himself gives of true knowledge and love of Himself. “If you love me,” He says, “keep my commandments.” “If any man love me, he will keep my word.” And what is His commandment? What is His word? He leaves not a shadow of doubt. “This is my commandment, that you love one another.” “A new commandment I give to you, that you have love one for another.” “In this shall men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.”

Here, then, is our second test, utterly infallible; if we are really growing in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ, we shall inevitably be growing in the understanding and love of others. “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.” It is good to aim at charity, for its own sake, to practice it as a discipline upon ourselves, to set it as our standard of good breeding and behavior, to take it as a hall-mark of education, a proof of a broad mind, a test of a kindly nature, even a definite spiritual ideal in itself. But there is a “yet more excellent way” than any of these, and that is growth in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ. Nay, more; in comparison with this, the virtue acquired by this discipline and training and conscious effort scarcely deserves the name of charity. For charity is love, and love abides and comes from within; it is founded in the heart and expands itself outward; it is not put on as a garment; it is therefore an effect more of the training of the heart than of any external discipline. The man who really learns to love will do acts of love; it is not always true that the man who learns to do acts of love really cares, and therein lies the danger of acquiring charity by practice. But charity acquired through love of Jesus Christ is free from all such falsehood; it begins from within; usually at first, like a spring blade breaking through the ground, it gives little sign of its true nature; it lives in lowliness, bides its time, shows its charity chiefly by patience and endurance, by humble submission and service; meanwhile it attunes itself to Him, learns to love as He loves, for the reasons that He loves, in the way that He loves; and when the day comes for sacrifice such love will not be found wanting.

There is yet a third test, which includes and goes beyond the two just given, and which in regard to our study of ourselves may be of less concern, though it matters very much in reality. “Love makes like.” Those who love one another unconsciously grow in likeness to one another; in manner, in habit, in expression, in the turn of the foot or the play of the hand, even it may be in features the resemblance tends to develop. I know a religious Order whose nuns have, almost all of them, a little mannerism in their walk; were I taken into one of their convents blindfold, and one or two of the sisters were to pass by. I am sure I should be able to detect where I was. I believe these nuns have got their little manner from their sainted Mother Foundress; she has built her Order on love, and therefore the resemblance.
So, then, will it be between the lover of Christ and the Beloved. The mere intercourse has its silent effect; the manner of Christ is instinctively caught, the portrait is reproduced, the character is expressed; there is the same intentness of gaze, the same gentleness of hand, the same ease combined with energy in the whole bearing of the body; the thoughts, words, actions of Christ find an echo in him who loves; gradually he lives—no, not he, but Christ lives in him.

Thus does he “put on Jesus Christ”; and when he has done that it is everything. He will need no other teacher; he will possess the virtues he lacked; prayer will be spontaneous, and will solve its problem for itself; he will speak, when the time calls for it, “as one having power”, he will “go about doing good”; he will suffer, perhaps, “even unto death,” but his “sorrow will be turned into joy”; for in him will be accomplished the wish of his Beloved: “that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be filled.”

Practice of Union with Our Lord Jesus Christ for the Season of Advent
Fr. J. B. Saint-Jure, S.J.

[From the book, Union with Our Lord Jesus Christ in His Principle Mysteries: For All Seasons of the Year. By Rev. John Baptist Saint-Jure, S.J.Translation revised by a Father of the same society. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co., 1876. Imprimatur: John C. McCloskey, Archbishop of New York.]

I. The Subject

The practice of union with our Lord for the season of Advent, has for its subject the adorable mystery of the incarnation, and his dwelling during the space of nine months in the most pure womb of his holy Mother. The mystery of the incarnation is a mystery of union, a mystery of love, a mystery of glorification, and a mystery of annihilation.

It is a mystery of union, because the divine nature was in it united intimately, substantially, personally, and forever, with the human nature, and the Son of God became the Son of man. “The word was made flesh,” (John. i. 14,) and the one formed with the other so close a union “that,” St. Bernard says, “God and slime, that is to say, man made from the slime of the earth, were joined together in the inseparable unity of one person, and all that God did appeared to be done by the slime, and all that the slime suffered seemed to be suffered by God in it, though a mystery as incomprehensible as it is inexplicable.” (Serm. 2 in Vigil. Nativ.) And earlier than St. Bernard, St. Leo had said: “There is such a communication and so close a union between the two natures, while each retains inviolable its own qualities, that there is no division of goods nor of evils between them, but what belongs to one belongs also to the other.” (Serm. 8 in Nativ. Dom.) So the Son of God by this union made himself, as St. Paul says, “in all things such as we are, without sin.” (Heb. iv. 15.)

The incarnation is a mystery of love, because, as the principal and strongest inclination of the person who loves is to desire and procure by all the means he can devise, union with the person beloved, the love that God bore to man caused him to desire, to seek, and to bring about this admirable union. And this shows evidently and clearer than the sun the infinite greatness of that love which St. Paul so often describes to the faithful, and which he says surpasses all thought and language.

The incarnation is a mystery of glorification, inasmuch as human nature was in it raised to such a height of glory that there is no science nor power that can raise it higher. Speaking on this subject St. Augustine says “that this elevation of human nature is so high and eminent that it cannot be more so.” (L. I, de Praed., Sanct. c. I.) The reason is manifest, because human nature is raised in this mystery to the throne of the Divinity, and a true man is become true God. St. Augustine in another place says: “God desired to show in what esteem he held human nature, and what degree of honor he gave it among all creatures, when he was pleased to appear to the eyes of men as a true man.” (L. de vera Relig. c. 16.)

The incarnation is also a mystery of glorification of the Divinity; because God, wishing to be infinitely glorified according to his merit, not only in himself, but also outside of himself, as he obtains the first by his Word which is the knowledge infinitely excellent and the sovereign esteem he has of himself, so for the latter purpose he has employed the only means possible, namely, the production of a creature capable of rendering him a glory absolutely infinite.

This he has done in the adorable mystery of the incarnation wherein that same Word is personally united to our nature in an individual humanity, to which, besides the created gifts bestowed upon it that incomparably surpass all those he has granted to all other creatures, he has communicated substantially all his infinite perfections, making it infinitely holy, perfect, and capable of glorifying God infinitely; and this in two manners:

The first, by the simple manifestation of those perfections; for, as St. Augustine says, “the beauty of creatures is the glorious testimony and the praise they render to him who created them.” (Serm. 143, de temp.)

The second, interiorly, by his own acts, which the Incarnate Word always referred to the honor of God, and which, being all infinitely excellent on account of the infinite dignity of his person, all honored God infinitely. This second manner is also exterior; for our Lord by his example and teachings induced men to honor God, and he is, moreover, the cause of all the honor and praise that are offered to God and that will be offered throughout all eternity, and the principle of all the good works that will ever be done in the world, since they are due to his merits.

This is the reason why the Sacred Scriptures frequently call the Incarnate Word the especial glory of God; (Ps. lvi. 9; lxxxiv. 10; Is. lx. I; Rom, iii. 23) and the celebrated words of St. John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John i, I.) The Word that is God is the eternal and infinite glory of God, because it is the thought of infinite esteem which he has of himself and which is justly proportionate to its object. “And the Word was made flesh,” and we saw the glory of God that is that same Incarnate Word, the Son of God, the honor and glory of his Father, even as the wise son, as Solomon says, is the ornament and glory of an earthly father. (Prov. x. I.) “The Word was made flesh;” therefore, at the moment of his birth, the angels sang “Gloria in altissimis Deo,” as though they meant to say: We can now give to God in this Child all the glory he is worthy of; and it is this Child that gives it to him, and all creatures likewise can give it in and by this Child.

Thus it is that our Lord Jesus Christ in his quality of the uncreated Word, is the infinite glory of God in himself from all eternity; and as the Incarnate Word, he is still the infinite glory of God in himself and outside of himself for all eternity to come. This shows us that the incarnation is, as we have said, a mystery of glorification of the Divinity.

It is, finally, a mystery of annihilation, in the person of God, because, in order to unite himself to us in that manner and to testify his love for us by so indisputable a proof, and to elevate us to the height of infinite glory, it was necessary for him to humble, abase, and annihilate himself, making himself man, a son of Adam the sinner, a poor man and a miserable creature, and consequently a mere nothing, as the creature is of itself. St. Paul teaches us this great truth in these remarkable words: “Being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but debased himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man.” (Philipp, ii. 6.) The Son being God by essence, and not deeming it an injury to his Father to esteem and call himself God, nevertheless annihilated himself, taking the nature of a servant when he took man’s nature, and when he appeared both in body and soul in all things like us.

The incarnation is a mystery of annihilation in the humanity of our Lord, because that humanity was despoiled of its natural personality, annihilated to itself and to all that distinguishes the person of a man; and still further, it was annihilated in all the inclinations of man for honors, comforts, and pleasures, the Word to whom it was united, leading it in the very opposite ways of opprobrium, poverty, and suffering.

The incarnation is a mystery of annihilation in our Lady, who, to be capable of assuming the character of Mother to the Man-God, had to be humbled and annihilated in her own estimation below all creatures.

Our Lord, during the nine months that he dwelt in the most pure womb of the Blessed Virgin, as in the purest and holiest place on earth, was ceaselessly occupied in praising, blessing, adoring, thanking, and loving his Father, and in offering to him his soul and body, his being, his faculties and their operations, for that Father’s glory and the salvation of men. He addressed him at the instant of his incarnation these words of the Royal Prophet which the Apostle repeats: “Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not, but a body thou has fitted to me. Holocausts for sin did not please thee. Then said I: Behold I come, that I should do thy will, O God.” (Heb. x. 5, 6, 7; Ps. xxxix. 7.) I know that neither peace offerings, nor holocausts, nor victims slain for the expiation of sin, please thee; but that thou hast given me a body to be sacrificed in their stead. Thou hast thus decreed; I submit. I offer myself cheerfully for the execution of the sentence, and I give myself to thee to do with me all that shall please thee. Our Lord also occupied himself in justifying and sanctifying his holy Mother, and in enriching her with gifts and graces; he likewise thought graciously of all men, and of you in particular, and he yielded himself in spirit to suffering, infamy, and death, for your salvation.

Now, although the womb of the Blessed Virgin was the holiest place in all the universe and the one most worthy of receiving our Lord, still, in view of his infinite majesty as God, and of the perfect use he had of his reason as man, and of all the graces and wonderful gifts he possessed, the obscurity and lowliness of that dwelling where he was shut up in general privation of all the objects of the senses, causes the Church to say to him with St. Ambrose and St. Augustine: “ Non horruisti Virginis uterum.” Thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb, thou hadst no horror to enter it in order to accomplish our salvation.

II. The Affections.

I. Admiration

The first affection will be admiration and astonishment founded upon the grandeur of the mystery, and upon the grandeur of the benefits of which it is to us the source.

Regarding the grandeur of the mystery it is enough to say: The Word was made flesh—because these words contain in a few syllables the novelty of novelties, the wonder of wonders, the miracle of miracles, that join in the same person greatness with littleness, dignity with lowliness, beatitude with misery, immortality with death, eternity with time, all with nothing, the Creator with the creature, and God with man.

That God should become true man, and man true God, is something so strange and so above finite comprehension, that no created reason with all its power can understand how it was possible. The most magnificent and most perfect of all God’s works and his incomparable masterpiece, is, says St. Denis the Areopagite, the incarnation of his Son which so far surpasses our intelligence that the most enlightened of the angels with all his natural intellect understands nothing in it. (St. Dionys. de div. nomin. c. 2.)

When we see a machine worked by some excellent engineer producing extraordinary and unexpected effects, we are astonished and look on in admiration. The change of King Nebuchodonosor into a beast, which, however, was not a change of substance and nature, but only of exterior appearance and of certain operations, impressed and terrified all the people of the time and all posterity. What admiration and delight then should we not experience at beholding the union of two natures infinitely diverse by which God became true man and man true God; by which the infinite was changed to the finite, the immense received limits, the omnipotent became weak, the most happy miserable, the immortal subject to death; by which God led the life and performed the actions of man, and man those of God? Isaiah cries out, “Who ever saw or heard the like?” The same prophet remarks that for this reason the first name given to the Incarnate Word will be Admirable: “His name shall be called (Admirable) Wonderful.” (Is. ix. 6.)

Our admiration and astonishment ought to have also for their object the grandeur of the benefits we receive from this mystery, and which are comprehended in these words: The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us! By this dwelling he has delivered us from all our evils and has loaded us with his blessings; he has united our nature to his divine person, and consequently, by the bond of relationship that we have with him in his human nature, has raised us to the sovereign honor of an alliance with God; he has dissipated the darkness in which we were plunged and were wandering miserably and blindly to our damnation, sending us the clear daylight of truth and enabling us to see the sure road of our salvation; he has destroyed the power of the devil and the tyranny of sin; he has closed the gates of hell and opened to us those of paradise, that we may there live forever in happiness, with him.

The Church in admiration calls this mystery a commerce and a wonderful traffic: “O admirabile commercium!” And she has great reason, because therein our Lord has given us his divinity and taken our humanity; he has conferred upon us his riches and his glory and has taken upon himself our poverty and infamy. What a traffic! What graces! What inexplicable favors! If a king should send to a poor villager overwhelmed with misery in his little cabin, ten millions of dollars, the poor man would undoubtedly be extremely astonished and surprised at such an unexpected gift from a prince, and without any merit on his part. This is what happens in the mystery of the incarnation, and in a far higher degree, both as regards the infinite greatness of the gift that is made and the infinite greatness of the giver, as well as the infinite littleness of man who receives it.

2. Gratitude

For this reason man, moved by this inestimable benefit, should break forth with all the fullness of his affections into praises, benedictions, and thanksgivings to God, saying with David: “The mercies of the Lord I will sing forever.” (Ps. lxxxviii. 2.) I will bless and thank him for them eternally; and with Isaiah: “O Lord, thou art my God, I will exalt thee and give glory to thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things, thy designs of old faithful. Amen.” (Is. xxv. I.) O my Lord! I gladly tell thee that thou art my God; I will praise thee and will glorify thy holy name with all my power, because thou hast done admirable things in the incarnation of thy Son which was the effect of thy love, and of those eternal thoughts thou hadst of my salvation, and the inviolable promises thou didst make of it, which thou hast executed in good time. Then he should exclaim in the words of the apostle: “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gifts!” (2 Cor. ix. 15.) Praise, adoration, and infinite thanks be offered to God for his unspeakable gift, which is his Son incarnate.

Certainly St. Bernard is right in telling us: “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and therefore be not proud; and also remember that, even dust as thou art, thou art united to God, and therefore be not ungrateful.” (Serm. 2 in Cant.) And when he says in another place: “This benefit ought never to be forgotten by those who have received it, and there are in it two things upon which they ought to deeply reflect: one is the manner in which God conferred it—he emptied himself for us; and the other is the profit we have received from it, which was to fill us with him.” Ingratitude for so great a benefit would be something fearful, and would deserve a terrible punishment.

3. Love

As the love that God bears us was the true cause of the personal union he was pleased to contract with our nature, and the source of all the blessings we receive from it, we ought to accept that sovereign honor and the treasures of those immense blessings with sincere and ardent love. As God comes to us through love we ought to go to him in the same way, and with much greater reason, since he is of himself worthy of infinite love, and we of ourselves are only worthy of hate. The gift he has made us of his Son, and that which the Son has made us of himself, obliges us all to this love, and should force the most obstinate hearts. Love attains the highest degree of its perfection and exerts its last effort when it confers a gift commensurate with the power of the giver; when this gift is something most precious and which the giver cherishes above all things; when it is made without constraint or obligation and in a disinterested spirit; and when, moreover, it is very necessary and very useful to the one who receives it; if you add to all these conditions the fact of the giver bestowing it with great difficulty and extreme pain, you can say nothing more. Now, all these qualities are combined in excess in our Lord who was given to us in the incarnation, and who therefore exacts from us with perfect right a most ardent reciprocal love.

4. Desires and Petitions

We should conceive burning desires and should ask most earnestly that our Lord would deign to come to us in this mystery. The just men of the Old Law earnestly prayed for the coming of the Messiah; they greatly desired and sighed for it, and offered many petitions, and supplications, and vows, and tears, to draw him from heaven. Each one of them was, as well as Daniel, a man of desires. Send, O Lord, they said, send him whom thou hast resolved to send. “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just; let the earth be opened and bud forth a Saviour, and let justice spring up together. O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and wouldst come down.” (Is. xlv. 8; lxiv. 1.) Thou, O Saviour, so greatly desired, burst the heavens and come quickly. We cannot wait for thee to come by ordinary ways, we are so anxious for thee, so eager to behold thee.

The first sentiment of her love that the Spouse revealed, and the first word from her lips in the Canticle was, according to the usual interpretation of the Fathers, an expression of the desire that filled all humanity, and especially the synagogue, the desire of the coming of the Messiah, and the prayer she offered to obtain it. Let the Divine Word, she cried, uniting his nature to mine, give me the kiss of peace, reconciling me with God his Father, and teaching me not only by his angels and prophets, but by himself and with his own words, the doctrine of my salvation.

In the eighth chapter of the same book, as the Fathers explain the passage, this transport of desire escapes from her heart and lips: “Who shall give thee to me for my brother, sucking the breasts of my mother, that I may find thee without and kiss thee; and now no man may despise me?” Who will do me this favor, O Divine Word and only Son of God! that I may see thee clothed with my nature and shrouded with my flesh, and thus become my brother and the son of my mother? Who will help me so that I will not be obliged to seek thee in the bosom of thy Father where thou art hidden from all eternity and enveloped with inaccessible light, but may find thee in the womb of thy Mother, or clinging to her breast? Who will give me to see thee with my eyes, to hear thee with my ears, to touch thee with my hands, and, holding thee fast, to attach myself to thee by sentiments of faith, love, joy, gratitude, respect, adoration, obedience, and homage, so that none may dare to contemn me, since by this mystery thou art become my brother and my spouse, and I thy sister and thy beloved?

In other passages the Spouse declares that he whom she sought was Totus desiderabilis, the All Desirable; and she calls him the end of all her desires and the object of all her longings.

Our Lord in the Apocalypse calls himself Amen, which is a Hebrew word meaning, in its primitive signification, “it is so, it is true,” because he is true and truth itself. “These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness.” (Apoc. iii. 14.) In its secondary signification the word Amen is a prayer, or an expression of desire, “God grant that it may be so.” Thus our Lord, the Amen, is the term of all our wishes, and his incarnation is the accomplishment of all our desires. The Mosarebs called our Lady when she was in the ardor of her desires for the incarnation, and especially on the day of the incarnation when the great mystery was accomplished in her, our Lady of O, because the first word that escapes our heart and lips when we greatly desire a thing is, O utinam—Oh! would to God. The seven anthems of the Magnificat which the Church sings during the seven days before Christmas and which all begin with O, refer to this; they are all desires and prayers urging the Eternal Word to come and accomplish the mystery of the incarnation.

Let us, then, desire with all the earnestness we are capable of, and ask with all our strength, our Lord to come to us, to effect in our souls and bodies his incarnation, to impress its features upon us and communicate to us its grace and spirit. Let us continually inhale and draw the incarnate Word into us by acts of faith, by desires, by supplications, and by the burning words of the patriarchs, so that he may do for us what his divinity did for his humanity, which was to sanctify it, strengthen it, deify it, and render it so agreeable and glorious to God that the least of its actions, its slightest glance and most trifling movement procured infinite honor to the Eternal Father, and immense treasures of blessings to men; and that we may have grace likewise to imitate his sacred humanity in all the duties it performed toward the Divinity to which it was not only united substantially and personally, but to which it continued to unite itself by its own interior acts, by its love, its adorations, its glorifications, its thanksgivings, its zeal for God’s honor, its submission to his decrees, etc. Let us beg him to become incarnate in us; and, as his incarnation is a mystery of union, of love, of glorification, and of annihilation, to operate in us in an eminent degree all these effects.

III. The Virtues

The most important point in these exercises, is the effective expression of our Lord’s mysteries, by the exact and constant practice of the virtues he practiced in them, the principal ones of which we shall always be careful to propose.

1. Union with our Lord Jesus Christ

As our Lord so graciously and lovingly united himself to us in his incarnation, we ought, in order to express and represent this mystery, to exert all our efforts to unite ourselves to him. We ought to unite ourselves to him through the motives of love for him and zeal for his glory, and the knowledge of our extreme need of him. For, as our nature became innocent, holy, and perfect, only by union with the Word, we can individually share its regeneration only by uniting ourselves to the Incarnate Word.

God himself gives us an example of what we must do to form this union with our Lord, and teaches us our lesson in it. First, as he took pleasure in uniting himself to that sacred humanity, we should imitate him by finding in our union with our Lord our satisfaction and our chief delight. Secondly, as he united himself to that humanity in order to come and unite himself to us, and through it to confer upon us his gifts, we should go to him likewise through it, should by it unite ourselves to him and render ourselves capable of receiving his gifts and the effects of his goodness. Thirdly, as he united himself to that adorable humanity in order to draw from it his own glory and to accomplish our salvation, we should in the same way unite ourselves to it in order to promote God’s honor and to save our own souls . . . Finally, as God united himself to that sacred humanity intimately, inseparably, and forever, not forsaking it at the hour of death, let us likewise contract with our Lord an intimate and eternal union, such a union as neither death, nor life, nor anything whatsoever can destroy.

2. Zeal for our Lord’s Glory

It is certainly most reasonable that, since the Eternal Word became incarnate, and in his incarnation humbled himself and made use of his divinity and his humanity to exalt us, we should do all in our power to procure for him all the glory we can. The Greek Fathers call this mystery a Descent, because in it the Son of God descended infinitely low, and caused us to ascend infinitely high; they also call it a Condescension, because in it he exercised unspeakable goodness and condescension in order to accommodate himself to us; he assumed our degradation in order to give us his glory; he united himself to our poverty to fill us with his riches, and he charged himself with our miseries to give us a share in his felicity.

This is why, sensibly touched by this most admirable abasement, and completely won by this incomparable desire of our Lord for our glory, we should conceive a burning zeal for his, and by all possible means endeavor to procure him honor. We should breathe only his praises, and should refer to them all our thoughts, all our affections, all our plans, all our words, and all our works. We should consecrate our souls and bodies to his glory, employing for it all our strength, using and consuming ourselves for it, so as to recognize in some degree, although infinitely unequal, the prodigious things he has done, and the unutterable sufferings he has endured in order to raise us from the dust and place us in a state of glory and honor.

Besides we are bound to apply ourselves with all our powers to glorify God. God’s glory is the end of the incarnation of the Eternal Word, and, in general, the end of all that God does; because his will cannot propose as the last end of all his works anything but his exterior honor and the glory he can receive from his creatures, this being the thing that of all outside himself is best. Consequently, God’s glory is the end of our creation and preservation; save for it we would still be in nothingness, therefore we ought to refer to it all that we are, since we exist only for it.

Our Lord traced for us the model in his own person, having from the moment of his conception until his death acted incessantly for this end, whence he said: “I honor my Father . . . I seek not my own glory . . . I have glorified thee on the earth.” (Jno. viii. 49; xvii. 4.) I glorify my Father, to his glory I refer all my thoughts, all my affections, all my words, and all my works; I seek not my own glory. And still, now in the highest heaven, he refers to the same intention of God’s glory, and he will for all eternity, his body, his soul, all that he does and all that he will ever do . . . Let us then follow this perfect model, and in order to do so, let us unite ourselves intimately and inseparably with Jesus Christ by sanctifying grace, by acts of faith, hope, and charity, by desires and petitions, as to the first cause, the general and only instrument of all the exterior glory offered to the Divinity, for this purpose making ourselves but one with him, as we are in reality, since we have the honor to be members of a body of which he is the Head.

Let us spiritually unite our souls to his soul, our faculties to his faculties, our thoughts to his thoughts, our affections to his affections, our words to his words, our looks, our steps, our motions, and all our actions to his which are infinitely honorable to God, so that all that belongs to us may take from all that belongs to him a divine lustre and coloring.

Let us fill ourselves with his spirit, which is a spirit of pure devotion to the glory of God, since his incarnation, his birth, his life, his death, and all his mysteries, have no other end than God’s glory.

Let us very frequently offer him, as a treasure that belongs to us, to God, to glorify God in every manner and as much as he merits. Let us also pray him to offer us with himself, as one of his own possessions, for God’s glory, and in himself as being contained in him.

Still more, let us very frequently offer ourselves for the honor and praise of God with God himself. To understand what I mean, we must first know that God is our Creator who has formed our bodies and souls. David says: “He made us, and not we ourselves.” (Ps. xcix. 3.) We also learn this from reason and experience, which teach us that nothing can make itself. Secondly, that he is our preserver who not only has given us being, but who preserves it to us; and as preservation differs from first production only in some little formalities, and is in substance and essence the first production persevered in and a continued creation that follows its first plan, as the life of our body is only a perpetual flow of life from the soul over it; so to say that God preserves us is only to say that he constantly communicates being to us, and always produces our bodies and souls, and produces them in such or such a manner—a healthy body, an infirm or sickly one; a robust, weak, beautiful, or ugly body; a body of a melancholy, bilious, or other temperament; a soul with much, or with little, or with no talent, memory, judgment; a soul sometimes gay, sometimes sad, now consoled, then desolate, afflicted, pained, tempted, and with such and such a species of temptation. God creates our souls and bodies in these different dispositions, and sometimes in several different ways in one day.

Thirdly, it must be carefully remarked that God makes our bodies and souls thus for his own glory, and produces them in these different states in order to procure to himself by means of each of these different dispositions a particular kind of honor which he could not derive from any other. This is why, if you tell me that if you had more talents, more judgment, more capacity than God has given you, if your body were stronger and healthier than it is, you would in your opinion render him more honor than with the body and mind you have; I will reply that truly you might with a different body and mind render honor to God, but not the kind of honor he desires from you, which only your body and your mind just as you possess them can render him.

An artisan uses instruments of different sizes and shapes to fashion his works, and a small and bent instrument will not do what a large and straight one will, but will be good for some other part of the work. In embroidery the different silks used to form a flower all produce effect, each according to its particular color and shade; and in music, the different tones produce harmony, but each in its own particular manner. Just so a healthy body and a sick body, a great mind and an inferior one. a rich man and a poor man, and, in general, all creatures in the universe in their marvelous diversity, serve God in their different ways, and each in its own way renders him an honor which it alone can render him.

We know very well that God has created us for his glory and our own beatitude, but we are ignorant of what particular glory he requires from us, and to what degree of beatitude he has designed to raise us, whether it be to a place in the choir of angels of the lowest order, or among the archangels, or with the highest seraphim. And further, we know not by what particular means we are to execute these two great works of the glory of God and our own beatitude; God alone knows this; he alone knows in what manner he desires to be served and glorified in you and by you, and to what measure of grace and happiness he has predestined you; and likewise, he alone knows by what means you are to reach it. The only means capable of procuring him that particular glory he desires and expects from you, and of bringing you to the degree of grace, perfection, and eternal felicity he has assigned you, are your body and soul just as he has made them, the dispositions of light or of darkness, of consolation or of desolation, of unction or of dryness, of peace or of disquiet and temptation, in which he puts you today, at this hour and moment, and the present condition, office, and employment to which he has called you.

Therefore, as God truly present and dwelling in us, constantly creates for his own glory our bodies and souls in all the various dispositions of nature and grace wherein they are at each moment, and refers them to his honor and praise, thus making for himself in us perpetual sacrifices, and taking infinite complacency in all these dispositions because he creates them, according to the words of the Prophet king: “The Lord shall rejoice in his works,” (Ps. ciii. 31) and because in their varieties they are the true and only means by which he gains from us the particular honor he requires at that moment; we should unite ourselves to him dwelling in us, and should, as it were, second him, agreeing to all that he does in us for his glory and with him taking pleasure in it, esteeming ourselves happy to be able to concur with him in so noble a design, and very frequently referring our bodies and souls in all their states to his honor.

Let us in this imitate our Lord in whom the Divinity, sanctifying and deifying the humanity by its personal union with it, consecrated and applied it to its own glory; and that most sacred humanity referred to and employed for the same end without any intermission, its soul, its body, its essence, its faculties, its operations, and its whole being.

The last thing that we must understand is the practice of this divine glorification in us and by us.

It consists, first, in accepting and bearing with a great desire and an ardent zeal for God’s glory, all the dispositions and changes that he produces in us, in our bodies and souls, in whatsoever manner they may come to us.

Secondly, in accepting and bearing them in a spirit of faith, with a sentiment of esteem and approbation of his will; with submission, with humility and great respect, with patience and fortitude, with silence, with love, and with joy.

Thirdly, in referring very frequently during the day our body and soul, our being, our powers, our actions, and all that we are to God’s glory, uniting ourselves to him in order that he in us may refer them to that end, imitating the example our Lord has given us of this.

The more frequently, the more perfectly, that is, with the more zeal, the more faith, and the more of the other virtues, we shall do this, the more excellently we shall glorify God and the greater honor we shall render him.

In conclusion, remember that as God’s will is always invariably fixed to desire and claim his glory, the shortest, easiest, and surest way of glorifying God is to will precisely all that he wills; and in proportion as we do this with more or less resignation, abandonment, and destruction of our own will, the glory we render to God will be greater or less.

3. Self-Abasement

Our Lord annihilated himself in order to unite himself to us and to raise us to the degree of honor we now enjoy . . . Therefore, let us annihilate ourselves for him, let us labor to destroy and annihilate in us all that is ever so slightly contrary to his glory and our perfection; let us annihilate our spirit, our judgment, our will, our desires, our inclinations and humors, and let us undertake this task courageously and faithfully. And truly, if he who is All and Sovereign Majesty was pleased to become nothing, and to humble himself infinitely that he might make us something great and exalted, we who intrinsically are nothing, are under all imaginable obligations to abase and annihilate ourselves for him, at Last so far as nothing can abase itself. To incite you to this, keep continually in your mind, and very frequently on your lips, these words, [“he debased himself, he annihilated himself”].

Aspirator Verses 

These verses, together with those scattered through our pages, may serve to fix the mystery in our memories, to bind our spirits to it, and to help us to inhale our Lord and draw him into us; for this reason we should during the day frequently repeat them, now one, now another, according to our dispositions.

“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” (Jno. i. 14.) These words should be repeated with faith, love, and reverence, and sometimes with bended knee as the Church requires of her priests when they repeat them in the Mass.

“Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Ps. cxliii. 3.) Lord, what is man that thou shouldst make thyself known to him, even visibly and in his own nature? And the son of man that thou shouldst have regard to him? If thou consultest thy own knowledge thou wilt find that man is only vanity.

“He emptied himself.” (Philipp, ii. 7.) He annihilated himself.

Thoughts For The Christmas Season 
Saint Leo The Great

(Editor’s Introduction: Through his famous letter (“Tome”) to the Council of Chalcedon in which in classical form he expounded the traditional teaching on the hypostatic union and particularly on the two natures in Christ. Leo the Great shares with St. Cyril of Alexandria the honor of being the Doctor of the Incarnation. The Church has corroborated this title by choosing Leo’s first homily on the Nativity for the breviary lessons of Christmas. Ten of the Saint’s Christmas homilies have come down to us (P.L. 54, 190-234). [P.L. is the abbreviation for Migne’s great work Patrologia Latina.} There are also eight homilies for the sister feast of Epiphany. Since the first homily on Christmas is generally known, we have restricted ourselves in the following selections to his Christmas homilies 2 to 9, except for the concluding paragraph from Homily 1.)

LET US be glad in the Lord, dearly beloved, and make merry with spiritual joy. For there has dawned for us the day of new redemption, of ancient preparation, and of eternal bliss. In this annual feast there is renewed for us the sacrament of our salvation, which was promised from the beginning, was accomplished in the fullness of time, and will endure for all eternity. (Homily 2, 1.)

You therefore, whoever you may be, who devoutly and full of faith boast of the Christian name, rightly weigh the grace of your reconciliation. By the Incarnation of the Word, power was given you to return from afar to your Maker, to recognize your true parentage, from a slave to become a freeman, from an outcast to become a son. Born of corruptible flesh, you were empowered to be reborn of the Spirit of God, and to obtain through grace what was not yours through nature. You know that by the spirit of adoption you are become a son of God: you dare call God your father. (Homily 2, 5.)

In order that we might be recalled to eternal blessedness from the bonds of original sin and from all human error, He Himself came down to us to whom we of ourselves could never rise. For although there was in many the love of truth, yet the multitude of shifting opinions was taken advantage of by the crafty and deceitful demons, and in the false name of science human ignorance was led astray into various and mutually conflicting doctrines. To put an end to this fools’ merry-go-round, moreover, by which minds were held captive to serve the arrogance of Satan, the teaching of the Law was not sufficient, nor could our nature be repaired solely by the exhortations of the prophets. The reality of redemption had to be added to moral injunctions and strivings: our nature corrupted in its very origin must needs be re-born by new beginnings (“novis exordiis”: i.e., the new life deriving from the new Head of the race). (Homily 3, 3.)

Worthily and zealously will each of us celebrate the day of our Lord’s Nativity if we but recall of whose body we are members, and to what Head we are joined. Consider well, dearly beloved, and with the help of the enlightening Spirit wisely bear in mind who it was that received us into Himself and whom we have received into our midst: for as the Lord Jesus was made flesh, by being born, so we are made His body by our rebirth. Thus are we members of Christ as well as temples of the Holy Ghost, and for this reason the Blessed Apostle says: “Glorify and bear God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:20). (Homily 3, 5.)

Let the righteous exult in the Lord, let the hearts of believe turn to His praise, and let the sons of men confess His wondrous deeds. For in this work of God especially (the Nativity), does our humble condition realize how highly it is esteemed by its Maker. God indeed gave much to man when He made him to His own image, but He granted him far more by the work of restoration, for the Lord Himself assumed our “form of a servant.” And although all that the Creator expends upon His creatures is suggested by one and the same paternal love, it is less wonderful that man be elevated to the divine, than that God should descend to human estate. (Homily 4, 2.)

Each one of us by regeneration received part in Christ’s spiritual origin (consider the truth “conceived of the Holy Spirit”). To every one who is re-born, the water of baptism is as the Virgin’s womb, for the same Holy Spirit fills this font who filled the Virgin. Thus, the sin which that sacred conception overthrew is taken away by this mystical washing. (Homily 4, 3.)

But you, O dearly beloved, to whom I can address no words more worthy than those of Saint Peter: “you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people” (1 Peter 2:9): you have been built upon the impregnable rock Christ, you have been planted into our Lord and Savior by His true assumption of our flesh. Remain firm then in that faith which you have confessed before many witnesses, and in which, having been born through water and the Holy Ghost, you received the chrism of salvation and the seal of eternal life. (Homily 4, 6.)

Unless faith is one, it is none, for the Apostle has said: “One Lord, one faith.” (Homily 4, 6.)

It was for the sake of our weakness, who were incapable of receiving Him, that Christ lowered Himself. Because the eye of man could not bear to look upon the brilliance of His majesty, Christ hid it with the veil of a body. (Homily 5, 2.)

In assuming our nature, Christ became for us a ladder, so that through Him we can now ascend even unto Himself. (Homily 5, 3.)

Father and Son are co-eternal. For brilliance born of light is not posterior to the light, nor is true light ever without its splendor. Moreover, to radiate is as essential to light as is its own being. The manifestation of this radiance, however, His appearance on this earth, is called Christ’s mission. While He ever filled all things with His invisible majesty, He came as it were from His remote and exalted secret place to those who knew Him not, and healed them of their blindness of ignorance, as it is written: “To those that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, a light is risen” (Isaiah 9:2). (Homily 5, 3)

Let Catholic faith recognize the glory of the Lord in His humility; and let the Church, which is the body of Christ, exult in the sacraments of her salvation. For unless the Word of God had become flesh and had dwelt amongst us, unless the Creator Himself had descended to enter into communion with His creature and in His birth had restored the old man by a new beginning, death would have reigned from Adam even unto the end (Romans 5:14). Irrevocable condemnation would have been all men’s lot, and the very fact of birth would have been unto all cause of perdition. But He became a man of our race, that we might become partake of the divine nature. The birth that was His from the virginal womb, He made available to us in the baptismal font. He gave to water the same power that He gave to His mother. For the power of the Most High and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35) which made Mary give birth to the Savior, likewise effect, that water gives new life to the believer. (Homily 5, 5.)

Adam treated the command of God with contempt, and led the race into sin’s damnation; Jesus, born under the Law, restored to us the liberty of justification. Adam, agreeing to the wiles of Satan even unto the fall, merited that in him all die; Jesus, obedient to the Father even unto the cross, merited that all in Him find life. Adam was jealous of angelic honors, and destroyed the dignity of his own nature; Jesus took upon Himself the condition of our infirmity, and raised up to heaven those for whom He descended into the abyss. To Adam who fell by pride it was said: “Dust you are, and unto dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19); but to Jesus, who was glorified because of His abasement, it was said: “Sit You at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool” (Psalm 109:1 in the Vulgate or Psalm 110:1 in the Hebrew). (Homily 5, 5.)

On all days and at all times, dearly beloved, do the thoughts of the faithful who meditate on divine things dwell on the birth of our Lord and Savior from the Virgin-Mother. For the mind that is lifted up in acknowledgment of its Maker, whether it be in groaning supplication, in the gladness of praise, or in the offering of sacrifice, directs its spiritual gaze on nothing more frequently or with more confidence than the fact that the same God the Son of God who was begotten of the co-eternal Father was also born by a human birth. No other day, however, calls upon us to venerate the Nativity, worthy as it is of adoration both in heaven and on earth, so insistently as does the present, which reveals to our gaze the brightness of this wondrous sacrament, and on which even nature herself is radiant with new light. [Winter solstice is passed.] For the angel Gabriel’s converse with the astonished Mary and the conception that took place through the Holy Ghost, as wondrous because promised as because believed, are not merely recalled to mind, but as it were occur before our very eyes. For today did the Author of the world issue forth from the virginal womb, and He who made all natures today was made a Son of her whom He created. Today the Word of God appeared clothed in flesh, and that which had never been visible to human eyes, now became tangible to human hands as well. Today shepherds, taught by angels’ voices, came to the Savior born in the substance of our flesh and soul; and thus today was established the form in which the gospel was to be preached by the shepherds of the Lord’s flocks for all our preaching is no more than an echoing of the angelic host: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will” (Luke 2:4). (Homily 6, 1.)

Although the infancy which the majesty of God’s Son did not disdain passed into the maturity of manhood, and although all the acts of humility undertaken for us ceased once the triumph of the passion and resurrection had been attained, yet today’s festival renews for us the sacred infancy of Jesus born of the Virgin Mary; and while we adore the birth of our Savior, we find that we are celebrating too the commencement of our own life. For the birth of Christ is the origin of the Christian race, since the birthday of the Head is the birthday of the body.

Though each of those who are called have his own station in life, though the sons of the Church are separated from each other by the passage of the years, yet the entire body of the faithful, having a common origin in the baptismal font, are crucified together with Christ in His passion, are raised up in His resurrection, and in His ascension are placed with Him at the Father’s right hand — and so likewise are they all with Him born in this Nativity. For every believer, in whatever part of the world he may be, who is reborn in Christ, quits the evil path of his first origin, and by being born again is changed into a new man. For no longer is he considered as an offspring merely of an earthly father, but as belonging now to the seed of the Savior, who for this reason became the Son of man that we might have the power of becoming sons of God. (Homily 6, 2.)

In no other way can God be worthily worshipped, than if we offer Him what He Himself has given us. But in the entire treasury of the Lord’s bounty, what more suitable gift can we find to honor the present day, than peace, that peace which was first proclaimed by angels’ chant on the Lord’s Nativity. For this peace it is that begets sons of God, that is the nurse of love and the mother of unity; this peace is the rest of the blessed and our eternal home; its proper task and special benefit it is to join to God those whom it separates from the world. Wherefore the Apostle urges us to attain this blessing, saying: “Being justified by faith, let us have peace with God” (Romans 5:1). In this short sentence is summed up the effect of almost all the commandments; for where there is true peace, there no virtue can be lacking. But, dearly beloved, what does it mean to have peace with God except to will what He commands, and not to desire what He forbids. . . . You are a chosen and kingly race. Live up, then, to the dignity of your regeneration, love what your Father loves, and in nothing dissent from your Maker, lest the Lord should again declare: “I have brought up children and exalted them: but they have despised Me. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel has not known Me, and My people have not understood.” (Isaiah 1:2-3.) (Homily 6, 3.)

Great, O dearly beloved, is the sacrament of this gift, and far does it excel all other gifts: that God should call man His son and man call God father. (Homily 6, 4.)

If we are of one mind with God, if we will what He wills, and condemn what He abhors, He Himself will bring all our battles to good issue. For He who gave the will, will also give the power (“ipse qui dedit velle, donabit et posse”): thus, we shall be cooperators of His works, and in exultation of faith shall cry out with the prophet: “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life: of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 26:1 in the Vulgate or Psalm 27:1 in the Hebrew.) (Homily 6, 4.)

The birthday of our Lord is the birthday of peace. For the Apostle says: “He is our peace, who has made both one” (Eph. 2:14), and whether we be Jew or Gentile, “by Him we have access both in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:18). It was this doctrine in particular that Christ taught His disciples the very day before His passion, when He said: “My peace I give you. My peace I leave with you” (John 14:17). And lest in the generic term of peace the particular character of His peace be lost to view, He added: “Not as the world gives do I give to you.” The peace of the spiritual-minded and of Catholics comes from on high and itself leads to the heights. It refuses to hold communion with the lovers of this world. For “where your treasure is, there is your heart also” (Matthew 6:22): that is to say: if what you love is here below you will descend to the depths; but if your love is above, you will attain to the heavenly summits. Thither may the Spirit of peace lead and accompany us who all will the same, who are of one mind, who are united in faith and hope and charity. For “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14). (Homily 6, 5.)

That “the Word was made flesh” does not mean that the nature of God was changed into flesh, but that flesh was assumed by the Word into the unity of His person. The word “flesh” moreover signifies the whole man, with whom the Son of God so inseparably united Himself within the womb of the Virgin, fecundated by the Holy Spirit and destined to remain for ever virginal, that He who was begotten of the essence of the Father before time, in time was born of the Virgin’s womb. For in no other way could we be released from the chains of eternal death, except He become humble in our nature who remained almighty in His own.

The Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Therefore He so united Himself to us and us with Him, that the descent of God to man’s estate became the exaltation of man to God’s. (Homily 7, 2.)

Though all the divine utterances exhort us, dearly beloved, to rejoice in the Lord always, yet today we are no doubt inspired to a fuller spiritual joy, since the sacrament of the Lord’s Nativity is shining so brightly upon us. Today especially, we have recourse to that unutterable condescension of the divine mercy whereby the Creator of men deigned to become man, that we might be found in His nature whom we worship in ours. For God the Son of God, the only-begotten of the eternal and unbegotten Father, while eternally remaining in the form of God, and unchangeably and beyond time possessing the same being as the Father, took unto Himself the form of a servant without suffering loss of His majesty, and thus did He advance us to His own estate without lessening Himself in ours. Thus, each nature remains the same in its properties, yet such is the community of their union that whatever there is of the Godhead is not disjoined from the humanity, and whatever there is of man, is not separated from the divinity. (Homily 8, 1.)

The greatness of the divine event (which we are celebrating), dearly beloved, far exceeds the power of human eloquence. Moreover, the difficulty in speaking adequately of it derives precisely from the reason for our not keeping silent about it. For it was not only of the divine essence in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, but also of His human nature that the words of the prophet were spoken: “Who shall declare His generation?” (Isaiah 53:8). Unless faith held fast, no speech could declare the union of twofold nature in one sole person. And thus, there is never lack of matter for praise, for never does the strength of him who praises suffice for the subject.

Indeed, let us rejoice that we are unequal to the task of giving due praise to so great a sacrament of mercy (that is, the Nativity); and if we are unable to express the sublimity of the manner of our redemption, let us know that it is good for us to be so helpless. For none approaches more closely to the knowledge of the truth than he who realizes that in matters divine there ever remains far more to attain, no matter how far he progresses. (Homily 9, 1.)

The angel sent of God, Gabriel, had said to blessed Mary: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). But of this same Spirit, of whom Christ was born out of the womb of the immaculate Mother, is reborn the Christian out of the womb of holy Church. True peace for him lies solely in not being separated from the will of God, in loving those things only which are beloved of God. (Homily 9, 1.)

Let us then, most dearly beloved, give thanks to God the Father, through His Son, and in the Holy Spirit, who “for His great mercy wherewith He has loved us” has taken pity on us, and “when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together in Christ” (Eph. 2:5): that in Him we may be a new creature and a new creation. Let us put off, therefore, the old man and all his works. Having received a share in the birth of Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh. Recognize your dignity, O Christian! Made a partaker of the divine nature, do not dare by degenerate conduct to return to former baseness. Remember of what Head and what body you are a member. Call to mind that you were snatched from the power of darkness and translated into the light and kingdom of God. In the sacrament of Baptism, you were made a temple of the Holy Spirit: do not by evil actions drive from you so great a Guest in order once again to subject yourself to Satan’s thralldom. For the blood of Christ is your purchase money, and He who ransomed you in mercy will one day judge you in justice: who with the Father and the Holy Ghost reigns for all ages. Amen. (Homily 1, 3.)

Purgatory
Father Faber 

Rev. Frederick William Faber was born in England, 1814;
ordained for the Church of England, 1839; received into Catholic Church, 1845;
joined Newman’s Oratory, 1848; died, 1863.

There have always been two views of purgatory prevailing in the Church, not contradictory the one of the other, but rather expressive of the mind and devotion of those who have embraced them.

The first view is embodied in the terrifying sermons of the Italian Quaresimali, and in those wayside pictures which so often provoke the fastidiousness of the English traveller. It loves to represent purgatory as a hell which is not eternal. Violence, confusion, wailing, horror, preside over its descriptions. It dwells, and truly, on the terribleness of the pain of sense which the soul is mysteriously permitted to endure. The fire is the same fire as that of hell, created for the single and express purpose of giving torture. Our earthly fire is as painted fire compared to it. Besides this, there is a special and in-definable horror to the unbodied soul in becoming the prey of this material agony. The sense of imprisonment, close and intolerable, and the intense palpable darkness, are additional features in the horror of the scene, which prepare us for that sensible neighborhood to hell, which many Saints have spoken of as belonging to purgatory. Angels are represented as active executioners of God’s awful justice. Some have even held that the demons are permitted to touch and harass the spouses of Christ in those ardent fires. Then to this terribleness of the pain of sense, is added the dreadfulness of the pain of loss. The beauty of God remains in itself the same immensely desirable object it ever was. But the soul is changed. All that in life and in the world of sense dulled its desires after God is gone from it, so that it seeks Him with an impetuosity which no imagination can at all conceive. The very burning excess of its love becomes the measure of its intolerable pain. What love can do even on earth we learn from the example of Father John Baptist Sanchez, who said he was sure he should die of misery, if any morning he rose he should know that he was certain not to die that day. To those horrors we might add many more which depict purgatory simply as a hell which is not eternal.

The second view of purgatory does not deny any one of the features of the preceding view, but it almost puts them out of sight by the other considerations which it brings more prominently forward. It goes into purgatory with its eyes fascinated and its spirit sweetly tranquillized, by the face of Jesus, its sight of the Sacred Humanity at the particular Judgment which it has undergone. That vision abides with it still, and beautifies the uneven terrors of its prison as if with perpetual silvery showers of moonlight which seem to fall from Our Savior’s loving eyes. In the sea of fire it holds fast by that image. The moment that in His sight it perceives its own unfitness for heaven, it wings its voluntary flight to purgatory, like a dove to her proper nest in the shadows of the forest. There need be no Angels to convey it thither. It is its own free worship of the purity of God.

In that moment the soul loves God most tenderly, and in return is most tenderly loved by Him. The soul is in punishment, true; but it is in unbroken union with God. ― ‘It has no remembrance,’ says St. Catherine of Genoa most positively, ― ‘no remembrance at all of its past sins or of earth.’ Its sweet prison, its holy sepulcher, is in the adorable will of its heavenly Father, and there it abides the term of its purification with the most perfect contentment and the most unutterable love. As it is not teased by any vision of self or sin, so neither is it harassed by an atom of fear, or by a single doubt of its own imperturbable security. It is impeccable; and there was a time on earth when that gift alone seemed as if it would contain all heaven in itself. It cannot commit the slightest imperfection. It cannot have the least movement of impatience. It can do nothing whatever which will in the least displease God. It loves God above everything, and it loves Him with a pure and disinterested love. It is constantly consoled by Angels, and cannot but rejoice in the confirmed assurance of its own salvation. Nay; its very bitterest agonies are accompanied by a profound unshaken peace, such as the language of this world has no words to tell.

No sooner has a soul, with the guilt of no mortal sin upon it, but owing to God a debt of temporal punishment, issued from the world, and been judged, than it perceives itself to be confirmed in grace and charity (according to St. Catherine). It is incapable either of sinning or of meriting any more; and it is destined by an eternal and immutable decree to enter one day as a queen into the kingdom of the blessed, to see, to love, and to enjoy God, the perpetual fountain of all felicity.

In that instant all the sins of its past are represented to the soul, whether mortal or venial, even though they have been remitted in lifetime by Contrition and the Sacrament of Penance. But after this transitory and instantaneous view of them, the soul remembers nothing more about them. The Saints’ words are: ― ‘The cause of purgatory, which these souls have in themselves, they see once for all, in passing out of this life, and never afterwards.’ The reason of this exhibition of sins is, she teaches us, to enable the soul in that moment, by an act, no longer indeed meritorious, but nevertheless a real act of the will, to detest all its sins afresh, and especially those venial sins for which it had not contrition in lifetime, either through the weakness of an imperfect heart, or through the accident of a sudden death, that so it may be strictly true, that no sin whatever is pardoned unless the sinner makes an act of detestation of it.

After this momentary view of sins and formal detestation of them, the soul perceives in itself ‘their evil consequences and malignant legacies’, and these form what the Saint calls ― ‘the impediment of seeing God.’ ― ‘The rust of sin,’ she says, ― ‘is the impediment, and the fire keeps consuming the rust; and as a thing which is covered cannot correspond to the reverberation of the sun’s rays, so, if the covering be consumed, the thing is at length laid open to the sun.

As soon as the soul perceives itself to be acceptable to God, and constituted heir of paradise, but unable, because of this impediment, to take immediate possession of its inheritance, it conceives an intense desire to be rid of this hindrance, this double obligation of guilt and punishment. But knowing that purgatory alone can consume these two obligations, and that it is for that very end God condemns the soul to fire, it desires itself to endure the punishment. ― ‘The soul separated from the body’ (these are the Saint’s words), ‘not finding in itself this impediment which cannot be taken away except by purgatory, at once throws itself into it with right good will.’

‘Nay, if it did not find this ordinance of purgatory aptly contrived for the removal of this hindrance, there would instantaneously be generated in it a hell far worse than purgatory, inasmuch as it would see that because of this impediment it could not unite itself to God Who is its end. Wherefore, if the soul could find another purgatory fiercer than this, in which it could the sooner get rid of this impediment, it would speedily plunge itself therein, through the impetuosity of the love it bears to God.’

But this is not all. The Saint goes on to teach that if the soul, laboring under this impediment, were free to choose between ascending at once, as it is, to paradise, and descending to suffer in purgatory, it would choose to suffer, although the sufferings be almost as dreadful as those of hell. These are her words: ― ‘Of how much importance purgatory is no tongue can tell, no mind conceive. So much I see, that its pain is almost as if it were that of hell; and yet I see also that the soul which perceives in itself the slightest flaw or mote of imperfection, would rather throw itself into a thousand hells, than find itself in the presence of the divine Majesty with that defect upon it; and, therefore, seeing purgatory to be ordained for the very taking away of these flaws, forthwith it plunges into it, and it seems by its bearing, as I see, to conceive that it finds there an invention of no little mercy, simply in the being able to get rid of this impediment.’

When the righteous soul has thus arrived in purgatory, losing sight of everything else, it sees before it only two objects — the extremity of suffering, and the extremity of joys. A most tremendous pain is caused by knowing that God loves it with an infinite love, that He is the Chief Good, that He regards the soul as His daughter, and that He has predestined it to enjoy Him for ever in company with the Blessed: and hence the soul loves Him with a pure and most perfect charity. At the same time it perceives that it cannot see Him or enjoy Him yet, though it so intensely yearns to do so; and this afflicts it so much the more, as it is quite uncertain when the term of its penal exile, away from its Lord and paradise, will be fulfilled. This is the pain of loss in purgatory, of which the Saint says that it is ― ‘a pain so extreme, that no tongue can tell it, no understanding grasp the least portion of it. Though God in His favor showed me a little spark thereof, yet can I not in any way express it with my tongue.’

Now let us examine the other object, the extremity of joy. As it loves God with the purest affection, and knows its sufferings to be the will of God in order to procure its purification, it conforms itself perfectly to the divine decree. While in purgatory, it sees nothing but that this pleases God; it takes in no idea but that of His will; it apprehends nothing so clearly as the suitableness of this purification, in order to present it all fair and lovely to so great a majesty. Thus, the Saint says: ― ‘If a soul, having still something left to be cleansed away, were presented to the Vision of God, it would be worse than that of ten purgatories; for it would be quite unable to endure that excessive goodness and that exquisite justice.’ Hence it is that the suffering soul is entirely resigned to the will of its Creator. It loves its very pains, and rejoices in them because they are a holy ordinance of God. Thus in the midst of the ardent heats it enjoys a contentment so complete that it exceeds the grasp of human intelligence to comprehend it. ― ‘I do not believe,’ says the Saint, ― ‘that it is possible to find a contentment to compare with that of the souls in purgatory, unless it be the contentment of the Saints in paradise. This contentment increases daily through the influx of God into those souls, and this influx increases in proportion as the impediment is consumed and worn away. Indeed, so far as the will is concerned, we can hardly say that the pains are pains at all, so contentedly do the souls rest in the ordinance of God, to whose will pure love unites them.’

In another place, St. Catherine says that this inexplicable jubilee of the soul, while it is undergoing purgatory springs from the strength and purity of its love of God. ― ‘This love gives to the soul such a contentment as cannot be expressed. But this contentment does not take away one iota from the pain; nay, it is the retarding of love from the possession of its object which causes the pain; and the pain is greater according to the greater perfection of love of which God has made the soul capable. Thus the souls in purgatory have at once the greatest contentment and the greatest suffering; and the one in no way hinders the other.’ As to prayers, alms, and Masses, she asserts that the souls experience great consolation from them; but that in these, as in other matters, their principal solicitude is that everything should be ― ‘weighed in the most equitable scales of the Divine Will, leaving God to take His own course in everything, and to pay Himself and His justice in the way His own infinite goodness chooses to select.’

When she looked at herself with the light of supernatural illumination, she saw that God had set her up in the Church as an express and living image of purgatory. She says: ― ‘This form of purification, which I behold in the souls in purgatory, I perceive in my own soul now. I see that my soul dwells in its body as in a purgatory altogether conformable to the true purgatory, only in such measure as my body can bear without dying. Nevertheless, it is always increasing by little and little, until it reaches the point when it will really die.’ Her death was indeed most wonderful, and has always been considered as a martyrdom of Divine Love. So truly from the first has her position been appreciated, as the great doctor of purgatory, that in the old life of her, ― the ‘vita antica’, examined by theologians in 1670, and approved in the Roman process of her canonization, and which was composed by Marabotto, her confessor, and Vernaza, her spiritual son, it is said: ― ‘Verily it seems that God set up this His creature as a mirror and an example of the pains of the other life, which souls suffer in purgatory. It is just as if He had placed her upon a high wall, dividing this life from the life to come; so that, seeing what is suffered in that life beyond, she might manifest to us, even in this life, what we are to expect when we have passed the boundary.’ This is a mere epitome of her wonderful and exquisitely beautiful treatise, which has given St. Catherine a rank among the theologians of the Church.

I suppose there is none of us who expects to be lost. We know and feel, with more or less of alarm, the greatness of the risk we are running; but to expect to be lost would be the sin of despair. Hell is only practical to us as a motive of greater diligence, greater strictness, greater circumspectness, greater fear. It is not so with purgatory. I suppose we all expect, or think ourselves sure, to go there. If we do not think much of the matter at all, then we may have some vague notion of going straight to heaven as soon as we are judged. But if we seriously reflect upon it, upon our own lives, upon God’s sanctity, upon what we read in books of devotion and the lives of the Saints, I can hardly conceive any one of us expecting to escape purgatory, and not rather feeling that it must be almost a stretch of the divine mercy which will get us even there. It would more likely be vain presumption than heroic hope, if we thought otherwise. Now, if we really expect that our road to heaven will be through the punishment of purgatory, for surely its purification is penal, it very much concerns us to know what is common to both the views of purgatory, which it appears prevail in the Church.

First, both these views agree that the pains are extremely severe, as well because of the office which God intends them to fulfill, as because of the disembodied soul being the subject of them. Both agree, also, in the length of the suffering.

This requires to be dwelt upon, as it is hard to convince people of it, and a great deal comes of the conviction, both to ourselves and others. This duration may be understood in two ways: first, as of actual length of time, and, secondly, as of seeming length from the excess of pain. With regard to the first, if we look into the revelations of Sister Francesca of Pampeluna, we shall find, among some hundreds of cases, that by far the great majority suffered thirty, forty, or sixty years.

This disclosure may teach us greater watchfulness over ourselves, and more unwearied perseverance in praying for the departed. The old foundations for perpetual Masses embody the same sentiment. We are apt to leave off too soon, imagining with a foolish and unenlightened fondness that our friends are freed from purgatory much sooner than they really are. If Sister Francesca beheld the souls of many fervent Carmelites, some of whom had wrought miracles in lifetime still in purgatory ten, twenty, thirty, sixty years after their death, and still not near their deliverance, as many told her, what must become of us and ours? Then as to seeming length from the extremity of pain, there are many instances on record in the Chronicles of the Franciscans, the life of St. Francis Jerome, and elsewhere, of souls appearing an hour or two after death, and thinking they had been many years in purgatory. Such may be the purgatory of those who are caught up to meet the Lord at the Last Day.

Both views agree again in holding that what we in the world call very trivial faults are most severely visited in purgatory. St. Peter Damian gives us many instances of this, and others are collected and quoted by Bellarmine. Slight feelings of self-complacency, trifling inattentions in the recital of the Divine Office, and the like, occur frequently among them. Sister Francesca mentions the case of a girl of fourteen in purgatory, because she was not quite conformed to the will of God in dying so young: and one soul said to her: ― ‘Ah men little think in the world how dearly they are going to pay here for faults they hardly note there.’ She even saw souls that were immensely punished only for having been scrupulous in this life; either, I suppose, because there is mostly self-will in scruples, or because they did not lay them down when obedience commanded. Wrong notions about small faults may thus lead us to neglect the dead, or leave off our prayers too soon, as well as lose a lesson for ourselves.

Then, again, both views agree as to the helplessness of the Holy Souls. They lie like the paralytic at the pool. It would seem as if even the coming of the angel were not an effectual blessing to them, unless there be some one of us to help them Some have even thought they cannot pray. Anyhow, they have no means of making themselves heard by us on whose charity they depend. Some writers have said that Our Blessed Lord will not help them without our co-operation; and that Our Blessed Lady cannot help them, except in indirect ways, because she is no longer able to make satisfaction; though I never like to hear anything our dearest mother cannot do; and I regard such statements with suspicion. Whatever may come of these opinions, they at least illustrate the strong way in which theologians apprehend the helplessness of the Holy Souls. Then another feature in their helplessness is the forgetfulness of the living, or the cruel flattery of relations who will always have it that those near or dear to them die the deaths of Saints. They would surely have a scruple, if they knew of how many Masses and prayers they rob the souls, by the selfish exaggeration of their goodness. I call it selfish, for it is nothing more than a miserable device to console themselves in their sorrow. The very state of the Holy Souls is one of the most unbounded helplessness. They cannot do penance; they cannot merit; they cannot satisfy; they cannot gain indulgences; they have no Sacraments; they are not under the jurisdiction of God’s Vicar, overflowing with the plentitude of means of grace and manifold benedictions. They are a portion of the Church without either priesthood or altar at their own command.

Those are the points common to both views of purgatory; and how manifold are the lessons we learn from them, on our own behalf as well as on behalf of the Holy Souls. For ourselves, what light does all this throw on slovenliness, luke-warmness, and love of ease? What does it make us think of performing our devotions out of a mere spirit of formality, or a trick of habit? What diligence in our examens, confessions, Communions, and prayers! It seems as if the grace of all graces for which we should ever be importuning our dear Lord, would be to hate sin with something of the hatred wherewith He hated it in the garden of Gethsemane. Oh, is not the purity of God something awful, unspeakable, adorable?

He, who is Himself a simple act, has gone on acting, multiplying acts since creation, yet he has incurred no stain! He is ever mingling with a most unutterable condescension with what is beneath Him — yet no stain! He loves His creatures with a love immeasurably more intense than the wildest passion of earth — yet no stain! He is omnipotent, yet it is beyond the limits of His power to receive a stain. He is so pure that the very vision of Him causes eternal purity and blessedness. Mary’s purity is but a fair thin shadow of it, and yet we, even we, are to dwell in His arms for ever, we are to dwell amid the everlasting burnings of that uncreated purity! Yet, let us look at our lives; let us trace our hearts faithfully through but one day, and see of what mixed intentions, human respects, self-love, and pusillanimous temper our actions, nay, even our devotions, are made up of; and does not purgatory, heated seven-fold and endured to the day of doom, seem but a gentle novitiate for the Vision of the All-holy?

But some persons turn in anger from the thought of purgatory, as if it were not to be endured, that after trying all our lives long to serve God, we should accomplish the tremendous feat of a good death, only to pass from the agonies of the death-bed into fire, long, keen, searching, triumphant, incomparable fire. Alas! my dear friends, your anger will not help you nor alter facts. But have you thought sufficiently about God? Have you tried to realize His holiness and purity in assiduous meditation? Is there a real divorce between you and the world which you know is God’s enemy? Do you take God’s side? Are you devoted to His interests? Do you long for His glory? Have you put sin alongside of our dear Savior’s Passion, and measured the one by the other? Surely, if you had, purgatory would but seem to you the last, unexpected, and inexpressibly tender invention of an obstinate love, which was mercifully determined to save you in spite of yourself. It would be a perpetual wonder to you, a joyous wonder, fresh every morning, a wonder that would be meat and drink to your soul, that you, being what you know yourself to be, what God knows you to be, should be saved eternally. Remember what the suffering soul said so simply, yet with such force, to Sister Francesca: “Ah! those on that side of the grave little reckon how dearly they will pay on this side for the lives they live!” To be angry because you are told you will go to purgatory! Silly, silly people. Most likely it is a great false flattery, and that you will never be good enough to go there at all. Why, positively, you do not recognize your own good fortune, when you are told of it. And none but the humble go there. I remember Maria Crocifissa [died 1855, canonized 1954,] was told that although many of the Saints while on earth loved God more than some do even in heaven, yet that the greatest Saint on earth was not so humble as are the souls in purgatory. I do not think I ever read anything in the lives of the Saints which struck me so much as that. You see it is not well to be angry; for those only are lucky enough to get into purgatory who sincerely believe themselves to be worthy of hell.

But we not only learn lessons for our own good, but for the good of the Holy Souls. We see that our charitable attention towards them must be far more vigorous and persevering than they have been; for men go to purgatory for very little matters, and remain there an unexpectedly long time. But their most touching appeal to us lies in their helplessness; and our dear Lord, with His usual loving arrangement, has made the extent of our power to help them more than commensurate with their ability to help themselves. Some theologians have said that prayer for the Holy Souls is not infallibly answered. I confess their arguments on this head do not convince me; but, conceding the point, how wonderful still is the power which we can exercise in favor of the departed! St. Thomas has at least taught us that prayer for the dead is more readily accepted with God than prayer for the living. We can offer and apply for them all the satisfactions of Our Blessed Lord. We can do vicarious penance for them. We can give to them all the satisfactions of our ordinary actions, and of our sufferings. We can make over to them, by way of suffrage, the indulgences we gain, provided the Church has made them applicable to the dead. We can limit and direct to them, or any one of them, the intention of the Adorable Sacrifice. The Church, which has no jurisdiction over them, can yet make indulgences applicable or inapplicable to them by way of suffrage; and by means of liturgy, commemoration, incense, holy water, and the like, can reach efficaciously to them, and most of all by her device of privileged altars. The Communion of Saints furnishes the veins and channels by which all these things reach them in Christ.

Heaven itself condescends to act upon them through earth. Their Queen helps them by setting us to work for them, and the Angels and the Saints bestow their gifts through us, whom they persuade to be their almoners; nay, we are often their almoners without knowing that we are so. Our Blessed Lord vouchsafes to look to us, as if He would say: Here are my weapons, work for me! just as a father will let his child do a portion of his work, in spite of the risk he runs in having it spoiled. To possess such powers, and not to use them, would be the height of irreverence towards God, as well as of want of charity to men. There is nothing so irreverent, because nothing so un-filial, as to shrink from God’s gifts simply because of their exuberance. Men have a feeling of safety in not meddling with the supernatural; but the truth is, we cannot stand aloof on one side and be safe. Naturalism is the unsafe thing. If we do not enter the system, and humbly take our place in it, it will draw us in, only to tear us to pieces when it has done so. The dread of the supernatural is the un-safest of feelings. The jealousy of it is a prophecy of eternal loss.

It is not saying too much to call devotion to the Holy Souls a kind of centre in which all Catholic devotions meet, and which satisfies more than any other single devotion our duties in that way; because it is a devotion all of love, and of disinterested love. If we cast an eye over the chief Catholic devotion, we shall see the truth of this. Take the devotion of St. Ignatius to the glory of God. This, if we may dare to use such an expression of Him, was the special and favorite devotion of Jesus. Now, purgatory is simply a field white for the harvest of God’s glory. Not a prayer can be said for the Holy Souls, but God is at once glorified, both by the faith and the charity of the mere prayer.

Again, what devotion is justly more dear to Christians than the devotion to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus? It is rather a family of various and beautiful devotions, than a devotion by itself. Yet see how they are all, as it were, fulfilled, affectionately fulfilled, in devotion to the Holy Souls. The quicker the souls are liberated from purgatory, the more is the bountiful harvest of His Blessed Passion multiplied and accelerated. An early harvest is a blessing, as well as a plentiful one; for all delay of a soul’s ingress into the praise of heaven is an eternal and irremediable loss of honor and glory to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus. How strangely things sound in the language of the sanctuary! Yet so it is. Can the Sacred Humanity be honored more than by the adorable sacrifice of the Mass? But here is our chief action upon purgatory. Faith in His Sacraments as used for the dead is a pleasing homage to Jesus; and the same may be said of faith in indulgences and privileged altars and the like. The powers of the Church will flow from His Sacred Humanity, and are a perpetual praise and thank-offering to it. So, again, this devotion honors Him by imitating His zeal for souls. For this zeal is a badge of His people, and an inheritance for Him.

Devotion to our dearest Mother is equally comprehended in this devotion to the Holy Souls, whether we look at her as the Mother of Jesus, and so sharing the honors of His Sacred Humanity, or as Mother of Mercy, and so especially worshipped* by works of mercy, or, lastly, whether we regard her, as in a particular sense, the queen of purgatory, and so having all manner of dear interests to be promoted in the welfare and deliverance of those suffering souls.

*Footnote  on ‘worshipped’: *1 do not refrain from the use of this word as the English translation of cultus weary experience shows that objectors obstinately repeat their objections, whatever we do to abate them, and they rather triumph over the show of weakness, than appreciate the charity of such like condescensions. We lose by them ourselves, without gaining opponents.

Next to this we may rank devotion to the holy Angels, and this also is satisfied in devotion to the Holy Souls. For it keeps filling the vacant thrones in the angelic choirs, those unsightly gaps which the fall of Lucifer and one-third of the heavenly host occasioned. It multiplies the companions of the blessed spirits. They may be supposed also to look with an especial interest on that part of the Church which lies in purgatory, because it is already crowned with their own dear gift and ornament of final perseverance, and yet, it has not entered at once into its inheritance as they did. Many of them also have a tender personal interest in purgatory. Thousands, perhaps millions of them, are guardians to those souls, and their office is not yet over. Thousands have clients there who were specially devoted to them in life.

Neither is devotion to the Saints without its interests in this devotion for the dead. It fills them with the delights of charity, as it swells their numbers, and beautifies their ranks and orders. Numberless patron saints are personally in multitudes of souls. The affectionate relation between their clients and themselves not only subsists, but a deeper tenderness has entered into it, because of the fearful suffering, and a livelier interest because of the accomplished victory. They see in the Holy Souls their handiwork, the fruit of their patronage, the beautiful and finished crown of their affectionate intercession.

But there is another peculiarity in this devotion for the dead. It does not rest in words and feelings, nor does it merely lead to action indirectly and at last. It is action itself, and thus it is a substantial devotion. It speaks and a deed is done; it loves and a pain is lessened; it sacrifices, and a soul is delivered. Nothing can be more solid. We might also dare to compare it, in its pure measure, to the efficacious voice of God, which works what it says, and effects what it utters and wills, and a creation comes. The royal devotion of the Church is the works of mercy; and see how they are all satisfied in this devotion for the dead. It feeds the hungry souls with Jesus, the Bread of Angels. It gives them to drink in their incomparable thirst, His Precious Blood. It clothes the naked with a robe of glory. It visits the sick with mighty powers to heal, and at the last consoles them by the visit. It frees the captives with a heavenly and eternal freedom, from a bondage dreader far than death. It takes in the strangers and heaven is the hospice into which it receives them. It buries the dead in the Bosom of Jesus in everlasting rest. When the last doom shall come, and our dearest Lord shall ask those seven questions of His judicial process, those interrogatories of the works of mercy, how happy will that man be, and it may be the poorest beggar amongst us who never gave any alms because he has had to live on alms himself, who shall hear his own defense sweetly and eloquently taken up by crowds of blessed souls, to whom he has done all these things while they waited in their prison-house of hope.

Another point of view, from which we may look at this devotion for the dead, is as a specially complete and beautiful exercise of the three theological virtues, of faith, hope, and charity, which are the supernatural fountains of our whole spiritual life.

Neither is this devotion a less heroic exercise of the theological virtue of hope, the virtue so sadly wanting in the spiritual life of these times. For, look what a mighty edifice this devotion raises: lofty, intricate, and of magnificent proportions, into which somehow or other all creation is drawn, from the little headache we offer up to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus, and which has to do even with God Himself. Yet upon what does all this rest, except on a simple, childlike trust in God’s Fidelity, which is the supernatural motive of hope? We hope for the souls we help, and unbounded are the benedictions which we hope for in this regard. We hope to find mercy ourselves, because of our mercy; and this hope quickens our efforts without detracting from the merit of our charity. If we give away our own satisfaction, and the indulgences we gain, to the souls in purgatory, instead of keeping them for ourselves, what is this but a heroic exercise of hope? We throw ourselves upon God. We hardly face the thought that we ourselves are thus sentencing ourselves, it may be, to abide years and years longer in that unconquerable fire. We shut our eyes, we quell the rising thought, we give our alms, and throw ourselves on God. We shall not be defrauded of our hope. Who ever trusted Him, and His trust failed? No! No! All is right when it is left to God.

As to the charity of this devotion it dares to imitate even the charity of God Himself. What is there in heaven or on earth which it does not embrace, and with such facility, with so much gracefulness, as if there were scarcely an effort in it, or as if self was charmed away, and might not mingle to distract it? It is an exercise of the love of God; for it is loving those whom He loves, and loving them because He loves them and to augment His glory, and multiply His praise. There are a hundred loves of God in this one love, as we should see if we reflected on those Holy Souls, and realized all that was implied in the final entry of a soul into everlasting bliss. It is love towards the Sacred Humanity, because it magnifies the copious redemption of Jesus. It honors His merits, satisfactions, ordinances and mysteries. It peoples His heaven, and it glorifies His Blood. It is filled with Jesus, with His spirit, with His work, with His power, with His victories. No less is it an exercise of love to our dearest Lady, as I have shown before; and to the Angels and Saints. How abundant is its charity to the souls themselves; who can exaggerate, whether to give them the good measure of all the Church tells us to do, and some spontaneous alms besides; or the full measure of all our satisfactions during lifetime, and which are not by justice due elsewhere, as St. Gertrude gave them; or the measure shaken together, which adds that which shall be done for us when we are dead, like Father Munroy’s heroic act of self-renunciation; or the measure running over, which heaps upon all the rest special works of love, such as promoting this devotion by conversions, sermons, and books, and by getting Masses, Communions, penances, indulgences, from others for them. All men living on the earth, even unconverted sinners, are included in it, because it swells the Church Triumphant, and so multiplies intercessors for us who are still warring upon earth. To ourselves also it is an exercise of charity, for it gains us friends in heaven; it earns mercy for us when we ourselves shall be in purgatory, tranquil victims, yet, oh, in what distress! and it augments our merits in the sight of God, and so, if only we persevere, our eternal recompense hereafter.

Now, if this tenderness for the dead is such an exercise of these three theological virtues, and if again even heroic sanctity consists principally in their exercises, what store ought we not to set upon this touching and beautiful devotion!

But a further excellence in this devotion is to be found in its effects upon the spiritual life. It would seem as if it were a devotion specially intended for interior souls. But the fact is, that it is so full of doctrine, and embodies so much that is supernatural that we need not be surprised at the influence it exercises over the spiritual life. In the first place, it is a hidden work from first to last. We do not see the results, so that there is little food for vain-glory; neither is it a devotion the exercise of which appears in any way before the eyes of others. It implies, moreover, an utter ignoring of self, by making away with our own satisfactions and indulgences, and keeping up a tender interest in an object which does not directly concern ourselves. It is not only for the glory of God, but it is for His greater glory, and for His sole glory. It leads us to think purely of souls, which is very difficult to do in this material world, and to think of them, too, simply as spouses of Jesus. We thus gain a habit of mind which is fatal to the spirit of the world and to the tyranny of human respect, while it goes far to counteract the poison of self-love. The incessant thought of the Holy Souls keeps before us a continual image of suffering; and not merely passive suffering, but a joyful conformity to the will of God under it. Yet this is the very genius of the Gospel, the very atmosphere of holiness.

Furthermore, it communicates to us, as it were, by sympathy the feelings of those Holy Souls, and so increases our trembling, yet trustful, devotion to the adorable purity of God; and as, except in the case of indulgences applied to the dead, it requires a state of grace to make satisfaction for the sins of others, it is a special act of the lay priesthood of the members of Christ. The spirit of the devotion is one of pensiveness; and this is an antidote to frivolity and hardness, and tells wonderfully upon the affectionate character which belongs to high sanctity. We can tell what will come after patient years of thus keeping constantly before our eyes a model of eagerness, unspeakable, patient eagerness, to be with our dearest Lord? It is almost omnipotent, almost omnipresent; because it is not so much he who lives as Christ who lives in him! What is it we are touching and handling every day of our lives, all so full of supernatural vigor, of secret unction, of divine force, and yet we consider it not, but waste intentions and trifle time away in the midst of this stupendous supernatural system of grace, as unreflecting almost as a stone embedded in the earth and borne round unconsciously in its impetuous revolutions, day by day.

Know The Love Of Christ 
Most Rev. Alban Goodier, S.J. Archbishop of Hierapolis

“A More Excellent Way” (1 Cor. 12, 31)

It is important for us to bear always in mind that we learn Our Lord as He was, and therefore as He is, wholly from the Gospels. Other Lives of Him, other writings, books of meditation and the like, may help us to interpret Him; they may give us the fruit of the discoveries of others; but in the end even the most inspired and the most living of these must be referred back to the Gospels; if their picture differs from that given by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, then, however beautiful and fascinating and elevating it may be, it is not Jesus Christ, but some fine fancy of an artist’s imagination. On this account, whatever else one may read and study – Lives of Christ, works on the spiritual life, mystical books, the letters and other writings of saints, great biographies, inspiriting histories, records of martyrs, subtlest theology, annals of the Church, poetry the most sublime – all, it may be, written to enlarge and deepen our concept of Our Lord – still one can never lay aside the constant reading of the Gospel; the constant following of Him through their pages who alone, and in them alone, is set before us infallibly as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

And, in fact, in them we have enough; not, it is true, enough to satisfy our human curiosity, for we are keen, almost beyond endurance, to know everything that can be known, even to the most trivial detail, about this “most beautiful among the sons of men”; but enough to form a perfect picture, nay more, enough to bring up before us a living reality, the study of which will occupy us all our lives, will occupy all men all their lives, and even at the end the mine will not be exhausted.

Let us but look for Him there, allowing other books to help us as they may, but not making them our final source, and we shall find Him for ourselves. We shall find this Man, Jesus, stamped from the beginning with a strange directness and clarity of vision, which nothing can ever divert, or draw aside, or make to falter; He could meet His mother’s tears with a direct reply: “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” the remonstrance of John the Baptist, the first of saints, with the check: “Suffer it to be so; for so it becomes us to fulfill all justice”; to the end there is never any confusion, any doubtful understanding; He walks through life and death knowing always what would be.

We shall find Him next, as a natural concomitant to this, always clear, and firm, and decisive in His judgements, speaking always “as one having authority,” always so that His enemies were forced to exclaim: “Never has any man spoken as this man speaks”; unhesitating, true, no matter what the circumstances against Him, no matter how men heckled Him, how they tried “to catch him in his speech,” no matter what tact He was at times compelled to employ.

We shall find Him unerring in His estimates of men; He is never deceived or drawn away by a surface impression, never yields unduly, or against His better judgement, to occasion, never confounds evil with misfortune; but distinguishes truth from falsehood, real evil from real good, the canker at the root of human life from the mere withered branches, the “things that are for the real peace” of men as opposed to make-believe forms; He discriminates between reality and truth in all alike, whether in the heart of a disciple or in that of an enemy, in the saint or in the sinner, in the believer or the pagan, the conventionally good, those who pass muster among men, or the outcast criminal.

This stamp of utter, unerring certainty and of absolute trustworthiness because of certainty, is the first trait we discover. Along-side of this we shall find Him the tenderest of hearts, a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a true and not a patronizing or condescending friend, the exact equal of each and all, with an individual understanding and sympathy for every heart that opens out before Him, yet never does He confuse one with another, never does He weary of one in preference for another, much less exclude one. for the sake of another, never is the love or interest of anyone diminished because He has love for so many. On the other hand, never is He weak, or over-indulgent, or soft, or too blinded by affection to see the evil or the limitations of His beloved. He gives love lavishly and to all who will have it, even the most debarred from human love, yet none would call Him languid or sentimental; He wins love from those who are conquered by His presence, because He is so true, so strong, so selfless in purpose, so single-minded, so unable to deceive. Men might call Him by bad names; they might accuse Him of other evil deeds; they might say that He worked by Beelzebub, that He was possessed, that He was an impostor, that He blasphemed; they could never say, though He loved so much and showed it, though His love went out to the most loathsome and abhorred so that some took scandal, that this His love was ever other than understanding, and true, and generous, and enduring, and uplifting, and in itself perfect.

Again, we shall find Him ever constant. He has a definite work to do, a definite life to live and death to die – that is written on every page of the record, in His journeys, in His teaching, in His attitude to men, as much as it is constantly and repeatedly expressed in His words – and never for a moment does He swerve in its accomplishment. Failure may depress Him, but He does not despond; opposition may alter His plan, but it does not slacken His effort; malice does not embitter Him; deceit, falsehood, trickery, deliberate misconstruction of His words or actions, desertion, treacherous friends, faithless or weak-kneed companions, fruitlessness of all He may do, even deliberate rejection – none of these things can lessen His endeavor, make His hand tremble, or the feet on the mountains falter. None. of these things can alter Him; always and everywhere, from beginning to end, He is the same; He seems to give no thought to consequences, or fruits, or reward; whatever the results, He has a work to do, and the doing of the work is all that He considers; He tabours, not looking for reward; toils, not demanding rest; steadily He walks through life to His goal, “giving testimony of the truth,” “speaking as one having authority,” always “going about doing good,” to all alike, deserving and undeserving, friend and enemy, alien and ally, who will deign to accept from Him the blessing He strews along His path as He goes.

With these three, His absolute truth of understanding, His boundless, tender heart, His constancy in action, we shall find Him, as a necessary consequence, looking out on men with infinitely tender eyes. Never a human being comes within His horizon, but He looks through it with the eyes, of accurate judgement it may be, but infinitely tempered by love; with intimate understanding He interprets it, with the welcome of friendship He receives it; there is not a good thought thinkable about it, not a good interpretation possible to put upon its wayward deeds, but that thought and that interpretation will have found a place in His mind. While others find reason justly to condemn, He will find reason to save, while justice puts a limit to the time of repentance, and permits the law to run its course, He will wait till the very last moment, and in the end will rescue. He does not compel men; He has too much regard for them to drive. He offers them Himself and awaits the issue; when they look wistfully He invites them to draw near; once or twice only does He make the first step, usually He leaves that to them; but when they do come near, when they do let Him see that they want Him, then His eyes glisten, and His heart expands, and His hand opens, and there is interest, and sympathy and longing in every look and gesture; He was never so near seeming foolish, as when some pleading soul showed that it believed and responded, and the key was thus applied to the flood-gates of His bursting affection.

These are four main lines that go behind the portrait of Him “that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra, this beautiful one in his robe, walking in the greatness of his strength,” as the four Gospels consistently describe Him. This is He who, when the Evangelist himself endeavors to depict Him in the abstract, can only be summed up in the words of the Prophet: “The bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not extinguish”; yet whom that same Prophet also called “Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.” We see Him clearly enough before us, and we know we are not mistaken; this Man of firm, unflinching manner, yet with not a shadow of hardness; grave in His looks, inspiring silence, yet with it something that attracts; an eye that looks out to long distances, yet not a soul feels itself passed over; glistening as through tears, yet strong as the eye of an eagle; a lip that trembles as the lip of a quivering maiden, yet so firm set that the weakest has courage from its strength. We see Him wrapt in deep thought, speaking words that set the wisest pondering, yet withal in such simplicity that the children understand Him; looking out beyond the limit of life, yet not a flower in the field, or a bird of the air, or an outcast cripple on the roadside is forgotten; with a toiler’s hand, and brain, and heart, and ambition consumed with eagerness for labour, yet ever ready to yield up His task when His companionship is needed; consumed with zeal for His Father’s house, with zeal for truth and justice, yet patient and pitiful even as He smites, gentle as the gentlest mother.

All this we see and much more: the love of loneliness, though “his delights are to be with the children of men”; the love of prayer, though He cannot tear Himself from the crowd, not even to take food; the love of peace, though His days are one long warfare; the love, seen in His every outside behavior, to be one with all men, though He could not keep from them that which prompted them to make Him their king. But it is useless to carry on the portrayal; we go on and on, the fascination grows, at each new step we see more and more, for He is utterly transparent; and yet at every point at which we stop we feel that we have said nothing. The Evangelists knew Him better than we, and they did not venture to describe Him. They were content to let Him walk through their narrative, preaching the Kingdom, healing the sick, having compassion on the multitude, or retiring into the mountain to pray, knowing well that in so doing He would not be lost amid the details; His personality would be too great for that; they knew they would, in their simple story of simple fact, leave behind them that on which all generations would ponder, yet which they would never exhaust.

And indeed it is so. The more we contemplate it, look at it with believing eyes, warmed by love, stirred by hope and trust, the more vivid does the portrait grow, the more living are the features. They are enthralling, we know them; “we have found him whom our soul loves, we have held him and will not let him go.” Other portraits help, copies, facsimiles, drawn by more recent artists; but all these have their limitations, some have their exaggerations, none are exactly accurate; all have what life they possess from the great original, and only in so far as they reproduce its fire have they any inspiration in themselves.

This is some little shadow of Jesus as the Gospels show Him to us; more if we like, and, above all, more of the details, we can gather for ourselves. These are four guiding lines; we can easily cluster much else around them. For He is not difficult to discover; He needs no great effort of psychology or analysis; He is Himself just simple and true, just meek and humble of heart, and by truth and simplicity, by humility and meekness, He is best to be found; let us not forget His own prayer of thanksgiving wrung from Him at a moment when the learned turned away in scorn: “Heavenly Father, I give You thanks that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to little ones.” Nor again His other words of warning: “Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of God.”

It is worth our while to weigh the meaning of these words. We complain of our want of fruit in prayer; of its dryness, its emptiness; often we only mean, but we do not know it, that we are looking for fruit, not of prayer, but of study; we are watching for that reflex knowledge that comes of thought and study, not for that deeper insight, that fuller understanding, that realization which is found in faith and love and hope, which is the real fruit of prayer, and which can no more be weighed and measured than life itself can be weighed in pounds or measured by yards. In other words, we judge by the standards of poor grown-up people, and not by the unerring standard of a child. A child needs but its mother’s company to know her, to love her, and to trust her, yet its knowledge, and love, and trust are not less true, or less complete, or less admirable on that account. And in precisely the same way there is a knowledge of Our Lord which no books or pondering can give us; which can be gained only by living in His company; by living in His company as He glides through the pages of the Gospels; as he plies His daily trade at Nazareth, quiet, monotonous, till we become almost forgetful of His presence; or creeps away in silence up the mountain-side, till that, too, becomes a habit with us; or walks by the riverside, unnoticed in the crowd, except by one who alone has eyes to see – how strange that those who fail to see Him claim this as proof of their superior knowledge! – or stands firm and frank before the people, now appealing, now commanding, now consoling, now rebuking, but always the same strong pillar on which all may lean; or sits at table, now with friends, now with enemies, familiarly treated, yet always reverenced, condemned by some, yet feared by others, held in awe, yet never losing that which is expressed in the phrase “only Jesus”; or sleeps in the boat, feeble, yet almighty; or compassionates by lowering Himself to the lowest, yet in such a way that because of it men would hail Him as their king; or denounces evil with a thunder that cowers the most violent, yet all the while infants clamber on His knee – living with Him in the midst of all this, in busy streets or along lonely byways, in public Jerusalem or in the privacy of Bethany, we come to know Him as He is for ourselves, and we know that we know Him, whatever those who know Him not may say, and even though we have not, nor care to have, a single word with which to express it. “It is the Lord!” “I to my beloved and my beloved to me.” “I know in whom I have believed.” That is enough.

My Lord Jesus Christ, You Wonder of the world, most beautiful among the sons of men, before whom Your very enemies bow down, acknowledging the marvel of Your countenance, the perfection of Your character, the invincible attraction of Your whole self, how strange a thing it is that there can be those who pass You by unnoticed, how stranger still that even we can pass You by! Yet is it even so. We believe, we are certain, we now know; we build our life here, and our hope hereafter, on You and Your claim; we own You, not only to be perfect Man, but to be very God of very God; we see in You alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the climax of all for which this world was made, the source from which flows whatever of good this world contains; we can see all this, and know it to be true, and in our moments of emotion can think we would gladly give our lives to witness to its truth; and yet the next minute we can ignore You; we can go counter to You; we can go our way through life as if You had never been.

More than this. We who have the light can reach behind the simple story of the Gospels; with Your Apostle St. Paul to guide us we can understand in part what Your Resurrection signified; that “having once risen You die now no more, death can no more have dominion over You”; that therefore You are living now as You were living then, the same Jesus now as then, the same utter truth, the same fascination, the same understanding sympathy, the same beating heart: “Jesus Christ yesterday, today, and the same for ever.” We can realize all this, understand it sufficiently to know that it is true; we can accept the fact of Your being, and of Your nearness to us here and now; and yet we can think, and act, and build up our lives as if it were not, or as if to us it meant nothing. We can, with eyes of faith, see Your face glowing in the darkness; with consciousness of hope we can feel Your hands stretched out to us to seize our own; with the instinct of love we can distinguish the very accent of Your voice, even as did Your fellow-countrymen of Galilee, calling to us, whispering our very names, telling us of love that human words cannot express – all this is ours, and by its very clearness we know it to be true; it is no fancy, it is the offshoot of no mere sentiment; and yet withal we can turn away, our vision obscured by the fascination of a trifle; and we can act as if we preferred to walk with You no more, as if we had never learnt to “taste and see how sweet is the Lord!”

Nay, there is something more. We can hear You, in words that true hearing cannot misunderstand, giving Yourself to us to be our slave, to be our food, our life, our abiding companion; yet we can still remain unmoved. One or two among men in the ages past we can see who have learnt You, and, once they have learnt, have counted all else but refuse in comparison; who have loved You, and, once they have begun to love, have known for certain that no other love could draw them away, with this no other love could compare; who have given themselves to You, and, once they have made the surrender, have then proved what heroism, what a true man’s strength can accomplish – the strength that conquers torture, that makes a toy of death; the strength that magically turns everything to gladness.

We can all see this; we can admire and approve; we can say that here is a man at his best, because he has found the true goal of his being, has become infused with the very life of life, has attained to that likeness to Jesus which is man’s ideal – all this we can see, and can say, and then can turn about upon our heel and go our way, as if for us these things had no meaning.

Truly, what a strange thing is man! Whether it be the man who believes, yet is not subdued, or the man who will not believe, as if to believe so grand and great a truth were in some way demeaning to himself. Demeaning to acknowledge Jesus Christ! Demeaning to own Him for my Brother, whose kinship makes me royal! To call Him my friend, whose great heart expands mine beyond the limits of the world! To take Him for my companion, whose comradeship gives life a new meaning! To accept Him for my Leader, whose service is a hall-mark of nobility! To set Him up for my Ideal than which neither God nor man could make anything more grand! Demeaning to be won by Jesus Christ! If man thinks so, or if in his meanness he acts so, can he be worth so great a gift? Can he be worth the offering of the life, the outpouring of the blood, of Jesus?

Yes; even to this Christ says, “Yes”; and it is a last disclosure of His character, the crowning feature of all, a revelation which breaks down the heart of St. Paul, and would break down the heart of every man who would let himself be penetrated by it. “Christ loved me, even me, and gave himself for me, even for me.”

When I was younger, a novice in religion, and knew myself less, and knew others less, and was full of high ambitions in the spiritual life, and sought in books and in study, in thought-out plans and schemes on paper for guides to the summit of perfection, I set virtues before me, and meditated on their beauty, and proposed to myself to acquire them, sub-dividing them, analyzing them, arranging their degrees as the steps of a ladder. This week, as the good spiritual writers bade me, I would acquire the virtue of patience; next week it should be a carefully guarded tongue; the week after should be given to charity; then should come the spirit of prayer; and in a month or two, perhaps, I might have an ecstasy and “see the Lord.” But now, when I have grown older, and find myself still struggling for the first of these virtues, and that in a very elementary degree, and have been taught quite other lessons than I dreamt of, in part by the sorry disappointments in my own soul, in part by the progress seen in the souls of others, I am convinced that there is one road to perfection better than all else – in fact, that if we neglect this one no other will be of much avail. After all, it is possible to acquire perfection in virtues, and yet to be far from a saint; few men have made better use of the particular examination of conscience, for the acquiring of natural virtues, than a certain well-known atheist, and yet to the end he remained without a spark of religion in him. On the other hand, it is possible to be a great saint, and yet to be imperfect in many respects: ask the saints themselves and they will all tell you of their many failures and shortcomings. But one thing is not possible; it is not possible to grow in the knowledge, and love, and imitation of Jesus Christ, without at the same time growing in the perfection of every virtue and becoming more a saint every day.

This, then, if I were allowed to begin my spiritual life over again, is the line along which I would try to live it; and is the line along which I would try to lead the lives of any whom God gave into my care. Particular virtues are good things – of course they are; it is much to be always patient, to be diligent in the use of our time, to be considerate with those who try us, to keep our tongue in control; nevertheless, “Do not the heathens do this?” And is it not possible to possess all these, and yet, on their very account, to remain as proud as Lucifer? I would go further and say that the devil himself must possess many of these virtues; he can certainly bide his time, he can be very busy, he can speak honeyed words, he can accommodate himself to everybody’s needs, he can be the most attractive of companions. But these things are not the main issue; they are often no more than the paint on the surface; and truth, sanctity, only begins when the core of the creature is affected. And this is done, almost alone, by love; when the creature loves, then it is changed, and till then scarcely at all. Thus it is that the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ goes deeper down than any Stoic striving after virtue; it is flesh and blood where the other is but bleached bones; it gives life and substance where the other is only dead perfection; the imitation of Jesus Christ includes every virtue, makes them unconsciously our own, produces them from itself, and does not merely put them on from without, even as the brown earth gives forth the beauty of spring flowers and does not know it.

Hence, in practice, were I to be asked for an application of all that I have been here pleading for, I would say:

1. Read spiritual books, yes, as much of them and as many as may be convenient; but do not measure growth in the spiritual life by the number of books you have read; do not even measure it by the amount of learning they give us. Remember the warning of St. Ignatius: “It is not abundance of knowledge that satisfies the soul, but to feel and to relish things with the inner man.” Read to provide material for this inward perception and relish; but do not count it necessarily loss that there are books we have not read, or authors of whom we know nothing. And, above all, read the Scriptures, especially the Gospels, with an eye less upon ourselves and more upon Him whom they describe; in that, more in any other reading, shall we find that knowledge and true spirituality grow together.

2. Hold spiritual conferences, yes, but less about ourselves and our own despicable faults, or even our little virtues and ideals; more, far more, about Him and His superb perfection, forgetting ourselves in the glory of His sunshine. By so doing it is true we may lose the satisfaction of watching ourselves grow in holiness – that is dangerous satisfaction at the best – but instead we shall grow the more naturally and fully, and He will know it, and that is enough.

3. Make meditation, yes; pray, yes; give the thirsting soul as much of this as it can take. But do not spend all the time lamenting our own littleness and our own shortcomings, patching up our petty, threadbare resolutions and will-o’-the-wisp ideals which, experience has taught us, are only set up that they may topple down again each day. Instead fill the hours of prayer with His absorbing presence, with His invigorating company, the loving admiration of this most Beautiful of the sons of men, the joy of His friendship, the interpretation of His mind, sympathy with the gladness and sorrows of His heart. Fill our prayer with these things, creep through His wounds into His very soul, thence look out through His eyes upon heaven and earth, and our little selves prone at His feet, and though by the process we may forget our own spiritual ambitions, we shall instead unconsciously become what He was.

4. Examine our consciences, yes; but do not turn it into an everlasting pecking at the soul, ceaseless beating of this poor creature, which time has long since shown us comes to little good. Instead, let the eyes of Jesus look at us, let us see ourselves through those eyes, the joy we are to Him for our encouragement, the sorrow for our trusting contrition, the smile on His face or the wistful look of disappointment at the sight of us; and it will be strange if the constant sight of Him does not produce its lasting effect.

There remains one more point on which human nature will ask to be assured. We may accept that growth in the knowledge, and love, and imitation of Jesus Christ is the all-important matter in our spiritual lives; we may also have grasped in some way how it may best be obtained; but human nature is tempted to ask a further question, and that is: Can we know, for certain, and if so, how can we know, that we have attained it? There are many tests of love, some true, many false; some good as far as they go, but inadequate; others indications only of temporary feeling; the signs of perfect love are usually far removed from these, usually devoid of all sentiment.

We may see this in ordinary life. A sign of understanding and love between two friends is a certain agreement, a sympathy of mind. They see things the same way, they look to the same ends, they share each other’s knowledge and views in order that they may think together; almost unconsciously their minds harmonize, become alike, and this is the best sign of all. So it is between the lover of Christ and His beloved. They see more and more alike as they come into communion, along the same perspective, towards the same goal; the interpretation of life given by the one becomes that accepted by the other. The sinner first sees his own sinfulness in all its hideous degradation; gradually he sees it with the eyes of Jesus Christ, and in that light it shows itself infinitely worse; soon those very eyes tone the horrid picture, for there come the tears of pity and mercy; self-hate softens to self-humiliation, self-humiliation to appeal – and the soul that before only knew itself unfit for any consideration, seeing itself as its Lover sees it, finds in its very unfitness a reason to cling, and to hope, and to love, and even to rejoice all the more.

Then with those same eyes it looks down the lane of life, and finds new ideals for which to live. What are those ideals? They are not far to seek, for He has fixed them as He walked before us.

“Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?”

“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

“He that does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

“Whosoever shall do the will of my Father that is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

“My food is to do the will of him that sent me.”

“I seek not my own will, but the will of him that sent me.”

“I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.”

“I have done the work You gave me to do.”

“Father, not my will, but Yours be done.” So in many places does the mighty Lover of mankind give to His beloved men the key to the problem of life.

“In the head of the book it is written of me, that I should do Your will, O my God.”

In like manner the true lover of Our Lord finds himself, without any conscious effort, without even making of this a special virtue, simply, instinctively, because his heart beats in harmony with the heart of his Beloved, seeing ever more and more the will of God in all the circumstances of life, making this his one aim, longing for this as the cure of the ills of men, finding in its fulfillment his chief satisfaction. The man in whom the will of God becomes ever more his dominant ideal, the thing that is above all for his peace, may assure himself, whatever he may feel, however little display of love he may show, that his love of Jesus Christ, nevertheless, is real and fruitful and growing.

Again, we notice in those who truly love one another a tendency to become, not only of one mind, but also of one heart. Not only do they think and interpret alike, work towards the same ideals, and use the same means, but where the heart of one goes out, there the other’s heart will tend to follow.

Love loves what its beloved loves, and because its beloved loves it; once it knows, it asks no further questions, or, if it does, they are only to discover ever more motives for love.

If then, our knowledge and love of Jesus Christ our Lord are true, we shall find ourselves feeling what he feels, and as He feels it, suffering as He suffers, and for the same reasons bright when He is bright, and because we know there is gladness sparkling in His eyes, pouring out our love where He pours it out, and in the way that He bestows it. And, indeed, this is the one and only test that He Himself gives of true knowledge and love of Himself.

“If you love me,” He says, “keep my commandments.”

“If any man love me, he will keep my word.” And what is His commandment? What is His word? He leaves not a shadow of doubt.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another.”

“A new commandment I give to you, that you have love one for another.”

“In this shall men know you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.”

Here, then, is our second test, utterly infallible; if we are really growing in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ, we shall inevitably be growing in the understanding and love of others.

“Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.” It is good to aim at charity, for its own sake, to practice it as a discipline upon ourselves, to set it as our standard of’ good breeding and behavior, to take it as a hallmark of education, a proof of a broad mind, a test of a kindly nature, even a definite spiritual ideal in itself. But there is a “yet more excellent way” than any of these, and that is growth in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ. Nay, more; in comparison with this, the virtue acquired by this discipline and training and conscious effort scarcely deserves the name of charity. For charity is love, and love abides and comes from within; it is founded in the heart and expands itself outward; it is not put on as a garment; it is therefore an effect more of the training of the heart than of any external discipline. The man who really learns to love will do acts of love; it is not always true that the man who learns to do acts of love really cares, and therein lies the danger of acquiring charity by practice. But charity acquired through love of Jesus Christ is free from all such falsehood; it begins from within; usually at first, like a spring blade breaking through the ground, it gives little sign of its true nature; it lives in lowliness, bides its time, shows its charity chiefly by patience and endurance, by humble submission and service; meanwhile it attunes itself to Him, learns to love as He loves, for the reasons that He loves, in the way that He loves; and when the day comes for sacrifice such love will not be found wanting.

There is yet a third test, which includes and goes beyond the two just given, and which in regard to our study of ourselves may be of less concern, though it matters very much in reality. “Love makes like.” Those who love one another unconsciously grow in likeness to one another; in manner, in habit, in expression, in the turn of the foot or the play of the hand, even it may be in features the resemblance tends to develop. I know a religious Order whose nuns have, almost all of them, a little mannerism in their walk; were I taken into one of their convents blindfold, and one or two of the sisters were to pass by, I am sure I should be able to detect where I was. I believe these nuns have got their little manner from their sainted Mother Foundress; she has built her Order on love, and therefore the resemblance.

So, then, will it be between the lover of Christ and the Beloved. The mere intercourse has its silent effect; the manner of Christ is instinctively caught, the portrait is reproduced, the character is expressed: there is the same intentness of gaze, the same gentleness of hand, the same ease combined with energy in the whole bearing of the body; the thoughts, words. actions of Christ find an echo in him who loves; gradually he lives – no, not he, but Christ lives in him. Thus does he “put on Jesus Christ”; and when he has done that, it is everything, He will need no other teacher; he will possess the virtues he lacked; prayer will be spontaneous, and will solve its problem for itself; he will speak, when the time calls for it, “as one having power”; he will “go about doing good”; he will suffer, perhaps, “even unto death,” but his “sorrow will be turned into joy”; for in him will be accomplished the wish of his Beloved: “that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be filled.”

An Easy Method of Mental Prayer 
Rev. Betrand Wilberforce

1. What Mental Prayer is

Prayer is, says St. Gregory Nazianzen, a conference or conversation with God; St. John Chrysostom calls it a discoursing with the Divine Majesty; according to St. Augustine it is the raising up of the soul to God. St. Francis of Sales describes it as a conversation of the soul with God, by which we speak to God and He to us, by which we aspire to Him, and breathe in Him, and He in return inspires us and breathes on us. All prayer then is the speaking of the soul to God. This may be done in three ways; for the prayer may be either in thought only, unexpressed in any external way, or on the other hand the secret thoughts and feelings of the soul may be clothed in words; and these words again may either be confined to a set form, or they may be words of our own, unfettered by any form and expressing the emotions of our soul at the moment. In the first case our prayer will be purely mental; in the second in which we employ a set form of words, it will be vocal prayer; in the third case, where the prayer is chiefly in thought, but these thoughts are allowed to break forth into words in any way that at the moment seem best to express the feelings of the soul, it is a mixture of mental and vocal prayer; but as the words are spontaneous and not in any prescribed form, it may justly be considered as mental prayer.

In an audience with the Pope, we might read a written address to His Holiness, or we might trust to the words that might occur at the moment to express what we desired to convey to his mind. But if God were to enable the Pope to read the thoughts of our mind, we might then simply stand silent in his presence, and he would see all that we wanted to express. The formal address would be vocal prayer, the silent standing before his throne would be purely mental prayer, the conversation with unprepared words would be a mixture of the two, and might be called mental prayer in a more general and extended sense. God knows our secret thoughts more clearly than we can express them, more certainly than we ourselves can know them; and words therefore are not necessary in our intercourse with Him, though often a considerable help to us.

A set form of words spoken or read cannot be called prayer at all unless the mind intends it as prayer, and gives some kind of spiritual attention, either to the actual sense of the words themselves or to God Himself while they are being uttered. Shakespeare spoke as a theologian when, in Hamlet, he put into the mouth of the King, who asked for pardon without repentance:

My words go up, my thoughts remain below,
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

God condemned the merely material homage of the Jews by declaring, “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.” All prayer, therefore, of whatever kind, must he “in spirit and in truth” (St. John iv, 23); but vocal prayer is confined to a prescribed form of words, whereas mental prayer is the spontaneous utterance of the soul either with or without words. When St. Francis said an Our Father, or recited his office, he used vocal prayer; when he knelt before God without a word, his prayer was purely mental; when he spent the whole night in saying “My God and my all,” his mental prayer was mingled with words which expressed the burning love of his seraphic soul.

II. The Importance and Necessity of Mental Prayer 

Prayer of one kind or another is absolutely and indispensably necessary for salvation—in other words, no one who has come to the use of reason, so as to be capable of prayer, can, according to God’s ordinary providence, be saved without it. This necessity is proved in the first place from the distinct, emphatic and constantly repeated command to pray, and to pray continually. For instance: “He spoke a parable to them (to show) that we ought always to pray, and not to faint”; St. Luke xviii, i:

“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation”; St. Matt. xxvi, 41:
“Ask, and it shall be given you”; St. Matt. vii, 7:
“Be instant (that is earnest) in prayer”; Coloss. 1V, 2:
“Pray without ceasing”: I Thess. V, 17.

Besides these positive commands it is evidently necessary; because though God really wills the salvation of all, (I Tim. ii, 4), He will not save us without our own co-operation. He will save no one by force: for heaven is not the land of slaves, into which men are driven by compulsion; it is the home of the free children of God, of those who love God, of those who are free with the freedom with which Christ hath made us free. Therefore God gives to all the grace to pray; and if they use this grace and continue to pray aright, He will continue to bestow on them a chain of graces that will end in salvation. But to those who will not pray, He has promised nothing: “The Lord is nigh unto all that call upon Him; to all that call upon Him in truth”; Ps. cxliv, 18. “Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you”; St. James iv, 8.

From this absolute and indispensable necessity of prayer in general, we can easily infer the importance and the moral necessity of the best and highest kind of prayer—namely mental prayer. If not absolutely it is certainly morally necessary in some form or another even for salvation; and there can be no manner of doubt that it is strictly necessary for any real advance of the soul in virtue and divine love. St. Alphonsus says: “He who neglects meditation (a part of mental prayer), and is distracted by the affairs of the world, will not know his spiritual wants, the dangers to which his salvation is exposed, the means he ought to take to conquer temptations; and will forget the necessity of the prayer of petition for all men: thus he will not ask for what is necessary, and by not asking God’s grace, he will certainly lose his soul.”

In the same way St. Teresa asks: “How can charity last, unless God gives perseverance? How will the Lord give us perseverance if we neglect to ask Him for it? And how shall we ask it without mental prayer? Without mental prayer there is not the communication with God which is necessary for the preservation of virtue.” The holy Doctors agree that those who persevere in mental prayer will live in God’s grace. The following words are the deliberate sentence of the holy Doctor St. Alphonsus, the conclusion gathered from his vast learning and experience: “Many say the Rosary, the Office of Our Lady, and other acts of devotion, but they still continue in sin. But it is impossible for him who perseveres in mental prayer to continue in sin: he will either give up mental Prayer or renounce sin. Mental prayer and sin cannot exist together. And this we see by experience; they who make mental prayer rarely fall into mortal sin; and should they have the misery of falling into sin, by persevering in mental prayer they see their misery and return to God. Let a soul, says St. Teresa, be ever so negligent; if she persevere in mental prayer the Lord will bring her hack to the haven of salvation.”

If this were merely the opinion of St. Alphonsus himself it would be of immense weight, considering his resplendent sanctity, his vast spiritual learning, and the varied experience of his long and active life; but besides this the holy Doctor is here only summing up in one sentence the teaching and experience of all the doctors, saints, writers, preachers, and confessors of the whole Church since the beginning. What stronger argument could be used to prove the importance and necessity of mental prayer?

III. Is Mental Prayer Easy? 

Anyone who has a real desire to be saved, and who believes that the opinion of St. Alphonsus and all other spiritual teachers—that mortal sin and mental prayer cannot live together, but are mutually destructive—is really true, but must feel a desire to adopt so certain a means of salvation. But many are fainthearted, and dread the little difficulty they feel in beginning anew exercise; and many more lack the coinage and self-denial necessary to continue in it after the novelty has worn away, and the yoke of perseverance begins to gall. Blessed are they who courageously persevere, for their salvation is secure.

Those who find it difficult to begin, or are tempted to abandon this powerful means of salvation, must pluck up heart, and encourage themselves by remembering that mental prayer requires no learning, no special power of mind, no extraordinary grace, but only a resolute will and a desire to please God. In fact, the hard matter is to convince people how easy and simple a matter mental prayer really is, and that the difficulty is far more imaginary than real. This difficulty often rises from not having grasped the true idea of what is meant by mental prayer; and the false idea of the exercise, once formed, is often never corrected, the consequence being that the practice is either abandoned in disgust, or persevered in with extreme repugnance and little fruit.

One common cause of misunderstanding, perhaps the most common of all, is the custom of calling the whole exercise by the name of one subordinate and not the most important part— that is, meditation. From this the idea arises that it is a prolonged spiritual study, drawn out at length with many divisions and much complicated process; and this notion frightens many good souls, and makes them fall back on vocal prayer alone. They imagine that the soul must preach a discourse to itself, and they feel no talent for preaching. Many, if they spoke their minds clearly, would say: “I cannot meditate, but if I might be allowed to pray during that time instead, I could do very well.” This is no imaginary case, as anyone who has had any experience will testify; and this miserable misunderstanding, that so often holds souls back for years, is partly brought about by defective teaching, but partly also by the name meditation being used instead of the more comprehensive one of mental prayer.

Mental prayer properly understood, will be found to be easy and within the power of all who desire salvation. Of course there are many degrees of prayer, and to pray perfectly is no doubt a matter of great difficulty; but to pray well, and in a way very pleasing to God and very profitable to the soul, is an easy and simple matter. If we remember how many thousands have excelled in mental prayer, though not even able to read, we shall see that this holy exercise cannot require any special power of mind or any degree of culture. St. Isidore, a farm laborer, is an example of a man utterly devoid of human learning, but rising, by God’s grace, to the sublimest prayer.

The following method of making mental prayer is drawn from the works of St. Alphonsus, who may justly be called the Doctor of Prayer; and it is so simple that no one who studies it with any attention can fail to understand it, and all who reduce it to practice will find that in great measure it takes away the difficulty they may feel in the exercise. Many who have found “making a meditation” to be a wearisome penance, have experienced that with this method the time is all too short; and that conversation with God is indeed the greatest joy of life; “Taste and see how sweet the Lord is.”

IV. Method of Mental Prayer

All methods of mental prayer are essentially the same. They are different ways of reaching the same end, the object of all being to teach the soul how she can converse lovingly with God. In the method recommended by St. Alphonsus, the whole exercise is divided into three parts—the Preparation, the Body of the Prayer, and the Conclusion.

1. Preparation 

The real preparation for prayer is a good life, a spirit of recollection enabling a man to live in God’s presence, and the invaluable habit of regular spiritual reading. But this is not the place to enter into these matters, and so we must proceed to the immediate preparation, when the time of prayer has come. “Before prayer prepare thy soul, and be not as a man that tempteth God” . . . Eccles. xviii, 23. From this admonition of the Holy Ghost, it is evident that we must not presume to throw ourselves down before God unprepared, our minds full of idle, distracting thoughts, and imagine that we can thus pray in a way pleasing to Him. How careful should we be to prepare both body and mind if admitted to a papal or a royal audience! At least then make in preparation for your conference with God, three short though fervent acts: 1. An act of faith in God’s presence, and of adoration, profound and humble, of His majesty: 2. An act of contrition for sin, sin forming the cloud thick and dark over our heads that hides the brightness of God’s face. “Your sins have hid his face from you” (Isaias lix, 2.) : 3. A fervent petition for light to see God’s holy will, especially in some one matter either pressing upon us then or suggested by the subject we are going to consider, and for grace to do God’s will when we do see it.

Examples of these acts may help beginners, but it must be clearly understood that they are only examples and that they may be made in any form.

1. Adoration of God present in your soul

My God, I believe that Thou art present with me and within me, and I adore Thee with all the affection of my soul. “Be watchful,” says St. Alphonsus, “to make this act with a lively faith, for the remembrance of the presence of God is a great help to keep away distractions. Cardinal Carraceiolo, Bishop of Aversa, used to say that distractions are a sign that the soul has not made a lively act of faith.”

2. Sorrow for sin, our sins preventing union with God in prayer

O Lord, by my sins I deserve now to be in hell; I repent, O infinite Goodness, with my whole heart of having offended Thee. I am sorry for sin from the bottom of my heart; have mercy on me.

3. Ask for light

O Eternal Father, for the love of Jesus and Mary, give me light in this prayer, that I may profit by it. Then add a Hail Mary, an ejaculation to St. Joseph, your Guardian Angel, and your holy patrons.

These acts should be short. In a mental prayer of half-an-hour, not more than three minutes should be devoted to them. But at the same time they should be fervent and earnest, the whole attention being given to them; for upon the manner in which they are made will, in great measure, depend the fervour of the whole prayer.

II. Body of the Prayer 

In order to pray with fruit and without distraction, it is very useful, and in most cases necessary, to spend some time in meditation, or pious thought, on some definite subject; and from this fact, as before stated, the whole exercise is often called meditation, instead of mental prayer. This often misleads people into imagining that meditation-—that is, the use of the intellect in thinking on a holy subject—is the main end to be aimed at, whereas in fact it is prayer, or conversation with God. Meditation furnishes us with the matter for conversation, but it is not itself prayer at all.

When thinking and reflecting, the soul speaks to itself, reasons with itself; in prayer it speaks to God.

Meditation, in its wide sense, is any kind of attentive and repeated thought upon any subject and with any intention; but in the more restricted sense in which it is understood as a part of mental prayer, it is, as St. Francis of Sales puts it, “an attentive thought, voluntarily repeated or entertained in the mind, to excite the will to holy and salutary reflections and resolutions. It differs in its object from mere study: we study to improve our minds and to store up information; we meditate to move the will to pray and to embrace good. We study that we may know, we meditate that we may pray.

We must then use the mind in thus thinking or pondering on a sacred subject for a few minutes; and in order to help the mind in this exercise, we must have some definite subject of thought, upon which it is well to read either a text of Holy Scripture, or a few lines out of some other holy book-—St. Teresa tells us that she thus helped herself with a book for seventeen years. By this short reading, the mind is rendered attentive and is set on a train of thought. Further to help the mind, you can ask yourself some such questions as the following: What does this mean? What lesson does it teach me? What have I done about this in the past? What shall I now do, and how?

Two remarks are here most important. The first is, that care must be taken not to read too much, but to stop when any thought strikes the mind. If the reading is prolonged—if, for example, in a short prayer of half-an-hour you were to read for ten minutes—the exercise would be changed into spiritual reading. The second remark is, that you must not be distressed if you find the mind torpid, and if only one or two very simple thoughts present themselves. It is by no means necessary to have many thoughts, nor to indulge in deep and well arranged reflections.

The object of mental prayer is not to preach a well prepared and eloquent sermon to yourself—the object is to pray. If one simple thought makes you pray, why distress yourself because you have not other and more elaborate thoughts? If you wanted to reach the top of a roof, you would not trouble yourself because your ladder was a short one, provided it was long enough to land you safely on the roof. The end is gained. If one simple reflection enables you to pray, you would, in reality, be merely distracting yourself from prayer, in order to occupy yourself with your own thoughts, if you were to go on developing a lengthy train of thought. This would be to mistake the means for the end, and it is a very common mistake, and the cause of great discouragement. This mistake will be evident if you remember that while you are following out a line of thought—for instance, when you are answering the questions suggested above—you are conversing with yourself.

It is plain therefore that as your object is to converse with God, you should not remain too long in talking to yourself, and that therefore, if you feel a difficulty in doing this, you need not be distressed. “The progress of a soul,” says the enlightened St. Teresa, “does not consist in thinking much of God, but in loving Him ardently; and this love is gained by resolving to do a great deal for Him.”

I have said that misunderstanding this point is the most fruitful source of discouragement and one of the commonest reasons for abandoning mental prayer in disgust; and the reason is, because very few people are accustomed to prolonged or deep thought on any subject— few indeed are capable of it. If therefore they imagine that prolonged if not deep thought, is necessary for mental prayer, they are in constant trouble and discouragement, which ends in their abandoning the whole exercise in despair. “If I might only be allowed to pray,” they will sigh to themselves, “how much easier it would be!”

Let such persons then clearly understand that many thoughts are not necessary, that their reflections need not be deep and ought not, especially in a prayer of half-an-hour, to be long, lest prayer should be neglected and the exercise be changed into a study. “Meditation,” says St. Alphonsus, “is the needle which only passes through that it may draw after it the golden thread, which is composed of affections, petitions and resolutions.” The needle is only used in order to draw the thread after it. If then you were to meditate for an hour and think out a subject in all its details, but without constant acts and petitions, you would be working hard with an unthreaded needle.

Men’s minds differ as much as their features, and some men, especially those employed in very distracting duties, need more thought than others before they can pray; but many, especially women, will find that the effort, after prolonged reflections, will generally defeat itself, and end in distraction.

As soon, therefore, as you feel an impulse to pray, give way to it at once in the best way you can by acts and petitions—in other words, begin your conversation with God on the subject about which you have been thinking. Do not imagine, moreover, that it is necessary to wait for a great fire to burn up in your soul, but cherish the little spark that you have got. Above all, never give way to the mistaken notion that you must restrain yourself from prayer in order to go through all the thoughts suggested by your book, or because your prayer does not appear to have a close connection with the subject of your meditation. This would simply be to turn from God to your own thoughts, or to those of some other man.

One useful suggestion may here be introduced. Those who are accustomed to make regular spiritual reading will often meet some idea, or passage of their author, which strikes their mind forcibly, or seems especially suited for their own practice. When this is the case, they could not do better than to take that idea, or that passage, as the subject of their next mental prayer. As they have read about it and thought about it in the time of spiritual reading, a very slight reflection will be enough to enable them to pray upon that subject with solid fruit, and to make practical resolutions concerning it.

We have spoken thus far of the needle: now we must proceed to consider the golden thread which is the matter of principal importance, and should occupy the chief part of the time devoted to prayer. The golden thread is composed of Affections or Acts, Petitions and Resolutions, a triple cord of beauty and strength, which, when the soul uses earnestly, she can be said to have “girded her loins with strength, and strengthened her arm.” (Prov. xxxi, 17.).

1. Acts of Affection

Acts, or affections of the will, are the movements of the soul towards God, The affections are called the feet of the soul, because by them she approaches to or recedes from God. To “draw nigh to God” does not mean any bodily motion, but the spiritual progression of love. When therefore in meditating on a subject you feel some holy sentiment arising in your heart, begin to make simple acts, with or without words, to God. Acts of this nature are very various, such as faith, hope, confidence, humility, thanksgiving, contrition, love. They should be simple, short, and often repeated. Think of our Lord’s prayer in the garden, which is intended as a model to us. He prayed for three hours, and His whole prayer consisted in the constant repetition of one single act of resignation and petition. The word “Acts’ will suggest the chief aspirations, that it is well constantly to repeat: A stands for Adoration; C for Contrition; T for Thanksgiving, to which is joined love; and S for Supplication, the prayer of petition.

These acts should be spontaneous, springing up from your own soul, but some examples may help beginners. If then you were to take as the subject of your prayer the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, you would, after the preparatory acts, begin to think of the mystery. “Who is that hanging on the Cross? “—you would say to yourself—” What is He suffering—in body—in soul? Why does He suffer?”

Not many minutes’ thought would be necessary before you would feel moved to acts of Faith: “O my Lord, hanging on the Cross, I believe in Thee. Thou art the Eternal God, made man for me. Thou art my Redeemer; for my sins Thou art thus bleeding and dying on the Cross”.

Humility: “O my Jesus, I am not worthy to live. I have slain Thee, the Son of God. Who am I, dear Lord, that Thou, the everlasting God, hast thus suffered and died for me! I am Thy creature, made by Thy Hands. I am Thy rebellious child. I deserve hell for my sins, I deserve to have been abandoned by Thee, and yet Thou hast thought of me and hast offered Thyself as a victim for me. How good Thou art, dear Lord, to be nailed to the Cross for so miserable and ungrateful a sinner! I will not sin again.”

Confidence: “If I look at myself, dear Lard, I am filled with fear. I have sinned, O Lord, against Thee, my sins are more in number than the hairs of my head. How shall I dare ever to hope for pardon, after having so often and so basely offended thee! But Thy death is my hope. Thou hast made me. I am Thine, and Thou hast suffered for me, and died for me. I hope in Thee, in Thee do put my trust, and I shall not be confounded for ever. Thou canst not reject me now that I repent, when Thou hast shed Thy Blood for me”.

Thanksgiving: “I thank Thee, O Lord, with all my heart for Thy great goodness in dying for me, and shedding all Thy Blood for me. Blessed be Thy holy Name! I thank Thee for not abandoning me when I committed that sin, for loving me in spite of all my many sins against Thee. Blessed be Jesus, who shed His precious Blood for me I Most holy Mary, help me to thank thy Son for all He has done for me.”

Contrition: “I am heartily sorry for all my sins. I detest them all, and especially because they have displeased Thee, because they have nailed Thee to the Cross. Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner! Father, forgive me, for I knew not what I did.”

Love: “I love Thee, my Jesus, I love Thee, but I do not love Thee as I ought; make me love Thee more and more. I love Thee with my whole heart. I desire to see Thee loved by all. I will only what Thou wiliest. Thou hast died for love of me, I desire to die for love of Thee; I rejoice that Thou art eternally happy. Do with me and all that is mine according to Thy will,” “This last act of love and oblation of self,” says St. Alphonsus, “is especially pleasing to God, and St. Teresa used thus to offer herself to God at least fifty times in the day.”

Acts of love should be frequent whatever the subject of meditation may have been. “The act of love,” continues the same Saint, “as also the act of contrition (which is sorrow founded on love) is the golden chain which binds the soul to God.” An act of perfect charity is sufficient for the remission of all our, sins. “Charity covereth a multitude of sins”— (I Pet. iv, 8).

The Ven. Sister Mary of the Crucified once saw, in a vision, a globe of fire, in the flames of which straws were instantly burnt up. She was thus made to understand that when the soul makes acts of love to God, all her sins are consumed in the flames of charity and are forgiven. Besides, the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas, teaches that by every act of love, we gain a fresh degree of glory. “Every act of charity merits eternal life.” How many we can make in the course of the day, if we have some little fervor, especially during the time of mental prayer!

St. Francis of Sales has the following consoling and most instructive words concerning acts of sorrow founded on love, or, as he styles them, acts of loving repentance. “Because this loving repentance is ordinarily practiced by elevations and raising of the heart to God, like to those of the ancient penitents: I am Thine, save me! Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me; for my soul trusteth in Thee! Save me, O God; for the waters are come in even unto my soul / Make me as one of Thy hired servants! O God, be merciful to me a sinner I It is not without reason that some have said, that prayer justifies; for the repentant prayer or the suppliant repentance raising up the soul to God and reuniting it to His goodness, without doubt obtains pardon, in virtue of the holy love which gives it the sacred movement. And therefore we ought all to have very many such ejaculatory prayers, made in the sense of a loving repentance and of sighs which seek our reconciliation with God; so that by these laying our tribulation before our Savior, we may pour out our souls before and within His pitiful heart, which will receive them to mercy”

As already stated, these acts or affections should spring from the heart; we must not look for fine words nor make up grand sentences; the mere movement of the will towards God, with love, gratitude, hope, sorrow for sin, is sufficient even without words. Therefore does our Lord say: “Do not speak much when you pray”—a simple movement of the heart is better than many words proceeding merely from the lips. Nor should we hurry from one affection to another. If you feel yourself moved to make acts of love, keep on making acts of love; if you are excited to sorrow, repeat acts of sorrow for a while, till the affections grow cold; then pass on to another. Moreover, these affections should be made slowly, allowing the soul to dwell upon each act. It is well to make slight pauses between. God often speaks to us during these pauses, and when He does—when we perceive some good thought in our mind giving us some new light, a clearer insight into ourselves or a better knowledge of God, or showing us our duty or God’s will for us—then we should listen humbly while God speaks, prepared to obey His commands.

2. Petitions

Besides the acts and affections of the soul— all of which are truly prayer, since the soul, in making them, converses with God—it is extremely useful to occupy ourselves during mental prayers in making many fervent petitions to God for His spiritual graces and favor. This prayer of petition is a matter that St. Alphonsus, in all his ascetically works, is continually urging upon every soul in language the most emphatic. Indeed, our Lord Himself has given us the first lesson as to the necessity of constant petition, not only by His command “Ask and it shall be given unto you,” but by the fact that the Our Father, the model of all prayers, consists half of affections and half of petitions for what we need. In English, we have not any one word that expresses this kind of prayer, and we are obliged to call it prayer of petition. The French word la priere expresses it, while l’oraison means mental prayer with its acts, affections, and resolutions. This distinction explains many passages in the works of St. Alphonsus—for instance, where he says, “Without prayer (that is, petitions for graces) all the meditations we make, all our resolutions, all our promises will be useless. If we do not pray (that is, if we do not make petitions for graces) we shall always be un- faithful to the inspirations of God, and to the promises we make Him. Because in order actually to do good, to conquer temptations, to practice virtues, and to observe God’s law, it is not enough to receive light from God, and to meditate and to make resolutions, but we require moreover the actual assistance of God, and He does not give this assistance except to those who pray, and pray with perseverance.

Here is the distinction between meditation with resolutions, or mental prayer in general, and prayer of petition, or between l’oraison and la priere.

Without this distinction, which is not at first apparent in English translations, much that is said of prayer is confusing and unintelligible. For instance, in the above extract the Saint appears to say that mental prayer without prayer is of no avail. Again in his “Rule of Life for a Christian,” in that most valuable volume called” The Christian Virtues,” the second rule is about mental prayer while the sixth is concerning prayer. When we understand that prayer means prayer of petition, the difficulty vanishes. In his constant exhortations to the practice of prayer of petition, the holy Doctor is fond of quoting the experience of that learned and enlightened writer, F. Paul Segneri, S.J., who thus speaks of himself: “When I began and before I had studied theology, I used to employ my time of mental prayer in reflections and affections; but God opened my eyes afterwards, and from that time I endeavored to occupy myself in petitions, and if there is any good in me I consider it to be due to this habit of recommending myself to God.”

Petitions, therefore, for all you need, are a very important part of mental prayer, and are most useful to the soul. But a caution is necessary here to prevent misunderstanding. The petitions in the time of mental prayer, should be spiritual petitions- —that is, for spiritual objects, such as forgiveness of sin, love of God, light to see, and grace to do God’s will. For if the petitions were for temporal favors, such as health of body for yourself or others, success in business, rain or fine weather and the like, two inconveniences would follow. In the first place it is always doubtful whether such things are according to the will of God or not, and they must be asked for only if they should be the Divine Will, and the whole spiritual value of the petition will then be in that act of resignation. Secondly, the mind would be much distracted from God in order to think of the matters upon which to form petitions, and especially if the subject of the petition should be some person in whose temporal welfare you are much interested, or some worldly business that gives you anxiety—to pray for these things would probably result in distraction. The mind would begin to reflect upon the things themselves and forget God.

By this it is not meant that these temporal matters must never be made the subject of prayer, but only that it is not generally advisable to occupy the mind with them during mental prayer, for the reasons given. The truth is that all these things are suggestions from experience; for in the matter of mental prayer, in which “the Spirit bloweth where He listeth,” there are very few “musts,” few things of which you can say this must be done.

With this understanding as to the subject matter of petitions, the soul cannot be better occupied during mental prayer than in making frequent and earnest petitions, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the graces she feels to need. Ask, then, for help in the time of temptation, beg grace always to persevere in prayer when tempted, but particularly remember always to pray for the three following graces, which, if you obtain, will render your salvation secure. These three all-important graces are:

a. The perfect forgiveness of past sin;

b. The perfect love of God;

c. The grace of a holy death.

Christ our Lord, Truth itself, has promised distinctly and emphatically, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. ,‘—St. Matt. vii, 7. “All things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.”—St. Matt. xxi, 22.

Ask then for these three graces, which, by their very nature, must be according to God’s will that you shall have; ask for them with humility, confidence and perseverance, and they must be given to you. God’s promise cannot fail. Ask for the perfect forgiveness of all your sins, and, however many and grievous they may have been, forgiveness will be yours. Seek for the love of God by many earnest petitions, and you shall find it. Knock at Heaven’s gate by constant petition for a holy death, and the golden gate of that city of love and peace will be opened to you, as your eyes close in death, and your soul departs into eternity. “Pray,” exclaims St. Alphonsus, “pray, and never give up praying. If you pray, you will certainly be saved; if you do not pray, you will certainly be lost.” We have so many spiritual wants, that half-an-hour’s prayer will be all too short to make our earnest petitions before the throne of mercy.

3. Resolutions 

In order to make mental prayer truly fruitful, you should be careful to make some definite and precise resolution, either to avoid some fault or to practice some virtue. Mere thought, it is evident, cannot make us holy. Acts and affections by themselves will not make us practice virtue. Even petitions by themselves are not enough. They obtain for us, it is true, the strength to conquer sin, and to do what is good; but the most difficult matter remains— that is, to use this grace, and actually to do what we recognize to be God’s will.

We must, then, make a resolution to carry out into practice what we see to be good. How frequently, from want of this steadfast resolution, men pray for a grace, but in their actions deny and contradict their prayers I The resolution should be often repeated, day after day, until we can easily keep faithful to it. Moreover, it should be definite, that is, not too general and vague. A determination for instance, to be better than we have hitherto been, to be humble, to love God, is of no practical advantage whatever. It means nothing, it will begin and end itself, and produce no effect on our daily life; we must therefore resolve to avoid some particular fault into which we are likely to fall that day, or to practise some one act of virtue that very day.

The resolution moreover must be of a practical nature—that is, it must be something that we can do if we please; and above all, it must be sincere, by which is meant that we must truly intend in our hearts to carry it into practice when the opportunity occurs. It may be perfectly sincere at the time, even if we are weak enough afterwards to fall in its practice, but there is no excuse if we are insincere at the time of making it. That would surely be insulting to God, who sees the heart. We must never forget the words of St. Teresa, already quoted:

“The progress of a soul does not consist in thinking much of God, but in loving Him ardently, and this love is gained by resolving to do a great deal for him.” Make then one practical, definite resolution that you can keep and mean to keep that very day.

III Conclusion 

Before rising from your knees, three short but fervent acts should be made, as the finishing stroke of your mental prayer:

1. An act of thanksgiving for the lights and graces that God has given you during your prayer. For instance: “I thank Thee, O my God, in the name of Jesus Christ, for all the help Thou hast given me. Blessed be Thy holy name. Glory be to the Father.”

2. Renew earnestly the good resolution you have already made.

3. Ask for grace to keep it. You can address this petition either to the Eternal Father, begging Him, through the merits of Jesus and the intercession of Mary, to grant you this favor; or, you can address our Lord Himself, or you can beg the prayers of our Lady or your patrons. Lastly, make an ejaculation for the conversion of sinners, and for the souls in purgatory.

V. Concluding Remarks 

A few concluding remarks may be useful, in order to remove difficulties that often arise and discourage the souls who feel drawn to give themselves to the holy and delightful exercise of prayer.

1. “Is not mental prayer a very complicated matter?”

There seems so much to remember, so many things to do. When the method of prayer is drawn out step by step on paper this is quite true. It does look a complicated affair, and so would everything else if it were thus minutely described. Try to set down on paper all that we must remember in order to eat and drink in a polite manner, and see how formal and complicated it all seems; but do it, and it at once appears easy and natural. It is the same with mental prayer. Practice it for a short time, and all its difficulty will vanish.

2. “Are all these things to be done in the exact order prescribed?”

The preparation will always come first, with the three short fervent acts, and the conclusion will always naturally be at the end; but in the body of the prayer no formal order is to be observed. That part should indeed always begin by a short meditation, some simple earnest thoughts, but the Acts and Petitions should come forth from the heart in any way that they arise. In describing them we must adopt some order that the matter may be intelligible; but in practice they can be all intermingled in any way in which they spring from the soul. Remember, the end and object of the whole exercise is to converse with God; if you are doing this therefore you are doing well. I have said that there should always be some short meditation, because I am speaking to beginners of whom this is true; but for those more advanced this becomes less necessary, and after a time might be only a distraction. If the mind is all day long full of worldly and distracting thoughts and imaginations suggested by business, amusements, conversations, study, light reading.

It is evidently necessary to think of some holy subject in order to be able to pray with any fervor or recollection. When, on the other hand, a person leads a quiet, secluded life, with few distractions, regular spiritual readings and frequent reflections on spiritual subjects, the soul is very easily moved to pray, and less meditation is necessary. After a time, with holy and contemplative souls, any train of thought would become a distraction; they are at once, and without effort, absorbed in God. We may liken them to gunpowder; the slightest thought of God acts like a spark and sets them at once in a blaze, whereas distracted souls are like damp wood that requires much artificial help to kindle it into a flame.

3. “How long ought mental prayer to last?” 

No general rule can be laid down. The real answer is that if we only consider the matter in itself, the longer mental prayer can last the better for the soul; but taking into account the weakness of most souls, and the many occupations that cannot be neglected, half-an-hour in the day is a reasonable average time. If however half-an-hour appears too long, begin with fifteen minutes. One little quarter of an hour in each day is surely not too long to devote to the grandest of all occupations—conversation with God Himself. People who are constantly occupied and more devout could easily spend two half hours, one in the morning, one in the evening, in this holy exercise. The appetite for this spiritual manna will increase by satisfying it. The more you allow yourself, the more you will want. This may be said in conclusion, that the longer time you spend in fervent and humble mental prayer the more rapid will be your progress in the way of virtue.

4. “When is the best time for mental prayer?” 

Most certainly early in the morning. If it be faithfully performed in the early morning, this spiritual banquet is secured, but when once the duties of the day have begun, it is far more difficult to find time. Moreover, the early morning is the quietest time, and is far less liable to interruption. The brain, being then refreshed with sleep, is more able to attend to prayer. Besides all this, God seems more inclined to give His graces to those who mortify their sloth and arise early in order to praise Him; and all those who practice mental prayer will agree that the early morning is the best time to converse with God. This seems to be the lesson conveyed by the act of the manna being rained down in the desert early in the morning and melting with the first rays of the sun, “that it might be known to all, that we ought to prevent the sun to bless Thee, and to adore Thee, at the dawning of the light.”—Wisdom xvi, 28.

5. “I have no time for mental prayer.” 

It is difficult to answer this common objection with a grave face. What it means is, “I do not want to take the trouble to make mental prayer.” To say that would be at least honest. But to plead the want of time to spend 15 minutes out of the 24 hours in conversation with God is childish. What would the same persons say if they saw a way of gaining $5 or even $1 by employing one quarter of an hour in a particular pursuit well within their power? How quickly would time be found! Who is there that does not spend a quarter of an hour daily in useless conversation or idle reading or in doing nothing? I should reply, make time by arising a quarter of an hour earlier. All that is required is a little more earnestness in the one all-important business of salvation.

6. “Where should mental prayer be made?”

God is everywhere, and there is no place in which we cannot find Him, but in order to speak to Him reverently and without distraction, a private place should be sought. “Thou when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray thy Father in secret.” Matt. vi, 6. Our Lord prescribed this secrecy to avoid ostentation and vainglory, but another motive would be to shun distraction. But for those who have no suitable place at home, the church is always ready.

7. “What book shall I use?”

For those who are able to think a little for themselves, a text of Holy Scripture is the best food for meditation, or a sentence from the Following of Christ. But many need their thinking to be done for them by another, and this very thing often causes a difficulty. They come across a book which furnishes them with the thoughts and reflections of a man who probably was in a completely different state, both mental and spiritual, from their own. His thoughts most excellent and fruitful for himself, are not suited to them, to their difficulties, their temptations, their duties. The consequence is that they find these thoughts “dry”—that is, they do not come home to those using the book with any force or light, although so good in themselves. As a general rule the simpler a book is the better for practical use, and each one should try to find an author, or to select some parts out of a book, suited to the needs of his own soul. If you come across one thought that strikes the mind, immediately delay upon it, as a bee on a honey flower, and strive to draw from that one thought your acts, petitions and resolutions. If the thought suggested by the book enables you thus to pray and to resolve, it has done its office; and you need by no means distress yourself even if the acts elicited and the resolution formed do not seem to have any evident and immediate connection with the previous thought.

There is one snare, as has been said above, most carefully to be avoided—that is, to Stop praying in order to refer to the book for more points of reflection; for this would be to give up intercourse with God in order to entertain new thoughts. On the other hand it is well to have some other thought in store, in case you can pray no longer, and need some fresh light from the understanding to give impetus to the will. If you persist in using some book that does not suit your needs and fall in with your spiritual state, you will run the risk of suffering from a kind of mental indigestion, from trying to assimilate thoughts of another mind not fitted to be the food of your soul. The result will very probably be that you will abandon mental prayer in disgust, saving, “It’s no use, I cannot meditate!” This would be as unreasonable as to give up eating because one particular kind of food disagreed with you and would not digest. Find the food that will.

Simple thoughts on the four great truths of religion, on the Passion of Our Lord, or the mystery of the Blessed Sacrament, will suit the greater number of souls; and half the difficulty vanishes when it is clearly understood that one simple thought is amply sufficient as long as it helps you to pray, which is the real object of the exercise. Nor is it by any means necessary always to vary the thought, for often the same reflection repeated morning after morning, will suffice to help you to pray, and if so why change it! We eat bread day after day, and if one thought nourishes the soul morning after morning why change it for another? If it begins to pall and to produce distraction, then seek for another. One holy soul found matter for prayer and union with God for months together from the two simple words “Our Father.” If they were sufficient to form matter for prayer for years together, why change? Yet some people would have been inclined to pull St. Francis by the habit and to say— “You have been saying ‘My God and my all ‘for an hour now; had not you better go to the second point?”

8. “I am distracted.” 

Examine the causes of these distractions. If they arise from too great dissipation of mind during daily life, try to live more in God’s presence. If from not having prepared any definite thought, to dwell upon the remedy is to have one always prepared. If from mere weakness of mind, do not be disturbed, use no violent effort but quietly turn the mind back to God. One thing at least utterly avoid, and that is to abandon mental prayer because you are distracted. By this you will please no one except the devil. He does all he can to make you give up mental prayer, because he knows full well that if you persevere in it you will be saved. If by causing you troublesome distractions he can make you abandon mental prayer, he has succeeded in his object. St. Francis of Sales tells us that if in mental prayer we are able to do nothing but continually banish distractions and temptations, we shall derive great profit from the exercise and please God. What more could be desired?

Lastly, to encourage souls to persevere in the sanctifying habit of mental prayer, it is well to remember that Benedict XIV granted an indulgence of seven years to those who make half-an-hour’s mental prayer during the day, and a plenary indulgence if it is made once a month, on the condition of confession and communion, with prayers for the Pope’s intention. Those who are members of the Holy Rosary Confraternity can also gain a hundred days’ indulgence every time they make a quarter of an hour’s mental prayer, and seven years with seven quarantines for every half-hour devoted to this holy exercise.

Pentecost: The Holy Ghost 
Fr. K. Krogh-Tonning, D.D.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.” —John xv, I.

The three chief festivals of the Church are like three precious stones, all of equal beauty and value, but each possessing its own peculiar color and charm. Christmas reminds us of the Father, who sent His Son into the world for its redemption. There can be nothing greater or more glorious than this gift, and therefore “Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ now and for evermore.” But what would Christmas be without Easter—the resurrection of our crucified Savior? What benefit should we derive from the coming of God the Son into this world, if He had not died for our sins and risen again from the dead? There can be nothing greater and more glorious than His death and resurrection, therefore “Blessed be Jesus Christ, now and for evermore.” But what would Easter be without Pentecost? What significance would our Lord’s death and Resurrection have had for us without the Holy Ghost, who alone can bring us to Christ? Without the gift bestowed at Pentecost we should have no faith in Christ, nor should we be united with Him, for we owe both our faith and our union with Him to the Holy Ghost. There can be nothing greater and more glorious than this faith and union,—therefore, “Blessed be the Holy Ghost, now and for evermore.”

I. We are keeping the feast of the Holy Ghost, and yet there is no allusion to Him in our text, at least no explicit allusion; but when our Lord speaks of Himself as the vine, and of His disciples as the branches, we may believe the Holy Ghost to be the sap, flowing from the root and stem to every leaf and tendril, and conveying life and strength to every part. This is a token, which it is most important for us to observe, of our possession of the Holy Spirit and of our union with Christ. We ought to notice in the first place that the Holy Ghost is the spirit of sanctity, without which no one can see God. Hence, St. Peter reminds the early Christians: “It is written, ‘you shall be holy, for I am holy’” (I Peter i, 16). We cannot have the spirit of God, nor can we be united with Christ in the Holy Ghost, unless we are striving to be holy. This sanctity is the fruit of which our Savior spoke when He said that His followers should bring forth much fruit. He who brings forth none, will be cast out as a barren and unproductive branch, and thrown into the fire. Is not this a stringent order requiring us to aim at holiness of life?

Many desire forgiveness of sins and speak of its necessity, and they think Christianity exists for no other purpose than to enable them to obtain pardon. Suppose a son offends his father grievously, and then asks for and receives forgiveness. This happens again and again; but the young man is satisfied when he is pardoned; he never attempts to improve, or to avoid giving offense in future, and goes on wounding his parents by his wickedness. Surely he is a worthless wretch. In the same way, a kind of Christianity that stops short at faith in the forgiveness of sins, and never aims at sanctity, is a miserable thing, devoid of the spirit of God, for the Holy Ghost is a Spirit of sanctity.

Christ desires us to bring forth the fruits of a holy life, i.e., He wishes us gradually to improve, to grow more just and charitable in our dealings with others, more humble and severe in judging ourselves. Do those who call themselves Christians invariably display these characteristics? If you are uncharitable, irritable, untrustworthy, harsh towards others, self-satisfied and self-indulgent, there is much reason to fear that your profession of Christianity is vain, and that you do not possess the Holy Spirit, and are not united with Christ in that Spirit.

II. We must note further that the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of truth, speaking to us in the word of God. Hence Christ bids us “continue in His word,” i.e., in the word of God. Unless we act thus, we shall not possess the Holy Spirit. We must continue in the word, not hear or read it just once or twice, but study it with persevering zeal. We must read it in our homes, and hear it in God’s house, regularly and carefully, otherwise we are not continuing in the word. If God’s word is not familiar to us, we become estranged from the Holy Spirit, which bears testimony through the word, especially in God’s house.

III. God’s Spirit is the Spirit of prayer, and in the gospel Christ urges us to pray, and promises that we shall be heard. Where prayer is unknown, the Spirit of God is absent, for wherever it is present, it impels men to pray. Our Lord does not merely invite us to pray. He demands it of us as a duty, inseparable from the worship of God. He wishes us to honor Him by offering Him praise, thanksgiving and prayer. He bids us regard His house as a house of prayer, the place where He will accept the worship of our hearts and lips. Consequently where the churches stand empty, the hearts of men are undoubtedly devoid of the Spirit of God, and are not in union with Christ.

IV. The spirit of God is the Spirit of love, and Jesus Christ requires love of us. He says: “Abide in my love.” Absence of love denotes absence of the Holy Spirit, who always inspires love. We cannot evade our Lord’s claim upon our love; we ought to love Him more than father, or mother, or wife, or child. I remember how, when I was a child, this commandment filled me with fear, for it seemed to me impossible not to love my mother best of all, and yet God required me to love Him still more. God commands us to love Him, so it is our duty to obey. For our consolation, however, He tells us how this can be done: “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.” “If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love.” Our Lord does not care about our feelings, which are not under our own control, and which have no permanence; but He wants us honestly to resolve to keep His commandments, to do our duty and to accomplish His will, although we may do so only very imperfectly, for all human actions arc necessarily imperfect. This is the love that He claims, and any one who intends to give it Him, receives grace and strength. I remember distinctly the happiness that I felt, when this doctrine concerning the duty of loving God was explained to me. The Spirit of God assists everyone who strives to do and be what our Savior desires. Hence the commandment of love alarms hypocrites, who talk a great deal about their emotions, and take no pains to please our Lord. Here again is consolation for honest though timid souls; for they must be aware that they desire nothing so ardently as to be able to say, with St. Peter: “Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee,” and to do God’s will, imperfectly perhaps, but still as well as they can.

Therefore, if the Spirit of Pentecost is to dwell within us, we must be in earnest about our own sanctification; we must continue in God’s word; we must lead a life of prayer in our homes as well as at church; and we must love God by striving to obey Him and to do our duty. All these things involve much effort on our part, and we should ever bear in mind our Savior’s words: “Without me ye can do nothing.” To boast of our own powers and merits would be as foolish as for a little branch of a vine to boast of the grapes that hang upon it. All the credit of producing good fruit belongs to the vine and to the sap that flows through the branches, and, in the same way, all the credit of whatever good there may be in our lives belongs to Christ and His Holy Spirit, which permeates the whole body of the Church. Without Him we can indeed do nothing, but it is our fault if we are unfruitful branches; the cause of unfruitfulness is always the same,—refusal to abide in Christ.

The Holy Angels of God
 Rev. M. J. Watson, S.J.

“Bless the Lord, all ye His Angels, you that are mighty in strength,
and execute His word, hearkening to the voice of His orders.”
Psalm 103:20 (Psalm 102:20 in the Vulgate.).

A sticking feature of the history of the human race, as set forth for our instruction and contemplation in the Bible, is the kindly dealing of Angels with men. We read that the holy spirits, appearing in visible forms on certain important occasions, made known how the Creator’s Will was to be carried into effect for man’s benefit in time and eternity. As those sublime intelligences are to be our companions in bliss and glory throughout the endless years of our life in heaven, it is assuredly fitting that here on earth we should try to know and love beings so worthy of esteem for their peerless perfection and display riches of gratitude and affection for the many benefits they confer on man.

Angels are the most noble and beautiful creations of God’s wisdom and power; they are princes of heaven, and the brightest images of Divine excellence. Not imprisoned, as men are, in corruptible bodies, they are all pure spirits, like God Himself, and are endowed with surpassing natural and supernatural gifts. Man, in his nature, is inferior to them in every way; he is made, the Scripture declares, “less than the Angels”; but when, after death, we are delivered from the bonds of corruption, we shall share in their privileges and their glory.

In the beginning, the Angels did not see God face to face; that Beatific Vision was to be the reward of their obedience and humility. That their love of God might be tested, they were subjected to a trial. As is generally believed the Son of God, in His future Incarnation as man, was proposed to them as the object of their adoration. No doubt, God the Son, considered merely in His human nature, with a body formed of the dust of the earth, was inferior to the Angels, who were spirits; but that human nature, by reason of its union with the Divinity, was worthy of their profound veneration and worship. Lucifer, one of the chief Angels, seeing his own excellence, was puffed up with pride, and refused to obey; but Michael and the spirits faithful to God, preserved by reverence and truth in true humility, fought against the rebels and cast them into the prison “which was prepared for the devil and his angels.” “I saw,” said Our Lord Jesus Christ, “Satan like lightning falling from heaven.”

God’s Holy Angels, as the reward of their fidelity, were admitted to gaze upon their Creator with unclouded knowledge. Standing in His presence and inflamed with perfect love, they are clothed with surpassing splendour, and thrill with complete and eternal happiness, which is ever fresh and new. Most worthy are those glorious beings of our reverence. Being spirits, we cannot see them with our eyes of flesh, but when, by Divine permission, they make themselves visible to men, they always appear under a noble and gracious form, as if their beauty, incapable of being wholly concealed, breaks through the external appearance they assume. Thus, the Bible tells us that the Angel Raphael showed himself to Tobias as “a beautiful young man.”

King Nabuchodonosor saw an Angel whose majestic and dazzling loveliness could belong to none, he thought, but the Son of God. (See Daniel Chapter 3.) When the prophet Daniel stood one day by the great river Tigris, he beheld an Angel who was appareled in snow-white linen, girt with cincture of finest gold: “his body was like the chrysolite, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as a burning lamp; and his arms and all downward, even to the feet, like in appearance to glittering brass, and the voice of his word like the voice of a multitude” (Daniel 10:4-8). Consternation seized the prophet, and his strength ebbing away, he fell on the earth and held his face close to the ground. The Angel gently raised him to his feet and gave him strength to hear a message from God regarding the coming of the promised Messiah.

Each human being has an Angel to stand ever by his side and help him to resist temptation and win the Kingdom of Heaven. How much we owe our Guardian Angels! They preserve us from many unknown dangers to soul and body. They defend us against the demons. They breathe holy thoughts into our soul; they prompt us to deeds, even heroic deeds, of virtue, in the Divine service, and they fling their mighty strength around us when we are dying and so save us from the last attacks of our spiritual foes. Full of zeal and jealous are they for God’s honor, for the interest of those committed to their care, and for the innocence of the young. “Beware,” says Our Savior, “of giving scandal to those little ones; for their Angels always behold the face of My Father who is in heaven.”

Saint Bernard tells us that we owe our Angels profound respect for their presence, and confidence in their love and power to protect us, as well as gratitude for the great benefits, which they confer. The heavenly spirits look upon themselves as our elder brothers; nay, to speak in our human way, they are passionate lovers of all whom God has charged them to guard.

Saint Paul says: “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister for them who shall receive the inheritance of salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14). And in the 90th Psalm of the Vulgate (or Psalm 91 in the Hebrew), the Holy Ghost declares: “No evil shall approach unto you, neither shall the scourge come nigh your dwelling. For He has given His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways: in their hands they shall bear you up, lest haply you dash your foot against a stone.” Through this angelic guardianship, “you shall walk upon the asp and the basilisk; the lion and the dragon shall you trample under foot.” Thus do they watch over each individual soul, even if that soul is in a state of sin, and they act as protectors to hamlets, cities and kingdoms. In the Book of Exodus (13:21) we see how, in the desert, an Angel of God went before the people to show the way by day in a pillar of cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire, that he might be the guide of their journey at both times.

We may, indeed, say that this earth of ours is full of innumerable spirits to defend all who are specially dear to God. When an army, with horses and chariots, beset the city of Samaria to slay the prophet Eliseus (Elisha), and the prophet’s servant cried out in terror, Eliseus prayed: “Lord, open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the eyes of the servant and he saw, and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Eliseus. And the prophet said: “Fear not, for, as you see, there are more with us than with them.” (2 Kings, chapter 6. The Vulgate calls the book ‘4 Kings’.).

Also, when Sennacherib, the King of the Assyrians, marched with a mighty army against Jerusalem, an Angel of the Lord protected the city, and entering in the night into the Assyrian camp, slew one hundred and eighty-five thousand men; and Sennacherib departed and returned to his own land. This event is graphically described by the poet, Lord Byron:

For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed on the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax’d deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved and for ever grew still.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broken in the temples of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, smote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.

The prophet Zachary (Zachariah) represents the Angels as declaring: “We have walked through the earth, and behold all the earth is inhabited and at rest” (Zechariah 1:11). Thus, by day and by night, there are countless angelic guardians that fill this world of ours and keep watch both when we wake and when we sleep.

In the works of Cardinal [Blessed John Henry] Newman, a beautiful passage dwells upon this fact of the Angels’ unresting watchfulness in their ministry among men and of their unceasing operations in the sphere of nature and of grace. The passage referred to is here quoted in full:

When we survey Almighty God surrounded by His Holy Angels, His thousands of ministering spirits, and ten thousand times ten thousand standing before Him, the idea of His awful majesty rises before us more powerfully and impressively; we begin to see how little we are, how altogether mean and worthless in ourselves, and how high He is and fearful.

The very lowest of His Angels is indefinitely above us in this our present state; how high then must be the Lord of Angels! The very Seraphim hide their faces before His glory while they praise Him; how shamefaced, then, should sinners be, when they come into His presence! Thus, whenever we look abroad, we are reminded of those most gracious and holy beings, the servants of the Holiest, who deign to minister to the heirs of salvation. Every breath of air and ray of light and heat, every beautiful prospect is, as it were, the skirts of their garments, the waving of the robes of those whose faces see God in heaven, and I put it to anyone whether it is not as philosophical, and as full of intellectual enjoyment, to refer the movements of the natural world to them as to attempt to explain them by certain theories of science, useful as these theories certainly are for particular purposes, and capable (in subordination to that higher view) of a religious application.

Suppose an inquirer into Nature, when examining a flower, or a herb, or a pebble, or a ray of light, which he treats as something beneath him in the scale of existence, suddenly discovered that he was in the presence of some powerful being, who was hidden behind the visible things he was inspecting, who, though concealing his wise hand, was giving them their beauty, grace, and perfection, as being God’s instrument for the purpose, nay, whose robe and ornament those wondrous objects were which he was so eager to analyze, what would be his thoughts?

Should we but accidentally show a rudeness of manner towards our fellowman, tread on the hem of his garment, or brush roughly against him, are we not vexed, not as if we had hurt him, but from the fear we have of having been disrespectful? David had watched the awful pestilence three days, not with curious eyes, but doubtless with indescribable terror and remorse; but when at length he lifted up
his eyes, and saw the Angel of the Lord (who caused the pestilence) stand between the earth and the heavens, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem, then David and the elders who were clothed in sackcloth fell upon their faces. The mysterious, irresistible pestilence became still more fearful when its cause was known. And what is true of the painful is true, on the other hand, of the pleasant and attractive operations of Nature. When, then, we walk abroad and meditate in the field at eventide, how much has every herb and flower in it to surprise and overwhelm us?

For, even did we know as much about them as the wisest of men, yet there are those around us, though unseen, to whom our greatest knowledge is as ignorance; and when we converse on the subjects of Nature, scientifically repeating the names of plants and earths, and describing their properties, we should do so religiously, as in the hearing of the great servants of God, with the sort of
diffidence which we always feel when speaking before the learned and wise of our own mortal race, as poor beginners in intellectual knowledge as well as in moral attainments.

“Parochial Sermons,” Volume II, Sermon 29.

The Angelic Spirits are divided into Nine Choirs, mentioned in Holy Scripture.

1. The Seraphim, whose distinguishing characteristic is burning love for God.
2. The Cherubim, who possess a wondrous knowledge of God and of His infinite beauty.
3. The Thrones, the representatives of God’s Majesty.
4. The Dominations: they teach that the true way to hold rule or dominion and to reign is to serve God, and so possess true liberty, or freedom from passion and sin, and from the slavery of the devil.
5. The Virtues, who represent God’s Might, and impart strength and fortitude in the Divine service.
6. The Powers: they restrain the malice, craft, and power of the demons, lead men to obey all lawful authority for God’s sake.
7. The Principalities, the guardians of provinces, kingdoms, and peoples.
8. The Archangels, the captains of the heavenly armies, are sent by the Most High as His messengers to men.
9. The Angels: from this, the lowest Choir, the Guardians of individual human beings are taken, although it may be that Guardian Angels are appointed, also, from the higher Choirs.

We read in the Apocalypse (1: 4 and 4:5) of seven spirits who stand always before the Throne of God.

The three mighty Angels, whose names are given in the Bible, belong to this glorious company;

Saint Michael (“Who is like God?”), the conqueror of Lucifer;
Saint Gabriel (“the Strength of God”), the ambassador of the Incarnation;
and Saint Raphael, endowed with the power to heal all infirmity and the ravages of sin, whose name signifies ” the Medicine of God.”

Some say that the Angel who slew the host of Sennacherib, was Saint Uriel (“the Strong Companion”), but his name is not mentioned in the Bible.

Volumes have been written on the Holy Angels, full of most interesting matter; but even the slight and imperfect sketch in this pamphlet may serve to show how worthy of serious attention is devotion to those Heavenly Princes, and how we ought to take to heart the advice of Pope Saint Leo the Great, “Confirmate amicilias cum sanctis angelis”; “Make friendships with the Holy Angels.” Certainly, no earthly friends can vie with them in goodness, in power, and in love for men. Therefore, all through life we should regard them as our most faithful friends, and invoke their help daily in prosperity and affliction.

NOTE: An easy way to practice devotion to these Nine Choirs is, on Sunday to honor (by asking their prayers) the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the Thrones; on Monday, the Holy Dominations; on Tuesday, the Holy Virtues; on Wednesday, the Holy Powers; on Thursday, the Holy Principalities; on Friday, the Archangels; and, on Saturday, the Choir of Angels.

It is extraordinary what great benefits to body, mind and soul are obtained by sincere and persevering devotion to those Most Glorious Heavenly Princes.

Appendix 

Saint Peter And His Guardian Angel
(Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 12)

And at the same time, Herod the king stretched forth his hands, to afflict some of the Church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword.

And seeing that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to take up Peter also. Now it was in the days of the azymes. And when he had apprehended him, he cast him into prison, delivering him to four files of soldiers to be kept, intending after the Pasch to bring him forth to the people. Peter, therefore, was kept in prison. But prayer was made without ceasing by the Church unto God for him.

And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And behold an Angel of the Lord stood by him: and a light shined in the room: and he striking Peter on the side raised him up, saying: Arise quickly. And the chains fell off from his hands. And the Angel said to him: Gird yourself, and put on your sandals. And he did so. And he said to him: Cast your garment about you, and follow me. And going out he followed him, and he knew not that it was true which was done by the Angel: but thought he saw a vision. And passing through the first and the second ward, they came to the iron gate that leads to the city, which of itself opened to them. And going out, they passed on through one street: and immediately the Angel departed from him. And Peter coming to himself, said: Now I know in very deed that the Lord has sent His Angel, and has delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews.

And considering, he came to the house of Mary the mother of John, who was surnamed Mark, where many were gathered together and praying. And when he knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, whose name was Rhoda. And as soon as she knew Peter’s voice, she opened not the gate for joy, but running in she told that Peter stood before the gate. But they said to her: You are mad. But she affirmed that it was so. Then said they it is his Angel. But Peter continued knocking. And when they had opened, they saw him, and were astonished. But he, beckoning to them with his hand to hold their peace, told how the Lord had brought him out of prison and he said: Tell these things to James and to the brethren. And going out he went into another place.

Now when day was come there was no small stir among the soldiers, what was become of Peter. And when Herod had sought for him, and found him not; having examined the keepers, he commanded they should be put to death: and going down from Judea to Caesarea, he abode there. And he was angry with the Tyrians and the Sidonians. But they with one accord came to him, and having gained Blastus, who was the king’s chamberlain, they desired peace, because their countries were nourished by him. And upon a day appointed, Herod being arrayed in kingly apparel, sat in the judgment-seat, and made an oration to them. And the people made acclamation, saying: It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And forthwith an Angel of the Lord struck him, because he had not given the honour to God: and being eaten up by worms, he gave up the ghost. But the word of the Lord increased and multiplied. And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, having fulfilled their ministry, taking with them John, who was surnamed Mark.

Saint Michael 

“There was a great battle in heaven; Michael and his Angels fought with the
Dragon, and the Dragon fought and his Angels: and they prevailed not, neither
was their place found any more in heaven.”

Apocalypse 12:7-8.

Saint Michael, who is the guardian and patron of the Church, is considered to be the first of all the Angels in glory, and the most exalted of the Seraphim. He is called an Archangel when he acts as a messenger from God to men. The Lord has given him the office of defending the soul at death, conducting it to judgment, and leading it, if found pure enough, to the Kingdom of the Blessed.

The feast of Saint Michael and all Angels is observed on September 29th, every year. A similar Feast, called the Apparition of Saint Michael, falls on the 8th May. The Divine Office and Mass of the two Feasts are substantially the same. (Rubrics of Saint Pius V.)

Friend of Mine: Our Lord and His Love
By Robert Nash, S.J.

All His life long, Jesus Christ had been trying to make men know Him. Shortly before the end, He rode in triumph into Jerusalem. The streets and the archways re-echoed with cheering, for the people had formed themselves into a procession, and were shouting themselves hoarse. “Hosanna! Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord.” They thronged close about the Prophet and waved palm branches and spread their garments on the ground for Him to walk on. Today His enemies are filled with impotent rage. They are out of the picture; the whole world is gone after Him.

Jesus Unknown

So slow had the Master been about making a beginning of the foundation of His Kingdom that even His disciples had chafed at the delay. But this day marks a welcome change. Today the crowds are acclaiming Him King and He does not prevent them. On the contrary, He declares that if they were silent, the very stones of the street would cry cut. Today, then, He sets Himself at the head of His people to lead them to victory. Hated Rome shall lie in the dust before His triumphant advance, and once more Jerusalem will be able to lift her head high and take pride of place before the nations of the world as capital of Christ’s Kingdom. Wherefore, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord!’

Thus pleasingly did they muse as they walked along. But presently the picture was rudely jolted out of focus. A short distance outside the city Christ halts, and they turn around to look in His direction. They are suddenly surprised, suddenly apprehensive. For they see that while every face about Him is radiant with happiness, tears dim the eyes of Jesus. Hope surges high in every other breast, but the Heart of Christ is weighed down with sorrow. For, though this morning they are all acclaiming Him their King, He knows that in a few days they will yell like wild beasts for His blood. Today it is “Hosanna!” On Friday, it will be “Crucify Him.” In spite of all their enthusiasm, they do not know Him, these thoughtless multitudes around Him. And Jesus wept on Palm Sunday, His day of triumph, because Jerusalem “did not know the day of her visitation.”

But it was not only the rabble who failed to know Christ. On the following Thursday night, He has His own twelve all to Himself, at the Last Supper. Though it is a festive gathering, the same sad complaint forces itself to His lips. These twelve are His closest friends; for three years they have been near Him; side by side they have worked and prayed and slept and eaten and drank and spoken intimately together, and now, after it all, even they do not know Him. Their ideas about Him and His Kingdom and His mission are all distorted. He is sorely disappointed that they are so slow of heart. “So long a time have I been with you, and you have not known Me!” His own twelve! And lifting up His eyes to the Father, He prays for them: “. . . that they may know You, the one true God, and Jesus Christ Whom You have sent.”

A man was kneeling in prayer in a dark cave. In his countenance there shone a brilliant light; it was the reflection of the burning love for Christ that was glowing in that man’s heart. Through a life of prayer and sacrifice, this man had come to know Christ intimately, and the knowledge had transformed him. He had turned his back on a soldier’s career because Christ had worked and died for souls, and he wanted to do the same. Christ was poor; this man had given away his last coin and was now living on alms. Christ prayed and fasted; since he came here to this cave he, too, has fasted and prayed. But with all this, his love is not yet satisfied. A great prayer forms itself in the heart of that great man, and springs to his lips: “Lord, that I may know You more clearly still, in order that I may love You more dearly and follow You more nearly.”

Manresa

And Ignatius Loyola came out of Manresa to tell the world what he had found in that cave. There he had come to know Christ, and so stunned was he at the discovery that he could know no rest. That knowledge brought him love for Christ, and the fire of personal love for Jesus of Nazareth drove him out into the world obsessed with a craving to share his secret with others. The knowledge and love of Jesus Christ had so revolutionised his whole outlook, he now saw so clearly the foolhardiness of all else, that the indifference of the world to Christ and the utter blindness to His love made him yearn to spend himself unreservedly on the task of teaching to men this Christ Whom he had found. So he gathered a band of followers around him into whom he fused his own passionate devotion to Christ and His cause, and then he scattered them to the four corners of the earth, giving them one only command: “Go and set the whole world on fire with the love of Jesus Christ.”

That is what happened to Ignatius Loyola when once he came to know Christ. Our object in these pages is to look upon one trait of the infinitely beautiful character of that same Christ. Even this may help to a deeper knowledge of Him, and it is not possible to know Him and withhold one’s love and one’s eagerness to imitate Him.

There is a whole world of difference between knowing Christ and knowing about Christ. If a man is interested, let us say, in some branch of science, he may know much about an eminent scientist who lives at the antipodes (the other side of the world from himself). He knows all the facts of the man’s life — where he was born, what studies he has pursued, the countries he has visited, the books he has written, the chain of circumstances that led him to settle down in a distant country. But the man himself he does not know until he meets him face to face.

Now it is the intensest yearning of Jesus to make men know Him in this intimate way. He is ever trying to make contact with them, and to let them understand that when He tells them His Sacred Heart is on fire with love for them He is not using the language of metaphor, but is stating the simple truth.

The Key to Christ

Love is, perhaps, the trait of Our Lord’s character that first impresses itself upon our minds as soon as we begin to know Him. This is to be expected, for proofs of that love crowd into every page, one might almost say into every line, of the Gospel story. There He holds up for us to look at, a Heart throbbing with a love which is the very embodiment of sincerity. So astonishingly genuine is His love; so solid and unshaken and unchanged does it stand in face of the assaults of treachery and falsehood; so completely does it efface the memory of the cowardice, the pettiness, the selfishness, the crimes even, of the sinner who falls down on his knees and asks to be forgiven; so exultant is it when men at last begin to get a small glimpse of its reality, and so keenly disappointed when they will not believe in it; so eager is it to make every allowance and to discover every excuse: in a word, so immeasurably beyond the ambit of our small minds to fathom, or our halting speech to utter, is this wonderful thing: the love of Christ for men, that the saints — they who best “learned Christ” — have made language yield up all her treasures of eloquence in the effort to tell us about it.

And with what result? Why, only to lay down their pens and confess that they despair of the task. Only to proclaim that that love is a luminary so bright that it stands out apart, quite on its own, dwarfing all human love, or, rather, taking into itself everything there is in human love of beauty and of truth, and excluding every taint of the selfishness by which human love is often marred. The fact is that there is no finding of words adequately to expose the treasures of love for men that are contained in Christ’s Sacred Heart. Prayer opens wide the door of that treasure-house; the earnest seeker knocks and is given admission; he looks around in astonishment, and gradually two truths break in on his mind.

The first of these is that God is love. Saint John learned that when he leaned close to Christ’s Heart at the Last Supper. When, later, he wanted to sum up all God’s attributes — His eternity, His justice, His awful sanctity, His infinite perfection — he chose love as being the best epitome of them all. “God is love,” and the soul of prayer makes that its first discovery.

But even more astonishing still is the second truth. All this wealth of love of God is waiting to be poured out on each individual who finds his way to this treasure-house. “Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting love.” “He loved me,” writes Saint Paul, “and He delivered Himself up for me.”

Forgiveness

Certain it is that this fire of Our Lord’s love shines out most brilliantly when it gathers into itself the sorrowful heart of the prodigal, and makes him realize that its flames have completely burned up every trace and every memory of his sin. The soul then understands that Our Lord fulfills, as no one ever did, as no one ever shall, that fine definition of a friend — a man who knows everything about me, and loves me just the same. The welcome back springs spontaneously from the Sacred Heart. There is no censure, no complaint, no aloofness, no formality. It is no time for formality when the welcoming Christ is overflowing with joy that His child is beginning at last to understand the utter truth of His love. And it is just at this moment, too, when the sinner stands before this forgiving Christ, stands and looks at his own selfishness and his meanness, that he best appreciates Our Lord’s generosity in forgetting all about it. Of course, he is forgiven; he knows quite well he is. But he has deliberately hurt a Friend, and the remembrance of his ingratitude and the pain he has caused burns into his brain and brings to his eyes tears of sweet repentance. In the light of his sin, he understands better than ever before how much Christ loves him. The very sincerity of the welcome back serves only to bring, hot from the heart, acts of sorrow and protestations that he is fixed in his determination to efface the past by a life of utter loyalty to that Friend in future. This is how this extraordinary Lover of men takes the sinner’s load of crimes from his shoulders, and from it welds, all the stronger and closer, the golden chain binding the sinner’s heart to the Sacred Heart. Christ will make of even his very sins, stepping-stones to higher things.

Saint Peter learned this, and the story of his schooling is a drama in three acts.

Three Chapters

Peter and the others are seated with the Master it the Last Supper. Our Lord is sad tonight, and, to these friends of His, “His own,” He reveals part of the cause of His sadness. For the last time, (He knows it,) He is in the midst of His own whom He loves so well. He is longing to make them understand Him, to give them at least some insight into the affection He has for them. Above all, He wants them to be loyal to Him. He wants to be able to lean on them for support during this terrifying Passion that is about to break in on Him tonight. But they are going to fail Him, and He knows it. He looks around the table sadly, looks from Peter to John, from John to Andrew, and so round about the entire group. Quite quietly, quite deliberately, He stretches out both hands in a comprehensive gesture, and, including the whole twelve, He tells them: “All you shall be scandalised in Me this night. One of you will even betray Me. . . . The hand of the traitor is with Me on the table.”

For a moment, they are struck dumb with horror and surprise. Scandalized in Him! Ashamed of Him! Traitors! Never would that be said of them, His very own, chosen out of the whole world. The Master must surely be mistaken. They can trust themselves that much at least, that they know they love Him and are ready to follow Him even to suffering and to death. Especially is Peter’s generous heart chilled at the suggestion. “Lord,” he says, when at length he finds his speech, though still his voice is hoarse under the strong emotion, “Lord, I will never be scandalized in You. The other eleven? Well, they, perhaps. But Peter? Lord, depend on Peter! Even though all should be scandalized, yet not I.” He means it, indeed, but the Lord knew Peter. “Peter,” He tells him, “the cock will not crow till you deny Me three times.” This is piling agony upon agony and Peter cannot believe. It is not possible. And he spoke the more vehemently: “Lord, I am ready to go with You to prison and to death. Even though I should die together with You, I will never deny You.” And in like manner spoke all His disciples.

Danger!

A few hours elapse and the scene changes to the barrack-yard outside the palace of Caiphas. Our Lord has been arrested down in Gethsemane and dragged through the street, and now He is inside, standing His trial before Annas. The night is cold, and out here in the yard, the soldiers gather round the fire to discuss the latest happenings. They have secured this Man Christ at last. For a long time He has been a source of trouble to the authorities, but tonight will seal His fate. What chance has He between the cunning Annas and the unscrupulous Caiphas? Indeed, truth to tell, on other occasions He had made away and nobody seemed able to tell how. But tonight they have made sure of His capture. Where so many others had failed they have succeeded, and they hope their masters will not forget that for them. Although, when all was said and done, the night’s work had been a simple enough task. There had been practically no resistance, for the Man’s friends had scampered away at the first sign of danger. One of them, indeed, had made some show of defense. In a sudden flare of zeal and anger, he had drawn a sword, but presently the flare had died down again, and he, too, had deserted his Master and had run off with the others.

In this strain, the conversation continues — the men sitting there with their hands spread out towards the grateful blaze of the fire, and regaling themselves at intervals with a draught from the bottles dangling from their belts. And, of all the people in the world, seated there, right in the midst of these soldiers, is Simon Peter — his face white with fear, his heart in his breast frozen with terror lest they notice him. What they are saying is true indeed. He it was who had drawn that sword and afterwards had run away when he saw the Master a Prisoner. He had retraced his steps, however, and, sorrowful and ashamed of his cowardice, he had succeeded in gaining admission to this courtyard, whence he might follow Jesus afar off and see the end. But now misery is eating into his very soul. What a fool he has been! Better never to have come back! Why did he not remain in safety with the others! Instead, in his impetuous way, he has rushed into the jaws of danger. He has had the foolhardiness to come into this place where he can do nothing at all to help the Master, and where every moment he is incurring the risk of being himself suspected and imprisoned. He must watch his chance and make good his escape before it is too late.

The Link Broken

His thoughts are rudely interrupted. Clear and loud above the coarse mutterings of the men rings out the shrill note of a girl’s voice. “Why,” she cries, “here is the very man you are talking about. Here is the friend of your Christ who drew his sword down in the garden.” And she points an accusing finger in the direction of the apostle. For one agonizing moment fear for himself and love for his Master have a fierce struggle in Peter’s heart. He stands still, with head bent, undecided, quite taken by surprise. But already they are gathering around him and scrutinizing his features more closely in the glare of the firelight. He must save himself at all costs. “It’s a lie,” he mutters. “I do not know Whom you are talking about! I never met the Man in my life.”

But they are not to be put off so easily. “A lie!” they repeat mockingly. “No, friend of Christ, if there is a lie it is on your side. Why, even your very accent betrays you that you are a Galilean. And did we not see you in the garden with Him?” Peter dare not gainsay these arguments, and so he has recourse to cursing and swearing. Three several times he declares he knows nothing of this Christ of theirs, and then, cloaking his fear under show of indignation, he rushes from the fireplace and his accusers, determined to get away at once before there is any more trouble. Hisses of contempt follow him, and the men hurl after him their threats and their scoffs. And Peter, still cursing and swearing that he knows not the Man, hurries from them in feigned rage, and makes straight for the gate of the courtyard.

“The Lord Turning”

He has about two-thirds of the way covered between the fire and the gate when all at once, he stops dead and stands staring blankly before him like a man changed into a block of marble. What has happened to mesmerize him like this? At the farther end of the yard, there is a balcony leading from the house of Annas to the house of Caiphas, and, just at that very moment, Our Lord is being led across. For a few seconds only, their eyes met — the eyes of Jesus and the eyes of Peter. “And the Lord, turning, looked at Peter.” There is a whole world of pathos in the evangelist’s simple words. That look of Christ seemed to choke Peter’s heart with sorrow. Light shone down from those eyes of Christ and penetrated into the deep places of Peter’s soul. It was like the flash of lightning that dazzles one in the midst of a black night.

In an instant, the flash was over, but it had lasted long enough to show the whole horrible truth to Peter. He had betrayed his Friend! He, Peter, who had been so loud in his protestations of loyalty only a few hours ago! Peter, who had left all things to follow Christ! Peter, for whom Our Lord had prayed especially that his faith might not fail! Peter, who was to confirm his brethren, to be their prop and their model! Peter, to whom had been made that promise that he should be lifted up to the high eminence of head of Christ’s Church! Peter had betrayed Christ! All Christ’s lovable ways stand out in his memory more lovable than ever now in the light of Peter’s fall — His patience, His thoughtfulness, His unfailing courtesy, His unselfishness. And Peter had betrayed Him! Not once either, but many times! And not by a simple denial, but with cursing and swearing that he never knew Him! And all because of the accusation of a whimpering servant-girl! The remorse of it! Such a Friend betrayed! And by such an apostle! And for such a reason! Echoes start suddenly in the much tortured brain. “Even though all should deny You. . . .” “I am ready to go with You to prison and to death.” “I will never be scandalized. . . .” “And the Lord turning, looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word which the Lord had spoken: ‘Before the cock crows, you will deny Me three times.’ And going out he wept bitterly.”

Absolution

The clouds of the Passion have rolled away. It is early morning. Peter and the others have been out in their little smack all night fishing the waters of the lake. It has been a wearisome night of labour, casting their nets and hauling them up again, and they are very tired.

As they draw near, in the first grey streaks of dawn, the figure of a Man is just discernible standing on the seashore. They take no notice of Him at first, pre-occupied, as they are, tugging at the oars, and eager to reach home and secure their much-needed food and rest. But that Figure on the shore has attracted the attention of John. He peers intently out over the side of the boat, and then, reassured, he bends down and whispers into Peter’s ear. “That disciple, therefore, whom Jesus loved, said to Peter: ‘It is the Lord’.” Peter’s heart gives a bound of joy. Nets, boat, tackle, the labors of the night, his weariness and hunger — straightaway all these fall from his mind. One thought only obsesses him — Jesus is there, standing on the shore, and Peter must get to Him. The boat is too slow. Indeed, they have not far to go, but Peter’s impetuous love cannot be held in check. “Peter, therefore, when he heard that it was the Lord, girt his coat about him and cast himself into the sea” to come to Jesus.

Then follows a scene so lovely that any words used to reproduce it must seem almost a desecration. The rays of the morning sun just beginning to peep out of the east; the majestic Figure of the Christ, standing there on the white sand at the edge of the water; the little waves stealing in and breaking only a small distance away from His sandaled feet; and, on his knees before Him, Peter, his clothes dripping with the water of the lake, slipping his great rough seaman’s hands into the white hands of Christ, and stammering out his profession of love with all the simplicity of a little child. There is no embarrassment in Peter. He knows Jesus too well. Of course, everything is all right; the old loving relations are fully restored. Not only does Our Lord forgive, but Peter is quite sure that He will receive him in such a way that nobody looking on would suspect that He even knew about that terrible triple denial on Holy Thursday night.

“You Know All Things”

But Peter himself? Ah, he had inflicted a smarting wound on the Heart of a Friend Who never had an equal. And a great sorrow and a great love and a big resolve to undo the past surge up in Peter’s heart as he kneels here and grasps firmly the hands of the Master. And, once again, “the Lord turning, looks at Peter.” “Simon, son of John, love you Me?” Peter looks up, and this time he gazes steadily into the eyes of Christ. “Yes, Lord, I do love You, indeed.” A second time the same question: “Simon, son of John, love you Me?” And a second time the same avowal. “Love You, Lord? Why, of course I love You.” Still a third time: “Simon, son of John, love you Me?” And Peter is grieved. Is it possible that the Master doubts his love, seeing that He questions him thus three several times? More vehemently, he declares it now. “Lord, do You wish me to reassure You of my love? Lord, You know all things. You know that I love You.” A triple declaration of love to blot out for ever his triple denial, and the repentant Peter is lifted from his feet and raised to the highest pinnacle of greatness and honour that the loving Christ can find. “Feed My lambs; feed My sheep.” The first Vicar of Christ on earth is Peter, who denied Him, but repented of his sin. Such is the love of Christ.

Peter never knew Our Lord so well as when he had caused Him pain. He knew Christ best in the infinitely tactful, infinitely gentle, infinitely forgiving, infinitely loving welcome back given him that morning on the seashore. He had found Jesus Christ to be a friend — a Man Who knew everything about him and loved him just the same. He looked up into the eyes of Christ, and it was good to know that he was trusted still. And the Face of Christ is radiant, for He has found a man who is beginning to understand the sincerity of His love. The light in Christ’s Face blots out for Peter the brilliance of the morning sun, and he looks up wistfully and reads there the story of a love so great that words are only poor, feeble instruments to express it, a friendship so utterly genuine that no treachery or falsehood can alter it.

A Festering Sore

Among the twelve at the supper-table that Holy Thursday night, a man was sitting in whose heart a secret was festering like a horrible sore. Judas Iscariot was a sensible, hard-headed man of the world who had found Christ and His ideals to be a disappointment. Everything had looked so promising two years ago. Christ’s name was on everybody’s lips then, and the crowds followed Him everywhere. Judas, too, had begun to take an interest in the Man. People were saying that He had come to found a kingdom, to restore the splendor of the ancient Jews. There was no denying that the Man had a wonderful power — there was power in His words to draw the multitudes; in His touch, there was power, for with his own eyes Judas had seen lepers cleansed by that touch, sight restored, even the dead raised to life. Then He had the majestic bearing befitting a King. Perhaps there was truth in the reports that were current about Him, and, if so, Judas would want to be on the Man’s side, for he loved power dearly, and he worshipped money for the power it put into men’s hands.

So Judas had become more and more interested in this Man, Jesus of Nazareth, and more favorably disposed to listen to His teaching. Accordingly, he had been vastly pleased that morning two years ago when Jesus had singled him out of the multitude to be His special disciple. The scene was still fresh in his memory. Jesus had spent a day by the shore of Lake Genesareth, and from every side the crowds had gathered and thronged about Him. They brought to Him all that were sick, those possessed by devils, lunatics, palsied. And He, laying His hands upon them, cured them all. “Power went out from Him,” the evangelist was to write later — that power coveted by Judas, who was scanning every movement of Christ. That night Jesus went up the mountainside alone to pray — it was often His custom at the end of a day — and next morning the multitudes gathered again. And Christ, standing there before them on the brow of the hill, looked out over them, indicating clearly that He had some special concern this morning. Twelve men are called aside from the crowd; one by one, in His quiet, deliberate way, He selects them Himself, mentioning each one by name and assigning to each his place near Him. Henceforth, these are to be “His own.” Presently they sit down, Jesus and the twelve, and with the multitude facing Him and His twelve, Jesus opens His mouth and begins to teach. And amongst the twelve names called that day was that of Judas Iscariot.

For a while, he had sat there by the Master’s side, proud that he had been chosen so, and fully conscious that the eyes of many were fixed upon him with a holy envy. But all at once, his complacency receives a shock. Jesus is speaking to the crowds, and what is this Judas hears? “Blessed are the poor in spirit. . . . Woe to you that are rich!” The words jar harshly on the ears of Judas. He had dreamed of a wealthy kingdom in which he would wield power, but here is the Founder of the Kingdom advocating poverty and denouncing riches as a snare and a danger-trap. Already his fears are awakened that there is something wrong.

Disillusioned!

Throughout the two years, all Christ’s teaching has been consistent with this sermon on the Mount. Consistently He has told His followers to expect and to love poverty and suffering; to despise what the world values most highly, and to look for their reward, not in this world, which is only a passing show, but to “lay up treasure in heaven where neither rust nor moth can consume nor thieves break through and steal.” Gradually it becomes more and more clear to Judas that he has made a mistake. And lately there has been even a more serious development, for Christ has lashed with merciless rigor the Pharisees and the Scribes — the very men who hold the power! He has pursued them with relentless logic, and has unmasked their hypocrisy before all the people. Of course, they are enraged, and everybody knows they are only seeking an excuse to put Him to death. Yes, Judas made the mistake of his life when he took up with this Man. Jesus of Nazareth. But is the mistake irretrievable? He is indeed on the losing side for the moment, but a skillful and swift move can save him still — perhaps.

Dare he take that move? For at first he is horrified by the mere suggestion, and he rejects it. But, for all that, it comes back again another day, and this time it seems not quite so horrible after all. Judas looks at the idea, and, in a hazy kind of way, begins remotely to think out ways and means. Perhaps the thing is just feasible. Anyhow, the facts are that Judas wants money very badly; that for two whole years he has followed about after Jesus, Who is now clearly proved a visionary, and for his pains, he has been told to love poverty and insult! He has had enough of such unsavory doctrine. On the other hand, there are the Chief Priests, the Pharisees and the Scribes, the men with money, influence, and power. And these are Christ’s implacable enemies. No doubt about it, if they could discover a man willing to hand over this Jesus to them, they would pay him handsomely. Was it not a chance for Judas, who knew every move of the Master? An opportunity of recompensing himself for the disappointments and losses of the past two years?

Playing With Fire

But conscience? Well, what of conscience? Judas has sense enough to know that there are times when a man has to brush aside these petty conscientious scruples. Besides, he remembers that before this, attempts had been made to effect the capture, but Jesus had passed through His enemies in some unaccountable fashion. It is quite possible that the same is going to happen this time, too, but not until Judas has had his money! Anyhow, there can be no great harm in approaching the Chief Priests and finding out what their offer would be. Not that he is going to clinch a bargain with them! He will just throw out a leading question to give them a hint of what is passing in his mind, and see how far they would be willing to go.

That decision once taken, the remaining chapters in Judas’ story follow in rapid succession. That night, under cover of darkness, the wretched man slips down the street and knocks at the door of the Chief Priest’s house. It is opened, and Judas is admitted to the chamber where Annas and Caiphas and the other great men are holding council. It is the interminable question — how are they going to silence for ever this fearless Christ, Who is destroying their prestige with the people? They are frankly surprised to see Judas, a known disciple of the Man they hate. What can Judas want with them, and at this hour? He has no time for apologies or introductions, for he has been driven in here by a restless hankering for something, anything almost, other than Christ. Christ is not enough for Judas; Christ is a disappointment to Judas; what can Judas get instead of Christ? That is his quest tonight. “What will you give me,” he blurts out, “and I will betray Him?”

They are taken aback. This was more than they had hoped for in their wildest dreams. Is there any mistaking Judas’ meaning? They observe him shrewdly, and the lips twitching with nervous excitement and the eyes glowing with greed reassure them. In such a place and at such a time. “Him” can only mean Jesus, but that hallowed name is stifled in the throat of the traitor apostle.

Treachery

Sure of their ground now, and recovered somewhat from the first shock of surprise, it is only with an effort that they succeed in controlling their delight. Why, if Judas can guarantee his side of the bargain, they are willing to go to almost any price. But they are not going to say so all at once, for they are careful Jews, and if they can have the capture effected at a low figure, why pay more than they need? What would Judas say to thirty pieces of silver? That was quite a fair sum. He would recall that it was the price laid down in their book of Exodus as the price to be paid to a master if his slave was injured. And Judas, dazzled by the glitter of the silver, sweeps the coins into his wallet and signs the promise that he will hand Christ over to them. “And from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him in the absence of the multitude.”

That is the horrible secret that is raging in the miserable man’s breast as he sits tonight at table with Jesus and the other eleven. Ever since he struck that fatal bargain, he has been ill at ease in this company. And now, as Jesus, in His quiet, deliberate way, begins to speak to them, His words strike the ears of Judas like a thunderbolt. “All of you will be scandalized in Me this night. . . . The hand of him that will betray Me is with Me on the table. . . . The Son of Man indeed goes. . . . But woe to that man by whom the Son of Man will be betrayed. It were better for him if that man had not been born.”

“Is It I, Lord?”

It is a warning for Judas from the merciful Christ. But by this time, sin has eaten its way deep into the soul of the wretched man, and he refuses to yield. Christ he has tried in the balance and found wanting. He prefers his bag of silver and the good graces of the men with power. Very soon, he will be finished for ever with this company of dreamers, but even with them, he must be tactful and diplomatic to the end. He will face Christ and brazen out His ominous warning. What does he care? And so, when deep concern lines the faces of these true lovers of Christ, the traitor, too, feigns alarm. Christ, it seems, knows the secret of Judas’ heart. What of that, then? And, with an insolence that is incredible, he looks up into the eyes of the Master. “A traitor, Lord? It is not I, is it?” And he points his index finger towards his breast. A mighty grace has been offered and rejected, and the Heart of Christ is crushed with sorrow and pain. He will not force this wayward man; He never does. Judas will have his way. Christ, having tried in vain to save Judas from his sin, makes sure now to shield at least his reputation with the others. “Judas, what you do, do quickly.” The eleven were accustomed to orders like this being given to Judas, for he carried the purse and was the trusted apostle. Frequently the Master would have some special commission for Judas to execute. Accordingly, they thought no more about him when he left the supper room and went out into the darkness, bent, they believed, on some errand of mercy undertaken at the bidding of Jesus. The traitor’s good name with the others is still intact. That much at least Christ’s love has made sure, even if He has failed to save him from his sin.

It Was Night.

“Judas, therefore . . . went out. And it was night.” Darkness fell down upon the soul of the apostle, and he hastened recklessly to destruction. We find him next with a cohort of soldiers drawing near the garden of Gethsemane. With nervous tread, he walks along, a little ahead of the rest. There is an undefined fear clutching at his heart — the warning note of conscience — which all his self-assurances and specious reasonings have not succeeded in reducing to silence. How can he draw back now, even if he wanted to? Poor Judas! But even yet, even now, on the very edge of the precipice, will that Christ he has rejected make a final effort to arouse his sorrow and win back his love once more? Christ has been kneeling in prayer under the olive trees, but on the approach of the soldiers and their leader, He rises from His knees and goes forward to meet them. By now, the traitor has become quite callous. Conscience is a delicate instrument, easily blunted. Let the Christ save Himself if He will and as best He may. Judas has made his bargain and he is going to stand by it.

“Judas, therefore, gave them a sign, saying: ‘Whomsoever I shall kiss, the same is He. Hold Him fast. Lead Him away carefully’.” “And he brushes aside the branches of the trees with both hands and emerges into the moonlight”. Yes, there is the Man standing erect before him, the Man Who loved Judas, and loves Judas still, but to Judas the Man is a disappointment. “And he kissed Him.” Is there any hope left for Judas? For, if there is still even a shadow of a chance of saving him, this loving Christ will seize upon it. Will not Judas pause and think?

From his place there in the embrace of Judas Jesus looks steadily into the traitor’s eyes. Such a look does He give him as will afterwards break the heart of Peter. Peter’s sin was a sin of weakness. Judas was more calculating. He had sat down and reckoned up the profits and losses, and had calmly and deliberately decided that the contract was worth while. Once more Christ will plead and warn, but He will not compel. Love must be won, not forced. “Friend, whereunto are you come? Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” “And he kissed Him.” Again, Jesus has verified in Himself that definition of a Friend — a Man Who knows all about another and loves him just the same. As He looks straight into the traitor’s heart, every single incident, from the first dallying with the temptation to this terrifying consummation, is spread out before His eyes like the pages of an open book. And, even in the face of all this treachery and ingratitude, Christ loves Judas still; Christ pleads with Judas to think and repent even still, but Judas will not be won. “And he kissed Him.”

Sweet Sin

There is a sweetness about sin, as there is a sweetness about poison. That sweetness Judas had tasted. He had handled his money. He had ingratiated himself, parasite-like, into the favor of the men with power and influence. No doubt about it, they would remember it for him that they owed Christ’s arrest to his co-operation and plans. He had felt the importance of his position at the head of a troop of soldiers who awaited his orders. That was all that much made up the sweetness of sin for Judas Iscariot. What a miserable pittance for which to betray Christ! The bewitching of trifles! But the worst was not yet. Who tastes the sweetness of poison must surely pay a bitter penalty, and who takes sin into his heart holds an asp close to his breast. This, too, Judas discovered. No sooner is his crime completed and he has stowed the unresisting Christ into the hands of His enemies, than Judas is torn with remorse. Back he rushes to the Chief Priests with the coins in his hands. “I have sinned,” he cries, in a voice hoarse with despair. “I have sinned in betraying innocent blood!”

They smile upon him condescendingly. He has done his work very well. The bargain had been made and kept. They had paid the price settled upon, and Judas had secured their Victim. Indeed, he has been a useful tool in their hands, but now he is of use no longer. “Innocent blood! Why, Judas, that is your own affair. Look you to it then.” Why did he not foresee all this misery? Why did he not heed Christ’s warnings, repeated so lovingly and so insistently? He had dreamed of wealth, but now he has flung away even the thirty pieces of silver, for they were burning like coals of fire in his hands. He had fondly imagined that the betrayal would open the way to power, but these great men have just turned sneeringly from him. He is stunned at last into realizing that sin is a huge deception.

A hatred seizes upon him, hatred for all men and hatred for himself. He must get away, anywhere, provided he be left alone. And as he rushes out, he knows not where and cares not, a vision rises up once more before his tortured brain — the Face of Jesus of Nazareth: Jesus, Who had said He was ready to forgive the repentant sinner not once merely, not seven times merely, but till seventy times seven times. Jesus, Who had poured words of merciful forgiveness into the ear of Mary Magdalene, and had made her the inseparable companion of His Immaculate Mother. Jesus, Who had lifted up the woman taken in adultery and saved her from her enemies. Jesus, Who had sat with publicans and sinners, Who had been accused of being their Friend, and had admitted the truth of the accusation. Jesus, Who had looked so compassionately at Judas himself tonight and had spoken His warnings with so much gentleness and tact — the Face of that Jesus haunts his brain now, but still Judas resists. “My sin is greater than that I should hope for pardon.”

Despair

Blindly he hastens away to the lonely valley of Hinnon, trying to shut out the vision of that merciful Christ from his mind. The blackness of despair envelops him and blocks out every ray of hope. To the end, Christ is a disappointment to Judas. To the end, he refuses to believe in Christ’s mercy. To the end, he cannot be convinced that Christ could know everything about him and love him just the same. “My sin is greater than that I should hope for pardon. My case is exceptional!” Despair ties the hands of an omnipotent Lover. With his worldly ambitions dashed to the ground, and with a sin which he persuades himself is too great to be pardoned, what is there left to live for? Better finish once and for all with this life of disappointments! Jesus will hang on the cross tomorrow and pray for His murderers. Judas will hang from the tree tonight and refuse to believe in His love and His readiness to forgive.

So ended the story of Judas Iscariot. Mistakes crowd into every chapter, but the fatal mistake, the mistake that was quite irremediable, was not Judas’ love of money or even the horrible act of betrayal. The saddest mistake of all was Judas’ refusal to believe that Christ could be such a Friend, that He could still love Judas, and still want Judas, in spite of all. One remedy could have saved Judas, as it saved Peter; one only remedy there was, but it was an infallible one. A humble confession of his sin and a cry for mercy would instantly have restored all the old loving relations between Christ and the traitor. But that cry and that confession never rose from the lips of Judas. He refused to believe that Christ could be such a Friend. To Judas, Christ was a disappointment, and, to the infinitely forgiving, infinitely loving Jesus of Nazareth, Judas Iscariot was a disappointment, too.

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
Like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in His justice
Which is more than clemency.

There is no place where earth’s sorrows
Are more felt than up in Heaven:
There’s no place where earth’s failings
Have such kind judgment given.

For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of man’s mind,
And the Heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own,
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.

If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of Our Lord.

-Father Faber

Ash Wednesday
Rev. Fr. Leonard Goffine

Because on this day the Church blesses ashes, and places them on the heads of her faithful children, saying: “Remember man, thou art dust, and unto dust thou shaft return.”

Why is this done?

St. Charles Borromeo gives us the following reasons for this practice: that the faithful may be moved to sincere humility of heart; that the heavenly blessing may descend upon them, by which they, being really penitent, will weep with their whole soul for their sins, remembering how earth was cursed because of sin, and that we have all to return to dust; that strength to do true penance may be given the body, and that our soul may be endowed with divine grace to persevere in penance.

With such thoughts let the ashes be put upon your head, while you ask in all humility and with a contrite heart, for God’s mercy and grace.

Is the practice of putting ashes upon our heads pleasing to God?

It is, for God Himself commanded the Israelites to put ashes on their heads for a sign of repentance. (Jer. XXV. 34.) Thus did David (Ps, CI. 10.) who even strewed ashes on his bread; the Ninivites, (Jonas III. 5.) Judith, (Jud, IX. 1.) Mardochai, (Esth. IV 1.) Job, (JobXLII. 6.) etc. The Christians of the earliest times followed this practice as often as they did public penance for their sins.

Why from this day until the end of Lent are the altars draped in violet?

Because, as has been already said, the holy season of Lent is a time of sorrow and penance for sin, and the Church desires externally to demonstrate by the violet with which she drapes the altar, by the violet vestments worn by the priests, and by the cessation of the organ and festive singing, that we in quiet mourning are bewailing our sins; and to still further impress the spirit of penance upon us, there is usually only a simple crucifix or a picture of Christ’s passion, left visible upon the altar, and devoutly meditating upon it, the heart is mostly prepared for contrition.

In the Introit of this day’s Mass the Church uses the following words to make known her zeal for penance, and to move God to mercy.

Introit: Thou hast mercy upon all, O Lord, and hatest none of the things which Thou hast made, winking at the sins of men for the sake of repentance, and sparing them; for thou art the Lord our God. (Wisd. XI. 24. 25.) Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me; for my soul trusteth in thee. (Ps. LVI. 2.) Glory be to the Father, etc.

Collect: Grant to thy faithful, O Lord, that they may begin the venerable solemnities of fasting with suitable piety, and perform them with tranquil devotion. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, etc.

Lesson: (Joel II. 12-19) Thus with the Lord: Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning. And rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God; for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil. Who knoweth but he will return, and forgive, anal leave a blessing behind him, sacrifice and libation to the Lord your God? Blow the trumpet in Sion: sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather together the people; sanctify the Church; assemble the ancients; gather together the little ones, and them that suck at the breasts; let the bridegroom go forth from his bed, and the bride out of her bride-chamber. Between the porch and the altar the priests, the Lord’s ministers, shall weep; and shall say: Spare, O Lord, spare thy people; and give not thine inheritance to reproach, that the heathens should rule over them. Why should they say among the nations: Where is their God? The Lord hath been zealous for his land, and hath spared his people. And the Lord answered, and said to his people: Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and you shall be filled with them; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations, with the Lord Almighty.

Explanation: The Prophet Joel exhorts the Jews to sorrow and penance for their sins, that they evade the expected judgment to be sent by God upon the city of Jerusalem. He required of them to show their repentance not merely by rending their garments, a sign of mourning with the Jews, but by a truly contrite heart. The Church wishes us to see plainly from this lesson of the prophet what qualities our penance should possess, if we desire reconciliation with God, forgiveness of our sins, and deliverance at the Last Day, which qualities are not merely abstinence from food and amusements, but the practice of real mortification of our evil inclinations, thus becoming with our whole heart converted to God.

Gospel: (Matt. VI. 16-21) At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: When you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face, that thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father who is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee. Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth, where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.

Explanation: Jesus forbids us to seek the praises of men when performing good works, (fasting is a good work,) and still worse it would be to do good as the Pharisees, through hypocrisy. He also warns us against avarice and the desire for temporal riches, urging us to employ our temporal goods, in giving alms, and doing works of charity, thus laying up treasures in heaven, which are there rewarded and will last there forever. “What folly”, says St. Chrysostom, “to leave our goods where we cannot stay, instead of sending them before us where we are going — to heaven!”‘

Devotion Is For Everyone
St. Francis de Sales

When God the Creator made all things, he commanded the plants to bring forth fruit each according to its own kind; he has likewise commanded Christians, who are the living plants of his Church, to bring forth the fruits of devotion, each one in accord with his character, his station and his calling.
I say that devotion must be practiced in different ways by the nobleman and by the working man, by the servant and by the prince, by the widow, by the unmarried girl and by the married woman. But even this distinction is not sufficient; for the practice of devotion must be adapted to the strength, to the occupation and to the duties of each one in particular.

Tell me, please, my Philothea, whether it is proper for a bishop to want to lead a solitary life like a Carthusian; or for married people to be no more concerned than a Capuchin about increasing their income; or for a working man to spend his whole day in church like a religious; or on the other hand for a religious to be constantly exposed like a bishop to all the events and circumstances that bear on the needs of our neighbor. Is not this sort of devotion ridiculous, unorganized and intolerable? Yet this absurd error occurs very frequently, but in no way does true devotion, my Philothea, destroy anything at all. On the contrary, it perfects and fulfills all things. In fact if it ever works against, or is inimical to, anyone’s legitimate station and calling, then it is very definitely false devotion.

The bee collects honey from flowers in such a way as to do the least damage or destruction to them, and he leaves them whole, undamaged and fresh, just as he found them. True devotion does still better. Not only does it not injure any sort of calling or occupation, it even embellishes and enhances it.

Moreover, just as every sort of gem, cast in honey, becomes brighter and more sparkling, each according to its color, so each person becomes more acceptable and fitting in his own vocation when he sets his vocation in the context of devotion. Through devotion your family cares become more peaceful, mutual love between husband and wife becomes more sincere, the service we owe to the prince becomes more faithful, and our work, no matter what it is, becomes more pleasant and agreeable.

It is therefore an error and even a heresy to wish to exclude the exercise of devotion from military divisions, from the artisans’ shops, from the courts of princes, from family households. I acknowledge, my dear Philothea, that the type of devotion which is purely contemplative, monastic and religious can certainly not be exercised in these sorts of stations and occupations, but besides this threefold type of devotion, there are many others fit for perfecting those who live in a secular state.

Therefore, in whatever situations we happen to be, we can and we must aspire to the life of perfection.

The History of the Holy Rosary
Saint Louis Marie De Montfort

The holy rosary is composed, principally and in substance, of the prayer of Christ and the angelic salutation, that is, the Our Father and the Hail Mary. It was, without doubt, the first prayer and the principal devotion of the faithful and has been in use all through the centuries.

It was in the year 1214 that the Church received the holy rosary in its present form and according to the method we use today. It was given to the Church by St. Dominic, who had received it from the Blessed Virgin as a means of converting the Albigensians and other sinners. Saint Dominic, seeing that the gravity of people’s sins was hindering the conversion of the Albigensians, withdrew into a forest near Toulouse, where he prayed continuously for three days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penances in order to appease the anger of Almighty God. He used his discipline so much that his body was lacerated and finally he fell into a coma. At this point Our Lady appeared to him accompanied by three angels. She said: “Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?” He responded: “Oh, my Lady, you know far better than I do because next to your Son Jesus Christ you have always been the chief instrument of our salvation.” Then our Lady replied, “I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Angelic Psalter, which is the foundation-stone of the New Testament. Therefore, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter.” So he arose, comforted, and burning with zeal for the conversion of the people in that district, he made straight for the cathedral. At once unseen angels rang the bells to gather the people together, and Saint Dominic began to preach.

An appalling storm broke out at the very beginning of his sermon. The earth shook, the sun was darkened and there was so much thunder and lightning that all were very much afraid.

Their fear was even greater when, looking at a picture of Our Lady exposed in a prominent place, they saw her raise her arms to heaven three times to call down the wrath of Almighty God upon them if they failed to be converted, to amend their lives and to seek the protection of the holy Mother of God. Almighty God wished by means of these supernatural phenomena, to spread the new devotion of the holy rosary and to make it more widely known. At last, at the prayer of Saint Dominic, the storm came to an end. He then continued to preach. So fervently and compellingly did he explain the importance and value of the rosary that almost all the people of Toulouse embraced it and renounced their false beliefs. In a very short time a great improvement was seen in the town; people began leading Christian lives and gave up their former bad habits.

Inspired by the Holy Ghost and instructed by the Blessed Virgin, Saint Dominic preached the rosary for the rest of his life. The holy rosary, which he prayed every day, was his preparation for every sermon. He preached it by his example as well as by his sermons. He preached in cities and in country places, to people of high station and low, before scholars and the uneducated, to Catholics and to heretics.

One day he was to preach at Notre Dame in Paris. It happened to be the feast of St. John the Evangelist. He was in a little chapel behind the high altar prayerfully preparing his sermon by saying the Rosary, as he always did, when Our Lady appeared to him and said: “Dominic, even though what you have planned to say may be very good, I am bringing you a much better sermon.” Saint Dominic took in his hands the book Our Lady proffered. He read the sermon carefully and when he had understood it and meditated on it; he gave thanks to her. When the time came, he went up into the pulpit and in spite of the feast day, made no mention of Saint John other than to say that he had been found worthy to be the guardian of the Queen of Heaven. The congregation was made up of theologians and other eminent people who were used to hearing unusual and polished discourses. Saint Dominic told them that it was not his desire to give them a learned discourse, wise in the eyes of the world, but rather that he would speak in the simplicity of the Holy Ghost and with His forcefulness. So he began preaching the holy rosary and explained the Hail Mary word by word as he would to a group of children. He used the very simple illustrations which were in the book given him by Our Lady.

Blessed Alan, according to Carthagena, mentioned several other occasions when Our Lord and Our Lady appeared to Saint Dominic to urge him and inspire him to preach the holy rosary more and more in order to wipe out sin and to convert sinners and heretics. In another passage Carthagena says, “Blessed Alan said Our Lady revealed to him that, after she had appeared to Saint Dominic, her blessed Son appeared to him and said, Dominic, I rejoice to see that you are not relying on your own wisdom and rather than seek the empty praise of men, you are working with great humility for the salvation of souls. Priests should try to kindle a love of prayer in people’s hearts and especially a love of my Angelic Psalter. If only they would all start praying it and would really persevere, Almighty God in His mercy could hardly refuse to give them His grace. So I want you to preach my holy rosary.”

The Confraternity of the Holy Rosary only retained its first fervor for a century after it was instituted by Saint Dominic. After this it was like a thing buried and forgotten. Doubtless, too, the wicked scheming and jealousy of the devil were largely responsible for getting people to neglect the holy rosary, and thus block the flow of grace which it had drawn upon the world.

Thus, in 1349 Almighty God punished the whole of Europe with the most terrible plague that had ever been known. Starting in the east, it spread throughout Italy, Germany, France, Poland and Hungary, bringing desolation wherever it went. Out of a hundred men hardly one lived to tell the tale. Big cities, towns, villages and monasteries were almost completely deserted during the three years that the epidemic lasted. This scourge was quickly followed by two others, the heresy of the Flagellants and a tragic schism in 1376. Later on, when these trials were over, thanks to the mercy of Almighty God, Our Lady told Blessed Alan to revive the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. Blessed Alan was one of the Dominican Fathers at the monastery at Dinan, in Brittany. He was an eminent theologian and a famous preacher. Our Lady chose him because, since the Confraternity had originally been started in that province, it was fitting that a Dominican from the same province should have the honor of re-establishing it.

Blessed Alan began this great work in 1460, after a special warning from Our Lord. This is how he received that urgent message, as he himself tells it: One day when he was offering Mass, Our Lord, who wished to spur him on to preach the holy rosary, spoke to him in the Sacred Host. “How can you crucify me again so soon?” Jesus said. “What did you say, Lord?” asked Blessed Alan, horrified. “You crucified me once before by your sins,” answered Jesus, “and I would willingly be crucified again rather than have my Father offended by the sins you used to commit. You are crucifying me again now because you have all the learning and understanding that you need to preach the Blessed Mother’s rosary, and you are not doing it. If you only did that, you could teach many souls the right path and lead them away from sin. But you are not doing it, and so you yourself are guilty of the sins that they commit.” This terrible reproach made Blessed Alan solemnly resolve to preach the holy rosary unceasingly. Our Lady also said to him one day to inspire him to preach the holy rosary more and more, “You were a great sinner in your youth, but I obtained the grace of your conversion from my Son. Had such a thing been possible, I would have liked to have gone through all kinds of suffering to save you, because converted sinners are a glory to me. And I would have done that also to make you worthy of preaching my rosary far and wide.” Saint Dominic appeared to Blessed Alan as well and told him of the great results of his ministry: he had preached the holy rosary unceasingly. His sermons had borne great fruit and many people had been converted during his missions. He said to Blessed Alan, “See what wonderful results I have had through preaching the holy rosary. You and all who love Our Lady ought to do the same so that, by means of this holy practice of the rosary, you may draw all people to the real science of the virtues.” Briefly, then, this is the history of how Saint Dominic established the holy rosary and of how Blessed Alan de la Roche restored it.

From the time Saint Dominic established the devotion to the holy rosary up to the time when Blessed Alan de la Roche re-established it in 1460, it has always been called the ‘Psalter of Jesus and Mary’. This is because it has the same number of Hail Marys as there are psalms in the Book of the Psalms of David.

Ever since Blessed Alan de la Roche re-established this devotion, it was given the name of the rosary, which means “crown of roses.” That is to say that every time people pray the holy rosary devoutly they place on the head of the Blessed Virgin Mary 153 white roses and sixteen red roses. These roses will never fade or lose their beauty for they are heavenly flowers.

Our Lady has approved and confirmed this name of the rosary. She has revealed that each time one prays a Hail Mary one gives to her a beautiful rose. Each time one completes the holy rosary one makes for her a crown of roses.

So the complete rosary is a large crown of roses and each chaplet of five decades is a little wreath of flowers or a little crown of heavenly roses which we place on the head of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The rose is the queen of flowers and so the holy rosary is the rose of devotions and the most important of them.