Volume 10: Time After Pentecost (Part I)

THE LITURGICAL YEAR

This book has been scanned from a set I purchased from Loreto Publications under the condition that I post a notice stating that it came from Loreto Publications and that I have their permission. As far as I know the actual text is in the public domain with the possibility of some exceptions added by Loreto press. This book has a creative commons license that allows you to use it as long as this notice is attached. If you wish to post this set on your website you have to link back to www.theliturgicalyear.org so people download them from here. Unless the website is no longer functioning or you have my permission. If you are distributing this in any way or using outside of the U.S. you should check copyright laws before as they vary from country to country

THE LITURGICAL YEAR

ABBOT PROSPER GUÉRANGER, O.S.B.

TIME AFTER PENTECOST

BOOK I

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY DOM LAURENCE SHEPHERD, O.S.B.

JUBILEE YEAR 2000 LIMITED EDITION

LORETO PUBLICATIONS P. O. Box 603 Fitzwilliam, NH 03447 Phone: (603) 239-6671 Fax: (603) 239-6127

LORETO PUBLICATIONS

The Liturgical Year 15 Volume Set ISBN: 1-930278-03-9 Volume X — Time After Pentecost Book I ISBN: 1-930278-13-6

Printed in the Czech Republic by Newton Design & Print Ltd (www.newtondp.co.uk)

TO THE RIGHT REV. R. P. BURCHALL PRESIDENT-GENERAL OF THE ENGLISH-BENEDICTINE CONGREGATION AND ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER

THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED IN MEMORY OF THE SILVER JUBILEE OF HIS PRESIDENCY

BY THE TRANSLATOR

STANBROOK ABBEY — WORCESTER A.D. 1879

This volume opens to us the second part of the LITURGICAL YEAR, beginning the long period of the Time after Pentecost. It treats of the feasts of the most holy Trinity, of Corpus Christi, and of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. These three feasts require to be explained apart. Their dates depend on that of Easter; and yet they are detached, if we consider their object, from the moveable cycle, whose aim is to bring before us, each year, the successive, and so to speak historic, memories of our Lord's mysteries. After the sublime drama, which has, by gradually presenting to us the facts of our Redeemer's history, shown us the divine economy of the redemption, these feasts immediately follow, and give us a deep and dogmatic teaching: a teaching which is a marvellous synthesis, taking in the whole body of Christian doctrine.

The Holy Ghost has come down upon the earth, in order to sanctify it. Faith being the one basis of all sanctification, and the source of love, the Holy Spirit would make it the starting-point of His divine workings in the soul. To this end, He inspires the Church, which has sprung up into life under the influence of His impetuous breathing, to propose at once to the faithful that doctrinal summary, which is comprised in the three feasts immediately coming after Pentecost. The volumes following the present one will show us the Holy Spirit continuing His work, and, on the solid foundations of the faith He established at the outset, building the entire superstructure of the Christian virtues.

This was the idea which the author of the LITURGICAL YEAR was busy developing in the second part of his work, when death came upon him; and the pen that had begun this volume was put by obedience into the hands of one, who now comes before the faithful, asking their prayers for the arduous task he has undertaken, of continuing the not quite finished work of his beloved father and master. He begs of them to beseech our Lord, that He Himself will vouchsafe to bring to a successful termination an undertaking that was begun for His honour and glory, and that has already produced so much fruit in the souls of men.

Br. L.F. O.S.B.

Solesmes, May 10, 1879.

TIME AFTER PENTECOST

CHAPTER THE FIRST

The solemnity of Pentecost and its octave are over, and the progress of the liturgical year introduces us into a new period, which is altogether different from those we have hitherto spent. From the very beginning of Advent, which is the prelude to the Christmas festival, right up to the anniversary of the descent of the Holy Ghost, we have witnessed the entire series of the mysteries of our redemption; all have been unfolded to us. The sequel of seasons and feasts made up a sublime drama, which absorbed our very existence; we have but just come from the final celebration, which was the consummation of the whole. And yet we have gone through but one half of the year. This does not imply that the period we have still to live is devoid of its own special mysteries; but, instead of keeping up our attention by the ceaseless interest of one plan hurrying on to its completion, the sacred liturgy is about to put before us an almost unbroken succession of varied episodes, of which some are brilliant with glory, and others exquisite in loveliness, but each one of them bringing its special tribute towards either the development of the dogmas of faith or the furtherance of the Christian life. This year's cycle will thus be filled up; it will disappear; a new one will take its place, bringing before us the same divine facts, and pouring forth the same graces on Christ's mystical body.

This section of the liturgical year, which comprises a little more or a little less than six months according as Easter is early or late, has always had the character it holds at present. But, although it admits only detached solemnities and feasts, the influence of the movable portion of the cycle is still observable. It may have as many as twenty-eight or as few as twenty-three weeks. This variation depends not only upon the Easter feast, which may occur on any of the days between March 22 and April 25 inclusively, but also on the date of the first Sunday of Advent, which is the opening of a new ecclesiastical year, and is always the Sunday nearest the Kalends of December.

In the Roman liturgy the Sundays of this series go under the name of 'Sundays after Pentecost.' As we shall show in the next chapter, that title is the most suitable that could have been given, and is found in the oldest sacramentaries and antiphonaries, but it was not universally adopted even by those Churches which followed the Roman rite; in progress of time, however, that title became the general one. To mention some of the previous early names: in the Comes of Alcuin, which takes us back to the eighth century, we find the first section of these Sundays called 'Sundays after Pentecost'; the second is named 'weeks after the feast of the Apostles' (post natale Apostolorum); the third goes under the title of 'weeks after St. Laurence' (post Sancti Laurentii); the fourth has the appellation of 'weeks of the seventh month' (September); and, lastly, the fifth is termed 'weeks after St. Michael' (post Sancti Angeli), and lasts till Advent. As late as the sixteenth century many missals of the western Churches gave us these several sections of the Time after Pentecost, but some of the titles varied according to the special saints honoured in the respective dioceses, whose feasts were taken as the date-marks of this period of the year. The Roman missal, published by order of St. Pius V, has gradually been adopted in all our Latin churches, and has restored the ancient denomination to the ecclesiastical season we have just entered upon; so that the only name under which it is now known amongst us is 'the Time after Pentecost' (post Pentecosten).

CHAPTER THE SECOND

That we may thoroughly understand the meaning and influence of the season of the liturgical year upon which we have now entered, it is requisite for us to grasp the entire sequel of mysteries, which holy Church has celebrated in our presence and company; we have witnessed her services, and we have shared in them. The celebration of those mysteries was not an empty pageant, acted for the sake of being looked at. Each one of them brought with it a special grace, which produced in our souls the reality signified by the rites of the liturgy. At Christmas Christ was born within us; at Passiontide He passed on and into us His sufferings and atonements; at Easter He communicated to us His glorious, His untrammelled life; in His Ascension He drew us after Him, and this even to heaven's summit; in a word, as the apostle says of all this working, 'Christ was formed in us.'¹ But, in order to give solidity and permanence to the image of Christ formed within us, it was necessary that the Holy Ghost should come, that so He might increase our light, and enkindle a fire within us that should never be quenched. This divine Paraclete came down from heaven; He gave Himself to us; He wishes to take up His abode within us, and to take our life of regeneration entirely into His own hands. The liturgy of this Time after Pentecost signifies and expresses this regenerated life, which is to be spent on the model of Christ's, and under the direction of His Spirit.

Two objects here offer themselves to our consideration: the Church and the Christian soul. As to holy Church, the bride of Christ, filled as she is with the Paraclete Spirit, who has poured Himself forth upon her, and from that time forward is her animating principle, she is advancing onwards in her militant career, and will do so till the second coming of her heavenly Spouse. She has within her the gifts of truth and life. Endowed with infallibility of faith and authority to govern, she feeds Christ's flock, sometimes enjoying liberty and peace, sometimes going through persecutions and trials. Her divine Spouse abides with her, by His grace and the efficacy of His promises, even to the end of time; she is in possession of all the favours He has bestowed upon her; and the Holy Ghost dwells with her, and in her, for ever. All this is expressed by this present portion of the liturgical year. It is one wherein we shall not meet with any of those great events which prepared and consummated the divine work; but, on the other hand, it is a season when holy Church reaps the fruits of the holiness and doctrine, which those ineffable mysteries have already produced, and will continue to produce during the course of ages. It is during this same season that we shall meet with the preparation for, and in due time the fulfilment of, those final events which will transform our mother's militant life on earth into the triumphant one in heaven. As far, then, as regards holy Church, this is the meaning of the portion of the cycle we are commencing.

As to the faithful soul, whose life is but a compendium of that of the Church, her progress, during the period which is opened to her after the pentecostal feasts, should be in keeping with that of our common mother. The soul should live and act in imitation of Jesus, who has united Himself with her by the mysteries she has gone through; she should be governed by the Holy Spirit, whom she has received. The sublime episodes peculiar to this second portion of the year will give her an increase of light and life. She will put unity into these rays, which, though scattered in various directions, emanate from one common centre; and, advancing from brightness to brightness, she will aspire to being consummated in Him whom she now knows so well, and whom death will enable her to possess as her own. Should it not be the will of God, however, to take her as yet to Himself, she will begin a fresh year, and live over again those mysteries which she has already enjoyed in the early portion of previous liturgical cycles, after which she will find herself once more in the season that is under the direction of the Holy Ghost, till at last her God will summon her from this world, on the day and at the hour which He has appointed from all eternity.

Between the Church, then, and the soul, during the time intervening from the descent of the divine Paraclete to the consummation, there is this difference—that the Church goes through it but once, whereas the Christian soul repeats it each year. With this exception the analogy is perfect. It is our

¹ Gal. iv. 19.

¹ 2 Cor. iii. 18.

TIME AFTER PENTECOST

duty, therefore, to thank God for thus providing for our weakness by means of the sacred liturgy, whereby He successively renews within us those helps which enable us to attain the glorious end of our creation.

Holy Church has so arranged the order for reading the Books of Scripture during the present period as to express the work then accomplished, both in the Church herself and in the Christian soul. For the interval between Pentecost and the commencement of August, she gives us the four Books of Kings. They are a prophetic epitome of the Church's history. They describe how the kingdom of Israel was founded by David, who is the type of Christ victorious over His enemies, and by Solomon, the king of peace, who builds a temple in honour of Jehovah. During the centuries comprised in the history given in those books, there is a perpetual struggle between good and evil. There are great and saintly kings, such as Asa, Ezechias, and Josias; there are wicked ones, like Manasses. A schism breaks out in Samaria; infidel nations league together against the city of God. The holy people, continually turning a deaf ear to the prophets, give themselves up to the worship of false gods, and to the vices of the heathen, till at length the justice of God destroys both temple and city of the faithless Jerusalem; it is an image of the destruction of this world, when faith shall be so rare, that the Son of Man, at His second coming, shall scarce find a vestige of it remaining.

During the month of August, we read the Sapiential Books, so called because they contain the teachings of divine Wisdom. This Wisdom is the Word of God, who is manifested unto men through the teachings of the Church, which, because of the assistance of the Holy Ghost permanently abiding within her, is infallible in the truth.

Supernatural truth produces holiness, which cannot exist, nor produce fruit, where truth is not. In order to express the union there is between these two, the Church reads to us, during the month of September, the books called *hagiographic*; these are Tobias, Judith, Esther, and Job, and they show Wisdom in action.

At the end of the world the Church will have to go through combats of unusual fierceness. To keep us on the watch, she reads to us, during the month of October, the Books of Machabees; for there we have described to us the noble-heartedness of those defenders of the Law of God, for which they gloriously died; it will be the same at the last days, when power will be 'given to the beast to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.'¹

The month of November gives us the reading of the Prophets: the judgments of God impending upon a world which He is compelled to punish by destruction are there announced to us. First of all, we have the terrible Ezechiel; then Daniel, who sees empire succeeding empire, till the end of all time; and finally the Minor Prophets, who for the most part foretell the divine chastisements, though the latest among them proclaim, at the same time, the near approach of the Son of God.

Such is the mystery of this portion of the liturgical cycle, which is called the Time after Pentecost. It includes also the use of green vestments, for that colour expresses the hope of the bride, who knows that she has been entrusted by her Spouse to the Holy Ghost, and that He will lead her safe to the end of her pilgrimage. St. John says all this in those few words of his Apocalypse: 'The Spirit and the bride say, Come!'²

¹ Apoc. xiii. 7. ² Ibid. xxii. 17.

CHAPTER THE THIRD

PRACTICE FOR THE TIME AFTER PENTECOST

The object which the Church has in view by her liturgical year is the leading of the Christian soul to union with Christ, and this by the Holy Ghost. This object is the one which God Himself has in giving us His own Son to be our mediator, our teacher, and our Redeemer, and in sending us the Holy Ghost to abide among us. To this end is directed all that aggregate of rites and prayers which we have hitherto explained: they are not a mere commemoration of the mysteries achieved for our salvation by the divine goodness, but they bring with them the graces corresponding to each of those mysteries; that thus we may come, as the apostle expresses it, 'to the age of the fullness of Christ.'¹

As we have elsewhere explained, our sharing in the mysteries of Christ, which are celebrated in the liturgical year, produces in the Christian what is called in mystic theology the *illuminative life*, in which the soul gains continually more and more of the light of the Incarnate Word, who, by His examples and teachings, renovates each one of her faculties, and imparts to her the habit of seeing all things from God's point of view. This is a preparation which disposes her for union with God, not merely in an imperfect manner and one that is more or less inconstant, but in an intimate and permanent way, which is called the unitive life. The production of this life is the special work of the Holy Ghost, who has been sent into this world that He may maintain each one of our souls in the possession of Christ, and may

¹ Eph. iv. 13.

bring to perfection the love whereby the creature is united with its God.

In this state, in this unitive life, the soul is made to relish, and assimilate into herself, all that substantial and nourishing food which is presented to her so abundantly during the Time after Pentecost. The mysteries of the Trinity and of the blessed Sacrament, the mercy and the power of the Heart of Jesus, the glories of Mary and her influence upon the Church and souls—all these are manifested to the soul with more clearness than ever, and produce within her effects not previously experienced. In the feasts of the saints, which are so varied and so grand during this portion of the year, she feels more and more intimately the bond which unites her to them in Christ, through the holy Spirit. The eternal happiness of heaven, which is to follow the trials of this mortal life, is revealed to her by the feast of All Saints; she gains clearer notions of that mysterious bliss, which consists in light and love. Having become more closely united to holy Church, the bride of her dear Lord, she follows her in all the stages of her earthly existence; she takes a share in her sufferings; she exults in her triumphs. She sees, and yet is not daunted at seeing, this world tending to its decline, for she knows that the Lord is nigh at hand. As to what regards herself, she is not dismayed at feeling that her exterior life is slowly giving way, and that the wall which stands between her and the changeless sight and possession of the sovereign Good is gradually falling to decay; for, it is not in this world that she lives, and her heart has long been where her treasure is.¹

Thus enlightened, thus attracted, thus established by the incorporation into herself of the mysteries

¹ St. Matt. vi. 21.

wherewith the sacred liturgy has nourished her, as also by the gifts poured into her by the Holy Ghost, the soul yields herself up, and without any effort, to the impulse of the divine mover. Virtue has become all the more easy to her as she aspires, it would almost seem naturally, to what is most perfect; sacrifices, which used formerly to terrify, now delight her; she makes use of this world as though she used it not,¹ for all true realities, as far as she is concerned, exist beyond this world; in a word, she longs all the more ardently after the eternal possession of the object she loves, as she has been realizing, even in this life, what the apostle describes where he speaks of a creature as being 'one spirit with the Lord'² by being united to Him in heart.

Such is the result ordinarily produced in the soul by the sweet and healthy influence of the sacred liturgy. But if it seem to us that, although we have followed it in its several seasons, we have not as yet reached the state of detachment and expectation just described, and that the life of Christ has not, so far, absorbed our own individual life into itself, let us be on our guard against discouragement on that account. The cycle of the liturgy with its rays of light and grace for the soul, is not a phenomenon that occurs only once in the heavens of holy Church; it returns each year. Such is the merciful design of God, 'who hath so loved the world as to give it His only-begotten Son'³—of God, 'who came not to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him.'⁴ And holy Church is but carrying out that design by putting within our reach the most powerful of all means for leading man to his God, and uniting him to his sovereign Good; she thus testifies the earnestness of her maternal solicitude. The Christian who

¹ 1 Cor. vii. 31. ² Ibid. vi. 17. ³ St. John iii. 16. ⁴ Ibid. 17.

has not been led to the term we have been describing by the first half of the cycle will still meet, in this second, with important aids for the expansion of his faith and the growth of his love. The Holy Ghost, who reigns in a special manner over this portion of the year, will not fail to influence his mind and heart; and, when a fresh cycle commences, the work thus begun by grace has a new chance of receiving that completeness which had been retarded by the weakness of human nature.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH

MORNING AND NIGHT PRAYERS FOR THE TIME AFTER PENTECOST

During this second part of the year, the Christian, on waking in the morning, will unite himself with holy Church, who, every day in her Office of Lauds, hails the return of light, making use of these words of the royal prophet:

Deus, Deus meus, ad te de luce vigilo.

O God, my God, unto thee do I watch at break of day.

He will profoundly adore the divine Majesty; and, thanking his sovereign Lord, who has protected him while involved in the darkness of night, he will proffer Him his service for the whole day which is now commencing; he will wish to spend it in love and obedience, as behoves one whom Christ has united to Himself by His mysteries, and whom the Holy Ghost is willing to guide and govern. The time for morning prayer being come, he may give expression to the sentiments which should then animate his soul, by using these formulas of the Church:

MORNING PRAYERS

First, praise and adoration of the most holy Trinity:

℣. Benedicamus Patrem et Filium cum Sancto Spiritu.

℟. Laudemus et superexaltemus eum in sæcula.

℣. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.

℟. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

℣. Let us bless the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

℟. Let us praise him and extol him above all, for ever.

℣. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.

℟. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Then praise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ:

℣. Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi;

℟. Quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.

℣. We adore thee, O Christ, and we bless thee;

℟. Because, by thy holy cross, thou hast redeemed the world.

Thirdly, invocation of the Holy Ghost:

Veni, Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium, et tui amoris in eis ignem accende.

Come, O Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful, and enkindle within them the fire of thy love.

After these fundamental acts of religion, recite the Lord's Prayer, uniting your intentions with those which your Saviour had when He gave it to you. First, then, raise up your thoughts and desires to the interests of His glory, while you say the first three petitions: and in the last four, humbly put before Him the favours you yourself stand in need of:

THE LORD'S PRAYER

Pater noster, qui es in cœlis, sanctificetur nomen tuum; adveniat regnum tuum; fiat voluntas tua sicut in cœlo et in terra.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie; et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris; et ne nos inducas in tentationem; sed libera nos a malo. Amen.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Then address our blessed Lady, using for this the words of the Angelical Salutation. While saying it, think of the share she took in the mysteries whereby we have been saved and united to God. Think, too, of the immense power given to her by her divine Son, and of the maternal love she bears for us mortals.

THE ANGELICAL SALUTATION

Ave Maria, gratia plena; Dominus tecum; benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ. Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace: the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.

After this you should recite the Creed, that is the Symbol of faith. It contains the dogmas we are to believe, and which we have seen in such living reality by means of the liturgy, which has celebrated them each in its turn. Faith is the first bond which unites us to God. It is faith that gives us to know Him, and reveals to us the object of our hope and of our love. Our faith should be dearer to us than our life, and we should be ever praying for its increase.

THE APOSTLES’ CREED

Credo in Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terra.

Et in Jesum Christum

I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ his

--- PAGE 025 --- 14

Filium ejus unicum, Domi- num nostrum: qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine, passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus et sepultus: descen- dit ad inferos, tertia die re- surrexit a mortuis: ascendit ad coelos, sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis: in- de venturus est judicare vi- vos et mortuos.

Credo in Spiritum San- ctum, sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam, sanctorum com- munionem, remissionem peccatorum, carnis resur- rectionem, vitam sternam. Amen.

TIME AFTER PENTECOST

only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried ; he descended into hell; the third day he roseagain from the dead, he ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God the Father almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints, the for- giveness of sins, the resurrec- tion of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.

After having thus made the profession of your faith, unite with holy Church, who hails each morning the rising of the day-star, who is her Jesus, ‘the

light of the world,'! and the Sun of justice.

To

this end you may recite the following beautiful hymn, composed by St. Ambrose :

HYMN

Splendor Paterns glorize, De luce lucem proferens, Lux lucis, et fons luminis, Diem dies illuminans.

Verusque sol illabere, Micans nitore perpeti: Jubarque Sancti Spiritus Infunde nostris sensibus.

Votis vocemus et Patrem, Patrem perennis gloriz,

O Brightness of the Father's glory! bringing light from the light! Thou light of light, and fount of light, and day that illuminest the day!

O thou true sun! pour forth thy rays on us, shining upon us with unfading splendour! O radiance of the Holy Ghost, be thou infused into our senses and powers.

Give us also to invoke the Father, the Father of eternal

1 St. John viii. 12.

--- PAGE 026 --- MORNING PRAYERS

Patrem potentis gratise, Culpam releget lubricam.

Confirmet actus strenuos, Dentes retundat invidi: Casus secundet asperos, Donet gerendi gratiam.

Mentem gubernet et re-

gat, Casto, fideli corpore; Fides calore ferveat, Fraudis venena nesciat. Christusque nobis sit ci- bus, Potusque noster sit fides: Leti libamus sobriam Ebrietatem Spiritus. Lsetus dies hic transeat, Pudor sit ut diluculum, Fides velut meridies, Crepusculum mens nesciat. Aurora cursus provehit, Aurora totus prodeat, In Patre totus Filius, Et totus in Verbo Pater.

Deo Patri sit gloria, Ejusque soli Filio, Cum Spiritu Paraclito, Et nunc, et in perpetuum. Amen.

15

glory, the Father of mighty grace, that he would drive from us sin and its allurements.

May he give energy to our deeds and strengthen them; may he break the teeth of the envious serpent; may he sup- port us when we rudely fall, and give us the grace to act.

May he govern and rule our mind, in a chaste and faithful body; may our faith be fer- vent in warmth, void of the poisons of error.

May Christ be our food, and faith our drink; may we in gladness quaff the sober ine- briation of the Spirit.

May this day be one of joy; modesty its dawn, faith its noon; and no night to dim the mind.

The aurora is swiftly ad- vancing; O may the full aurora come, the whole Son in the Father, and the whole Father in his Word!

To God the Father, and to his only Son, and to the Para- clete Spirit, be glory for ever and ever.

Amen.

After having thus paid your homage to your

divine mediator, next make a humble confession of your sins, rr a this waa the general formula made use of by the Church.

THE CONFESSION OF SINS

Confiteor Deo omnipo- I confess to almighty God, lenti, beat; Marim semper to blessed Mary ever Virgin, to

--- PAGE 027 --- 16

Virgini, beato Michaeli archangelo, beato Joanni Baptiste, sanctis apostolis Petro et Paulo, et omnibus sanctis, quia peccavi nimis, cogitatione, verbo et opere: mes culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Ideo precor beatam Ma- riam semper Virginem, bea- tum Michaelem archange- lum, beatum Joannem Bap- tistam, sanctos apostolos Petrum et Paulum et omnes sanctos, orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum.

Misereatur nostri omni- potens Deus, et dimissis pec-
catis nostris, perducat nos ad vitam eternam. Amen.

Indulgentiam, absolutio- nem et remissionem pecca- torum nostrorum tribuat nobis omnipotens et, miseri- cors Dominus. Amen.

TIME AFTER PENTECOST

blessed Michael the archangel, io blessed John tho Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed; through my fault, through my fault, through my most griev- ous fault.

Therefore I beseech blessed Mary ever Virgin, blessed Michael the archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints, to pray to the Lord our God for me.

May almighty God have mercy on us, and, our sins being forgiven, bring us to life everlasting. Amen.

May the almighty and mer- ciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution and remission of oursins. Amen.

This is the proper time for making your meditation,

as, no doubt, you practise this holy exercise. It may be the case with some souls that their assiduous application to the mysteries of the holy liturgy has produced upon them this, among other effects —that it has opened to them the way of prayer, properly so called. Let, then, each one commune wit 3 2 under the influence of the Holy Spirit. During this long period, which never lasts less than six months, the Christian is free to choose the subject of his communings with God, for he has been enlightened as to all things, by the words and works of his Lord, who came down from heaven to earth that He might

--- PAGE 028 --- MORNING PRAYERS 17

teach us all truth. So that, whether he stay to ponder over the mysteries which have been revealed to him, according to the attraction which he feels for them ; or fix his attention upon the perfections of that divine model, in whom there are, so resplendently, all the marks of the second Adam come down from heaven; or our Lord point out to him those miseries and imperfeotions which are in him, and keep him still so far from his model: all will tend to enlighten him, to inflame him, and to unite him with his God. When a soul is oontinually being influenced by her contact with the Church through the liturgy, it is impossible for the spirit of prayer not to grow within her, and, either imperceptibly or suddenly, produce in her a transformation into Him, who, being God, has united Himself to our nature, in order that, through Him, we might be united with God.

Your meditation or prayer ended, or deferred on account of your not having leisure to make it at this hour of the morning, y6u will next address this prayer to God, begging Him to grant you the grace to avoid, during this day, every kind of sin, and to perform all manner of good works. Say, then, this prayer of the Church, for her prayers are the best:

¥. Domine, exaudi ora- ¥. O Lord, hear my prayer, tionem meam,

Ej. Et clamor meus ad te Hj. And let my cry come veniat. unto thee.

OREMUS LET US PRAY

Domine, Deus omnipo- Almighty Lord and God,
tens, qui ad principium hu- who hast brought us to the jus diei nos pervenire feci- beginning of this day, let thy sti, tua nos hodie salva vir- powerful grace so conduct us tute, ut in hac die ad nul- through it that we may not lum declinemus peccatum; fall into any sin; but that all sed semper ad tuam justi- our thoughts, words, and ac-

3

--- PAGE 029 --- 18

tiam faciendam nostra pro- cedant eloquia, dirigantur cogitationes et opera. Per Christum Dominum no- strum. Amen.

TIME AFTER PENTECOST

tions may be regulated accord- ing to the rules of thy heavenly justice, and tend to the ob- servance of thy law. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

During the day you would do well to use the instructions and prayers which you will find in these volumes, both for the proper of the time and the proper of the saints. In the evening you may use the following prayers.

NIGHT PRAYERS

After having made the sign of the cross, adore that sovereign Lord, who now offers you repose after the labours of the day. Beg His protection on these hours of sleep and night; to this end, you may recite this beautiful hymn of St. Ambrose, which was so great a favourite with St. Augustine, his disciple.

HYMN

O God, Creator of all things, and ruler of the heavena, 'tis thou that clothest day with beautiful light, and night with the boon of sleep.

"Tis sleep that restores our wearied limbs to the toil of work. Sleep gives repose to the mind when tired, and takes away theanxious-making grief.

The day is spent, and night is come; we offer thee our thanks and prayers, singing our hymn, that thou mayst help us, thy servants.

May our inmost heart sing thy praise, and tuneful voices sound forth thy name; may

Deus, Creator omnium
Polique rector, vestiens Diem decoro lumine, Noctem soporis gratia.

Artus solutos ut quies Reddat laboris usui, Mentesque fessas allevet, Luctusque solvat anxios.

Grates, peracto jam die, Et noctis exortu, preces, Voti reos ut adjuves, Hymnum canentes, solvi-

mus.

Te cordis ima concinant, Te vox sonora concrepet, Te diligat castus amor,

! Confessions, Bk. ix., ch. 12.

--- PAGE 030 --- NIGHT PRAYERS 19

Te mens adoret sobria. our chaste affection love, and our sober mind adore thee. Ut, cum profunda clau- And when the night's deep

serit gloom shall shut out the day, Diem caligo noctium, may our faith know nought of Fides tenebras nesciat darkness, and the very night Et nox fide reluceat. be day by faith.

Dormire mentem ne sinas, Let not our soul, but only Dormire culpa novorit ; sin feel sleep; let faith keep Castos fides refrigerans us chaste, and by its refresh- Somni vaporem temperet. ing power, check the vapours

of sleep.

Exuta sensu lubrico Mayour heart's deepest self, Te cordis alta somuient ; unshackled by the allurements Nec hostis invidi dolo of sense, dream of thee; nor Pavor quietos suscitet. let thefearof theenemy, whose

envy is ever laying snares, dis- turb us when at rest. Christum rogemus et Pa- Let our prayer ascend to

irem, Christ and to the Father, and to Christi Patrisque Spiritum : the Spirit of Christ and of the Unum, potens per omnia, Father: O Trinity, one in es- Fove precantes, Trinitas. sence,andall-powerful, be mer- ciful to us, who pray to thee. Amen. Amen. After this hymn, say the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Apostles’ , 88 in the morning.

Then make the examination of conscience, going over in your mind all the faults committed during the day. Think, and humble yourself at the thought, how sin makes us degenerate from the divine adop- tion. Then make a resolution to avoid sin for the time to come, to do penanoe for it, and to shun the occasions which might again lead you into it.

Having concluded the examination of conscience, recite the Confiteor (or ‘I confess’) with heartfelt contrition ; and then give expression to your sorrow by the following act, which we have taken from the venerable Cardinal Bellarmine's catechism.

--- PAGE 031 --- 20 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

ACT OF CONTRITION

O my God, I am exceedingly grieved for having offeaded thee; and, with my whole heart, I repent of the sins I have committed: I hate and ablor them, above every other evil, not only because, by so sinning, I have lost heaven, and deserve hell, but still more because I have offended thee, O infinite Goodness, who art worthy to be loved above all things. I most firmly resolve, by the assistance of thy grace, never more to offend thee for the time to come, and to avoid those occasions which might lead me into sin.

You may then add the acts of faith, hope, and charity, to the recitation of which Pope Benedict XIV. has granted an indulgence of seven years and seven quarantines for each time.

ACT OF FAITH O my God, I firmly believe whatsoever the holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church requires me to believe: I believe it, because thou hast revealed it to her, thou who art the very truth. ACT OF HOPE O my God, knowing thine almighty power, and thine infinite goodness and mercy, I hope in thee that, by the merits of the Passion and death of our Saviour Jesus Christ, thou wilt grant me eternal life, which thou hast promised to all such as shall do the works of a good Christian; and these I resolve to do, with the help of thy grace.

ACT OF CHARITY

O my God, I love thee with my whole heart and above:all things, because thou art the sovereign Good: I would rather lose all things than offend thee. For thy love also, I love, and desire to love, my neighbour as myself.

Then say to our blessed Lady the following solemn anthem, which the Church says, in her honour, till Advent.

ANTHEM TO THH BLESSED VIRGIN

Salve, Regina, mater mi- Hail, holy Queen, mother of

--- PAGE 032 --- NIGHT

sericordis: vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.

Ad te clamamus, exsules fii Hevse;

Ad te suspiramus, gemen- tes et flentes in hac lacry- marum valle.

Eia, ergo, advocata no- stra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte.

Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exsilium ostende;

O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo Maria!

Y. Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix,

E. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

OREMUS

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui gloriose Virginis
Matris Marie corpus et ani- mam, ut dignum Filii tui habitaculum effici merere- tur, Spiritu sancto coope- rante prsparasti: da, ut cujus commemoratione lg- tamur, ejus pia interces- sione ab instantibus malis, ei a morte perpetua libere- mur. Per eumdem Chri- stum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

21

mercy; our life, our sweetness, and our hope, all hail!

To thee we cry, poor banish- ed children of Ever

To thee we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us;

And, after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus;

O merciful, O kind, O sweet Virgin Mary!

Y. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,

HE. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. LET US PRAY

O almighty and everlasting God, who, by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, didst prepare the body and soul of Mary, glorious Virgin and Mother, to become the worthy habitation of thy Son; grant that we may be delivered from present evils, and from everlasting death, by her gracious intercession, in whose commemoration we rejoice. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

PRAYERS

You would do well to add the litany of our Lady. An indulgence of three hundred days, for each time it is recited, has been granted by the Church.

THE LITANY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN

Kyrie, eleison.

Christe, eleison.

Kyrie, eleison.

Christe, audi nos.

Christe, exaudi nos.

Pater de cœlis, Deus, miserere nobis.

Fili, Redemptor mundi, Deus, miserere nobis.

Spiritus Sancte, Deus, miserere nobis.

Sancta Trinitas, unus Deus, miserere nobis.

Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis.

Sancta Dei Genitrix, ora, etc.

Sancta Virgo virginum,

Mater Christi,

Mater divinæ gratiæ,

Mater purissima,

Mater castissima,

Mater inviolata,

Mater intemerata,

Mater amabilis,

Mater admirabilis,

Mater boni consilii,

Mater Creatoris,

Mater Salvatoris,

Virgo prudentissima,

Virgo veneranda,

Virgo prædicanda,

Virgo potens,

Virgo clemens,

Virgo fidelis,

Speculum justitiæ,

Sedes sapientiæ,

Causa nostræ lætitiæ,

Vas spirituale,

Vas honorabile,

Vas insigne devotionis,

Rosa mystica,

Turris Davidica,

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, hear us.

Christ, graciously hear us.

God, the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, pray for us.

Holy Mother of God, pray, etc.

Holy Virgin of virgins,

Mother of Christ,

Mother of divine grace,

Mother most pure,

Mother most chaste,

Mother inviolate,

Mother undefiled,

Mother most amiable,

Mother most admirable,

Mother of good counsel,

Mother of our Creator,

Mother of our Redeemer,

Virgin most prudent,

Virgin most venerable,

Virgin most renowned,

Virgin most powerful,

Virgin most merciful,

Virgin most faithful,

Mirror of justice,

Seat of wisdom,

Cause of our joy,

Spiritual vessel,

Vessel of honour,

Singular vessel of devotion,

Mystical rose,

Tower of David,

Turris eburnea,

Domus aurea,

Fœderis arca,

Janua cœli,

Stella matutina,

Salus infirmorum,

Refugium peccatorum,

Consolatrix afflictorum,

Auxilium Christianorum,

Regina Angelorum,

Regina Patriarcharum,

Regina Prophetarum,

Regina Apostolorum,

Regina Martyrum,

Regina Confessorum,

Regina Virginum,

Regina Sanctorum omnium,

Regina sine labe originali concepta,

Regina sacratissimi rosarii,

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, parce nobis, Domine.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, exaudi nos, Domine.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.

Christe, audi nos.

Christe, exaudi nos.

℣. Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix,

℟. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

OREMUS

Concede nos famulos tuos, quæsumus, Domine Deus, perpetua mentis et corporis sanitate gaudere: et gloriosa beatæ Mariæ semper Virginis intercessione a præsenti liberari tristitia, et æterna perfrui lætitia. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Tower of ivory,

House of gold,

Ark of the covenant,

Gate of heaven,

Morning star,

Health of the weak,

Refuge of sinners,

Comforter of the afflicted,

Help of Christians,

Queen of Angels,

Queen of Patriarchs,

Queen of Prophets,

Queen of Apostles,

Queen of Martyrs,

Queen of Confessors,

Queen of Virgins,

Queen of all Saints,

Queen conceived without original sin,

Queen of the most holy rosary,

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Christ, hear us.

Christ, graciously hear us.

℣. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,

℟. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

LET US PRAY

Grant, O Lord, we beseech thee, that we thy servants may enjoy constant health of body and mind: and by the glorious intercession of blessed Mary, ever Virgin, be delivered from all present affliction, and come to that joy which is eternal. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Here invoke the holy angels, whose protection is, indeed, always so much needed by us, but never so much as during the hours of night. Say with the Church:

Sancti angeli custodes nostri, defendite nos in prælio, ut non pereamus in tremendo judicio.

℣. Angelis suis Deus mandavit de te,

℟. Ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis.

OREMUS

Deus, qui ineffabili providentia sanctos angelos tuos ad nostram custodiam mittere dignaris: largire supplicibus tuis, et eorum semper protectione defendi, et æterna societate gaudere. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Holy angels, our loving guardians, defend us in the hour of battle, that we may not be lost at the dreadful judgment.

℣. God hath given his angels charge of thee,

℟. That they may guard thee in all thy ways.

LET US PRAY

O God, who in thy wonderful providence hast been pleased to appoint thy holy angels for our guardians: mercifully hear our prayers, and grant we may rest secure under their protection, and enjoy their fellowship in heaven, for ever. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Then beg the assistance of the saints by the following antiphon and prayer of the Church:

ANT. Sancti Dei omnes, intercedere dignemini pro nostra omniumque salute.

Ant. All ye saints of God, vouchsafe to intercede for us and for all men, that we may be saved.

And here you may add a special mention of the saints to whom you bear a particular devotion, either as your patrons or otherwise; as also of those whose feast is kept in the Church that day, or who have been at least commemorated in the Divine Office. This done, remember the necessities of the Church suffering; and beg of God that He will give to the souls in purgatory a place of refreshment, light, and peace.

For this intention recite the usual prayers:

PSALM 129

De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine: Domine, exaudi vocem meam.

Fiant aures tuæ intendentes: in vocem deprecationis meæ.

Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine: Domine, quis sustinebit?

Quia apud te propitiatio est: et propter legem tuam sustinui te, Domine.

Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus: speravit anima mea in Domino.

A custodia matutina usque ad noctem: speret Israel in Domino.

Quia apud Dominum misericordia: et copiosa apud eum redemptio.

Et ipse redimet Israel: ex omnibus iniquitatibus ejus.

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine.

Et lux perpetua luceat eis.

℣. A porta inferi,

℟. Erue, Domine, animas eorum.

From the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.

Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.

If thou wilt observe iniquities, O Lord: Lord, who shall endure it?

For with thee there is merciful forgiveness: and by reason of thy law, I have waited for thee, O Lord.

My soul hath relied on his word: my soul hath hoped in the Lord.

From the morning watch even until night: let Israel hope in the Lord.

Because with the Lord there is mercy: and with him plentiful redemption.

And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Eternal rest give to them, O Lord.

And let perpetual light shine upon them.

℣. From the gate of hell,

℟. Deliver their souls, O Lord.

℣. Requiescant in pace.

℟. Amen.

℣. Domine, exaudi orationem meam.

℟. Et clamor meus ad te veniat.

OREMUS

Fidelium Deus omnium Conditor et Redemptor, animabus famulorum famularumque tuarum, remissionem cunctorum tribue peccatorum: ut indulgentiam, quam semper optaverunt, piis supplicationibus consequantur. Qui vivis et regnas in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

℣. May they rest in peace.

℟. Amen.

℣. O Lord, hear my prayer.

℟. And let my cry come unto thee.

LET US PRAY

O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful, give to the souls of thy servants departed the remission of all their sins: that through the help of pious supplications, they may obtain the pardon they have always desired. Who livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen.

Here make a special memento of such of the faithful departed as have a particular claim upon your charity; after which, ask of God to give you His assistance, whereby you may pass the night free from danger. Say, then, still keeping to the words of the Church:

ANT. Salva nos, Domine, vigilantes, custodi nos dormientes: ut vigilemus cum Christo, et requiescamus in pace.

℣. Dignare, Domine, nocte ista,

℟. Sine peccato nos custodire.

℣. Miserere nostri, Domine.

℟. Miserere nostri.

℣. Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos.

℟. Quemadmodum speravimus in te.

ANT. Save us, O Lord, while awake, and watch us as we sleep; that we may watch with Christ, and rest in peace.

℣. Vouchsafe, O Lord, this night,

℟. To keep us without sin.

℣. Have mercy on us, O Lord.

℟. Have mercy on us.

℣. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us,

℟. As we have hoped in thee.

℣. Domine, exaudi orationem meam,

℟. Et clamor meus ad te veniat.

OREMUS

Visita, quæsumus, Domine, habitationem istam, et omnes insidias inimici ab ea longe repelle: angeli tui sancti habitent in ea, qui nos in pace custodiant, et benedictio tua sit super nos semper. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

℣. O Lord, hear my prayer,

℟. And let my cry come unto thee.

LET US PRAY

Visit, we beseech thee, O Lord, this house and family, and drive from it all snares of the enemy; let thy holy angels dwell herein, who may keep us in peace, and may thy blessing be always upon us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

And finally, as a close to the day, you may recite those words which were the last uttered by our Redeemer on the cross. The Church offers them to God, each day at Compline.

In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum.

Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my soul.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH

ON HEARING MASS DURING THE TIME AFTER PENTECOST

Of all the good acts wherewith a Christian can sanctify his day, there is not one which bears comparison with that of assisting at the holy sacrifice of the Mass. It is in that sacrifice, the supreme act of religion, that is centred all the homage due from man to his Creator; and it is also from the same sacrifice that God pours out profusely upon his creature man every sort of blessing. The very Son of God is really present there; there He is offered up to His Father, and the offering is always well-pleasing; and they who assist at this divine immolation with faith and love receive into their souls graces of a far richer kind than are given by ordinary means.

The assistance at Mass, if completed by the real participation of the divine victim, unites man to God in an ineffable way by the renovation of his whole being, for it produces an intimate communion between him and the Word Incarnate. But if the Christian who is assisting at the holy sacrifice goes no further than the uniting of his intentions with those of the divine victim, even so, his mere presence at so great an act includes a true participation in the supreme worship offered by this earth of ours to the Majesty of God, in Christ, and by Christ. So, too, he solemnly consecrates to God, by that same holy act, the day he has just begun.

We have devoted the days within the octave of Corpus Christi to giving our readers the fullest instruction regarding the holy sacrifice of the Mass. As to the dispositions wherewith they should assist at it, they are given in the present chapter, in which we explain briefly, and yet, as we believe, completely, the meaning of each ceremony and expression. Whilst thus endeavouring to initiate the faithful into these sublime mysteries, we have not given them a bare and indiscreet translation of the sacred formulæ, but have taken what seemed to us so much better a plan, of suggesting such acts as will enable those who hear Mass to enter into the ceremonies and the spirit of the Church and of the priest. The conclusion to be drawn from this is one of great importance: it is that, in order to derive solid profit from assisting at the holy sacrifice, the faithful must attentively follow all that is being done at the altar, and not stand aloof, as it were, by reading books which are filled with devotions of a private and unseasonable character.

On the Sundays, if the Mass at which the faithful assist, be the parochial, or, as it is often called, the public Mass, two solemn rites precede it, and they are full of instruction and blessing: the Asperges, or sprinkling of the holy water, and the procession.

During the Asperges, you should unite with the intentions which the Church has in this ceremony, so venerable by its antiquity: you should pray for that purity of heart which is needed for worthily assisting at the mysteries, wherein God Himself becomes present, and unites heaven and earth so closely together.

ANTIPHON OF THE ASPERGES

Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.

Ps. Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.

℣. Gloria Patri, etc.

ANT. Asperges me, etc.

℣. Ostende nobis, Domine, misericordiam tuam;

℟. Et salutare tuum da nobis.

℣. Domine, exaudi orationem meam;

℟. Et clamor meus ad te veniat.

℣. Dominus vobiscum;

℟. Et cum spiritu tuo.

OREMUS

Exaudi nos, Domine sancte,

Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, O Lord, and I shall be cleansed; thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.

Ps. Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy.

℣. Glory, etc.

ANT. Thou shalt sprinkle me, etc.

℣. Show us, O Lord, thy mercy.

℟. And grant us thy salvation.

℣. O Lord, hear my prayer.

℟. And let my cry come unto thee.

℣. The Lord be with you;

℟. And with thy spirit.

LET US PRAY

Graciously hear us, O holy

Lord, Father almighty, eternal God: and vouchsafe to send thy holy angel from heaven, who may keep, cherish, protect, visit, and defend all who are assembled in this place. Through Christ our Lord.

cte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus: et mittere digneris sanctum angelum tuum de cœlis, qui custodiat, foveat, protegat, visitet, atque defendat omnes habitantes in hoc habitaculo. Per Christum Dominum nostrum.

℟. Amen. ℟. Amen.

The procession, which in many churches immediately precedes a solemn Mass, is a prelude to the great act which is about to be accomplished. It originated from the practice used in monasteries, of going through the cloisters, every Sunday, chanting certain appointed responsories; during which time the hebdomadarian went through all the conventual places, blessing each of them. The practice is still in use.

But see, Christians! the sacrifice begins! The priest is at the foot of the altar; God is attentive, the angels are in adoration, the whole Church is united with the priest, whose priesthood and action are those of the great High Priest, Jesus Christ. Let us make the sign of the cross with him.

THE ORDINARY OF THE MASS

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

℣. Introibo ad altare Dei:
℟. Ad Deum qui lætificat juventutem meam.

Judica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta: ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me.

I unite myself, O my God, with thy holy Church, who thrills with joy at the approach of Jesus Christ thy Son, who is the true altar.

Like her, I beseech thee to defend me against the malice of the enemies of my salvation.

Quia tu es, Deus, fortitudo mea: quare me repulisti? et quare tristis incedo, dum affligit me inimicus?

Emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam: ipsa me deduxerunt et adduxerunt in montem sanctum tuum, et in tabernacula tua.

Et introibo ad altare Dei: ad Deum qui lætificat juventutem meam.

Confitebor tibi in cithara, Deus, Deus meus: quare tristis es anima mea? et quare conturbas me?

Spera in Deo, quoniam adhuc confitebor illi: salutare vultus mei, et Deus meus.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto:

Sicut erat in principio, et nunc et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

℣. Introibo ad altare Dei:

℟. Ad Deum qui lætificat juventutem meam.

℣. Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.

℟. Qui fecit cœlum et terram.

It is in thee that I have put my hope, yet do I feel sad and troubled at being in the midst of the snares which are set for me.

Let me, then, see him who is light and truth; it is he who will open the way to thy holy mount, to thy heavenly tabernacle.

He is the mediator, and the living altar; I will draw nigh to him, and be filled with joy.

Having seen him, I will sing in my gladness. Be not sad, O my soul! why wouldst thou be longer troubled?

Hope in him, who will soon show himself unto thee, as thy Saviour, and thy God.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

I am going to the altar of God; there I shall feel the presence of him who desires to give me a new life.

This my hope comes not to me as thinking that I have any merits; but because of the all-powerful help of my Creator.

The thought of being about to appear before his God excites in the soul of the priest a lively sentiment of compunction. He cannot go further in the holy sacrifice without confessing, and publicly, that he is a sinner, and deserves not the grace he is about to receive. Listen with respect to this confession of God's minister, and earnestly ask our Lord to show mercy to him; for the priest is your father; he is answerable for your salvation, for which he every day risks his own. When he has finished, unite with the servers, or the sacred ministers, in this prayer:

Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis tuis, perducat te ad vitam æternam.

May almighty God have mercy on thee, and, forgiving thy sins, bring thee to everlasting life.

The priest having answered Amen, make your confession, saying with a contrite spirit:

Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatæ Mariæ semper Virgini, beato Michaeli archangelo, beato Joanni Baptistæ, sanctis apostolis Petro et Paulo, omnibus sanctis, et tibi, pater, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, beatum Michaelem archangelum, beatum Joannem Baptistam, sanctos apostolos Petrum et Paulum, omnes sanctos, et te, pater, orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum.

I confess to almighty God, to blessed Mary ever Virgin, to blessed Michael the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, to all the saints, and to thee, father, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore I beseech blessed Mary ever Virgin, blessed Michael the archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints, and thee, father, to pray to the Lord our God for me.

Receive with gratitude the paternal wish of the priest, who says to you:

Misereatur vestri omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis vestris, perducat vos ad vitam æternam.

℟. Amen.

May almighty God be merciful to you, and forgiving your sins, bring you to everlasting life.

℟. Amen.

Indulgentiam, absolutionem, et remissionem peccatorum nostrorum, tribuat nobis omnipotens et misericors Dominus.

℟. Amen.

May the almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of our sins.

℟. Amen.

Invoke the divine assistance, that you may approach to Jesus Christ:

℣. Deus, tu conversus vivificabis nos.

℟. Et plebs tua lætabitur in te.

℣. Ostende nobis Domine misericordiam tuam.

℟. Et salutare tuum da nobis.

℣. Domine, exaudi orationem meam.

℟. Et clamor meus ad te veniat.

℣. O God, it needs but one look of thine to give us life!

℟. And thy people shall rejoice in thee!

℣. Show us, O Lord, thy mercy,

℟. And give us the Saviour thou art preparing to give us.

℣. O Lord, hear my prayer,

℟. And let my cry come unto thee.

The priest here leaves you and ascends to the altar, but he first salutes you:

℣. Dominus vobiscum.

℣. The Lord be with you.

Answer him with reverence:

℟. Et cum spiritu tuo.

℟. And with thy spirit.

He ascends the steps, and comes to the Holy of holies. Ask, both for him and for yourself, deliverance from sin:

OREMUS

Aufer a nobis, quæsumus, Domine, iniquitates nostras; ut ad Sancta sanctorum puris mereamur mentibus introire. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

LET US PRAY

Take from our hearts, O Lord, all those sins, which make us unworthy to appear in thy presence. We ask this of thee, by thy divine Son, our Lord.

When the priest kisses the altar, out of reverence for the relics of the martyrs which are there, say:

Oramus te, Domine, per merita sanctorum tuorum quorum reliquiæ hic sunt et omnium sanctorum, ut indulgere digneris omnia peccata mea. Amen.

Generous soldiers of Jesus Christ, who have mingled your own blood with his, intercede for us, that our sins may be forgiven; that so we may, like you, approach unto God.

If it be a High Mass at which you are assisting, the priest here blesses the incense, saying:

Ab illo benedicaris, in cujus honore cremaberis. Amen.

Mayst thou be blessed by him, in whose honour thou art to be burned. Amen.

He then censes the altar in a most solemn manner. This white cloud, which you see ascending from every part of the altar, signifies the prayer of the Church, who addresses herself to Jesus Christ; while the divine mediator causes that prayer to ascend, united with His own, to the throne of the majesty of His Father.

The priest then says the Introit. It is a solemn opening anthem, in which the Church, at the very commencement of the holy sacrifice, gives expression to the sentiments which fill her heart.

It is followed by nine exclamations, which are even more earnest still, for they ask for mercy. In addressing them to God, the Church unites herself with the nine choirs of angels, who are standing around the altar of heaven, one and the same with this before which you are kneeling.

TO THE FATHER

Kyrie, eleison. Lord, have mercy on us!

Kyrie, eleison. Lord, have mercy on us!

Kyrie, eleison. Lord, have mercy on us!

TO THE SON

Christe, eleison. Christ, have mercy on us!

Christe, eleison. Christ, have mercy on us!

Christe, eleison. Christ, have mercy on us!

TO THE HOLY GHOST

Kyrie, eleison. Lord, have mercy on us!

Kyrie, eleison. Lord, have mercy on us!

Kyrie, eleison. Lord, have mercy on us!

Then, mingling his voice with that of the heavenly host, the priest intones the sublime canticle of Bethlehem, which announces glory to God, and peace to men. Instructed by the revelations of God, the Church continues, in her own words, the hymn of the angels.

THE ANGELIC HYMN

Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis.

Laudamus te: benedicimus te: adoramus te: glorificamus te: gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam.

Domine Deus, Rex cœlestis, Deus Pater omnipotens.

Domine, Fili unigenite, Jesu Christe.

Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris.

Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.

Qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram.

Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis.

Quoniam tu solus sanctus, tu solus Dominus, tu solus altissimus, Jesu Christe, cum sancto Spiritu, in gloria Dei Patris. Amen.

Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good will.

We praise thee: we bless thee: we adore thee: we glorify thee: we give thee thanks for thy great glory.

O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father almighty.

O Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son.

O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father.

Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Who takest away the sins of the world, receive our humble prayer.

Who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.

For thou alone art holy, thou alone art Lord, thou alone, O Jesus Christ, together with the Holy Ghost, art most high, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

The priest then turns towards the people, and again salutes them, as it were to make sure of their pious attention to the sublime act, for which all this is but the preparation.

Then follows the Collect or Prayer, in which the Church formally expresses to the divine Majesty the special intentions she has in the Mass which is being celebrated. You may unite in this prayer, by reciting with the priest the collects, which you will find in their proper places; but on no account omit to join with the server of the Mass in answering Amen.

After this comes the Epistle, which is generally a portion of one or other of the Epistles of the apostles, or a passage from some Book of the Old Testament. While it is being read, give thanks to that God who, not satisfied with having spoken to us at sundry times by His messengers, deigned at last to speak unto us by His well-beloved Son.¹

The Gradual is a formula of prayer, intermediate between the Epistle and the Gospel. Most frequently, it again brings before us the sentiments already expressed in the Introit. Read it devoutly, that so you may enter more and more into the spirit of the mystery proposed to you this day by the Church.

The song of praise, the Alleluia, is next heard. Let us, while it is being said, unite with the holy angels, who are for all eternity making heaven resound with that song, which we on earth are permitted to attempt.

The time is now come for the Gospel to be read. The Gospel is the written word; our hearing it will prepare us for the Word, who is our victim and our food.

If it be a High Mass, the deacon prepares, meanwhile, to fulfil his noble office—that of announcing the 'good tidings' of salvation. He prays God to cleanse his heart and lips. Then, kneeling before the priest, he asks a blessing; and, having received it, at once goes to the place where he is to sing the Gospel.

¹ Heb. i. 2.

As a preparation for worthily hearing it, you may thus pray, together with both priest and deacon:

Munda cor meum, ac labia mea, omnipotens Deus, qui labia Isaiæ prophetæ calculo mundasti ignito: ita me tua grata miseratione dignare mundare, ut sanctum Evangelium tuum digne valeam nuntiare. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Dominus sit in corde meo, et in labiis meis: ut digne et competenter annuntiem Evangelium suum.

Alas! these ears of mine are but too often defiled with the world's vain words: cleanse them, O Lord, that so I may hear the words of eternal life, and treasure them in my heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Grant to thy ministers thy grace, that they may faithfully explain thy law; so that all, both pastors and flock, may be united to thee for ever. Amen.

You will stand during the Gospel, out of respect for the word of God, and as though you were awaiting the orders of your divine master. At the commencement, make the sign of the cross on your forehead, lips, and breast; and then listen to every word of the priest or deacon. Let your heart be ready and obedient. 'While my beloved was speaking,' says the bride in the Canticle, 'my soul melted within me.'¹ If you have not such love as this, have at least the humble submission of Samuel, and say: 'Speak, Lord! thy servant heareth.'²

After the Gospel, if the priest says the symbol of faith, the Credo, you will say it with him. Faith is that grand gift of God without which we cannot please Him. It is faith that makes us see 'the light which shineth in darkness,' and which the darkness of unbelief 'did not comprehend.' Let us, then, say with the Catholic Church, our mother:

THE NICENE CREED

Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, fac-

¹ Cantic. v. 6. ² 1 Kings iii. 10.

torem cœli et terræ, visibilium omnium et invisibilium.

Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum. Et ex Patre natum ante omnia sæcula. Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero. Genitum, non factum, consubstantialem Patri: per quem omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem, descendit de cœlis. Et incarnatus est de Spiritu sancto ex Maria Virgine: ET HOMO FACTUS EST. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est. Et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas, et ascendit in cœlum: sedet ad dexteram Patris. Et iterum venturus est cum gloria judicare vivos et mortuos: cujus regni non erit finis.

Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem: qui ex Patre Filioque procedit. Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur, et conglorificatur: qui locutus est per prophetas. Et unam, sanctam, Catholicam, et apostolicam Ecclesiam. Confiteor unum Baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi sæculi. Amen.

I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God. And born of the Father, before all ages; God of God, light of light; true God of true God. Begotten, not made; consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven. And became incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary; AND WAS MADE MAN. He was crucified also for us, under Pontius Pilate, suffered, and was buried. And the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures. And ascended into heaven; sitteth at the right hand of the Father. And he is to come again with glory, to judge the living and the dead; of whose kingdom there shall be no end.

And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who, together with the Father and the Son, is adored and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. And one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. I confess one Baptism for the remission of sins. And I expect the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The priest and the people should now have their hearts ready: it is time to prepare the offering itself. And here we come to the second part of the holy Mass; it is called the Oblation, and immediately follows that which was named the Mass of the catechumens, on account of its being, formerly, the only part at which the candidates for Baptism had permission to be present.

See, then, dear Christians! Bread and wine are about to be offered to God, as being the noblest of inanimate creatures, since they are intended to serve as the nourishment of man; and even that is only a poor material image of what they are destined to become in our Christian sacrifice. Their substance will soon give place to God Himself, and of themselves nothing will remain but the appearances. Happy creatures, thus to yield up their own being, that God may take its place! We, too, are to undergo a like transformation, when, as the apostle expresses it, that which is mortal will be swallowed up by life!¹ Until that happy change shall be realized, let us offer ourselves to God, as often as we see the bread and wine presented to Him in the holy sacrifice; and let us glorify Him, who, by assuming our human nature, has made us partakers of the divine nature.²

The priest again turns to the people, greeting them with the usual salutation, as though he would warn them to redouble their attention. Let us read the Offertory with him; and when he offers the Host to God, let us unite with him and say:

Suscipe, sancte Pater, omnipotens, æterne Deus, hanc immaculatam hostiam, quam ego indignus famulus tuus offero tibi, Deo meo vivo et vero, pro innumerabilibus peccatis et offensionibus et negligentiis meis, et pro omnibus circumstantibus, sed et pro omnibus fidelibus Christianis vivis atque defunctis; ut mihi et illis proficiat ad salutem in vitam æternam. Amen.

All that we have, O Lord, comes from thee, and belongs to thee, it is just, therefore, that we return it unto thee. But, how wonderful art thou in the inventions of thy immense love! This bread which we are offering to thee, is to give place, in a few moments, to the sacred Body of Jesus. We beseech thee, receive, together with this oblation, our hearts, which long to live by thee, and to cease to live their own life of self.

¹ 2 Cor. v. 4. ² 2 St. Peter i. 4.

When the priest puts the wine into the chalice, and then mingles with it a drop of water, let your thoughts turn to the divine mystery of the Incarnation, which is the source of our hope and our salvation, and say:

Deus, qui humanæ substantiæ dignitatem mirabiliter condidisti, et mirabilius reformasti: da nobis per hujus aquæ et vini mysterium, ejus divinitatis esse consortes, qui humanitatis nostræ fieri dignatus est particeps, Jesus Christus, Filius tuus, Dominus noster: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus sancti Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

O Lord Jesus, who art the true vine, and whose Blood, like a generous wine, has been poured forth under the pressure of the cross! thou hast deigned to unite thy divine nature to our weak humanity, which is signified by this drop of water. Oh! come and make us partakers of thy divinity by showing thyself to us in thy sweet and wondrous visit.

The priest then offers the mixture of wine and water, beseeching God graciously to accept this oblation, which is so soon to be changed into the reality, of which it is now but the figure. Meanwhile say, in union with the priest:

Offerimus tibi, Domine, calicem salutaris, tuam deprecantes clementiam: ut in conspectu divinæ Majestatis tuæ, pro nostra et totius mundi salute, cum odore suavitatis ascendat. Amen.

Graciously accept these gifts, O sovereign Creator of all things. Let them be fitted for the divine transformation, which will make them from being mere offerings of created things, the instrument of the world's salvation.

After having thus held up the sacred gifts towards heaven, the priest bows down; let us also humble ourselves, and say:

In spiritu humilitatis, et in animo contrito, suscipiamur a te, Domine: et sic fiat sacrificium nostrum in conspectu tuo hodie, ut placeat tibi, Domine Deus.

Though daring, as we do, to approach thy altar, O Lord, we cannot forget that we are sinners. Have mercy on us, and delay not to send us thy Son, who is our saving Host.

Let us next invoke the Holy Ghost, whose operation is about to produce on the altar the presence of the Son of God, as it did in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, in the divine mystery of the Incarnation:

Veni Sanctificator, omnipotens æterne Deus, et benedic hoc sacrificium tuo sancto nomini præparatum.

Come, O divine Spirit, make fruitful the offering which is upon the altar, and produce in our hearts him whom they desire.

If it be a High Mass, the priest, before proceeding further with the sacrifice, takes the thurible a second time, after blessing the incense in these words:

Per intercessionem beati Michaelis archangeli, stantis a dextris altaris incensi, et omnium electorum suorum, incensum istud dignetur Dominus benedicere, et in odorem suavitatis accipere. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Through the intercession of blessed Michael the archangel, standing at the right hand of the altar of incense, and of all his elect, may our Lord deign to bless this incense, and to receive it for an odour of sweetness. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

He then censes first the bread and wine, which have just been offered, and then the altar itself; hereby inviting the faithful to make their prayer, which is signified by the fragrant incense, more and more fervent, the nearer the solemn moment approaches. St. John tells us that the incense he beheld burning on the altar in heaven is made up of the 'prayers of the saints'; let us take a share in those prayers, and with all the ardour of holy desires, let us say with the priest:

Incensum istud, a te benedictum, ascendat ad te, Domine, et descendat super nos misericordia tua.

Dirigatur, Domine, oratio mea sicut incensum in conspectu tuo: elevatio manuum mearum sacrificium vespertinum. Pone, Domine, custodiam ori meo, et ostium circumstantiæ labiis meis; ut non declinet cor meum in verba malitiæ, ad excusandas excusationes in peccatis.

May this incense, blessed by thee, ascend to thee, O Lord, and may thy mercy descend upon us.

Let my prayer, O Lord, be directed like incense in thy sight: the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice. Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and a door round about my lips; that my heart may not incline to evil words, to make excuses in sins.

Giving back the thurible to the deacon, the priest says:

Accendat in nobis Dominus ignem sui amoris, et flammam æternæ caritatis. Amen.

May the Lord enkindle in us the fire of his love and the flame of eternal charity. Amen.

But the thought of his own unworthiness becomes more intense than ever in his heart. The public confession made by him at the foot of the altar does not satisfy the earnestness of his compunction. He would now at the altar itself express before the people, in the language of a solemn rite, how far he knows himself to be from that spotless sanctity, wherewith he should approach to God. He washes his hands. Our hands signify our works; and the priest, though by his priesthood he bear the office of Jesus Christ, is by his works but man. Seeing your father thus humble himself, do you also make an act of humility, and say with him these verses of the psalm:

PSALM 25

Lavabo inter innocentes manus meas; et circumdabo altare tuum, Domine.

Ut audiam vocem laudis; et enarrem universa mirabilia tua.

Domine, dilexi decorem domus tuæ, et locum habitationis gloriæ tuæ.

Ne perdas cum impiis Deus, animam meam, et cum viris sanguinum vitam meam.

In quorum manibus iniquitates sunt: dextera eorum repleta est muneribus.

Ego autem in innocentia mea ingressus sum: redime me, et miserere mei.

Pes meus stetit in directo: in ecclesiis benedicam te, Domine.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui sancto.

Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

I, too, would wash my hands, O Lord, and become like unto those who are innocent, that so I may be worthy to approach thy altar, and hear thy sacred canticles, and then go and proclaim to the world the wonders of thy goodness. I love the beauty of thy house, which thou art about to make the dwelling-place of thy glory. Leave me not, O God, in the midst of them that are enemies both to thee and me. Thy mercy having separated me from them, I entered on the path of innocence and was restored to thy grace; but have pity on my weakness still; redeem me yet more, thou who hast so mercifully brought me back to the right path. In the midst of these thy faithful people, I give thee thanks. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

The priest, taking encouragement from the act of humility he has just made, returns to the middle of the altar, and, full of respectful awe, bows down, begging of God to receive graciously the sacrifice which is about to be offered to Him, and expresses the intentions for which it is offered. Let us do the same.

Suscipe, sancta Trinitas, hanc oblationem, quam tibi offerimus ob memoriam Passionis, Resurrectionis et Ascensionis Jesu Christi Domini nostri: et in honorem beatæ Mariæ semper Virginis, et beati Joannis Baptistæ et sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli, et istorum, et omnium sanctorum: ut illis proficiat ad honorem, nobis autem ad salutem: et illi pro nobis intercedere dignentur in cœlis, quorum memoriam agimus in terris. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

O holy Trinity, graciously accept the sacrifice we have begun. We offer it in remembrance of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. Permit thy Church to join with this intention that of honouring the ever glorious Virgin-Mary, the blessed Baptist John, the holy apostles Peter and Paul, the martyrs whose relics lie here under our altar awaiting their resurrection, and the saints whose memory we this day celebrate. Increase the glory they are enjoying, and receive the prayers they address to thee for us.

The priest again turns to the people; it is for the last time before the sacred mysteries are accomplished. He feels anxious to excite the fervour of the people. Neither does the thought of his own unworthiness leave him; and before entering the cloud with the Lord, he seeks support in the prayers of his brethren who are present. He says to them:

Orate, fratres: ut meum ac vestrum sacrificium acceptabile fiat apud Deum Patrem omnipotentem.

Brethren, pray that my sacrifice, which is yours also, may be acceptable to God our almighty Father.

Scarcely has he uttered the first words than he turns again to the altar and you will see his face no more, until our Lord Himself shall have come down from heaven upon that same altar. Assure the priest that he has your prayers, and say to him:

Suscipiat Dominus sacrificium de manibus tuis, ad laudem et gloriam nominis sui, ad utilitatem quoque nostram totiusque Ecclesiæ suæ sanctæ.

May our Lord accept this sacrifice at thy hands, to the praise and glory of his name, and for our benefit and that of his holy Church throughout the world.

Here the priest recites the prayers called the Secrets, in which he presents the petition of the whole Church for God's acceptance of the sacrifice, and then immediately begins to fulfil that great duty of religion, thanksgiving. So far he has adored God, and has sued for mercy; he has still to give thanks for the blessings bestowed on us by the bounty of our heavenly Father, the chief of which is His having sent us His own Son. The blessing of a new visit from this divine Word is just upon us; and in expectation of it, and in the name of the whole Church, the priest is about to give expression to the gratitude of all mankind. In order to excite the faithful to that intensity of gratitude which is due to God for all His gifts, he interrupts his own and their silent prayer by terminating it aloud, saying:

Per omnia sæcula sæculorum.

For ever and ever.

In the same feeling, answer your Amen! Then he continues:

℣. Dominus vobiscum.
℟. Et cum spiritu tuo.
℣. Sursum corda!

℣. The Lord be with you.
℟. And with thy spirit.
℣. Lift up your hearts!

Let your response be sincere:

℟. Habemus ad Dominum.

℟. We have them fixed on God.

And when he adds:

℣. Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro.

℣. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

Answer him with all the earnestness of your soul:

℟. Dignum et justum est.

℟. It is meet and just.

Then the priest:

THE PREFACE

For Sundays

Vere dignum et justum est, æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere: Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus; qui cum unigenito Filio tuo et Spiritu sancto, unus es Deus, unus es Dominus. Non in unius singularitate Personæ, sed in unius Trinitate substantiæ. Quod enim de tua gloria, revelante te credimus, hoc de Filio tuo, hoc de Spiritu sancto, sine differentia discretionis sentimus, ut in confessione veræ sempiternæque Deitatis, et in Personis proprietas, et in essentia unitas, et in majestate adoretur æqualitas. Quam laudant angeli atque archangeli, cherubim quoque ac seraphim, qui non cessant clamare quotidie, una voce dicentes:

It is truly meet and just, right and available to salvation, that we should always and in all places give thanks to thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God, who, with thy only-begotten Son and the Holy Ghost, art one God, one Lord, not in the singleness of one Person, but in the Trinity of one substance. For that which, by thy revelation, we believe of thy glory, the same do we believe of thy Son, the same also of the Holy Ghost, without any difference or distinction, that in the confession of the true and eternal Godhead, distinction in Persons, unity in essence, and equality in majesty, may be adored. Which the angels and archangels praise, the cherubim also and the seraphim, who cease not to cry out daily, saying with one voice:

For Week-days

Vere dignum et justum est, æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere: Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus; per Christum Dominum nostrum. Per quem majestatem tuam laudant Angeli, adorant Dominationes, tremunt Potestates; Cœli cœlorumque Virtutes, ac beata Seraphim, socia exsultatione concelebrant. Cum quibus et nostras voces, ut admitti jubeas deprecamur, supplici confessione dicentes:

It is truly meet and just, right and available to salvation, that we should always, and in all places, give thanks to thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God; through Christ our Lord; by whom the Angels praise thy majesty, the Dominations adore it, the Powers tremble before it; the heavens and the heavenly Virtues and the blessed Seraphim, with common jubilee, glorify it. Together with whom, we beseech thee that we may be admitted to join our humble voices, saying:

Here unite with the priest, who, on his part, unites himself with the blessed spirits, in giving thanks to God for the unspeakable gift; bow down and say:

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus sabaoth!
Pleni sunt cœli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis! Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Hosanna in excelsis!

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts! Heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Hosanna in the highest! Blessed be the Saviour who is coming to us in the name of the Lord who sends him. Hosanna be to him in the highest!

After these words commences the Canon, that mysterious prayer, in the midst of which heaven bows down to earth, and God descends unto us. The voice of the priest is no longer heard; yea, even at the altar all is silence. It was thus, says the Book of Wisdom, "in the quiet of silence, and while the night was in the midst of her course, that the almighty Word came down from His royal throne."¹ Let a profound respect stay all distractions, and keep our senses in submission to the soul. Let us respectfully fix our eyes on what the priest does in the holy place.

¹ Wisd. xviii. 14, 15.

THE CANON OF THE MASS

In this mysterious colloquy with the great God of heaven and earth, the first prayer of the sacrificing priest is for the Catholic Church, his and our mother.

Te igitur, clementissime Pater, per Jesum Christum Filium tuum Dominum nostrum, supplices rogamus ac petimus, uti accepta habeas, et benedicas hæc dona, hæc munera, hæc sancta sacrificia illibata; in primis quæ tibi offerimus pro Ecclesia tua sancta Catholica; quam pacificare, custodire, adunare, et regere digneris toto orbe terrarum, una cum famulo tuo Papa nostro N. et antistite nostro N. et omnibus orthodoxis, atque catholicæ et apostolicæ fidei cultoribus.

O God, who manifestest thyself unto us by means of the mysteries which thou hast entrusted to the holy Church our mother; we beseech thee by the merits of this sacrifice, that thou wouldst remove all those hindrances which oppose her during her pilgrimage in this world. Give her peace and unity. Do thou thyself guide our holy father the Pope, thy vicar on earth. Direct thou our Bishop, who is our sacred link of unity; and watch over all the orthodox children of the Catholic apostolic Roman Church.

Here pray, together with the priest, for those whose interests should be dearest to you.

Memento, Domine, famulorum famularumque tuarum N. et N., et omnium circumstantium, quorum tibi fides cognita est, et nota devotio: pro quibus tibi offerimus, vel qui tibi offerunt hoc sacrificium laudis pro se suisque omnibus, pro redemptione animarum suarum, pro spe salutis et incolumitatis suæ; tibique reddunt vota sua æterno Deo vivo et vero.

Permit me, O God, to intercede with thee for special blessings upon those for whom thou knowest that I have a special obligation to pray: … Apply to them the fruits of this divine sacrifice, which is offered unto thee in the name of all mankind. Visit them by thy grace, pardon them their sins, grant them the blessings of this present life and of that which is eternal.

Here let us commemorate the saints: they are that portion of the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which is called the Church triumphant.

Communicantes, et memoriam venerantes, in primis gloriosæ semper Virginis Mariæ, Genitricis Dei et Domini nostri Jesu Christi: sed et beatorum apostolorum ac martyrum tuorum, Petri et Pauli, Andreæ, Jacobi, Joannis, Thomæ, Jacobi, Philippi, Bartholomæi, Matthæi, Simonis et Thaddæi: Lini, Cleti, Clementis, Xysti, Cornelii, Cypriani, Laurentii, Chrysogoni, Joannis et Pauli, Cosmæ et Damiani, et omnium sanctorum tuorum quorum meritis precibusque concedas, ut in omnibus protectionis tuæ muniamur auxilio. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

But the offering of this sacrifice, O my God, does not unite us with those only of our brethren who are still in this transient life of trial: it brings us closer to those also who are already in possession of heaven. Therefore it is that we wish to honour by it the memory of the glorious and ever Virgin Mary, of whom Jesus was born to us; of the apostles, confessors, virgins, and of all the saints; that they may assist us, by their powerful intercession, to be worthy of this thy visit, and of contemplating thee, as they themselves now do, in the mansion of thy glory.

The priest, who up to this time has been praying with his hands extended, now joins them, and holds them over the bread and wine, as the high priest of the old Law was wont to do over the figurative victim; he thus expresses his intention of bringing these gifts more closely under the notice of the divine Majesty, and of marking them as the material offering whereby we profess our dependence, and which, in a few instants, is to yield its place to the living Host, upon whom are laid all our iniquities.

Hanc igitur oblationem servitutis nostræ, sed et cunctæ familiæ tuæ, quæsumus, Domine, ut placatus accipias: diesque nostros in tua pace disponas, atque ab æterna damnatione nos eripi, et in electorum tuorum jubeas grege numerari. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Vouchsafe, O God, to accept the offering which this thine assembled family presents to thee as the homage of its most happy servitude. In return, give us peace, save us from thy wrath, and number us among thine elect, through Him who is coming to us—thy Son, our Saviour!

Quam oblationem tu Deus in omnibus, quæsumus, benedictam, adscriptam, ratam, rationabilem, acceptabilemque facere digneris; ut nobis Corpus et Sanguis fiat dilectissimi Filii tui Domini nostri Jesu Christi.

Yea, Lord, this is the moment when this bread is to become his sacred Body, which is our food; and this wine is to be changed into his Blood, which is our drink. Ah! delay no longer, but bring us into the presence of this divine Son, our Saviour.

And here the priest ceases to act as man; he now becomes more than a mere minister of the Church. His word becomes that of Jesus Christ, with its power and efficacy. Prostrate yourself in profound adoration, for the Emmanuel, that is, "God with us," is coming upon our altar.

Qui pridie quam pateretur, accepit panem in sanctas ac venerabiles manus suas; et elevatis oculis in cœlum, ad te Deum Patrem suum omnipotentem, tibi gratias agens, benedixit, fregit, deditque discipulis suis, dicens: Accipite, et manducate ex hoc omnes. HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM.

What, O God of heaven and earth, my Jesus, the long-expected Messias! what else can I do, at this solemn moment, but adore thee in silence, as my sovereign master, and open to thee my whole heart, as to its dearest king? Come, then, O Lord Jesus, come!

The divine Lamb is now lying on our altar! Glory and love be to Him for ever! But He has come that He may be immolated. Hence the priest, who is the minister of the designs of the Most High, immediately pronounces over the chalice the sacred words which follow, which will produce the great mystical immolation, by the separation of the Victim's Body and Blood. After those words, the substances of both bread and wine have ceased to exist; the species alone are left, veiling, as it were, the Body and Blood of our Redeemer, lest fear should keep us from a mystery, which God gives us for the very purpose of infusing confidence into our hearts. While the priest is pronouncing those words, let us associate ourselves to the angels, who tremblingly gaze upon this deepest wonder.

Simili modo postquam cœnatum est, accipiens et hunc præclarum calicem in sanctas ac venerabiles manus suas: item tibi gratias agens, benedixit, deditque discipulis suis dicens: Accipite et bibite ex eo omnes. HIC EST ENIM CALIX SANGUINIS MEI, NOVI ET ÆTERNI TESTAMENTI: MYSTERIUM FIDEI: QUI PRO VOBIS ET PRO MULTIS EFFUNDETUR IN REMISSIONEM PECCATORUM. Hæc quotiescumque feceritis, in mei memoriam facietis.

O precious Blood! thou price of my salvation! I adore thee! Wash away my sins, and make me whiter than snow. O Lamb ever slain, yet ever living, thou comest to take away the sins of the world! Come, also, and reign in me by thy power, and by thy love.

The priest is now face to face with God. He again raises his hands towards heaven, and tells our heavenly Father that the oblation now on the altar is no longer an earthly material offering, but the Body and Blood, the whole Person, of His divine Son.

Unde et memores, Domine, nos servi tui, sed et plebs tua sancta, ejusdem Christi Filii tui Domini nostri tam beatæ Passionis, nec non et ab inferis Resurrectionis, sed et in cœlos gloriosæ Ascensionis: offerimus præclaræ Majestati tuæ de tuis donis ac datis, Hostiam puram, Hostiam sanctam, Hostiam immaculatam: Panem sanctum vitæ æternæ et Calicem salutis perpetuæ.

Father of infinite holiness! the Host so long expected is here before thee. Behold this thine eternal Son, who suffered a bitter Passion, rose again with glory from the grave, and ascended triumphantly into heaven. He is thy Son; but He is also our Host, pure and spotless, our meat and drink of everlasting life.

Supra quæ propitio ac sereno vultu respicere digneris: et accepta habere, sicuti accepta habere dignatus es munera pueri tui justi Abel, et sacrificium patriarchæ nostri Abrahæ, et quod tibi obtulit summus sacerdos tuus Melchisedech, sanctum sacrificium, immaculatam Hostiam.

Heretofore thou acceptedst the sacrifice of the innocent lambs offered unto thee by Abel, and the sacrifice which Abraham made to thee of his son Isaac, who, though immolated, yet lived; and, lastly, the sacrifice which Melchisedech presented to thee of bread and wine. Receive our sacrifice, which surpasses all those others: it is the Lamb, of whom all others could be but figures; it is the undying victim; it is the Body of thy Son who is the bread of life, and his Blood, which, whilst a drink of immortality for us, is a tribute adequate to thy glory.

The priest bows down to the altar, and kisses it as the throne of love, on which is seated the Saviour of men.

Supplices te rogamus, omnipotens Deus, jube hæc perferri per manus sancti Angeli tui in sublime altare tuum, in conspectu divinæ Majestatis tuæ: ut quotquot ex hac altaris participatione, sacrosanctum Filii tui Corpus et Sanguinem sumpserimus, omni benedictione cœlesti et gratia repleamur. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

But, O God of infinite power! these sacred gifts are not only on this altar here below; they are also on that sublime altar in heaven, which is before the throne of thy divine Majesty. These two altars are one and the same, on which is accomplished the great mystery of thy glory and our salvation. Vouchsafe to make us partakers of the Body and Blood of the august victim, from whom flow every grace and blessing.

Nor is the moment less favourable for our making supplication for the Church suffering. Let us, therefore, ask the divine liberator who has come down among us that He mercifully visit, by a ray of His consoling light, the dark abode of purgatory; and permit His Blood to flow, as a stream of mercy's dew, from this our altar, and refresh the panting captives there. Let us pray expressly for those among them

CANON OF THE MASS

who have a claim upon our suffrages.

Memento etiam, Domine, famulorum famularumque tuarum N. et N., qui nos præcesserunt cum signo fidei, et dormiunt in somno pacis. Ipsis, Domine, et omnibus in Christo quiescentibus, locum refrigerii, lucis, et pacis, ut indulgeas, deprecamur. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Dear Jesus! let the happiness of this thy visit extend to every portion of thy Church. Thy face gladdens the elect in the holy city; even our mortal eyes can see thee beneath the veil of our delighted faith; ah! hide not thyself from those brethren of ours who are imprisoned in the abode of expiation. Be thou refreshment to them in their flames, light in their darkness, and peace in their agonies of torment.

This duty of charity fulfilled, let us pray for ourselves, sinners, alas! who profit so little by the visit which our Saviour pays us. Let us, together with the priest, strike our breast, saying:

Nobis quoque peccatoribus famulis tuis, de multitudine miserationum tuarum sperantibus, partem aliquam et societatem donare digneris cum tuis sanctis apostolis et martyribus; cum Joanne, Stephano, Mathia, Barnaba, Ignatio, Alexan-

Alas! we are poor sinners, O God of all sanctity! yet do we hope that thine infinite mercy will grant us to share thy kingdom; not, indeed, by reason of our works, which deserve little else than punishment, but because of the merits of this sacrifice, which

dro, Marcellino, Petro, Felicitate, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucia, Agnete, Cæcilia, Anastasia, et omnibus sanctis tuis; intra quorum nos consortium, non æstimator meriti, sed veniæ, quæsumus, largitor admitte: per Christum Dominum nostrum. Per quem hæc omnia, Domine, semper bona creas, sanctificas, vivificas, benedicis, et præstas nobis; per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria.

we are offering unto thee. Remember, too, the merits of thy holy apostles, of thy holy martyrs, of thy holy virgins, and of all thy saints. Grant us, by their intercession, grace in this world, and glory eternal in the next: which we ask of thee, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son. It is by him thou bestowest upon us thy blessings of life and sanctification; and by him also, with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, may honour and glory be to thee!

While saying the last of these words, the priest has taken up the sacred Host, which was upon the altar; he has held it over the chalice, thus reuniting the Body and Blood of the divine victim, in order to show that He is now immortal. Then, raising up both chalice and Host, he offers to God the noblest and most perfect homage which the divine Majesty could receive.

This sublime and mysterious rite ends the Canon.

The silence of the mysteries is interrupted. The priest concludes his long prayers by saying aloud, and so giving the faithful the opportunity of expressing their desire that his supplications be granted:

Per omnia sæcula sæculorum.

For ever and ever!

Answer him with faith, and in a sentiment of union with your holy mother the Church;

Amen.

Amen! I believe the mystery which has just been accomplished. I unite myself to the offering which has been made, and to the petitions of the Church.

It is time now to recite the prayer taught us by our Saviour Himself. Let it ascend to heaven together with the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. How could it be otherwise than heard, when He Himself who drew it up for us is in our very hands now while we say it. As this prayer belongs in common to all God's children, the priest recites it aloud, and begins by inviting us all to join in it; he says:

OREMUS

LET US PRAY

Præceptis salutaribus moniti, et divina institutione formati, audemus dicere:

Having been taught by a saving precept, and following the form given us by divine instruction, we thus presume to speak:

THE LORD'S PRAYER

Pater noster, qui es in cœlis: sanctificetur nomen tuum: adveniat regnum tuum: fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cœlo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie: et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris: et ne nos inducas in tentationem;

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation;

Let us answer with a deep feeling of our misery:

Sed libera nos a malo.

But deliver us from evil.

The priest falls once more into the silence of the holy mysteries. His first word is an affectionate Amen to your last petition—deliver us from evil—on which he forms his own next prayer; and could he pray for anything more needed? Evil surrounds us everywhere; and the Lamb on our altar has been sent to expiate it, and deliver us from it.

Libera nos, quæsumus, Domine, ab omnibus malis, præteritis, præsentibus et futuris: et intercedente beata et gloriosa semper Virgine Dei Genitrice Maria, cum beatis apostolis tuis Petro et Paulo, atque Andrea, et omnibus sanctis, da propitius pacem in diebus nostris: ut ope misericordiæ tuæ adjuti, et a peccato simus semper liberi, et ab omni perturbatione securi. Per eumdem Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus sancti Deus.

How many, O Lord, are the evils which beset us! Evils past, which are the wounds left on the soul by her sins, and which strengthen her wicked propensities. Evils present—that is, the sins now, at this very time, upon our soul; the weakness of this poor soul, and the temptations which molest her. There are, also, future evils—that is, the chastisement which our sins deserve from the hands of thy justice. In presence of this Host of our salvation, we beseech thee, O Lord, to deliver us from all these evils, and to accept in our favour the intercession of Mary the Mother of Jesus, of thy holy apostles Peter and Paul and Andrew: liberate us, break our chains, give us peace, through Jesus Christ, thy Son, who with thee, liveth and reigneth God.

The priest is anxious to announce the peace, which he has asked and obtained; he therefore finishes his prayer aloud, saying:

Per omnia sæcula sæculorum.

World without end.

℟. Amen.

Then he says:

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum.

May the peace of our Lord be ever with you.

To this paternal wish reply:

℟. Et cum spiritu tuo.

℟. And with thy spirit.

The mystery is drawing to a close; God is about to be united with man, and man with God, by means of Communion. But first an imposing and sublime rite takes place at the altar. So far, the priest has announced the death of Jesus; it is time to proclaim His resurrection. To this end, he reverently breaks the sacred Host; and having divided it into three parts, he puts one into the chalice, thus reuniting the Body and Blood of the immortal victim. Do you adore, and say:

Hæc commixtio et consecratio Corporis et Sanguinis Domini nostri Jesu Christi, fiat accipientibus nobis in vitam æternam. Amen.

Glory be to thee, O Saviour of the world! who didst in thy Passion permit thy precious Blood to be separated from thy sacred Body, afterwards uniting them again together by thy divine power!

Offer now your prayer to the ever-living Lamb, whom St. John saw on the altar of heaven, 'standing though slain';¹ say to your Lord and King, who has taken upon Himself all our iniquities, in order to wash them away by His Blood:

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us!

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us!

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, give us peace!

Peace is the grand object of our Saviour's coming into the world: He is the 'Prince of peace.'² The divine sacrament of the Eucharist ought therefore to be the mystery of peace, and the bond of Catholic unity; for, as the apostle says, 'all we who partake of one bread, are all one bread and one body.'³ It is on this account that the priest, now that he is on the point of receiving in Communion the sacred Host, prays that eternal peace may be preserved in the Church, and more especially in this portion of it which is assembled around the altar. Pray with him, and for the same blessing.

Domine Jesu Christe, qui dixisti apostolis tuis: Pacem relinquo vobis: pacem meam do vobis: ne respicias peccata mea, sed fidem Ecclesiæ tuæ: eamque secundum voluntatem tuam pacificare et coadunare digneris. Qui vivis et regnas Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, who saidst to thine apostles, 'My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: regard not my sins, but the faith of thy Church, and grant her that peace and unity which is according to thy will. Who livest and reignest God, for ever and ever. Amen.

If it be a High Mass, the priest here gives the kiss of peace to the deacon, who gives it to the subdeacon, and he to the choir. During this ceremony, you should excite within yourself feelings of Christian charity, and pardon your enemies, if you have any.

Then continue to pray with the priest:

Domine, Jesu Christe, Fili Dei vivi, qui ex voluntate Patris, cooperante Spiritu sancto, per mortem tuam mundum vivificasti: libera me per hoc sacrosanctum Corpus et Sanguinem tuum, ab omnibus iniquitatibus meis, et universis malis, et fac me tuis semper inhærere mandatis, et a te nunquam separari permittas. Qui cum eodem Deo Patre et Spiritu sancto vivis et regnas, Deus, in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who according to the will of the Father, through the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, hast, by thy death, given life to the world; deliver me, by this thy most sacred Body and Blood, from all evils; and make me always adhere to thy commandments, and never suffer me to be separated from thee, who, with the same God the Father and the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest God for ever and ever. Amen.

If you are going to Communion at this Mass, say the following prayer; otherwise, prepare yourself for a spiritual Communion:

Perceptio Corporis tui, Domine Jesu Christe, quod ego indignus sumere præsumo, non mihi proveniat in judicium et condemnationem: sed pro tua pietate prosit mihi ad tutamentum mentis et corporis, et ad medelam percipiendam. Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo Patre, in unitate Spiritus sancti Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Let not the participation of thy Body, O Lord Jesus Christ, which I, though unworthy, presume to receive, turn to my judgment and condemnation; but through thy mercy, may it be a safeguard and remedy both to my soul and body. Who, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest God for ever and ever. Amen.

When the priest takes the Host into his hands, in order to receive it in Communion, say:

Panem cœlestem accipiam, et nomen Domini invocabo.

Come, my dear Jesus, come!

When he strikes his breast, confessing his unworthiness, say thrice with him these words, and in the same dispositions as the centurion of the Gospel, who first used them:

Domine, non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea.

Lord! I am not worthy that thou enter under my roof; say it only with one word of thine, and my soul shall be healed.

While the priest is receiving the sacred Host, if you also are to communicate, profoundly adore your God, who is ready to take up His abode within you; and again say to Him with the bride: 'Come, Lord Jesus!'¹

But should you not intend to receive sacramentally, make here a spiritual Communion. Adore Jesus Christ, who thus visits your soul by His grace, and say to Him:

Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam meam in vitam æternam. Amen.

I give thee, O Jesus, this heart of mine, that thou mayst dwell in it, and do with me what thou wilt.

Then the priest takes the chalice in thanksgiving, and says:

Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quæ retribuit mihi? Calicem salutaris accipiam, et nomen Domini invocabo. Laudans invocabo Dominum et ab inimicis meis salvus ero.

What return shall I make to the Lord for all he hath given to me? I will take the chalice of salvation, and will call upon the name of the Lord. Praising I will call upon the Lord, and I shall be saved from mine enemies.

But if you are to make a sacramental Communion you should, at this moment of the priest's receiving the precious Blood, again adore the God who is coming to you, and keep to your prayer: 'Come, Lord Jesus, come!'

If you are going to communicate only spiritually, again adore your divine master, and say to Him:

Sanguis Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam meam in vitam æternam. Amen.

I unite myself to thee, my beloved Jesus! do thou unite thyself to me; and never let us be separated!

It is here that you must approach to the altar, if you are going to Communion. The dispositions suitable for holy Communion, during the Time after Pentecost, are given in the next chapter.

The Communion being finished, and while the priest is purifying the chalice the first time, say:

Quod ore sumpsimus, Domine, pura mente capiamus; et de munere temporali fiat nobis remedium sempiternum.

Thou hast visited me, O God, in these days of my pilgrimage; give me grace to treasure up the fruits of this visit, and to make it tell upon my eternity.

¹ Apoc. v. 6. ² Isa. ix. 6. ³ 1 Cor. x. 17.
¹ Apoc. xxii. 20.

While the priest is purifying the chalice the second time, say:

Corpus tuum, Domine, quod sumpsi, et Sanguis, quem potavi, adhæreat visceribus meis: et præsta, ut in me non remaneat scelerum macula, quem pura et sancta refecerunt Sacramenta. Qui vivis et regnas in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Be thou for ever blessed, O my Saviour, for having admitted me to the sacred mystery of thy Body and Blood. May my heart and senses preserve, by thy grace, the purity thou hast imparted to them, and may I be thus rendered less unworthy of thy divine visit.

The priest, having read the anthem, called the Communion, which is the first part of his thanksgiving for the favour just received from God, rises. He has renewed His divine presence among us, turns to the people, greeting them with the usual salutation; and then recites the prayers, called the Postcommunion, which are a continuation of the thanksgiving. You will join him here also, and thank God for the unspeakable gift He has just lavished upon you, of admitting you to the participation of mysteries so divine.

As soon as these prayers have been recited, the priest turns again to the people; and, full of joy at the immense favour he and they have been receiving, he says:

Dominus vobiscum.
The Lord be with you.

Answer him:

Et cum spiritu tuo. And with thy spirit.

The deacon, or (if it be not a High Mass) the priest himself, then says:

Ite missa est. Go, the Mass is finished.

℟. Deo gratias.
℟. Thanks be to God.

The priest makes a last prayer before giving you his blessing; pray with him:

Placeat tibi, sancta Trinitas, obsequium servitutis meæ, et præsta, ut sacrificium, quod oculis tuæ Majestatis indignus obtuli, tibi sit acceptabile, mihique, et omnibus pro quibus illud obtuli, sit, te miserante, propitiabile. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Eternal thanks be to thee, O adorable Trinity, for the mercy thou hast shown to me in permitting me to assist at this divine sacrifice. Pardon me the negligence and coldness wherewith I have received so great a favour; and deign to confirm the blessing which thy minister is about to give me in thy name.

The priest raises his hand and blesses you thus:

Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus.

℟. Amen.

May the almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, bless you!

℟. Amen.

He then concludes the Mass, by reading the first fourteen verses of the Gospel according to St. John, which tell us of the eternity of the Word, and of the mercy which led Him to take upon Himself our flesh, and to dwell among us. Pray that you may be of the number of those who received Him, when He came unto his own people, and who, thereby, were made sons of God.

℣. Dominus vobiscum.
℟. Et cum spiritu tuo.

℣. The Lord be with you.
℟. And with thy spirit.

THE LAST GOSPEL

Initium sancti Evangelii secundum Joannem.
Cap. i.

In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum. Omnia per ipsum facta sunt; et sine ipso factum est nihil. Quod factum est, in ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum, et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebræ eam non comprehenderunt. Fuit homo missus a Deo, cui nomen erat Joannes. Hic venit in testimonium, ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine, ut omnes crederent per illum. Non erat ille lux, sed ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine. Erat lux vera, quæ illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum. In mundo erat, et mundus per ipsum factus est, et mundus eum non cognovit. In propria venit, et sui eum non receperunt. Quotquot autem receperunt eum, dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri, his qui credunt in nomine ejus: qui non ex sanguinibus, neque ex voluntate carnis, neque ex voluntate viri, sed ex Deo nati sunt. ET VERBUM CARO FACTUM EST, et habitavit in nobis: et vidimus gloriam ejus, gloriam quasi Unigeniti a Patre, plenum gratiæ et veritatis.

℟. Deo gratias.

The beginning of the holy Gospel according to John. Chap. i.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men: and the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him. He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light. That was the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them he gave power to be made the sons of God; to them that believe in his name, who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, and dwelt among us; and we saw his glory, as it were the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

℟. Thanks be to God.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH

ON HOLY COMMUNION DURING THE TIME AFTER PENTECOST

If, in the early stages of the liturgical year, in Advent, at Christmas, and during the periods of Septuagesima and Lent, when there was question of nothing beyond a preparation for the divine mysteries which wrought our salvation—if, in the name of holy Church, we then invited the faithful to have recourse to the sacrament of our Lord's Body, as being the heavenly nourishment that would support them in the glorious career on which they had entered; now that the work is done, that they have risen again with their Redeemer, that they have followed Him, by their desires and their hopes, even to the very summit of heaven—now that the Holy Ghost has come down upon this earth, that He might complete within them the work of their union with God, surely, nothing could profit them more than that they nourish themselves, and even more frequently than before, with the Bread of life, which came from heaven, that He might give life to the world.¹

From our first entrance into the new season, which we are now passing through, holy Church has, by the great feast of Corpus Christi, brought us face to face with the august mystery, which is both the sacrifice whereby God receives the honour due to Him, and the sacrament containing within itself the nourishment of our souls. We have now a clearer understanding of the unspeakable gift which our Saviour vouchsafed to bestow upon us the night before His Passion. We now see more plainly the nature and usages of the homage which earth gives to its Creator, by the ceaseless offering of the holy sacrifice of the Mass. We now know, so much better than formerly, what that deifying relation is which is made to exist between God and the soul by means of the participation of the sacred Host. The Holy Ghost has shed His light upon all these truths; He has opened out to us the very depths of the mystery shown to us from the outset—the mystery, that is, of the Emmanuel, or God with us. Now that we are so fully initiated into the whole of God's work, we understand better that great text of the Gospel which says: 'The Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us.'² We grasp the meaning more completely; we can give it a more literal, and equally faithful translation, and say: 'The Word was made Flesh, and took up His dwelling WITHIN us.'

All this has increased in the Christian the desire of assisting at the holy sacrifice. He says to himself, as did the patriarch of old: "Truly, the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not";³ my faith was sound, but I did not perceive, as I do now, the immensity of what our Lord did at His last Supper. In the same way, having now a clearer knowledge of the union, which is brought about even in this present world, between God and the soul that is nourished with the living Bread, whereby that soul is transformed into its Creator, the Christian longs more ardently than ever for the enjoyment of that Lord who, even during this mortal life, gives us, by means of the eucharistic Bread, not only a foretaste, but the very reality of that which awaits us in heaven. We may truly assert that the keeping up of that state which we have already described in the third chapter, and which is the state both of the Church herself and of the faithful soul during this period of the liturgical year, is the joint work of the Holy Ghost who abides within us and of the eucharistic gift, in which the Son of God ceases not to act for the preservation, increase, and development of the divine life which He came to bring us, and of which He thus speaks: 'I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly.'⁴

¹ St. John vi. 41, 52.
² St. John i. 14.
³ Gen. xxviii. 16.
⁴ St. John x. 10.

We will here, as in the preceding volumes, give acts which may serve as preparation for holy Communion during this season of the year. There are souls that feel the want of some such assistance as this; and, for the same reason, we will add a form of thanksgiving for after Communion.

BEFORE COMMUNION

ACT OF FAITH

Now that I am about to unite myself to thee in the mystery of thy love, I must first profess that I believe it to be truly thyself, O my God—thy Body, thy Soul, thy Divinity, that thou art going to give me. The first duty thou askest of me, now that thou art coming to me, is the act of my faith in this deep mystery—I make it; and my understanding is happy at thus bowing itself down before thy sovereign word. Thou, O Jesus, art the truth; and when presenting to thy disciples the bread changed into thy Body, thou saidst to them: 'This is my Body!' I believe thy word; I adore 'the living Bread, come down from heaven to give life to the world.' The grace of the Holy Ghost, whom thou hast sent me, enables me to relish this marvel of thy all-powerful love. This love of thine was not satisfied with uniting thee to the human nature, which thou assumedst in Mary's womb; it would, moreover, make for each one of us, by means of the heavenly food of thy sacred Flesh, a real and mysterious union with thee, which none but thou could have planned, none but thou could have achieved. For its accomplishment thou first demandest, as thou hadst all right to do, that we should have an unlimited confidence in the truth of thy word. When thou wast upon the cross, thy Divinity was veiled from view; in the sacred Host, thy very Humanity is hid from our eyes; but I believe, O my God, both thy Divinity and Humanity present under the cloud which shrouds them from all mortal sight. I have been taught by thine apostle, O light inaccessible, that it is by faith alone that we can approach thee, while we are in this present life. I believe, then, O God! but help thou mine unbelief.

ACT OF HUMILITY

Taught as I have been by thy words, O my God, I know, and with a certainty which my reason and my senses could never have given me, that in a few moments I shall be in closest union with thine infinite Majesty. Thou hast said it: 'He that eateth my Flesh, abideth in me, and I in Him!' My whole being thrills at these words. I, a sinner, all marked with the sores of my iniquities, and still fighting with passions but half subdued—I am to abide in thee! And thou, that art infinite being and infinite holiness, thou art coming to abide in me, who am but nothingness and sin! At such tidings as this, what else can I do but cry out with the centurion of the Gospel: 'Lord! I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof!' And yet, I hear thee saying also these other words: 'Unless ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, ye shall not have life in you.' This life I would have, O Jesus! And didst thou not come, didst thou not work all thy mysteries, in order that we might have life, and more and more of that life? I have no desire to shun it. What, then, can I do, but take shelter in the depths of humility, think of mine own vileness, be mindful of the fuel of sin that exists within me, and acknowledge the infinite distance there is between myself and thee, O my Redeemer and my Judge? I know that then thou wilt have pity on my misery, and wilt say but one word, and my soul shall be healed. Say, I beseech thee, that word which is to comfort my heart. Till thou sayst it, I dare not raise up mine eyes towards thine altar; I can but tremble at the approach of that moment, when a poor creature, like myself, is to be united with its Creator, from whose eyes nought is hid, and who judges even our justices.

ACT OF CONTRITION

Ever since that day whereon thy Spirit, O Lord, came down upon us, in order that he might the more deeply imprint upon our souls the divine mysteries thou wroughtest, from thy merciful Incarnation to thy glorious Ascension, thou vouchsafest to invite me more frequently to thy table. And I have learned, too, since that same coming, better than I knew before, how it behoves me to prepare myself with all possible diligence for each of thy visits. I have been renewing my faith, by adoring with increased ardour the truth of thy presence in the Sacrament of the altar. As I see thy dread Majesty advancing towards me, I have professed, and with sincere humility, my utter nothingness, for I have prostrated myself in my extreme abasement at thy foot; but all this does not put me at rest. There is something beyond all this: it is, that I am a sinner; I have offended thee; I have rebelled against thee; I have turned thy very benefits into occasions of outrage against thee; to say it in all its enormity, I have caused thy death upon the cross! The Holy Ghost, having vouchsafed to give me light, has taught me the malice of sin; he has given me to understand, more fully than formerly, how detestable have been my audacity and in-

titude. I have had revealed to me, by the grand mysteries of the first portion of the year, how much I cost thee on that day, whereon justice and mercy united in the sacrifice which saved me. The more thou hast heaped thy favours on me, O Lord, the more keenly do I feel the injustice of my sins; and I beseech thee to bestow on me the signal grace, the grace which will ensure every other, of keeping up within me the spirit of compunction and penance. O my God, at this hour when thou art about to give thyself to me, I offer to thee the expression of my sorrow; and from my deepest soul, I say to thee those words of the publican: 'Have mercy on me, O God, for I am a sinner.'

ACT OF LOVE

And now, O my Lord, permit me to turn my thoughts upon the happiness of a soul, to whom thou givest thyself in the Sacrament of thy love! As to that familiarity into which some souls might fall who approach thee reflecting upon thine ineffable goodness alone, and not upon the greatness of thy majesty, oh! I shudder at such presumption. And yet I long to be united with thee; and, until thou art come into me, my soul panteth after thee. Thy mysteries which I have been celebrating with thy Church have enkindled within me a fire which nothing can quench, a fire to which thy divine Spirit delights to be ever adding heat. 'Thy delight,' so thou hast told us, 'is to be with the children of men'; and is it not true, also, that with such of the children of men as know thee, thy love is the very nourishment on which their own hearts live? In order to maintain them in this love which is their life, thou hast made thyself present in the sacred Host; thou givest them to live in thee, just as thou livest in them, as often as they eat of this living Bread, which hath come down from heaven. This charity, this love 'which hath been poured forth into our hearts by the Holy Ghost,' is nourished at thy holy table, O Lord! and there is it increased; for it is in the divine Sacrament, which thou institutedst the night before thy Passion, that we are united to thee. Love tends to be united with the object it loves; therefore do I, in spite of the conviction of my unworthiness, long for the blissful moment of thy coming into me. Everything that thou hast done, my Lord, has been done to make me love thee! Thou hast loved me first; who will blame me that my heart hungers for thee? Thou hadst pity one day on the people who had followed thee into the desert. 'I have compassion,' thou saidst, 'on this multitude'; and then, straightway, thou gavest them to eat as much as they would. Ah! Lord, my poor heart also longs for thee; and thou alone canst satisfy the hunger which gnaws me, for thou art the sovereign Good, thou art true life; and it is that I might enjoy that sovereign Good, and live that heavenly life, that thou createdst me. There was a time when this heart of mine was dull; darkness was upon me, and I could not see the light: but now that thy mysteries have enlightened and renewed me, come, then, Lord Jesus! Withhold thyself no longer from my soul, that awaits thy visit!

AFTER COMMUNION

ACT OF ADORATION

Thy presence within me, O Lord, is joy and sweetness to me; and yet before indulging in the delight it brings, I feel impelled to prostrate my entire being before thy sovereign Majesty. I must, I will, first adore thee, for thou art the great God of heaven and earth. Thou standest in no need of me, and yet thou comest down to this my nothingness. Where, then, shall I begin, if it be not in humbling myself profoundly before thee, and acknowledging that thou art Lord, the only-begotten and consubstantial Son of the Father; that thou art he by whom all things were made, the eternal, the infinite, and the supreme Judge of the living and the dead. Thy Seraphim, who see thee in thy unveiled majesty, and drink their fill of everlasting happiness from thy divine essence, these glorious spirits, as thy prophet tells us, cover their faces with their wings; they tremble before thee, as the Church tells us; and yet, whilst trembling in thy presence, their love is as ardent and as tender as though they were nothing but love. I would follow their example, O my God; I would offer thee at this moment the creature's first duty to its Creator, adoration. Thou art so nigh to me at this happy moment that my being feels renovated and almost lost in thine; how, then, can I be otherwise than overwhelmed by the weight of thy glory? Yes, I do adore thee, O Eternal, Infinite, Immense, All-powerful! before whom all created beings are as though they were not. I confess before thee my own nothingness; I acknowledge thine absolute dominion over me, and over everything which thy power and goodness have produced in creation. 'King of ages! immortal and invisible' in thine essence! Glory be to thee! Accept this first homage of a soul to which thy love has deigned to unite thee.

ACT OF THANKSGIVING

There is another homage which I owe to thee, O my God! It is gratitude. Thou often invitest me to partake of the divine gift, wherewith thou, before leaving this earth, didst enrich us. But woe to me if, because I can easily and often have it, I value so much the less its greatness! Wretched familiarity, which blunts the sentiment of gratitude, and deadens faith, and takes all ardour from love; may thy grace, O Lord, preserve me from its vile influence. For thousands of years the human race was in expectation of the favour, which thou hast just been bestowing upon me. Abraham, the father of believers; Moses, thy much-loved friend; David, the inspired chanter of thy mysteries: none of these received thee; and this Bread of angels has come down from heaven for me! Oh! unheard-of goodness of a God incorporating himself with his creature! Who is there that could measure its length and breadth, or scan its height, or fathom its depth? These expressions of thine apostle regarding the mystery just given to me teach me what is the value of the wondrous gift thou hast bestowed upon mankind. With what humble and lively gratitude, then, should it be received! Thou hast not been deterred, either by my nothingness or by the coldness of my feelings, or my infidelities; be thou blessed then, my Lord, for that out of thy desire to give thyself to me thou hast overstepped every limit, and removed every obstacle. I give thee thanks for this, and for every Communion thou hast hitherto so graciously given me. Deign to enlighten me more and more as to the magnificence of thy gift; deign to cherish within me the sentiment of love; that thus my longings for thy visit may be increased; that I may know how to honour, as I ought, thy presence within me; and that I may never dare to approach thee out of custom, or without my conscience assuring me that I am bringing with me the profound respect due to thee.

ACT OF LOVE

Now will I rest me in thee, O my sovereign Good, that hast come down to me and entered into me, in order to content the desires of my heart by thy presence. A few moments ago I was longing after thee; and now that longing has been satisfied. What is there on this earth that I could now desire? The very happiness of heaven, is it not the possession of thee? and thou, my Lord, assurest me that he who eats thy sacred Flesh 'abideth in thee, and thou in him.' The union, then, to which love aspires, is now consummated. This happy moment of thy presence within me unites thy sovereign majesty to my lowliness; thou livest in me, and I live in thee. Divine charity has conquered every difficulty; and the life which now circulates through my being is not the life of time, but of eternity. I at once profit of it, to assure thee, O Lord, that thou hast my love. Thy presence within me lasts but a short time; in a few moments there will be but the grace left by the visit thou art now paying me. At present, I can say in all truth: 'I have found him whom my soul loveth.' Accept, then, O Lord, the homage of my heart, and all its affections. Make this heart faithful and ardent in the love of thee; for love is the end of the whole law: and when thou vouchsafest to incorporate thyself with us by means of the bread of life, thine aim is to strengthen and increase charity within us. May this contact with thee, O Lord, destroy that love of myself, which hitherto has so often stifled, or at least retarded, the love which is due to thee. Let my heart become more and more purified; may its affections be set free from, and raised above, created objects, and centred in the unity of thy love, which includes all, and is enough for all.

ACT OF OBLATION

When I thus assure thee of my love, O my God, I hear within me a voice telling me that henceforth the rule of my conduct must be thy good pleasure. Then only shall I know that my protestations are sincere, when I give up mine own will to follow thine in all things. Thou wilt not only require me to keep from all sin, but thou wouldst have me resolutely walk in the path of humility—humility which repels pride, thy chief enemy. Thou commandest me to keep my senses under restraint, lest the weakness of the flesh should get the mastery over my spirit, which is prompt but fickle. In order to make sure of a soul that is dear to thee, thou often sendest it trials; for thou hast said that whosoever ambitions to follow thee, must make up his mind to carry the cross. Thou hast warned thy disciples, that they must be on their guard against the world and its maxims, or that they would perish together with the world. These are the conditions which thou layest on them that would enlist under thy banner, dear Jesus! Renovated as I have been by thy precious visit, I offer myself to thee as one quite resolved to fulfil every duty of thy service. Give me thine aid, O my Lord and King! Thy sacramental presence, which is soon to quit me, will leave me an increase of thy grace. Increase my faith, and my docility to the teachings of thy holy Church, from whose hands I have just received thee. Give me to use this world as though I did not use it; give me to live at once, by desire, in that abode where I hope to enjoy thee, and without shadow or veil, for all eternity.

O Mary, Queen of heaven! watch over me, thy humble servant, whom the blessed Son of thy chaste womb has vouchsafed to nourish with his adorable Flesh, which he received from thee. Present him the oblation I now make him of myself, in return for the unspeakable gift he has just been bestowing upon me. Holy angels! bless and protect this poor child of earth, who has been feasting on that very Bread, whereon you feed in heaven. All ye saints of God! who, when in this world, did eat of the same Bread of the Christian pilgrim, pray, and obtain for me that it may keep with me to the end of my course through this life, and may lead me to him, who ceases not to be the nourishment of his elect when in glory. Amen.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

ON THE OFFICE OF VESPERS FOR SUNDAYS AND FEASTS, DURING THE TIME AFTER PENTECOST

The Office of Vespers, or Evensong, consists firstly of the five following psalms. For certain feasts some of these psalms are changed for others, which are more appropriate to those occasions.

After the Pater and Ave have been said in secret, the Church commences this Hour with her favourite supplication:

V. Deus, in adjutorium meum intende.
R. Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina.

V. Incline unto mine aid, O God.
R. O Lord, make haste to help me.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto; Sicut erat in principio, et nunc et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen. Alleluia.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Alleluia.

ANT. Dixit Dominus.

ANT. The Lord said.

The first psalm is a prophecy of the future glories of the Messias. The Son of David shall sit on the right hand of the heavenly Father. He is King; He is Priest; He is the Son of Man, and the Son of God. His enemies will attack Him, but He will crush them. He will be humbled, but this voluntary humiliation will lead Him to the highest glory.

PSALM 109

Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis.

Donec ponam inimicos tuos: scabellum pedum tuorum.

Virgam virtutis tuæ emittet Dominus ex Sion: dominare in medio inimicorum tuorum.

Tecum principium in die virtutis tuæ in splendoribus sanctorum: ex utero ante luciferum genui te.

Juravit Dominus, et non pœnitebit eum: Tu es Sacerdos in æternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech.

Dominus a dextris tuis; confregit in die iræ suæ reges.

Judicabit in nationibus, implebit ruinas: conquassabit capita in terra multorum.

The Lord said to my Lord, his Son: Sit thou at my right hand, and reign with me.

Until, on the day of thy last coming, I make thy enemies thy footstool.

O Christ! the Lord, thy Father, will send forth the sceptre of thy power out of Sion: from thence rule thou in the midst of thy enemies.

With thee is the principality in the day of thy strength, in the brightness of the saints: For the Father hath said to thee: From the womb before the day-star I begot thee.

The Lord hath sworn, and he will not repent: he hath said, speaking of thee, the God-Man: Thou art a Priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech.

Therefore, O Father, the Lord, thy Son, is at thy right hand: he hath broken kings in the day of his wrath.

He shall also judge among nations: in that terrible coming, he shall fill the ruins of the world: he shall crush the heads in the land of many.

De torrente in via bibet: propterea exaltabit caput.

Ant. Dixit Dominus Domino meo, Sede a dextris
meis.

Ant. Magna opera Domini.

He cometh now in humility; he shall drink in the way, of the torrent of sufferings: therefore, he shall lift up the head.

Ant. The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand.

Ant. Great are the works of the Lord.

The following psalm commemorates the mercies of God to His people, the promised Covenant, the Redemption, His fidelity to His word. But it also tells us that the name of the Lord is terrible because it is holy; and concludes by admonishing us, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

PSALM 110

Confitebor tibi, Domine,
in toto corde meo: in consilio justorum et congregatione.

Magna opera Domini: exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus.

Confessio et magnificentia opus ejus: et justitia ejus manet in sæculum sæculi.

Memoriam fecit mirabilium suorum, misericors et miserator Dominus: escam
dedit timentibus se.

Memor erit in sæculum
testamenti sui: virtutem operum suorum annuntiabit populo suo.

Ut det illis hereditatem gentium: opera manuum ejus veritas et judicium.

I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart: in the counsel of the just, and in the congregation.

Great are the works of the Lord; sought out according to all his wills.

His work is praise and magnificence: and his justice continueth for ever and ever.

He hath made a remembrance of his wonderful works, being a merciful and gracious Lord: he is the Bread of life, he hath given food to them that fear him.

He will be mindful for ever of his covenant with men: he will show forth to his people the power of his works.

That he may give to his Church the inheritance of the Gentiles: the works of his hands are truth and judgment.

Fidelia omnia mandata ejus, confirmata in sæculum
sæculi: facta in veritate et
æquitate.

Redemptionem misit populo suo: mandavit in æternum testamentum suum.

Sanctum et terribile nomen ejus: initium sapientiæ
timor Domini.

Intellectus bonus omnibus facientibus eum: laudatio ejus manet in sæculum
sæculi.

Ant. Magna opera Domini: exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus.

Ant. Qui timet Dominum.

All his commandments are faithful, confirmed for ever and ever: made in truth and equity.

He hath sent redemption to his people; he hath thereby commanded his covenant for ever.

Holy and terrible is his name: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

A good understanding to all that do it: his praise continueth for ever and ever.

Ant. Great are the works of the Lord: sought out according to all his wills.

Ant. He that feareth the Lord.

The next psalm sings the happiness of the just man, and his hopes on the day of his Lord's coming. It tells us, likewise, of the confusion of the sinner who shall have despised the mysteries of God's love towards mankind.

PSALM 111

Beatus vir qui timet Dominum: in mandatis ejus volet nimis.

Potens in terra erit semen ejus: generatio rectorum benedicetur.

Gloria et divitiæ in domo
ejus: et justitia ejus manet in sæculum sæculi.

Exortum est in tenebris lumen rectis: misericors, et miserator, et justus.

Jucundus homo, qui miseretur et commodat, disponet sermones suos in judicio: quia in æternum non
commovebitur.

In memoria æterna erit
justus: ab auditione mala non timebit.

Paratum cor ejus sperare in Domino, confirmatum est cor ejus: non commovebitur donec despiciat inimicos suos.

Dispersit, dedit pauperibus; justitia ejus manet in sæculum sæculi: cornu ejus
exaltabitur in gloria.

Peccator videbit et irascetur, dentibus suis fremet et tabescet: desiderium peccatorum peribit.

Ant. Qui timet Dominum, in mandatis ejus cupit nimis.

Ant. Sit nomen Domini.

Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord: he shall delight exceedingly in his commandments.

His seed shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the righteous shall be blessed.

Glory and wealth shall be in his house: and his justice remaineth for ever and ever.

To the righteous a light is risen up in darkness: that light is the Lord, who is merciful, and compassionate and just.

Acceptable is the man that showeth mercy and lendeth; he shall order his very words with judgment: because he shall not be moved for ever.

The just shall be in everlasting remembrance: he shall not fear the evil hearing.

His heart is ready to hope in the Lord; his heart is strengthened; he shall not be moved until he look over his enemies.

He hath distributed, he hath given to the poor; his justice remaineth for ever and ever: his horn shall be exalted in glory.

The wicked shall see, and shall be angry: he shall gnash with the teeth, and pine away; the desire of the wicked shall perish.

Ant. He that feareth the Lord delighteth exceedingly in his commandments.

Ant. May the name of the Lord.

The psalm, Laudate, pueri, is a canticle of praise to the Lord, who, from His high heaven, hath taken pity on the human race, and has vouchsafed to honour it by the Incarnation of His own Son.

PSALM 112

Laudate, pueri, Dominum: laudate nomen Domini.

Sit nomen Domini benedictum: ex hoc nunc, et usque in sæculum.

A solis ortu usque ad occasum: laudabile nomen Domini.

Excelsus super omnes gentes Dominus: et super
cœlos gloria ejus.

Quis sicut Dominus Deus
noster qui in altis habitat: et humilia respicit in cœlo
et in terra?

Suscitans a terra inopem: et de stercore erigens pauperem:

Ut collocet eum cum principibus: cum principibus populi sui.

Qui habitare facit sterilem in domo: matrem filiorum lætantem.

Ant. Sit nomen Domini benedictum in sæcula.

Ant. Deus autem noster.

Praise the Lord, ye children: praise ye the name of the Lord.

Blessed be the name of the Lord; from henceforth now and for ever.

From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, the name of the Lord is worthy of praise.

The Lord is high above all nations: and his glory above the heavens.

Who is as the Lord, our God, who dwelleth on high: and looketh down on the low things in heaven and in earth?

Raising up the needy from the earth: and lifting up the poor out of the dunghill.

That he may place him with princes: with the princes of his people.

Who maketh a barren woman to dwell in a house, the joyful mother of children.

Ant. May the name of the Lord be for ever blessed.

Ant. But our God.

The fifth psalm, In exitu, recounts the prodigies witnessed under the ancient Covenant: they were figures, whose realities were to be accomplished in the mission of the Son of God, who came to deliver Israel from Egypt, emancipate the Gentiles from their idolatry, and pour out a blessing on every man who would consent to fear and love the Lord.

PSALM 113

In exitu Israel de Ægypto: domus Jacob de populo barbaro:

Facta est Judæa sanctificatio ejus: Israel potestas
ejus.

Mare vidit et fugit: Jordanis conversus est retrorsum.

Montes exsultaverunt ut arietes: et colles sicut agni ovium.

Quid est tibi, mare, quod fugisti: et tu, Jordanis, quia conversus es retrorsum?

Montes exsultastis sicut arietes: et colles sicut agni ovium?

A facie Domini mota est terra: a facie Dei Jacob.

Qui convertit petram in stagna aquarum: et rupem in fontes aquarum.

Non nobis, Domine, non
nobis: sed nomini tuo da gloriam.

Super misericordia tua, et veritate tua: nequando dicant gentes: Ubi est Deus
eorum?

Deus autem noster in
cœlo: omnia quæcumque
voluit fecit.

Simulacra gentium argentum et aurum: opera manuum hominum.

Os habent, et non loquentur: oculos habent, et non videbunt.

Aures habent, et non audient: nares habent, et non odorabunt.

Manus habent, et non palpabunt, pedes habent, et non ambulabunt: non clamabunt in gutture suo.

Similes illis fiant qui faciunt ea: et omnes qui confidunt in eis.

Domus Israel speravit in Domino: adjutor eorum, et protector eorum est.

Domus Aaron speravit in Domino: adjutor eorum, et protector eorum est.

Qui timent Dominum, speraverunt in Domino: adjutor eorum, et protector eorum est.

Dominus memor fuit nostri: et benedixit nobis.

Benedixit domui Israel: benedixit domui Aaron.

Benedixit omnibus qui timent Dominum: pusillis cum majoribus.

Adjiciat Dominus super
vos: super vos, et super filios vestros.

Benedicti vos a Domino: qui fecit cœlum et terram.

Cœlum cœli Domino:
terram autem dedit filiis hominum.

Non mortui laudabunt te, Domine: neque omnes qui
descendunt in infernum.

Sed nos qui vivimus, benedicimus Domino: ex hoc nunc et usque in sæculum.

Ant. Deus autem noster
in cœlo: omnia quæcumque
voluit, fecit.

When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people.

Judea was made his sanctuary, Israel his dominion.

The sea saw and fled; Jordan was turned back.

The mountains skipped like rams: and the hills like the lambs of the flocks.

What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou didst flee: and thou, O Jordan, that thou wast turned back?

Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams: and ye hills like lambs of the flock?

At the presence of the Lord the earth was moved, at the presence of the God of Jacob.

Who turned the rock into pools of water, and the stony hills into fountains of water.

Not to us, O Lord, not to us: but to thy name give glory.

For thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake: lest the Gentiles should say: Where is their God?

But our God is in heaven: he hath done all things whatsoever he would.

The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold: the works of the hands of men.

They have mouths, and speak not: they have eyes, and see not.

They have ears, and hear not: they have noses, and smell not.

They have hands, and feel not: they have feet and walk not: neither shall they cry out through their throat.

Let them that make them become like unto them: and all such as trust in them.

The house of Israel hath hoped in the Lord: he is their helper and their protector.

The house of Aaron hath hoped in the Lord: he is their helper and their protector.

They that feared the Lord have hoped in the Lord; he is their helper and their protector.

The Lord hath been mindful of us, and hath blessed us.

He hath blessed the house of Israel: he hath blessed the house of Aaron.

He hath blessed all that fear the Lord, both little and great.

May the Lord add blessings upon you: upon you, and upon your children.

Blessed be you of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

The heaven of heaven is the Lord's: but the earth he has given to the children of men.

The dead shall not praise thee, O Lord; nor any of them that go down to hell.

But we that live bless the Lord: from this time now and for ever.

Ant. But our God is in heaven: he hath done all things whatsoever he would.

After these five psalms, a short lesson from the holy Scriptures is read. It is called Capitulum, or Little Chapter, because it is always very short. Those for the several festivals are given in the proper of each.

CAPITULUM

Benedictus Deus et Pater
Domini nostri Jesu Christi, Pater misericordiarum et Deus totius consolationis,
qui consolatur nos in omni tribulatione nostra.

℟. Deo gratias.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulations.

℟. Thanks be to God.

Then follows the hymn. We here give the one for Sundays. It was composed by St. Gregory the Great. It sings of creation, and celebrates the praises of that portion of it which was called forth on this first day, viz., the light.

HYMN¹

Lucis Creator optime, Lucem dierum proferens: Primordiis lucis novæ,
Mundi parans originem.

Qui mane junctum vesperi Diem vocari præcipis:
Illabitur tetrum chaos, Audi preces cum fletibus.

Ne mens gravata crimine, Vitæ sit exsul munere:
Dum nil perenne cogitat, Seseque culpis illigat.

O infinitely good Creator of the light! by thee was produced the light of day, providing thus the world's beginning with the beginning of the new-made light.

Thou biddest us call the time from morn till eve day; this day is over; dark night comes on; oh! hear our tearful prayers.

Let not our soul, weighed down by crime, mis-spend thy gift of life; and, forgetting what is eternal, be earth-tied by her sins.

¹ According to the monastic rite, it is as follows:

Hy. breve. Quam magnificata sunt * Opera tua Domine. Quam.
℣. Omnia in sapientia fecisti *
Opera. Gloria Patri, etc. Quam.

Lucis Creator optime, Lucem dierum proferens; Primordiis lucis novæ,
Mundi parans originem.

Qui mane junctum vesperi, Diem vocari præcipis,
Tetrum chaos illabitur, Audi preces cum fletibus.

Ne mens gravata crimine, Vitæ sit exsul munere,
Dum nil perenne cogitat, Seseque culpis illigat.

Cœlorum pulset intimum,
Vitale tollat præmium:
Vitemus omne noxium, Purgemus omne pessimum.

Præsta Pater piissime,
Tuique compar Unice Cum Spiritu Paraclito Regnans per omne sæculum.
Amen.

Cœleste pulset ostium,
Vitale tollat præmium:
Vitemus omne noxium, Purgemus omne pessimum.

Præsta Pater piissime,
Patrique compar Unice, Cum Spiritu Paraclito Regnans per omne sæculum.

Amen.

Oh! may we strive to enter our heavenly home, and bear away the prize of life; may we shun what would injure us, and cleanse our soul from her defilements.

Most merciful Father, and thou his only-begotten Son, co-equal with him, reigning for ever, with the holy Paraclete, grant this our prayer.

Amen.

The versicle which follows the hymn, and which we here give, is that of the Sunday; those for the feasts are given in their proper places.

℣. Dirigatur, Domine, oratio mea,
℟. Sicut incensum in conspectu tuo.

℣. May my prayer, O Lord, ascend.
℟. Like incense in thy sight.

Then is said the Magnificat antiphon, which is to be found in the proper. After this, the Church sings the canticle of Mary, the Magnificat, in which are celebrated the divine maternity and all its consequent blessings. This exquisitely sweet canticle is an essential part of the Office of Vespers. It is the evening incense, just as the canticle Benedictus, at Lauds, is that of the morning.

OUR LADY'S CANTICLE (St. Luke i.)

Magnificat: anima mea Dominum;
Et exsultavit spiritus meus: in Deo Salutari meo.

Quia respexit humilitatem ancillæ suæ: ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes.

My soul doth magnify the Lord; And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid: for, behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

Quia fecit mihi magna qui potens est: et sanctum Nomen ejus.

Et misericordia ejus a progenie in progenies: timentibus eum.

Fecit potentiam in brachio suo: dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.

Deposuit potentes de sede: et exaltavit humiles.

Esurientes implevit bonis: et divites dimisit inanes.

Suscepit Israel puerum suum: recordatus misericordiæ suæ.

Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros: Abraham et semini ejus in sæcula.

Because he that is mighty hath done great things to me: and holy is his name.

And his mercy is from generation unto generation, to them that fear him.

He hath showed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble.

He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy.

As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.

The Magnificat antiphon is then repeated. The prayer, or collect, is given in the proper of each feast and Sunday.

℣. Benedicamus Domino.
℟. Deo gratias.

℣. Fidelium animæ per misericordiam Dei requiescant in pace.
℟. Amen.

℣. Let us bless the Lord.
℟. Thanks be to God.

℣. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
℟. Amen.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

ON THE OFFICE OF COMPLINE DURING THE TIME AFTER PENTECOST

This Office, which concludes the day, commences by a warning of the dangers of the night; then immediately follows the public confession of our sins, as a powerful means of propitiating the divine justice, and of obtaining God's help, now that we are going to spend so many hours in the unconscious, and therefore dangerous, state of sleep, which is also such an image of death.

The lector, addressing the priest, says to him:

℣. Jube, domne, benedicere.

The priest answers:

Noctem quietam, et finem perfectum concedat nobis Dominus omnipotens.
℟. Amen.

The lector then reads these words, from the first Epistle of St. Peter:

Fratres: Sobrii estote et vigilate: quia adversarius vester diabolus tamquam leo rugiens circuit, quærens quem devoret: cui resistite fortes in fide. Tu autem, Domine, miserere nobis.

The choir answers:

℟. Deo gratias.

Then the priest:

℣. Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.

The choir:

℟. Qui fecit cœlum et terram.

℣. Pray, father, give thy blessing.

May the almighty Lord grant us a quiet night, and a perfect end. ℟. Amen.

Brethren, be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour: whom resist ye, strong in faith. But thou, O Lord, have mercy on us.

℟. Thanks be to God.

℣. Our help is in the name of the Lord.
℟. Who hath made heaven and earth.

Then the Lord's Prayer is recited in secret; after which the priest says the Confiteor, and when he has finished, the choir repeats it.

The priest, having pronounced the general form of absolution, says:

℣. Converte nos, Deus, Salutaris noster.
℟. Et averte iram tuam a nobis.

℣. Deus, in adjutorium meum intende.
℟. Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina.

Gloria Patri.

ANT. Miserere.

℣. Convert us, O God our Saviour.
℟. And turn away thine anger from us.

℣. Incline unto mine aid, O God.
℟. O Lord, make haste to help me.

Glory, &c.

ANT. Have mercy.

The first psalm expresses the confidence with which the just man sleeps in peace: but the wicked know not what calm rest is.

PSALM 4

Cum invocarem exaudivit me Deus justitiæ meæ: in tribulatione dilatasti mihi.

Miserere mei: et exaudi orationem meam.

Filii hominum, usquequo gravi corde? ut quid diligitis vanitatem, et quæritis mendacium?

Et scitote quoniam mirificavit Dominus sanctum suum: Dominus exaudiet me, cum clamavero ad eum.

Irascimini, et nolite peccare: quæ dicitis in cordibus vestris, in cubilibus vestris compungimini.

Sacrificate sacrificium justitiæ, et sperate in Domino: multi dicunt: Quis ostendit nobis bona?

Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, Domine: dedisti lætitiam in corde meo.

A fructu frumenti, vini et olei sui: multiplicati sunt.

In pace in idipsum: dormiam et requiescam.

Quoniam tu, Domine, singulariter in spe: constituisti me.

When I called upon him, the God of my justice heard me: when I was in distress thou hast enlarged me.

Have mercy on me: and hear my prayer.

O ye sons of men, how long will ye be dull of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after lying?

Know ye, also, that the Lord hath made his holy One wonderful: the Lord will hear me, when I shall cry unto him.

Be ye angry, and sin not: the things ye say in your hearts, be sorry for them upon your beds.

Offer up the sacrifice of justice, and trust in the Lord: many say, Who showeth us good things?

The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us: thou hast given gladness in my heart.

By the fruit of their corn, their wine, and oil, they are multiplied.

In peace, in the self-same, I will sleep, and I will rest.

For thou, O Lord, singularly hast settled me in hope.

The second psalm gives the motives of the just man's confidence, even during the dangers of the night. There is no snare neglected by the demons; but the good angels watch over us, with brotherly solicitude. Then we have God Himself speaking, and promising to send us a Saviour.

PSALM 90

Qui habitat in adjutorio Altissimi: in protectione Dei cœli commorabitur.

Dicet Domino: Susceptor meus es tu, et refugium meum, Deus meus, sperabo in eum.

Quoniam ipse liberavit me de laqueo venantium: et a verbo aspero.

Scapulis suis obumbrabit tibi: et sub pennis ejus sperabis.

Scuto circumdabit te veritas ejus: non timebis a timore nocturno.

A sagitta volante in die, a negotio perambulante in tenebris: ab incursu, et dæmonio meridiano.

Cadent a latere tuo mille, et decem millia a dextris tuis: ad te autem non appropinquabit.

Verumtamen oculis tuis considerabis: et retributionem peccatorum videbis.

Quoniam tu es, Domine, spes mea: Altissimum posuisti refugium tuum.

Non accedet ad te malum: et flagellum non appropinquabit tabernaculo tuo.

Quoniam angelis suis mandavit de te: ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis.

In manibus portabunt te: ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum.

Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis: et conculcabis leonem et draconem.

Quoniam in me speravit, liberabo eum: protegam eum, quoniam cognovit nomen meum.

Clamabit ad me, et ego exaudiam eum: cum ipso sum in tribulatione, eripiam eum, et glorificabo eum.

Longitudine dierum replebo eum: et ostendam illi salutare meum.

He that dwelleth in the aid of the Most High, shall abide under the protection of the God of heaven.

He shall say unto the Lord: Thou art my protector, and my refuge: my God, in him will I trust.

For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters: and from the sharp word.

He will overshadow thee with his shoulders: and under his wings thou shalt trust.

His truth shall compass thee with a shield: thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night.

Of the arrow that flieth in the day: of the business that walketh about in the dark: of invasion, or of the noonday devil.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

But thou shalt consider with thine eyes: and shalt see the reward of the wicked.

Because thou hast said: Thou, O Lord, art my hope: thou hast made the Most High thy refuge.

There shall no evil come unto thee, nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling.

For he hath given his angels charge over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways.

In their hands they shall bear thee up: lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Thou shalt walk upon the asp and basilisk: and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.

God will say of thee: Because he hoped in me, I will deliver him: I will protect him, because he hath known my name.

He will cry unto me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify him.

I will fill him with length of days: and I will show him my salvation.

The third psalm invites the servants of God to persevere, with fervour, in the prayers they offer during the night. The faithful should say this psalm in a spirit of gratitude to God, for raising up in the Church adorers of His holy name, whose divine vocation is to lift up their hands, day and night, for the safety of Israel. On such voices depend the happiness and the destinies of the world.

PSALM 133

Ecce nunc benedicite Dominum: omnes servi Domini.

Qui statis in domo Domini: in atriis domus Dei nostri.

In noctibus extollite manus vestras in sancta: et benedicite Dominum.

Benedicat te Dominus ex Sion: qui fecit cœlum et terram.

ANT. Miserere mihi, Domine, et exaudi orationem meam.

Behold! now bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord.

Who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God.

In the nights, lift up your hands to the holy places, and bless ye the Lord.

Say to Israel: May the Lord, out of Sion, bless thee, he that made heaven and earth.

ANT. Have mercy on me, O Lord, and hear my prayer.

HYMN¹

Te lucis ante terminum, Rerum Creator, poscimus, Ut pro tua clementia, Sis præsul et custodia.

Procul recedant somnia, Et noctium phantasmata; Hostemque nostrum comprime, Ne polluantur corpora.

Præsta, Pater piissime,
Patrique compar Unice, Cum Spiritu Paraclito Regnans per omne sæculum.

Amen.

Before the closing of the light, we beseech thee, Creator of all things! that, in thy clemency, thou be our protector and our guard.

May the dreams and phantoms of the night depart from us; and do thou repress our enemy, lest our bodies be profaned.

Most merciful Father! and thou, his only-begotten Son, co-equal with him reigning for ever, with the holy Paraclete, grant this our prayer!

Amen.

¹ According to the monastic rite, as follows:

Te lucis ante terminum, Rerum Creator, poscimus, Ut solita clementia Sis præsul ad custodiam.

Procul recedant somnia Et noctium phantasmata; Hostemque nostrum comprime, Ne polluantur corpora.

Præsta Pater omnipotens,
Per Jesum Christum Dominum, Qui tecum in perpetuum Regnat cum sancto Spiritu.

Amen.

CAPITULUM

Tu autem in nobis es, Domine, et nomen sanctum tuum invocatum est super nos: ne derelinquas nos, Domine, Deus noster.

℟. In manus tuas, Domine: * Commendo spiritum meum. In manus tuas.
℣. Redemisti nos, Domine Deus veritatis. * Commendo.
Gloria. In manus tuas.

℣. Custodi nos, Domine, ut pupillam oculi.
℟. Sub umbra alarum tuarum protege nos.

But thou art in us, O Lord, and thy holy name hath been invoked upon us: forsake us not, O Lord, our God.

℟. Into thy hands, O Lord: * I commend my spirit. Into thy hands.
℣. Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord God of truth. * I commend.
Glory. Into thy hands.

℣. Preserve us, O Lord, as the apple of thine eye.
℟. Protect us under the shadow of thy wings.

The canticle of the venerable Simeon—who, while holding the divine Infant in his arms, proclaimed Him to be the light of the Gentiles, and then slept the sleep of the just—is admirably appropriate to the Office of Compline. Holy Church blesses God for having dispelled the darkness of night by the rising of the Sun of justice; it is for love of Him, that she toils the whole day through, and rests during the night, saying: 'I sleep, but my heart watcheth.'¹

CANTICLE OF SIMEON

Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine: secundum verbum tuum in pace.

Quia viderunt oculi mei: salutare tuum.

Quod parasti: ante faciem omnium populorum.

Lumen ad revelationem Gentium: et gloriam plebis tuæ Israel.

Gloria.

ANT. Salva nos, Domine, vigilantes; custodi nos dormientes, ut vigilemus cum Christo, et requiescamus in pace.

Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace.

Because mine eyes have seen thy salvation.

Which thou hast prepared; before the face of all peoples.

A light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.

Glory, &c.

ANT. Save us, O Lord, while awake, and watch us as we sleep, that we may watch with Christ, and rest in peace.

OREMUS

Visita, quæsumus, Domine, habitationem istam, et omnes insidias inimici ab ea longe repelle: angeli tui sancti habitent in ea, qui nos in pace custodiant: et benedictio tua sit super nos semper. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus sancti Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum.

℟. Amen.

℣. Dominus vobiscum.
℟. Et cum spiritu tuo.

℣. Benedicamus Domino.
℟. Deo gratias.

Benedicat et custodiat nos omnipotens et misericors Dominus, Pater et Filius, et Spiritus sanctus.

℟. Amen.

LET US PRAY

Visit, we beseech thee, O Lord, this house and family, and drive from it all snares of the enemy: let thy holy angels dwell herein, who may keep us in peace, and may thy blessing be always upon us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.

℟. Amen.

℣. The Lord be with you.
℟. And with thy spirit.

℣. Let us bless the Lord.
℟. Thanks be to God.

May the almighty and merciful Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, bless and preserve us.

℟. Amen.

¹ Cant. v. 2.

. Àmen. . The Lord be with you. Er. And with thy spirit. Y. Let us bless the Lord. Ry. Thanks be to God. May the almighty and mer- ciful Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, bless and pre- serve us.

H. Amen.

ANTHEM TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN

Salve, Regina, mater mi- sericordis.

Vita, dulcedo, et spes no- stra, salve.

Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevea;

Ad te suspiramus, gemen-

Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy. Our life, our sweetness, and our hope, all hail! To thee we cry, poor banish- ed children of Eve: To thee we send up our

--- PAGE 100 --- COMPLINE

tes et flentes in hac lacry- marum valle.

Eis, ergo, advocata no- stra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte;

Et Jesum benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exilium ostende;

O clemens,

Opi

O dulcis Virgo Maris.

y. Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix.

Br. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

OREMUB

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui gloriose Virginis
Matris Maris corpus et ani- mam, ut dignum Filii tui habitaculum effici merere- tur, Spiritu sancto coope- rante, rasti: da ut cujus commemoratione le- famur, ejus pia interces- sione ab instantibus malis et a morte perpetua libere- mur. Per eumdem Chri- stum Dominum nostrum.

y Amen. . Divinum auxilium ma- neat semper nobiscum.

E. Amen.

sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

Turn, then, most gracious advocate! thine eyes of mercy towards us,

And, after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus;

O merciful,

O kind,

O sweet Virgin Mary!

T. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,

Er. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

LET US PRAY

O almighty and everlasting God, who by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, didst pre- pare the body and soul of Mary, glorious "Virgin and Mother, to become the worthy habitation of thy Son: grant that we may be delivered from present evils, and from ever- lasting death, by her gracious intercession, in whose com- memoration we rejoice. Through the same Christ our Lord.

. Amen. . May the divineassistance remain always with us.

E. Amen.’

Then in secret Pater, Ave, and Credo; page 12.

! In the monastic rite this response is as follows:

By. Et cum fratribus no- siris absentibus. Amen.

Br. And with our absent brethren. Amen.

--- PAGE 101 --- 90 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

FEAST OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

Ow the day of Pentecost the holy apostles received, as we have seen, the graoe of the Holy Ghost. In ao- cordance with the injunction of their divine Master,! they will soon start on their mission of teaching all nations, and baptizing men in the name of the Sly Trinity. It was but right, then, that the solemnity which is intended to honour the mystery of one God in three Persons should immediately follow that.of Pentecost, with which it has a mysterious connection. And yet, it was not until after many centuries that it was inserted in the cycle of the liturgical year, whose completion is the work of successive ages.

Every homage paid to God by the Church's liturgy has the holy Reinity as its object. Time, as well as eternity, belongs to the Trinity. The Trinity is the scope of all religion. Every day, every hour, belongs to It. The feasts instituted in memory of the mys-

* teries of our redemption centre in It. The feasts of the blessed Virgin and the saints are but so many means for leading us to the praise of the God who 1s One in essence, and Three in Persons. The Sunday’s Office, in a very special way, gives us, each week, a most explicit expression of adoration and worship of this mystery, which is the foundation of all others, and the source of all ;

This explains to us how it is that the Church was go long in instituting a special feast in honour of the

1 St. Matt. xxviii. 19.

--- PAGE 102 --- TRINITY SUNDAY 91

holy Trinity. The ordinary motive for the institution of feasts did not exist in this instance. A feast is the memorial of some fact which took place at a certain time, and of which it is well to perpetuate the remem- brance and the influence. How could this be applied to the mystery of the Trinity? From all eternity, be- fore any created being existed, God liveth and reign- eth, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If a feast in honour of that mystery were to be instituted, it could only be by fixing some one day in the year, whereon the faithful would assemble for offering a more than usually solemn tribute of worship to the mystery of Unity and Trinity in the one same divine Nature.

The idea of such a feast was first conceived by some of those pious and recollected souls, who are favoured from on high with a sort of presentiment of the things which the Holy Ghost will achieve, at a future period, in the Church. So far back as the eighth century, the learned monk Alcuin had had the happy thought of composing a Mass in honour of the mystery of the blessed Trinity. It would seem that he was prompted to this by the apostle of Germany, Saint Boniface. That this composition is a beautiful one, no one will doubt that knows, from Aleuin's writings, how full its author was of the spirit of sacred liturgy; but, after all, it was only a votive Mass, a mere help to pe devotion, which no one ever thought would

ead to the institution of a feast. This Mass, however,

became a great favourite, and was gradually ecircu- lated through the several Churches; for instance, it was approved of for Germany by the Council of Selingenstadt, held in 1022.

In the previous century, however, a feast properly so called of holy Trinity had been introduced into one of the Churches of Belgium—the very same that was to have the honour, later on, of procuring to the. Church's calendar one of the richest of its solemnities.

--- PAGE 103 --- 92 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

Stephen, bishop of Liége, solemnly instituted the feast of holy Trinity for his Church, in 920, and had an entire Office composed in honour of the mystery. The Church's law, which now reserves to the holy See the institution of any new feast, was not then in existence; and Riquier, Stephen’s successor in the See of Liége, kept up what his predecessor had hs. 57

The feast was gradually adopted. The Benedictine Order took it up from the very first. We find, for instance, in the early part of the eleventh century, that Berno, the abbot of Reichna, was doing all he could to propagate it. At Cluny, also, the feast was established at the commencement of the same century, as we learn from the Ordinarium of that celebrated monastery, drawn up in 1091, in which we find men- tion of holy Trinity day as having been instituted long before.

Thicker the pontificate of Alexander II, who reign- ed from 1061 to 1073, the heh of Sou, mie has uently sanctioned the usages of parti rade by herself adopting them, was led to judgment upon this new institution. In one of his decretals, the Pontiff mentions that the feast was then kept in many places; but that the Church at Rome had not adopted it, and for this reason: that the adorable Trinity is, every day of the year, unceasing- ly invoked by the repetition of the words: Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritus sancto; as likewise by several formulas expressive of praise.’

Meanwhile, the feast went on gaining ground, as we pee from the Micrologus ; and, in the early part of the twelfth century, we have the learned abbot Rupert, who may justly be styled a dootor in litur- gioal science, explaining the appropriateness of that

1 De feriis. Cap. Quomiam. This decretal has been erroneously attributed to Alexander III.

--- PAGE 104 --- TRINITY SUNDAY 93

feast’s institution in these words: ‘Having celebrated the solemnity of the coming of the Holy Ghost, we, at onoe, on the Sunday next following, sing the glory of the holy Trinity ; and rightly is this arrangement ordained, for, after the coming of the same holy Spirit, the faith in, and confession of, the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, immediately be to be preached, and believed, and celebrated in Baptism."!

In our own country, it was the glorious martyr, St. Thomas of Canterbury, that established the feast of holy Trinity. He introduced it into his archdio- cese, in the D 1162, in memory of his having been consecrated bishop on the first Sunday after Penteoost. As regards France, we find a Council of Arles, held in 1260 under the presidency of archbishop Floren- tinus, solemnly decreeing, in its sixth canon, the feast of holy Trinity to be observed with an octave. The Cistercian Order, which was spread throughout Europe, had ordered it to be celebrated in all its houses, as far back as the year 1230. Durandus, in his Rationale, gives us grounds for concluding that, during the thirteenth century, the majority of the Latin Churches kept this feast. Of these Churches, there were some that celebrated it, not on the first, but on the last, Sunday after Pentecost; others kept it twioe: once on the Sunday next following the Pentecost solemnity, and a second time on the Sun- ony immediately preceding Advent.

t was evident, from all this, that the apostolic See would finally give its sanction to a practice, whose universal adoption was being prompted by Christian instinct. John XXII, who sat in the Chair of Saint Peter as early as the year 1334, completed the work by a decree, wherein the Church of Rome accepted the feast of holy Trinity, and extended its observance to all Churches.

1 De divinis Oftciis, Lib, xi. Cap. 1,

--- PAGE 105 --- 94 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

As to the motive which induced the Church, led as she is in all things by the Holy Ghost, to fix one special day in the year for the offering of a solemn homage to the blessed Trinity, whereas all our adorations, all our acts of thanksgiving, all our peti- tions, are ever being presented to It: such motive is to be found in the change which was being introduced, at that period, into the liturgical calendar. Up to about the year 1000, the feasts of saints askay on the general calendar, and universally kept, were very few. From that time, they began to be more nume- rous; and there was evidence that their number would go on increasing. The time would come, when the Sunday’s Office, which is specially consecrated to the blessed Trinity, must make way for that of the saints, as often as one of their feasts occurred on a Sunday. As a sort of compensation for this cele- bration of the memory of God’s servants on the very day which was sacred to the holy Trinity, it was considered right that once, at least, in the course of the year, a Sunday should be set apart for the exclusive and direct expression of the worship which the Church pays to the great God, who has vouch- safed to reveal Himself to mankind in His ineffable Unity and in His eternal Trinity.

The very essence of the Christian faith consists in the knowledge and adoration of one God in three Persons. This is the mystery whence all others flow. Our faith centres in this as in the master-truth of all it knows in this life, and as the infinite objeot whose vision is to form our eternal happiness; and yet, we know it only because it has Lr God to reveal Himself thus to our lowly intelligence, which, after all, can never fathom the infinite perfections of that God, who necessarily inhabiteth light inaccessible.!

11 Tim. vi. 16,

--- PAGE 106 --- TRINITY SUNDAY 95

Human reason may, of itself, come to the knowledge of the existence of God as Creator of all beings; it may, by its own innate power, form to itself an idea of His perfections by the study of His works; but the knowledge of God’s intimate Being can come to us only by means of His own gracious revelation.

ja was God's good-pleasure to make known to us His essence, in order to bring us into closer union with Himself, and to prepare us, in some way, for that face-to-face vision of Himself which He intends to give us in eternity. But His revelation is gradual: He takes mankind from brightness unto brightness, fitting it for the full knowledge and adoration of Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. During the period preceding the Incarnation of the eternal Word, God seemed intent on inouleating the idea of His Unity, for polytheism was the infectious error of mankind; and every notion of there being a spiritual and sole cause of all things would have been effaced from the earth, had not the infinite goodness of God watched over its preservation.

Not that the old Testament Books were altogether silent on the three divine Persons, whose ineffable relations are eternal; only, the mysterious passages, which spoke of them, were not understood by the people at large; whereas, in the Christian Church, & child of seven will answer those who ask him, that, in God, the three divine Persons have but one and the same Nature, but one and the same Divinity. When the Book of Genesis tells us that God spoke in the plural, and said: ‘Let Us make man to Our image and likeness,’! the Jew bows down and be- lieves, but he understands not the sacred text; the Christian, on the contrary, who has been enlightened by the complete revelation of God, sees, under this

1 Gen. i. 26,

--- PAGE 107 --- 96 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

expression, the three Persons acting together in the formation of man; the light of faith develops the great truth to him, and tells him that, within himself, there is & likeness to the blessed Three in One. Power, understanding, and will, are three faoulties within him, and yet he himself is but one being.

In the Books of Proverbs, Wisdom, and Ecclesias- ticus, Solomon s,in sublime language, of Him who is eternal Wisdom; he tells us—and he uses every variety of grandest expression to tell us—of the divine essence of this Wisdom, and of His being & distinot Person in the Godhead ; but how few among the people of Israel could see through the veil! Isaias heard the voice of the Seraphim, as they stood around God's throne; he heard them singing in alternate choirs, and with a joy intense because eternal, this hymn: ‘Holy! Holy! Holy! isthe Lord !*! But who will explain to men this triple Sanctus, of which the echo is heard here below, when we mortals pe praise to our Creator? So, again, in the Psalms, and the prophetic Books, a flash of light will break suddenly upon us; a brightness of some mysterious Three will dazzle us; but it passes away, and obsou- rity returns seemingly all the more palpable; we have but the sentiment of the divine Unity deeply impressed on our inmost soul, and we adore the Incomprehensible, the sovereign Being. The world had to wait for the fullness of time to be completed; and then, God would send into this world His only Son, begotten of Him from all eternity. This His most merciful purpose has been carried out, and the Word made Flesh has dwelt among us! By seeing His glory, the glory of the only-begotten Son of the Father, we have come to know that, in God, there is Father and Son. The Son's mission to our earth, by the very revelation it gave us of Himself, taught us that God is eternally Father, for whatsoever is in God is eternal. But for this merciful revelation, which is an anticipation of the light awaiting us in the next life, our knowledge of God would have been too imperfect. It was fitting that there should be some proportion between the light of faith, and that of the vision reserved for the future; it was not enough for man to know that God is One.

¹ Is. vi. 3. ² St. John i. 14. ³ Ibid.

So that, we now know the Father, from whom comes, as the apostle tells us, all paternity, even on earth!¹ We know Him not only as the creative power, which has produced every being outside Himself; but, guided as it is by faith, our soul's eye respectfully penetrates into the very essence of the Godhead, and there beholds the Father begetting a Son like unto Himself. But, in order to teach us the mystery, that Son came down upon our earth. He Himself has told us expressly that no one knoweth the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him.² Glory, then, be to the Son, who has vouchsafed to show us the Father! and glory to the Father, whom the Son hath revealed unto us!

¹ Eph. iii. 15. ² St. Matt. xi. 27.

The intimate knowledge of God has come to us by the Son, whom the Father, in His love, has given to us.³ And this Son of God, who, in order to raise up our minds even to His own divine Nature, has clad Himself, by His Incarnation, with our human nature, has taught us that He and His Father are one;⁴ that They are one and the same Essence, in distinction of Persons. One begets, the Other is begotten; the One is named Power; the Other, Wisdom, or Intelligence. The Power cannot be without the Intelligence, nor the Intelligence without the Power, in the sovereignly perfect Being: but, both the One and the Other produce a third Term.

³ St. John iii. 16. ⁴ St. John xvii. 22.

The Son, who had been sent by the Father, had ascended into heaven, with the human Nature which He had united to Himself for all future eternity; and lo! the Father and the Son send into this world the Spirit who proceeds from Them both. It was a new Gift, and it taught man that the Lord God was in three Persons. The Spirit, the eternal link of the first two, is Will, He is Love, in the divine Essence. In God, then, is the fullness of Being, without beginning, without succession, without increase; for there is nothing which He has not. In these three eternal Terms of His uncreated Substance, is the Act, pure and infinite.

The sacred liturgy, whose object is the glorification of God and the commemoration of His works, follows, each year, the sublime phases of these manifestations, whereby the sovereign Lord has made known His whole self to mortals. Under the sombre colours of Advent, we commemorated the period of expectation, during which the radiant Trinity sent forth but few of Its rays to mankind. The world, during those four thousand years, was praying heaven for a Liberator, a Messiah; and God's own Son was to be this Liberator, this Messiah. That we might have the full knowledge of the prophecies which foretold Him, it was necessary that He Himself should actually come: a Child was born unto us,¹ and then we had the key to the Scriptures. When we adored that Son, we adored also the Father, who sent Him to us in the Flesh, and with whom He is consubstantial. This Word of life, whom we have seen, whom we have heard, whom our hands have handled² in the Humanity which He deigned to assume, has proved Himself to be truly a Person, a Person distinct from the Father, for One sends, and the Other is sent. In this second divine Person, we have found our Mediator, who has reunited the creation to its Creator; we have found the Redeemer of our sins, the Light of our souls, the Spouse we had so long desired.

¹ Is. ix. 6. ² 1 St. John i. 1.

Having passed through the mysteries which He Himself wrought, we next celebrated the descent of the holy Spirit, who had been announced as coming to perfect the work of the Son of God. We adored Him, and acknowledged Him to be distinct from the Father and the Son, who had sent Him to us with the mission of abiding with us.³ He manifested Himself by divine operations which are peculiarly His own, and were the object of His coming. He is the soul of the Church; He keeps her in the truth taught her by the Son. He is the source, the principle of the sanctification of our souls; and in them He wishes to make His dwelling. In a word, the mystery of the Trinity has become to us, not only a dogma made known to our mind by revelation, but, moreover, a practical truth given to us by the unheard-of munificence of the three divine Persons: the Father, who has adopted us; the Son, whose brethren and joint-heirs we are; and the Holy Ghost, who governs us, and dwells within us.

³ St. John xiv. 16.

Let us, then, begin this day, by giving glory to the one God in three Persons. For this end, we will unite with holy Church, who in her Office of Prime recites on this solemnity, as also on every Sunday not taken up by a feast, the magnificent Symbol known as the Athanasian Creed. It gives us, in a work of much majesty and precision, the doctrine of the holy Doctor St. Athanasius, regarding the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation.

THE ATHANASIAN CREED

Quicumque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est ut teneat Catholicam fidem.

Whosoever would be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith.

Quam nisi quisque integram inviolatamque servaverit, absque dubio in æternum peribit.

Which faith, except every one doth keep entire, and unviolated, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.

Fides autem catholica hæc est, ut unum Deum in Trinitate, et Trinitatem in Unitate veneremur:

Now the Catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;

Neque confundentes Personas, neque substantiam separantes.

Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance.

Alia est enim Persona Patris, alia Filii, alia Spiritus sancti.

For one is the Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.

Sed Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti una est divinitas, æqualis gloria, coæterna majestas.

But the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.

Qualis Pater, talis Filius, talis Spiritus sanctus.

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, such is the Holy Ghost.

Increatus Pater, increatus Filius, increatus Spiritus sanctus.

The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Ghost is uncreated.

Immensus Pater, immensus Filius, immensus Spiritus sanctus.

The Father is incomprehensible, the Son is incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost is incomprehensible.

Æternus Pater, æternus Filius, æternus Spiritus sanctus.

The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Ghost is eternal.

Et tamen non tres æterni, sed unus æternus.

And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal.

Sicut non tres increati, nec tres immensi, sed unus increatus et unus immensus.

As also they are not three uncreateds, nor three incomprehensibles, but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible.

Similiter omnipotens Pater, omnipotens Filius, omnipotens Spiritus sanctus.

In like manner the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, the Holy Ghost is almighty.

Et tamen non tres omnipotentes, sed unus omnipotens.

And yet they are not three almighties but one almighty.

Ita Deus Pater, Deus Filius, Deus Spiritus sanctus.

So, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God.

Et tamen non tres Dii, sed unus est Deus.

And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.

Ita Dominus Pater, Dominus Filius, Dominus Spiritus sanctus.

So, the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Ghost is Lord.

Et tamen non tres Domini, sed unus est Dominus.

And yet they are not three Lords, but one Lord.

Quia sicut singillatim unamquamque Personam Deum ac Dominum confiteri Christiana veritate compellimur: ita tres Deos aut Dominos dicere Catholica religione prohibemur.

For, as we are compelled, by the Christian truth, to acknowledge each Person, by himself, to be God and Lord; so are we forbidden, by the Catholic religion, to say there are three Gods, or three Lords.

Pater a nullo est factus, nec creatus, nec genitus.

The Father is made of no one, neither created nor begotten.

Filius a Patre solo est: non factus, nec creatus, sed genitus.

The Son is from the Father alone; not made, nor created, but begotten.

Spiritus sanctus a Patre et Filio, non factus, nec creatus, nec genitus, sed procedens.

The Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son; not made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

Unus ergo Pater, non tres Patres; unus Filius, non tres Filii; unus Spiritus sanctus, non tres Spiritus sancti.

There is, then, one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.

Et in hac Trinitate nihil prius aut posterius, nihil majus aut minus: sed totæ tres Personæ coæternæ sibi sunt, et coæquales.

And in this Trinity, there is nothing before or after, nothing greater or less; but the whole three Persons are coeternal to one another, and coequal.

Ita ut per omnia, sicut jam supra dictum est, et Unitas in Trinitate, et Trinitas in Unitate veneranda sit.

So that, in all things, as hath been already said above, the Unity is to be worshipped in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity.

Qui vult ergo salvus esse: ita de Trinitate sentiat.

He, therefore, that would be saved, must thus think of the Trinity.

Sed necessarium est ad æternam salutem; ut incarnationem quoque Domini nostri Jesu Christi fideliter credat.

Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation, that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Est ergo fides recta, ut credamus et confiteamur: quia Dominus noster Jesus Christus Dei Filius, Deus et homo est.

Now the right faith is, that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and Man.

Deus est ex substantia Patris ante sæcula genitus: et homo est ex substantia matris in sæculo natus.

He is God, of the substance of his Father, begotten before the world; and he is Man, of the substance of his Mother, born in the world.

Perfectus Deus, perfectus homo: ex anima rationali, et humana carne subsistens.

Perfect God, perfect Man: subsisting of a rational soul, and human flesh.

Æqualis Patri secundum divinitatem: minor Patre secundum humanitatem.

Equal to the Father according to his Godhead: less than the Father, according to his Manhood.

Qui licet Deus sit, et homo: non duo tamen, sed unus est, Christus.

Who although he be both God and Man, yet he is not two, but one, Christ.

Unus autem non conversione divinitatis in carnem, sed assumptione humanitatis in Deum.

One, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by the taking of the Manhood unto God.

Unus omnino non confusione substantiæ, sed unitate personæ.

One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.

Nam sicut anima rationalis et caro unus est homo, ita Deus et homo unus est Christus.

For, as the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ.

Qui passus est pro salute nostra, descendit ad inferos, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis.

Who suffered for our salvation; descended into hell; rose again, the third day, from the dead.

Ascendit ad cœlos, sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis: inde venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos.

He ascended into heaven; he sitteth at the right hand of God the Father almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

Ad cujus adventum omnes homines resurgere habent cum corporibus suis, et reddituri sunt de factis propriis rationem.

At whose coming, all men shall rise again with their bodies; and shall give an account of their own works.

Et qui bona egerunt, ibunt in vitam æternam; qui vero mala, in ignem æternum.

And they that have done good, shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.

Hæc est fides catholica:

¹ It is a psalm or hymn of praise, of confession, and of profound, self-prostrating homage, parallel to the canticles of the elect in heaven. It appeals to the imagination quite as much as to the intellect. It is the war-song of faith, with which we warn first ourselves, then each other, and then all those who are within its hearing, and the hearing of the truth, who our God is, and how we must worship Him, and how vast our responsibility will be if we know what to believe, and yet believe not. It is

the rune, the immortal lay, All truth that e'er from heaven to earth found way; Creed of the saints, and anthem of the blest, And calm-breathed witness of the kindliest love, That ever heaved a waking mother's breast.

For myself, I have ever felt it as the most simple and sublime, the most devotional formulary to which Christianity has given rise, more so even than the Veni Creator and the Te Deum. (Newman; Grammar of Assent, page 129.) [Note added by Tr.]

This is the Catholic faith;

quam nisi quisque fideliter, firmiterque crediderit, salvus esse non poterit.

which except every man believe faithfully and steadfastly, he cannot be saved.

MASS

Although the Sacrifice of the Mass is always celebrated in honour of the blessed Trinity, yet, for this day, the Church, in her chants, prayers, and lessons, honours, in a more express manner, the great mystery, which is the foundation of our Christian faith. A commemoration is, however, made of the first Sunday after Pentecost, in order not to interrupt the arrangement of the liturgy. The colour used by the Church on this feast of Trinity is white, as a sign of joy, as also to express the simplicity and purity of the divine Essence.

The Introit is not taken from holy Scripture. It is a formula of glorification in keeping with the feast, and speaks of the blessed Trinity as the divine source of the mercies bestowed on mankind.

INTROIT

Benedicta sit sancta Trinitas, atque indivisa Unitas: confitebimur ei, quia fecit nobiscum misericordiam suam.

Blessed be the holy Trinity, and undivided Unity; we will praise it because it hath shown its mercy unto us.

Ps. Domine Dominus noster, quam admirabile est nomen tuum in universa terra! ℣. Gloria Patri. Benedicta sit.

Ps. O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is thy name in the whole earth. ℣. Glory, &c. Blessed.

In the Collect, the Church asks for us firmness in the faith, whereby we confess Unity and Trinity in God. Faith is the first condition required for salvation; it is the first link of our union with God. It is with this faith that we shall conquer our enemies, and overcome all obstacles.

COLLECT

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui dedisti famulis tuis in confessione veræ fidei, æternæ Trinitatis gloriam agnoscere, et in potentia majestatis adorare Unitatem, quæsumus, ut ejusdem fidei firmitate, ab omnibus semper muniamur adversis. Per Dominum.

O almighty and everlasting God, who hast granted thy servants, in the confession of the true faith, to acknowledge the glory of an eternal Trinity, and, in the power of majesty, to adore an Unity: we beseech thee that, by the strength of this faith, we may be defended from all adversity. Through, &c.

COMMEMORATION OF THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Deus in te sperantium fortitudo, adesto propitius invocationibus nostris: et quia sine te nihil potest mortalis infirmitas, præsta auxilium gratiæ tuæ, ut in exsequendis mandatis tuis, et voluntate tibi et actione placeamus. Per Dominum.

O God, the strength of such as hope in thee: mercifully hear us calling on thee: and since mortal weakness can do nothing without thee, grant us the assistance of thy grace; that, in observing thy commandments, we may please thee, both in will and action. Through, &c.

EPISTLE

Lectio Epistolæ beati Pauli Apostoli ad Romanos.

Lesson of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans.

Ch. xi.

O altitudo divitiarum sapientiæ et scientiæ Dei: quam incomprehensibilia sunt judicia ejus, et investigabiles viæ ejus! Quis enim cognovit sensum Domini? aut quis consiliarius ejus fuit? aut quis prior dedit illi, et retribuetur ei? Quoniam ex ipso, et per ipsum, et in ipso sunt omnia: ipsi honor et gloria in sæcula. Amen.

O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him? For of him, and by him, and in him, are all things: to him be glory for ever. Amen.

We cannot fix our thoughts upon the divine judgments and ways, without feeling a sort of bewilderment. The eternal and the infinite dazzle our weak reason; and yet this same reason of ours acknowledges and confesses them. Now, if even the ways of God with His creatures surpass our understanding, how can we pretend to discover, of ourselves, the inmost nature of this sovereign Being? And yet, in this uncreated Essence, we do distinguish the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost from each other, and we glorify them. This comes from the Father's having revealed Himself, by sending us His Son, the object of His eternal delight; it comes from the Son's showing us His own Personality, by taking our Flesh, which the Father and the Holy Ghost did not; it comes from the Holy Ghost's being sent by the Father and the Son, and fulfilling the mission He received from Them. Our mortal eye respectfully gazes upon these divine depths of truth, and our heart is touched at the thought, that it is through God's benefits to us that He has given us to know Him, and that our knowledge of what He is came through what He gave us. Let us lovingly prize this faith, and confidently wait for that happy moment, when it will make way for the eternal vision of that which we have believed here below.

The Gradual and Alleluia-verse are full of joy and admiration, at the presence of that sovereign Majesty, who has vouchsafed to send forth His rays into the darkness of our minds.

GRADUAL

Benedictus es, Domine, qui intueris abyssos, et sedes super Cherubim.

Blessed art thou, O Lord, who beholdest the deep, and sittest on the Cherubim.

℣. Benedictus es, Domine, in firmamento cœli, et laudabilis in sæcula.

℣. Blessed art thou, O Lord, in the firmament of heaven, and worthy of praise for ever.

Alleluia, alleluia.

℣. Benedictus es, Domine, Deus patrum nostrorum, et laudabilis in sæcula. Alleluia.

℣. Blessed art thou, O Lord, the God of our fathers, and worthy of praise for ever. Alleluia.

GOSPEL

Sequentia sancti Evangelii secundum Matthæum.

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to Matthew.

Cap. xxviii.

Ch. xxviii.

In illo tempore: Dixit Jesus discipulis suis: Data est mihi omnis potestas in cœlo et in terra. Euntes ergo docete omnes gentes: baptizantes eos in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti: docentes eos servare omnia quæcumque mandavi vobis. Et ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus, usque ad consummationem sæculi.

At that time: Jesus said to his disciples: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold! I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.

The mystery of the blessed Trinity, which was taught us by the mission of the Son of God into this world, and by the promise of the speedy sending of the holy Spirit, is announced to men by these solemn words, uttered by Jesus just before His ascension into heaven. He had said: 'He that shall believe, and shall be baptized, shall be saved';¹ but He adds, that Baptism is to be given in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Henceforward man must not only confess the unity of God, by abjuring a plurality of gods, but he must, also, adore a Trinity of Persons in Unity of Essence. The great secret of heaven is now published through the whole world.

But, whilst humbly confessing the God whom we have been taught to know as He is in Himself, we must, likewise, pay a tribute of eternal gratitude to the ever glorious Trinity. Not only has It vouchsafed to impress Its divine image on our soul, by making her to Its own likeness; but, in the supernatural order, It has taken possession of our being, and raised it to an incalculable pitch of greatness. The Father has adopted us in His Son become Incarnate; the Word illumines our minds with His light; the Holy Ghost has chosen us for His dwelling: and this it is that is expressed by the form of holy Baptism. By those words pronounced over us, together with the pouring out of the water, the whole Trinity took possession of Its creature. We call this sublime marvel to mind as often as we invoke the three divine Persons, making upon ourselves, at the same time, the sign of the cross. When our mortal remains are carried into the house of God, there to receive the last blessings and farewell of the Church on earth, the priest will beseech the Lord 'not to enter into judgment with His servant'; and in order to draw down the divine mercy upon this Christian, who has gone to his eternity, he will say to the sovereign Judge that this member of the human family 'was marked, whilst in this life, with the sign of the holy Trinity.' Let us respect this divine impress which we bear upon us: it is to be eternal; hell itself will not be able to blot it out. Let it, then, be our hope, our dearest title; and let us live for the glory of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen!

¹ St. Mark xvi. 16.

In the Offertory the Church begins the immediate preparation for the Sacrifice, by invoking on the oblation the name of the three Persons, and again proclaiming the mercy of God.

OFFERTORY

Benedictus sit Deus Pater, unigenitusque Dei Filius, sanctus quoque Spiritus: quia fecit nobiscum misericordiam suam.

Blessed be God the Father, and the only-begotten Son of God, likewise the Holy Ghost: for he hath shown his mercy unto us.

In the Secret, holy Church asks that the homage we are making, in this Sacrifice, of ourselves to the sacred Trinity, may be presented to It not to-day only, but may become eternal by our being admitted into heaven, where we shall contemplate, and without a veil, the glorious mystery of God, One in Three Persons.

SECRET

Sanctifica, quæsumus Domine Deus noster, per tui sancti nominis invocationem, hujus oblationis hostiam: et per eam nosmetipsos tibi perfice munus æternum. Per Dominum.

Sanctify, we beseech thee, O Lord, our God, by the invocation of thy holy name, the victim of this oblation: and, by it, make us an eternal offering to thee. Through, &c.

COMMEMORATION OF THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Hostias nostras, quæsumus Domine, tibi dicatas placatus assume: et ad perpetuum nobis tribue provenire subsidium. Per Dominum.

Mercifully receive, we beseech thee, O Lord, the sacrifice we offer thee: and grant that it may be a continual help to us. Through, &c.

Then follows the Preface; it is proper for this feast, and for all Sundays, throughout the year, which have no other assigned to them.

PREFACE

Vere dignum et justum est, æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere, Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus. Qui cum unigenito Filio tuo et Spiritu sancto unus es Deus, unus es Dominus: non in unius singularitate Personæ, sed in unius Trinitate substantiæ. Quod enim de tua gloria, revelante te, credimus, hoc de Filio tuo, hoc de Spiritu sancto, sine differentia discretionis sentimus. Ut in confessione veræ sempiternæque Deitatis, et in Personis proprietas, et in Essentia unitas, et in Majestate adoretur æqualitas. Quam laudant Angeli, atque Archangeli, Cherubim quoque ac Seraphim; qui non cessant clamare quotidie, una voce dicentes, Sanctus, &c.

It is truly meet and just, right and available to salvation, that we should always, and in all places, give thanks to thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God. Who together with thy only-begotten Son, and the Holy Ghost, art one God, and one Lord: not in the singularity of one Person, but in the Trinity of one substance. For what we believe of thy glory, as thou hast revealed, the same we believe of thy Son, and of the Holy Ghost, without any difference or distinction. So that in the confession of the true and eternal Deity, we adore a distinction in the Persons, an unity in the Essence, and an equality in the Majesty. Whom the Angels and Archangels, the Cherubim also and Seraphim praise, and cease not daily to cry out with one voice, saying, Holy, &c.

In the Communion-anthem, the Church continues her praise of the mercy of the great God, who has made use of His own blessings upon us, in order to enlighten and instruct us regarding His incomprehensible Nature.

COMMUNION

Benedicimus Deum cœli, et coram omnibus viventibus confitebimur ei: quia fecit nobiscum misericordiam suam.

We bless the God of heaven, and we will praise him in the sight of all the living, because he hath shown us his mercy.

Two things are needed for our reaching God: the light of faith, which gives our understanding to know Him; and the divine Food, which unites us to Him. In the Postcommunion, holy Church prays that we may have both; and be thus brought to that union, which is the happy end of our creation.

POSTCOMMUNION

Proficiat nobis ad salutem corporis et animæ, Domine, Deus noster, hujus Sacramenti susceptio: et sempiternæ sanctæ Trinitatis, ejusdemque individuæ Unitatis confessio. Per Dominum.

May the receiving of this Sacrament, O Lord our God, avail us to the salvation of body and soul: together with the confession of an everlasting holy Trinity, and of the undivided Unity thereof. Through, &c.

COMMEMORATION OF THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Tantis Domine, repleti muneribus, præsta, quæsumus: ut et salutaria dona capiamus, et a tua numquam laude cessemus. Per Dominum.

Grant, we beseech thee, O Lord, that the great sacrifice, we have partaken of, may avail us unto salvation, and make us never cease praising thee. Through, &c.

The last Gospel is that of the first Sunday after Pentecost; it is read by the priest instead of that of St. John.

GOSPEL

Sequentia sancti Evangelii secundum Lucam.

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to Luke.

Cap. vi.

Ch. vi.

In illo tempore: Dixit Jesus discipulis suis: Estote misericordes sicut et Pater vester misericors est. Nolite judicare, et non judicabimini: nolite condemnare, et non condemnabimini. Dimittite et dimittemini. Date et dabitur vobis: mensuram bonam, et confertam, et coagitatam, et supereffluentem dabunt in sinum vestrum. Eadem quippe mensura qua mensi fueritis, remetietur vobis. Dicebat autem illis et similitudinem: Numquid potest cæcus cæcum ducere? nonne ambo in foveam cadunt? Non est discipulus super magistrum: perfectus autem omnis erit, si sit sicut magister ejus. Quid autem vides festucam in oculo fratris tui, trabem autem, quæ in oculo tuo est, non consideras? Aut quomodo potes dicere fratri tuo: Frater, sine, ejiciam festucam de oculo tuo: ipse in oculo tuo trabem non videns? Hypocrita, ejice primum trabem de oculo tuo: et tunc perspicies ut educas festucam de oculo fratris tui.

At that time: Jesus said to his disciples: Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged: condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given unto you: good measure, and pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall they give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you shall mete withal, it shall be measured to you again. And he spoke also to them a similitude: Can the blind lead the blind? do they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one shall be perfect, if he be as his master. And why seest thou the mote in thy brother's eye, but the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not? Or how canst thou say to thy brother: Brother, let me pull the mote out of thy eye, when thou thyself seest not the beam in thy own eye? Hypocrite, cast first the beam out of thy own eye: and then shalt thou see clearly to take out the mote from thy brother's eye.

E. Deo gratias,

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to Luke.

At that time: Jesus said to his disciples: Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be for- given. Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over shall they give into your bo- som. For with the same mea- sure that you shall mete withal, it shall be measured to you again. And he spoke also to them a similitude: Can the blind lead the blind? do they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one shall be perfect, if he be as his mas- ter. And why seest thou the mote in thy brother's eye; but the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not? Or how canst thou say to thy brother: Brother, let me pull the mote out of thy eye, when thou thyself seest not the beam in thy own eye? Hypo- crite, cast first the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to take out the mote from thy brother's eye.

Rr. Thanks be to God.

--- PAGE 124 --- TRINITY SUNDAY 118

VESPERS

ANT. Gloris tibi, Trinitas ^ ANT. Glory be to thee, O sequalis, una Deitas, et ante equal Trinity, one Deity, both omnia secula, et nunc etin before all ages, and now, and perpetuum. for ever.

Ps. Dixit Dominus, page 72.

ANT. Laus et perennis ANT. Praise and perpetual gloria Deo Patri, et Filio, glory be to God, Father and sancto simul Paraclito, in Son, together with the holy seculorum secula. Paraclete, for ever and ever.

Ps. Confitebor tibi, page 73.

ANT. Gloria laudis reso- ANT. Let the glory of praise net in ore omnium Patri, sound in every mouth to the geniteque Proli; Spiritui Father, and to the Son be- sanctio pariter resultet lau- gotten of him; to the Holy de perenni. Ghost, also, let perpetual

praise be given. Ps. Beatus vir, page 74.

ANT. Laus Deo Patri, ANT. Let praise be given parilique Proli, et tibi san- to God the Father, and to his cte studio perenni Spiritus, equal Son; and may our lips nostro resonet ab ore omne celebrate thee unceasingly, O per evum. holy Spirit, for all ages.

Ps. Laudate pueri, page 75.

ANT. Ex quo omnia, per ANT. From whom are all quem omnis, in quo omnia: things, by whom all things, in ipsi gloria in ssecula. whom all things—to him be

glory for ever.

Ps. In exitu Israel, page 76.

CAPITULUM

pientis et scienti: Dei: of the wisdom and of the quam jncomprehensibilia knowledge of God; how in-

--- PAGE 125 --- 114

sunt judicia ejus, et inve- stigabiles vie ejus!

TIME AFTER PENTECOST

comprehensible are his judg- ments, and how unsearchable his ways!

HYMN *

Jam sol recedit igneus, Tu lux perennis Unitas, Nostris, beata Trinitas, Infunde amorem cordibus.

Te mane laudum carmine, Te deprecamur vespere; Digneris ut te supplices Laudemus inter coelites.

Patri simulque Filio, Tibique sancte Spiritus, Sicut fuit, sit jugiter Sseclum per omne gloria.

Amen.

Y. Benedictus es, Domi- ne, in firmamento cceli.

Ry. Et laudabilis et glo- riosus in secula.

ANTIPHON OF

Te Deum Patrem ingeni- tum, te Filium unigenitum, te Spiritum sanctum Para-

Now is the burning sun re- treating; do thou, O everlast- ing Unity, O blessed Trinity, our Light, pour forth love into our hearts.

It is to thee we pray, at morn and eve, in our songs of praise: grant us, thy suppli- ants, that we may praise thee in the company of the citizens of heaven.

To thee, O God, Fatber, Son, and Holy Ghost! may glory be, as it hath ever been, for ever and for endless ages. Amen.

Y. Blessed art thou, O Lord, in the firmament of heaven;

Ei. And worthy of praise, and glorious for ever.

THE MAGNIFICAT

Thee God the Father unbe- gotten, thee the only-begotten Son, thee the Holy Ghost the

* In the monastic rite, it is given thus, and is preceded by a

responsory:—

Ry. breve.— Benedicamus Pa- trem, et Filium, * Cum sancto Spiritu. Benedicamus.

Y. Laudemus et superexalte- mus eum in secula. Cum. Gloria Patri, etc. Benedicamus.

O Lux beata Trinitas,

Et principalis Unitas, Jam sol recedit igneus, Infunde lumen cordibus.

Te mane laudum carmine, Te deprecamur vespere ; Te nostra supplex gloria Per cuncta laudet secula.

Deo Patri sit gloria, Ejusque soli Filio, Cum Spiritu Paraclito Et nunc et in perpetuum. Amen.

--- PAGE 126 --- TRINITY SUNDAY 115

clitum, sanctam et indivi-

duam Trinitatem, toto cor-

de et ore confitemur, lau-

damus, atque benedicimus:

tibi gloria in ssecula. OREMUS

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui dedisti famulis
tuis in confessione vere fidei s&ternsz Trinitatis glo- riam agnoscere, et in po- tentia majestatis adorare Unitatem; quesumus ut ejusdem fidei firmitate, ab omnibus semper muniamur adversis. Per Dominum.

Comforter, holy and undi- vided Trinity, with all our heart and mouth, we confess, praise, and bless: to thee be glory for ever.

LET US PRAY

O almighty and everlasting God, who hast granted thy ser- vants, in the confession of the true faith, to acknowledge the glory of an eternal Trinity, and, in the power of majesty, to adore an Unity: we be- seech thee that, by the strength of this faith, we may be de- fended from all adversity. Through, &c.

COMMEMORATION OF THE SUNDAY

ANT. Nolite judicare, ut non judicemini: in quo enim judicio judicaveritis judica- bimini, dicit Dominus.

y. Dirigatur, Domine,
oratio mea,

Rr. Sicut incensum in conspectu tuo.

OREMUS

Deus in te sperantium
fortitudo, adesto propitius invocationibus nostris: et quia sine te nihil potest mortalis infirmitas, presta auxilium gratie tus, ut in exsequendis mandatis tuis, et voluntate tibi et actione placeamus. Per Dominum.

ANT. Judge not, that ye be not judged: for, with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, saith the Lord.

. Let my prayer, O Lord, be directed,

Ey. As incense in thy sight.

LET US PRAY

O God, the strength of such as hope in thee: mercifully hear us calling on thee: and, since mortal weakness can do nothing without thee, grant us the assistance of thy grace; that, in observing thy com- mandments, we may please thee both in will and action. Through, &c.

The middle ages have left us several sequences for the feast of the blessed Trinity. They are much

--- PAGE 127 --- 116

overladen with TRA Artes terms, and, for the most part, have but little melody or poetry in them. The

give us the language of the Schools, with so muc

roughness, that they would scarcely find any readers now-a-days to relish them. There is one, however— the one composed by Adam of Saint Victor—which we here insert, as it maintains, even in its scholastic phraseology, all the majesty and melody which

TIME AFTER PENTECOST

characterize the compositions of that great poet.

SEQUENCE

Profitentes Unitatem Veneremur Trinitatem Pari reverentia, Tres personas asserentes Personali differentes A se differentia.

Hc dicuntur relative, Quum sint unum substan- tive, Non tria principia. Sive dicas tres vel tria, Simplex tamen est usia, Non triplex essentia.

Simplex esse, simplex posse, Simplex velle, simplex nosse, Cuncta simplicia. Non unius quam duarum Sive trium personarum Minor efficacia. Pater, Proles, sacrum Fla- men, Deus unus: sed hi tamen
Habent quedam propria. Una virtus, unum numen, Unus splendor, unum lu- men, Hoc una quod alia.

Patri Proles est mqualis,

Confessing the divine Unity, we venerate the Trinity with one and the same worship; we acknowledge three Persons, differing from each other by a personal difference.

They have their names from their relations, for they are substantially one, and not three principles. When speak- ing of them as Three, thou must remember, that their Nature is one, and that their Essence is not threefold.

Their being, and power, and will, and knowledge, all are simple: the power of one is not less than that of two, or of three, Persons.

Father, Son, holy Spirit, one God, and yet have they certain things proper. One power, one deity, one splen- dour, one light: what one hath, another hath.

The Son is equal to the Fa-

--- PAGE 128 --- TRINITY SUNDAY

Nec hoc tollit personalis Amborum distinctio.

Patri compar Filioque,

Spiritalis ab utroque Procedit connexio.

Non humana ratione Capi possunt hs persons, Nec harum discretio. Non hic ordo temporalis, Non hic situs, aut localis

Rerum circumscriptio.

Nil in Deo preter Deum,

Nulla causa preter eum Qui creat causalia.

Effectiva vel formalis

Causa Deus, et finalis,
Sed nunquam materia.

Digne loqui de personis

Vim transcendit rationis Excedit ingenia.

Quid sit gigni, quid pro-

cessus,

Me nescire sum professus:

Sed fide non dubia.

Qui sic credit, ne festinet,

Et a via non declinet Insolerter regia.

Servet fidem, formet mores,

Nec attendat ad errores Quos damnat Ecclesia.

Nos in fide gloriemur,

Nos in una modulemur, Fidei constantia:

Tring sit laus Unitati,

Sit et simple Trinitati Coseterna gloria! Amen.

O indivisible Unity !

117

ther; neither is that equality destroyed by the personal distinction existing between them. Equal to the Father and the Son is the spiritual Bond, who proceedeth from both.

Man's reason cannot com- prehend these three Persons, nor their distinction. In this mystery, there .is no order of time, no position of place, no boundaries of space.

There is nought in God but God; and, besides him, there is no cause that causeth things produced. God is cause, effi- cient, and formal, and final; but never cause material.

It is beyond the power of reason or genius to speak worthily of the three Persons. I confess that I know not what divine Generation and Proces- sion are; and yet do I believe them with undoubting faith.

Let him who thus believes, hare patience; and not im- prudently stray from the royal path. Let him keep his faith, correct his manners, and go not over to those errors which the Church condemns.

Let us glory in our faith; let us sing our hymns, in the constancy of one same faith; be praise to the trinal Unity, and coeternal glory to the simple Trinity!

Amen.

O Trinity distinct in one

only Nature! Infinite God, who hast revealed Thy-

--- PAGE 129 --- 118 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

self unto men ! graciously bear with us, while we date to make our adorations before Thee, and pour forth our heart’s thanksgiving, feeling ourselves over- whelmed by the big hon of Thy majesty. O Unity divine! O divine Trinity! we have not, as yet, seen Thee; but we know that Thou art, for Thou hast vouchsafed to reveal Thyself unto us. This earth, whereon we are living, has the mystery distinctly proclaimed to it, every day of its existence: that same august mystery, whose vision is the source of the happiness enjoyed by the blessed, who are glorified, and are united with Thee in olosest union. The human race had to wait long ages, before the divine formula was fully revealed; happy we, who live in its full possession, and can, and do, delightedly pro- claim Unity and Trinity in Thine infinite Essence! There was a time, when an inspired writer spoke an allusion to this grandest of truths; but his words flashed across the minds of his hearers, as lightning traverses a cloud, and then leaves it darker than before. “I have not learned Wisdom,’ said he, * and have not known the science of saints. Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended ? Who hath held the wind (the storm) in his hands? Who hath bound up the waters together, as in a garment? Who hath raised up all the borders of the earth? ‘What is his name? and what is the name of his Son, if thou knowest ??!

Thanks to Thine unbounded mercy, O Lord God! we now know Thy name. Thou art called the Father; and He whom Thou begettest from all eternity is named the Word and Wisdom. We know, too, that from the Father and the Son proceeds the Spirit of love. The Son, clad in our flesh, has dwelt on this earth, and lived amongst men; then came down the

! Prov. xxx. 3, 4.

--- PAGE 130 --- TRINITY SUNDAY 119

Spirit, and He abides for ever with us, till the destinies of the human race are accomplished here below. Therefore do we dare to confess the Unity and the Trinity ; for we have heard the divine testimony, and have believed ; and, having believed, we have spoken, with all certainty.! Accept, then, this our confession, O Lord, as Thou didst that of Thy brave virgin and martyr, Cecilia, who, when the executioner had thrice struck her neck with the sword, and her noble blood flowed in streams from her wound, expressed her faith, as she breathed forth her soul, and confessed, by the position of her hands, the Unity of Thy Nature and the Trinity of Thy Persons.

The hymn of Thy Seraphim has been heard here on earth: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God of hosts!'? "We are but mortals; we are not prophets, as was Isaias; and yet we have a happiness which he had not: we can repeat the song of those blessed spirits, with fulness of knowledge, and can say unto Thee: * Holy is the Father, holy is the Son, holy is the Spirit!” Those same Seraphim flew with two of their wings; with two they hid their face; and with two they covered their feet. So it is with us: strengthened, as we are, by the divine Spirit who has been given to us, we strive to lighten the heavy weight of our frail mortality, and raise it aloft on the wings of desire; we hide our sins by repentance ; and veiling the weakness of our intellectual vision beneath the cloud of faith, we receive the light which is infused into our souls. Docile to the revealed word, we submit to its teachings; and it imparts to us not merely a distinot, but even an enlightened, knowledge of that mystery, which is the source and centre of all others. The angels and saints in heaven contemplate it with that inexpressible reserve, which

1 Ps, oxv. 10; 2 Cor. iv. 13. 3 Is. vi. 3.

--- PAGE 131 --- 120 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

the prophet describes by saying that they hide their face with their wings. We poor mortals have not, and cannot have, the sight of the great truth; but we have the knowledge of it; and this knowledge enlightens our path, and keeps us firm in the truth. We have a dread of presuming to be searchers of Thy ag id lest we should be overwhelmed by glory'; but, humbly treasuring up what heaven has vouchsafed to reveal to us of its secrets, we dare thus to address Thee: Glory be to Thee, O divine Essence, that art but one! Thou art pure Act; Thou art Being, necessary, infinite, undivided, perfect from all eternity, peaceful, and sovereignly happy. In Thee we honour, together with the inviolable Unity, which is the source of all Thy perfections, three Persons distinctly subsistent; but, in Their production and distinction, the one same Nature is common to all; so that the personal subsistence which constitutes Them, and distinguishes Them one from the other, causes no inequality between Them. O infinite blessedness in this Life of the three Persons! They contemplate in Themselves the ineffable perfections of the Essence which unites Them together, and the attribute of each of the three, which divinely animates the Nature that nought can limit or disturb!¹ O wonder of that infinite Essence, when it deigns to act outside itself, by creating beings in its power and its goodness! The three Persons work then together; so that the one which acts in a way which is His special attribute does so in virtue of a will common to all. May a special love be given to that divine Person who, in the act which is common to the three, deigns to reveal Himself thus markedly to us creatures; and, at the same time, may thanks be given to the other two, who unite, in one same will, with the Person who vouchsafes to honour us with that special manifestation of Himself!

Glory be to Thee, O Father, Thou Ancient of days!² Thou art unborn, without beginning; but communicating, essentially and necessarily, to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, the Godhead which dwells in Thee! Thou art God, and Thou art Father. He who knows Thee as God, and knows Thee not as Father, does not know Thee as Thou art. Thou producest, Thou begettest; but it is within Thine own bosom that Thou generatest; for nought is God, which is outside Thyself. Thou art being, Thou art power; but Thou hast never been without a Son. Thou speakest to Thyself all that Thou art; Thou explainest Thyself; and the fruit of the fecundity of Thy thought, which is equal to Thyself, is a second Person coming forth from Thee: it is Thy Son, Thy Word, Thine uncreated Word. Once didst Thou utter this Word; and Thy Word is eternal as Thyself, and as Thy thought, of which that Word is the infinite expression. Like the sun which is visible to our eyes, and which has never existed without its own brightness; this brightness is by the sun, it is with the sun; it emanates from it without lessening it, and it never exists as something independent of its source. Bear, O Father, with this weakness of our understanding, which borrows from the beings Thou hast created, an image whereto to compare Thee. And so, again, if we study ourselves, whom Thou hast created to Thine own likeness, we find that a thought of our own, in order that it may be something distinct from our mind, has need of a term, a word, to fix and express it.

O Father! we have been brought to know Thee by that Son whom Thou eternally begettest, and who has vouchsafed to reveal Himself to us. He has taught us that Thou art Father, and Himself Son; and that, nevertheless, Thou art one with Him.³ When one of His apostles said to Him: 'Lord! show us the Father,' He answered him: 'He that seeth Me, seeth the Father.'⁴ O Unity of the divine Nature, whereby the Son, though distinct from the Father, is not less than the Father! O delight of the Father in the Son, by whom He has the knowledge of Himself: delight of intimate love, of which He spoke to His creature man, on the banks of Jordan, and on the top of Thabor!⁵

O Father! we adore Thee, but we also love Thee; for a father should be loved by his children, and we are Thy children. It is an apostle that teaches us that all paternity proceeds from Thee, not in heaven alone, but on earth too.⁶ No one is father, no one has paternal authority, be it in a family, or in the State, or in the Church, but by Thee, and in Thee, and in imitation of Thee. Nay more: Thou wouldst have us not only be called, but really and truly be Thy sons;⁷ not, indeed, by generation, as is Thy only-begotten Son, but by an adoption which makes us joint-heirs with Him.⁸ This divine Son, speaking of Thee, says: 'I honour My Father';⁹ we, also, honour Thee, O sovereign Father, Father of infinite majesty! And, until eternity dawn upon us, we glorify Thee now from the depths of our misery and exile, uniting our humble praise with that which is presented to Thee by the angels, and by the blessed ones who are of the same human family as ourselves. May Thy fatherly eye protect us, may it graciously find pleasure in us Thy children, whom, as we hope, Thou hast foreseen, whom Thou hast chosen, whom Thou hast called to the faith, and who presume, with the apostle, to call Thee the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation.¹⁰

Glory be to Thee, O Son, O Word, O Wisdom of the Father! Thou emanatest from His divine Essence. He gave Thee birth before the day-star;¹¹ and He said to Thee: 'This day have I begotten Thee';¹² and that day which has neither eve nor morrow, is eternity. Thou art Son, and only Son; and this name expresses one same nature with Him who begets Thee; it excludes creation, and shows Thee to be consubstantial with the Father, from whom Thou comest forth, perfectly like Him in all things. And Thou comest forth from the Father, without coming out of the divine Essence, being coeternal with Thy source; for in God there is nothing new, nothing temporal. Thy sonship is not a dependency; for the Father cannot be without the Son, any more than the Son can be without the Father. If it be a glory in the Father to produce the Son, it is no less a glory in the Son to be the exhaustive term to the generative power of the Father.

O Son of God, Thou art the Word of the Father. Uncreated Word, Thou art as intimately in Him, as is His thought; and His thought is His Being. It is in Thee that this His Being expresses itself, in its whole infiniteness; it is in Thee that He knows Himself. Thou art the spiritual fruit produced by the divine intellect of the Father; the expression of all that He is, whether He keep Thee mysteriously in His bosom,¹³ or produce Thee outside Himself. What language can we make use of, in order to describe Thee, and Thy glories, O Son of God! The Holy Ghost has vouchsafed to come to our assistance, in the writings which He has inspired: and it is with the very expressions He has suggested, that we presume thus to address Thee: 'Thou art the brightness of the Father's glory; Thou art the figure of His substance.¹⁴ Thou art the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image that reflects His eternal goodness.'¹⁵ We presume, likewise, to say to Thee, what we are taught by the holy Church assembled at Nicæa: 'Thou art God of God; Light of Light; true God of true God.' And we add, with the fathers and doctors: 'Thou art the torch eternally lit by the eternal torch. Thy light lessens nought of that which communicates Itself to Thee; neither is Thy light inferior in aught to that from which it is produced.'

But when this ineffable fecundity, which gives an eternal Son to the Father and to the Father and Son a third term, willed to manifest Itself outside the divine Essence; and, not having again the power to produce what is equal to Itself, deigned to call forth from nothingness intellectual and rational nature, as being the nearest approach to its author, and material nature, as being the least removed from nothingness—then, O only-begotten Son of God, the intimate production of Thy Person in the Father's bosom revealed itself by creation. It is the Father who made all things; but it is in Wisdom, that is, in Thee, that He made all.¹⁶ This mission of working, which Thou receivedst from the Father, is a consequence of the eternal generation, whereby He produces Thee from Himself. Thou camest forth from Thy mysterious rest; and creatures, visible and invisible, came forth, at Thy bidding, out of nothing.

Acting in closest union with the Father, Thou pouredst out upon the worlds Thou createdst somewhat of that beauty and harmony, of which Thou art the image in the divine Essence. And yet, Thy mission was not at an end when creation was completed. Angels and men, who were intellectual and free beings, were destined for the eternal vision and possession of God. The merely natural order could not suffice for these two classes of Thy creatures; a supernatural way had to be prepared for them, whereby they might be brought to their last end. Thou, O only-begotten Son of God, art this way. By assuming human nature Thou unitedst Thyself to Thine own work, Thou raisedst angel and man up to God; and by Thy human Nature Thou showedst Thyself as the supreme type of the creation, which the Father had effected by Thee. Oh unspeakable mystery! Thou art the uncreated Word, and, at the same time, Thou art the First-born of every creature;¹⁷ not, indeed, to appear until Thy time should come; and yet preceding, in the divine mind and intention, all created beings, which were destined to be Thy subjects.

The human race, though destined to possess Thee in its midst as its divine intermediator, rebelled against its God by sin, and, by sin, was plunged into the abyss of death. Who could raise it up again? Who could restore it to the sublime destiny it had forfeited? Thou alone, O only-begotten Son of the Father! It is what we never could have hoped for; but God so loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son,¹⁸ to be not only the Mediator, but the Redeemer, too, of us all. Thou, our First-born, askedst Thy Father to restore Thine inheritance unto Thee;¹⁹ Thou hadst to purchase back this inheritance.

Then did the Father entrust Thee with the mission of Saviour to our lost race. Thy Blood, shed upon the cross, was our ransom; and by it we were born anew to God, and restored to our lost privileges. Therefore, O Son of God, we, Thy redeemed, glory in calling Thee our LORD.

Having thus delivered us from death, and cleansed us from sin, Thou vouchsafedst to restore us to all the grand things we had lost; for, henceforth, Thou art our HEAD, and we are Thy members; Thou art KING, and we Thy happy subjects; Thou art SHEPHERD, and we the sheep of Thy one fold; Thou art SPOUSE, and the Church, our mother, is Thy bride; Thou art the living BREAD come down from heaven, and we are Thy guests. O Son of God! O Emmanuel! O Son of Man! blessed be the Father who sent Thee; but blessed, also, be Thou, who didst fulfil the mission He gave Thee, and who hast been pleased to say, that Thy delights are to be with the children of men!²⁰

Glory be to Thee, O Holy Spirit, who eternally emanatest from the Father and the Son in the unity of the divine substance! The eternal Act, whereby the Father knows Himself, produces the Son, who is the infinite image of the Father; the Father is full of love for this brightness which eternally proceeds from Himself; and the Son, contemplating the source whence He for ever comes, conceives for this source a love as great as that wherewith He Himself is loved. What language could describe this mutual ardour and aspiration, which is the attraction and tendency of one Person to Another in the eternally immovable Essence! Thou art this Love, O divine Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, as from one same principle; Thou art distinct from both, and yet art the bond that unites Them in the ineffable delights of the Godhead; Thou art living Love, personal Love, proceeding from the Father by the Son, the final term which completes the divine Nature, and eternally perfects the Trinity. In the inaccessible bosom of the great God, Thy Personality comes to Thee both from the Father, of whom Thou art the expression by a second procession, and from the Son, who, receiving of the Father, gives Thee of His own; for the infinite Love which unites Them is of both Persons, and not of one alone. The Father was never without the Son, and the Son never without the Father; so likewise, the Father and the Son have never been without Thee, O holy Spirit! Eternally have They loved; and Thou art the infinite Love which exists between Them, and to which They communicate Their Godhead. Thy Procession from both exhausts the productive power of the uncreated Essence; and thus are the divine Persons Three in number; all that is outside Them is created being.

In the divine Essence, there is not only Power and Intelligence, but also, and necessarily, there is Will, from which action follows. Will and Love are one and the same thing; and Thou, O divine Spirit, art this Will, this Love. When the glorious Trinity works outside Itself, the act conceived by the Father, and expressed by the Son, is accomplished by Thee. By Thee, likewise, the Love, which the Father and Son have for each other, and which is personalized in Thee, is extended to beings which are to be created. It is by His Word that the Father knows them; it is by Thee, O divine Love, O holy Spirit, that He loves them; and thus, all creation proceeds from the divine goodness.

Emanating, as Thou dost, from the Father and the Son, Thou art sent, by both, to us creatures; and yet

¹ Prov. xxv. 27.
² Dan. vii. 9.
³ St. John x. 30.
⁴ Ibid. xiv. 8, 9.
⁵ St. Matt. iii. 17; 2 St. Pet. i. 17.
⁶ Eph. iii. 15.
⁷ 1 St. John iii. 1.
⁸ Rom. viii. 17.
⁹ St. John viii. 49.
¹⁰ 2 Cor. i. 3.
¹¹ Ps. cix. 3.
¹² Ps. ii. 7.
¹³ St. John i. 18.
¹⁴ Heb. i. 3.
¹⁵ Wisd. vii. 26.
¹⁶ Ps. ciii. 24.
¹⁷ Col. i. 15.
¹⁸ St. John iii. 16.
¹⁹ Ps. xv. 5.
²⁰ Prov. viii. 31.

¹ St. John xv. 26. ² Ibid. xvi. 14, 15.

so as not to lose thereby the equality Thou hast, from all eternity with Them. The Son, when sent by the Father, clad Himself, once for ever, with our human nature; and His Person, by the works which are peculiarly His own, is shown to us as distinct from that of the Father. So likewise, O holy Spirit, we recognize Thee as distinct from the Father and the Son, by Thy coming down to fulfil in our regard the mission given to Thee by both. It is Thou that inspiredst the prophets;¹ Thou that overshadowedst Mary in the divine Incarnation;² Thou that restedst on the flower of Jesse;³ Thou that ledst Jesus into the desert;⁴ Thou that didst glorify Him by miracles.⁵ The Church, His bride, receives Thee, and Thou teachest her all truth,⁶ and Thou abidest in her, as her devoted friend,⁷ even to the very end of time. Our souls are signed with Thy seals,⁸ and Thou quickenest them with supernatural life;⁹ Thou dwellest even in our bodies, making them Thy temple;¹⁰ in a word, Thou art to us the Gift of God,¹¹ and the fountain springing up even into life everlasting.¹² May special thanks be given to Thee, O holy Spirit, for the special works Thou accomplishest in our favour!

And now, having adored each of the divine Persons, and blessed each for the favours He has bestowed upon this world, we again dare to fix our unworthy gaze upon that Trinity of Majesty which exists in the Unity of the divine Essence. O Sovereign Lord! we again confess what Thou hast taught us; and we confess it in the words of Thy servant Augustine: 'They are not more than Three: One that loveth Him who is from Him; and One that loveth Him

¹ 2 St. Peter i. 21. ² St. Luke i. 35. ³ Is. xi. 2. ⁴ St. Luke iv. 1. ⁵ St. Matt. xii. 28. ⁶ St. John xvi. 13. ⁷ St. John xiv. 16. ⁸ Eph. i. 13; iv. 30. ⁹ Gal. v. 25. ¹⁰ 1 Cor. vi. 19. ¹¹ Hymn Veni Creator. ¹² St. John iv. 14; vii. 38, 39.

from whom He is; and One who is that very Love.'¹ But we have still a debt of gratitude to pay for that unspeakable favour of Thine, whereby, O blessed Trinity, Thou hast vouchsafed to mark us with the image of Thyself. Having resolved, from all eternity, to admit us into fellowship with Thyself,² Thou hast prepared us for it according to a type taken from Thine own divine Nature.³ There are three powers in our one soul; this tells us that it is Thou who gavest us our existence; and yet this likeness to Thyself, which is the glory of our natural being, was but a preparation for further purposes of Thy generous love towards us. After having bestowed upon us this natural being, it pleased Thee to decree, O sacred Trinity, that a supernatural being should also be imparted to us. The fulness of time having come, the Father sends us His Son; and this uncreated Word brings light to our understanding: the Father and the Son send us the Spirit; and the Spirit brings love to our will: and the Father, who cannot be sent, comes of Himself, and gives Himself to our soul, giving her a power beyond her own strength. It is in holy Baptism, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that is produced, in the Christian, this work of the Three divine Persons, which is so admirably in keeping with the faculties of our soul; and these faculties are but an outline of the masterpiece, which the supernatural action of God can alone complete.

¹ Non amplius quam tria sunt; unus diligens eum qui de illo est, et unus diligens eum de quo est, et ipsa dilectio. S. Augustinus, De Trinitate, lib. vi. cap. v. ² 1 St. John i. 3. ³ Gen. i. 27.

Blessed union! whereby God is in man, and man is in God! Union that brings us to adoption by the Father, to brotherhood with the Son, to our eternal inheritance! But how has this indwelling of God in His creature been formed? Gratuitously, by God's eternal love. And how long will it last? For ever, unless man himself refuse to give love for love. Mortal sin admitted into the soul, the divine indwelling is at an end: the very moment that sanctifying grace is lost, the Three divine Persons who had taken up their abode in that soul¹ and were united with her, abandon her; God is no longer in her, save by His immensity; the soul does not possess Him as she did before. Then Satan again sets up his wretched kingdom within her, the kingdom of his vile trinity: concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and pride of life.² Woe to the man who would dare to defy his God by such rebellion, and put evil in the place of infinite good! Hell and eternal torments are the consequences of the creature's contempt of his Creator. God is a jealous God; if we drive Him from the dwelling of our souls, the deep abyss must be our everlasting abode.

But is this rupture beyond the hope of reconciliation? Yes, as far as sinful man's power is concerned; for he can never, of himself, recover his position with the blessed Trinity, which God's gratuitous bounty had prepared, and His incomprehensible goodness achieved. But, as the Church teaches us, in her liturgy, God never shows His power more, than when He has pity on a sinner and pardons him;³ it is this powerful mercy of God which can work the prodigy of a reconciliation; and He really does work it, as often as a sinner is converted. When the august Trinity deigns to return into the soul of repentant man, the angels and saints in heaven are filled with joy, as the Gospel assures us;⁴ for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have testified Their love, and sought Their glory, by making him just

¹ St. John xiv. 23. ² 1 St. John ii. 16. ³ Collect for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost. ⁴ St. Luke xv. 10.

who had been a sinner; by coming again to dwell in this lost sheep; in this prodigal, who had, but a few days before, been tending swine; in this thief who, but just now, had, with his fellow culprit, been insulting on the cross the innocent Crucified.

Adoration, then, and love, be to Thee, O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, O perfect Trinity, who hast vouchsafed to reveal Thyself to mankind; O eternal and infinite Unity, who hast delivered our forefathers from the yoke of their false gods! Glory be to Thee, as it was in the beginning, before any creature existed; as it is now, at this very time, while we are living in the hope of that true life, which consists in seeing Thee face to face; and as it shall for ever be, in those everlasting ages, when a blissful eternity shall have united us in the bosom of Thine infinite Majesty. Amen.

MONDAY AFTER TRINITY SUNDAY

Having, by His divine light, increased the Church's appreciation of the sovereign mystery of the august Trinity, the Holy Ghost next leads her to contemplate that other marvel, which concentrates in itself all the works of the Incarnate Word, and leads us, even in this present life, to union with God. The mystery of the holy Eucharist is going to be brought before us in all its magnificence; it behoves us therefore, to prepare the eyes of our soul for the worthy reception of the light which is so soon to dawn upon us. As, during the whole year, we have never lost sight of the mystery of the holy Trinity, and all our worship has unceasingly been offered to the Three divine Persons; so, in like manner, the blessed Eucharist has uninterruptedly accompanied us throughout the whole period of the liturgical year, either as the means for paying our homage to the infinite Majesty of God, or as the nourishment which sustains the supernatural life. Though we knew and loved these two ineffable mysteries before, yet the graces of Pentecost have added much to both our knowledge and our love; yesterday, the mystery of the Trinity beamed upon us with greater clearness than ever; and now we are close upon the solemnity which is to show us the holy Eucharist with an increase of light and joy to our faith.

The blessed Trinity is, as we have already shown, the essential object of all religion; It is the centre to which all our homage converges; and this, even when we do not seem to make It our direct intention. Now, the holy Eucharist is the best of all the means whereby we can give to the Three divine Persons the worship we owe Them; it is, moreover, the bond whereby earth is united with heaven. It is easy, therefore, to understand how it was that holy Church so long deferred the institution of the two festivals immediately following Whitsuntide. All the mysteries we have celebrated up to this time were contained in the august Sacrament, which is the memorial, and, so to say, the compendium, of the wonderful things wrought in our favour by our Redeemer. It is the reality of Christ's presence under the sacramental species that enabled us to recognize in the sacred Host, at Christmas, the Child that was born unto us, in Passiontide, the Victim who redeemed us, and at Easter, the glorious conqueror of death. We could not celebrate all those admirable mysteries without the aid of the perpetual Sacrifice;¹ neither could that Sacrifice be offered up, without renewing and repeating them.

¹ Ps. cx. 4.

It is the same with the feasts of our blessed Lady and the saints: they kept us in the continual contemplation of the holy Sacrament. When we honoured Mary on the solemnities of the Immaculate Conception, the Purification, or the Annunciation, we were honouring her who had, from her own substance, given that Body and Blood which was then offered upon our altars. As to the apostles and the martyrs, whose memories we solemnized, whence had they the strength to suffer so much and so bravely for the faith, but from the sacred banquet which we then celebrated, and which gives courage and constancy to them that partake of it? The confessors and virgins, as their feasts came round, seemed to us as so many lovely flowers in the garden of the Church, and that garden itself all fruitful with wheat and clusters of grapes, because of the fertility given by Him who is called, in the Scriptures, both Wheat and Wine.¹

¹ Zach. ix. 17.

Putting together all the means within our reach for honouring these blessed citizens of the heavenly court, we have chanted the grand Psalms of David, and hymns, and canticles, with all the varied formulas of the liturgy; but nothing that we could do towards celebrating their praise could be compared to the holy Sacrifice offered to the divine Majesty. It is in that Sacrifice that we entered into direct communication with them, according to the energetic term used by the Church in the Canon of the Mass (communicantes). The blessed in heaven are ever adoring the most holy Trinity by and in Christ Jesus our Lord; and it is by the Sacrifice of the Mass that we were united with them in the one same centre, and that we mingled our homage with theirs; hence, they received an increase of glory and happiness. So, then, the holy Eucharist, both as Sacrifice and Sacrament, has always been prominently before us. If we are now going to devote several days to a more attentive consideration of its magnificence and power; if we are now going to make more earnest efforts to taste more fully its heavenly sweetness; it is not something fresh, which attracts our special notice and devotion for a season, and will then give way for something else: the Eucharist is that element prepared for us by the love of our Redeemer, of which we must always avail ourselves in order that we may enter into direct communication with our God, and pay Him the debt not only of our worship, but also of our love.

And yet, the time was to come when the Holy Ghost, who governs the Church, would inspire her with the thought of instituting a special solemnity in honour of that august mystery, in which all others are included. There is a sacred element, which gives a meaning to every feast that occurs during the year, and fills it with the beauty of its own divine splendour; that sacred element, which is the most holy Eucharist, had itself a right to a solemn festival, in keeping with the dignity of its divine object.

But that festive exaltation of the divine Host, and those triumphant processions so deservedly dear to the present generation of Christians, were not practicable in the ages of the early persecutions. And when those rough times had passed away, and the courageous martyrs had won victory for the Church, those same modes of honouring the Eucharist would not have suited the spirit and form of the primitive liturgical observances, which were kept up for ages following. Neither were they needed for the maintenance of the lively faith of those times; they would have been superfluous for a period such as that was, when the solemnity of the Sacrifice itself, and the share the people at large took in the sacred mysteries, and the uninterrupted homage of liturgical chants sustained by the crowds of faithful adorers around the altar, gave praise and glory to God, secured correctness of faith, and fostered in the people a superabundance of supernatural life, which is not to be found now-a-days. The divine Memorial produced its fruits; the intentions our Lord had in instituting the Eucharist were realized; and the remembrance of that institution, which used then to be solemnized as we now celebrate Mass on Maundy Thursday, was deeply impressed on the minds of the faithful.

This state of things lasted till the beginning of the thirteenth century, when, as the Church expresses it, a certain coldness took possession of the world;¹ faith grew weak, and the vigorous piety which characterized the Christians of the previous ages became exceedingly rare. There were grand exceptions, here and there, of individual saintliness; but there was an unmistakable falling off among people at large, and the falling off was progressive; so much so, indeed, that there was danger that the mystery, which by its very nature is the mystery of faith, would suffer, in a special manner, from that coldness, that indifference, of the new generation. Even at that period, hell had been at work, stirring up sacrilegious teachers here and there, who dared to throw doubts upon the dogma of the real Presence; fortunately, the people easily took alarm, and, as a general rule, were too strong in the old faith to be led astray. The pastors, too, of the Church were alive to the danger, for there were souls who allowed themselves to be deceived.

Scotus Erigena had formulated the sacramentarian heresy: he had taught that the Eucharist was but a

Collect for the feast of the Stigmata of Bt. Francis.

ign, a fit of spiritual union with Jesus, of which no fatal obtaining could be cognizant." His teaching made little impression; it was regarded as mere opinion and was too novel to make head against Catholic tradition, such as was to be found exposed in the learned writings of Paschasius Radbert, Abbot of Corbie. The sophistry of Scotus was revived, in the eleventh century, by Berengarius; but although its new promoter was more crafty and conceited than its originator, and did greater and more lasting mischief, yet it died with him. The time for hell to play havoc by such direct attacks as these had not yet come; they were laid aside for others of a more covert kind. That hotbed of heresies, the empire of Byzantium, fostered the almost extinct germ of Manicheism; the teaching of that sect regarding the flesh—that it is the work of the evil principle—was subversive of the dogma of the Eucharist. While Berengarius was trying to bring himself into notice by the noisy, but ineffectual, broaching of his errors, Thrace and Bulgaria were quietly sending their teachers into the west. Lombardy, the Marches, and Tuscany, became infected; so did Austria, in several places, and almost all at one and the same time; so, too, did three cities of France: Orleans, Toulouse, and Arras. Forcible measures were used for repressing the evil; but it knew how to grow strong by retreat. Taking the south of France for the basis of its operations, the foul heresy silently organized its strength during the whole of the twelfth century. So great was the progress it made thus unperceived, that when it came publicly before the world, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, it had an army ready for the maintenance of its impious doctrines. Torrents of blood had to be shed in order to subdue it, and deprive it of its strongholds; and for years after the defeat of the armed insurrection, the Inquisition had to exercise active watchfulness in the provinces that had been tainted by the Albigensian contagion.

Simon of Montfort was the avenger of the Catholic faith. But, while the victorious arm of the Christian hero was dealing a death-blow to heresy, God was preparing for His Son, who had been so unworthily outraged by the sectarians in the Sacrament of His love, a triumph of a more peaceful kind, and a more perfect reparation. It was in the year 1208, that a humble religious of the Congregation of the Hospitallers, by name the Blessed Juliana of Mont-Cornillon near Liége, had a mysterious vision, in which she beheld the moon at its full, but having a hollow on its disc. In spite of all her efforts to divert herself from what she feared was an illusion, the same vision appeared before her as often as she set herself to pray. After two years of such efforts and earnest supplications, it was revealed to her that the moon signified the Church as it then was; and that the hollow she observed on its disc expressed the want of one more solemnity in the liturgical year; a want which God willed should be supplied by the introduction of a feast, to be kept annually in honour of the institution of the blessed Eucharist. The solemn commemoration made of the last Supper, on Maundy Thursday, was no longer sufficient for the children of the Church, shaken as they had been by the influences of heresy; it was not sufficient even for the Church herself, who, on that Thursday, has her attention divided by the important functions of the day, and is wholly taken up, a few hours later, by the sad mysteries of the great Friday. At the same time that Juliana received this communication, she was also commanded to make known to the world what she had been told was the divine will. Twenty years, however, passed, before the humble and timid virgin could bring herself to put her person thus forward. She at length mentioned the subject to a Canon of St. Martin's of Liége, named John of Lausanne, whom she much respected for his great holiness of life; and she besought him to confer with men of theological learning on the subject of the mission confided to her. All agreed that not only there was no reason why such a feast should not be instituted, but, moreover, that it would be a means for procuring much glory to God and great good to souls. Encouraged by this decision, the saintly Juliana had a proper Office composed and approved for the future festival; it begins with the words: Animarum cibus, and a few portions are still extant.

The Church of Liége, to which the universal Church owes yesterday's solemnity of the blessed Trinity, was predestined to have the honour of originating the feast of Corpus Christi. It was a happy day, when, in the year 1246, after so many delays and difficulties, the bishop of Liége, Robert de Toróte, published a synodical decree that each year, on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, there should be observed in all the churches of his diocese, with rest from servile work, and with the preparation of fasting on the eve, a solemn feast in honour of the blessed Sacrament.

But the mission of the Blessed Juliana was far from being at an end; she had to be punished for having so long deferred it. The bishop died; and the decree he had issued would have long been a dead letter, had there not been one, and only one, church of the diocese, whose clergy were determined to put the decree into execution: these were the Canons of Saint Martin-au-Mont. Though there was no authority, during the vacancy, that cared to enforce the observance, yet, in the year 1247, the feast of Corpus Christi was kept in that privileged church. Robert's successor, Henry de Gueldre, a warrior and grandee, took no interest in what his predecessor had had so much at heart. Hugh de Saint Cher, Cardinal of St. Sabina, and legate in Germany, having gone to Liége with a view to remedy the disorders to which the new episcopal government had given rise, heard mention of the decree of the late bishop Robert, and of the new feast. The Cardinal had, formerly, been prior and provincial in the Order of St. Dominic, and was one of the theologians who, having been consulted by John de Lausanne, had favoured the project. He was of the same mind when legate; and claimed the honour of keeping the feast himself, and singing Mass with great pomp. Not satisfied with that, he issued a circular, dated December 29, 1253, which he addressed to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, and faithful of the territory of his legation; and, in that document, he confirmed the decree of the bishop of Liége, and extended it to all the country over which he was legate, granting one hundred days' indulgence to all who, being contrite, and having confessed their sins, should, on the feast itself or during its Octave, devoutly visit a church in which the Office of Corpus Christi was being celebrated. In the year following, the Cardinal of St. George in Velabro, who had succeeded as legate, confirmed and renewed the ordinances made by the Cardinal of St. Sabina. These reiterated decrees, however, failed to remove the wide-spread indifference. A terrible blow had been given, by the proposed feast, to the powers of hell, and satan excited every possible opposition to it. As soon as the legates had taken their departure, several local superiors, men of note and authority, published their own ordinances in opposition to what had been already given. In 1258, the year of the Blessed Juliana's death, there was still but the single church of St. Martin that would celebrate the feast, which it was her mission to spread throughout the entire world. But she left the continuation of her work to a holy recluse, of the name of Eve, to whom she had confided her secrets.

On the twenty-ninth day of August, 1261, James Pantaléon ascended the papal throne, under the name of Urban IV. He owed his election to this dignity to his great personal merits, for by birth¹ he had nothing to recommend him. He had been archdeacon of Liége, and there had met with the Blessed Juliana, and had approved her work. In this his exaltation to the papacy, Eve thought she had an indication of God's providence. She induced the bishop, Henry de Gueldre, to send his written congratulations to the new Pontiff, and, at the same time, to entreat him to confirm, by his own approbation, the feast which had been instituted by Robert de Toróte. About the same time, several supernatural events had attracted public attention; and in particular, the prodigy at Bolsena, near Orvieto, (where the papal court happened to be then residing) of a corporal having been stained with blood by a miraculous Host. These events seemed as though providentially permitted in order to rouse Urban's attention, and to confirm him in the holy zeal he had formerly evinced for the glory of the blessed Sacrament. St. Thomas of Aquin was appointed to compose, according to the Roman rite, the Office for the feast; which Office was to be substituted for the one prepared by the Blessed Juliana, which she had adapted to the ancient liturgy of France. The Bull Transiturus was published soon after; it made known to the Church the Pope's intentions. Urban there mentions the revelations which had come to his knowledge before his election; and declares that, in virtue of his apostolic authority, both for the confounding of heresy, and for the increase of the true faith, he institutes a special solemnity in honour of the divine Memorial left, by Christ, to His Church. The day there fixed for the feast is the fifth feria (that is, the Thursday) after the Octave of Pentecost; for the Papal document does not mention, as the decree of the bishop of Liége had done, the feast of the blessed Trinity, which had not yet been received into the calendar of the Church of Rome. In imitation of what had been done by Hugh de Saint Cher, the Pontiff granted a hundred days' indulgence to all the faithful, who, being contrite, and having confessed their sins, should assist at Mass, or Matins, at first or second Vespers, of the feast; and for assisting at Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, and Compline, forty days for each of those Hours. He also granted a hundred days to those who should assist, on any day within the Octave, at the Mass and the entire Office. Among all these details, there is no allusion to the procession, for this was not introduced till the following century.

All now seemed settled; and yet, owing to the troubles which were then so rife in Italy and the Empire, the Bull of Urban IV was forgotten, and remained a dead letter. Forty years and more elapsed before it was again promulgated and confirmed by Pope Clement V, at the Council of Vienne. John XXII gave it the force of a settled law, by inserting it in the Clementines, about the year 1318; and he had thus the honour of putting the finishing stroke to the great work, which had taken upwards of a century for its completion.

The feast of the blessed Sacrament, or, as it is commonly called, Corpus Christi, began a new phase in the Catholic worship of the holy Eucharist. But, in order to understand this, we must go more thoroughly into the question of Eucharistic worship, as practised in the previous ages of the Church: the inquiry is one of importance for the full appreciation of the great feast, for which we must now be preparing our souls. No preparation, it seems to us, could be more to the point, than to devote the next two days to a faithful and compendious study of the chief features in the history of the blessed Eucharist.

It belongs to Thee, O holy Spirit, to teach us the history of so great a mystery. Scarcely has Thy reign begun upon the earth, when, faithful to Thy divine mission of glorifying our Emmanuel¹ who has ascended into heaven, Thou at once raisest our eyes and hearts up to that best gift of His love, whereby we still possess Him under the eucharistic veil. During those long ages of the expectation of nations, it is Thou who didst bring the Word before mankind; Thou spakest of Him in the Scriptures, Thou proclaimedst Him by the prophets.² O Thou who art the Gift of the Most High,³ Thou art, also, infinite Love; and it is through Thee, as such, that are wrought all the manifestations which God vouchsafes to make to us His creatures. It is Thou that broughtest this divine Person, the Word, into the womb of the immaculate Virgin Mary, there to clothe Him with sinless flesh, and so make Him our Brother and our Saviour. And now that He has ascended to His Father and our Father,⁴ depriving us of the sight of His human Nature all beauteous with its perfections and charms; now that we have to go through this vale of tears deprived of His visible company: He has sent Thee unto us;¹ and Thou hast come, O divine Spirit, as our Consoler. But the consolation Thou bringest us, dear Paraclete, is ever the same: it is the faithful remembrance of Jesus;² yea, more, it is His divine Presence, perpetuated by Thee in the Sacrament of love. We had already been told that this would be so; that Thou wouldst not speak of Thyself, or for Thyself; but that Thou wouldst come to give testimony of the Emmanuel,³ continue His work, and produce His divine likeness in each one of us.

How admirable is this Thy fulfilment of Thy sublime mission, which is all for the glory of Jesus! O divine Spirit, Guardian of the Word in the Church! it is far beyond our power to describe how great is Thy vigilance over the word of teaching, brought by the Saviour to this earth of ours, a teaching which is the true expression of Himself, and which, coming, as He Himself does, from the mouth of the Father, is the nourishment of His bride here below. But with what infinite respect and vigilance, O holy Spirit, dost Thou preside over the august Sacrament, wherein is present, with all the reality of His adorable Flesh, that same Incarnate Word, who, from the very beginning of creation, was the centre and object of all Thy dealings with creatures! It is by the mystery produced by Thine omnipotence, that the exiled bride recovers her Spouse; it is by Thee that she traverses the long ages of time, holding and prizing her infinite treasure; it is by Thee that she, with such superhuman wisdom, puts it to profit, by so arranging, so modifying her discipline, yea, her very life, as to secure in each age of time the greatest possible faith, respect and love towards the divine Eucharist. If she

¹ St. John xvi. 14.
² 2 St. Pet. i. 19-21.
³ Hymn for Pentecost.
⁴ St. John xx. 17.

¹ Troyes, France, was his native town.

¹ St. Luke xxiv. 49. ² St. John xiv. 26.
³ St. John xvi. 13. ⁴ St. John xv. 26. ⁵ St. Matt. iv.

anxiously hide It from the profane men that would only turn their knowledge into blasphemy; or if she lavish upon It all that liturgy can give of pomp and magnificence; or if, again, she bring It forth from her sacred temples, and triumphantly carry It in procession through the crowded streets of cities, or the green lanes of the quiet country, it is Thou, O divine Spirit, that inspirest her with what is best; it is Thy divine foresight that suggests to her what is the surest means for gaining, in each respective period and age, the most of honour and love for Jesus who is ever present in the sacred Host, and who deigns to let His love be delighted with being thus among the children of men.¹

Vouchsafe, O Holy Ghost, to aid us in our contemplations of this sacred mystery. Enlighten our understanding, inflame our hearts, during these hours of preparation for its feast. Give to our souls the knowledge of that Jesus, who is coming to us beneath the sacramental veil.

May this holy mystery be to us, during this last portion of the year and its liturgy, our Bread to support us on the journey we have still to make through the desert, before we can reach the mount of God;² we have yet a great way to go, and a way so different from the one we have already passed through, when we had the company of Jesus in the mysteries He was working for our salvation. Be Thou, O holy Spirit, our guide in those paths, which the Church, under Thy direction, is courageously traversing, while she is every day approaching nearer to the end of her pilgrimage here below. Yet scarcely have we entered on this second portion of our year, than Thou, divine Spirit, bringest us to the banquet prepared by divine Wisdom, where the pilgrim

¹ Prov. viii. 31. ² 3 Kings xix. 8. ³ Prov. ix.

MONDAY AFTER TRINITY SUNDAY

receives the strength he needs for his journey. We will walk on, then, in the strength of this heavenly food;¹ and when our course is run, we will, with the same Bread to support us, cry out, with the Spirit and the bride, that our Lord Jesus may come² to us, at that last hour, and admit us into His eternal kingdom.

In honour of the adorable Sacrament, and in memory of the Blessed Juliana, to whom the Church owes the feast she is about to celebrate, we will offer our readers, to-day and during the Octave, the main portions, which are still extant, of the Office which bears her name. It will be interesting to them to hear how this Office was drawn up; we give the details as supplied to us by the Bollandists, in the life written of her by one of her contemporaries.

Juliana, then, began to ask herself whom she should get to compose the Office of the great feast. She knew of no clever man, or holy priest, who seemed to her fitted for the work; so, trusting solely to divine Wisdom, she made up her mind to select a young brother of the Hospital, named John,³ whose innocent life had been revealed to her by God. John refused the work, declaring that it far exceeded his powers or learning; he begged her to excuse him, as he was but an ignorant man. Juliana knew all that; but she also knew that divine Wisdom, whose work she was furthering, could pour admirable things through an unlearned man; she kept to her purpose; and John, unable to resist the entreaties and influence of Juliana, began his labours. She prayed, and he wrote; and with the efforts of the two united, the

¹ 3 Kings xix. 8. ² Apoc. xxii. 17.
³ Not confound this with John of Lausne, of whom
we have previously spoken.

work progressed in a way that surprised the young brother. He attributed all, and he was not far wrong, to Juliana's prayers. When he had any considerable portion of the composition ready, he gave it to her, saying: 'This, Sister, is what heaven sends thee: read it, and examine whether I have put down anything, either in the chant, or the words, which needs correction.' She would then take it; and, by the wonderful infused wisdom which she possessed, would examine, and, where needed, correct; and with so much prudence and judgment, that not even the most expert critics could find anything to change.

And thus, by the wondrous help of God, was completed the whole Office of the new feast. The antiphons we here subjoin were taken by the Bollandists,² from a very ancient Directorium of the church of Saint-Martin-au-Mont. They are the antiphons assigned for the Benedictus and Magnificat
of each day during the Octave.

¹ Vita B. Julianæ, ab auctore coævo descripta lib. ii. cap. 2.
Act. SS. ad diem quintam Aprilis. ² Ibid. in Append.

ANTIPHONS

Animarum cibus Dei Sapientia nobis carnem assumptam proposuit in edulium, ut per cibum hujus pietatis invitaret ad gustum divinitatis.

The Wisdom of God, the food of souls, hath offered to us, for our nourishment, the Flesh he had assumed to himself; that, by this food of his love, he might lead us to taste of what is divine.

Discipulis competentem conscribens hereditatem, sui memoriam commendavit inquiens: Hoc facite in mei commemorationem.

Leaving to his disciples a worthy inheritance, he urged them to be mindful of himself, saying: Do this in memory of me.

Totum Christus se nobis exhibet in cibum, ut sicut divinitus nos reficit quem corde gustamus, ita nos humanitus reficiat quem ore manducamus;

Christ gave his whole self to us as our food; that as he, whom we taste with our heart, divinely refreshes us, so he, whom we receive with our mouth, might refresh us by his human nature;

Et sic de visibilibus ad invisibilia, de temporalibus ad æterna, de terrenis ad cœlestia, de humanis ad divina nos transferat.

And thus it is that he gives us to pass from things visible to invisible, from temporal to eternal, from earthly to heavenly, from human to divine.

Panem angelorum manducavit homo, ut qui secundum animum cibum divinitatis accipimus, secundum carnem cibum humanitatis sumamus: quia sicut anima rationalis et caro unus est homo, ita Deus et homo unus est Christus.

Man hath eaten of the Bread of angels; so that we who, according to the soul, receive the food of the Godhead, may take, according to the flesh, the food of Christ's humanity: for, as the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ.

Panis vitæ, panis angelorum, Jesu Christe vera mundi vita; qui semper nos reficis, in te nunquam deficis, nos ab omni sana languore, ut te nostro viatico in terra recreati, te ore plenissimo manducemus in æternum.

O Bread of life! O Bread of angels! Jesus Christ, true life of the world! who ever feedest us, and never failest in thyself! heal us of all our weakness; that being refreshed on earth by thee as our viaticum, we may feed on thee, to our fill, in eternity.

Suo Christus sanguine nos lavat quotidie, cum ejus beatæ passionis quotidie memoria renovatur.

Daily doth Christ wash us in his Blood, for daily is renewed the remembrance of his sacred Passion.

Sanguis ejus non infidelium manibus ad ipsorum perniciem funditur; sed quotidie fidelium suavi ore sumitur ad salutem.

His Blood is not shed by the hands of faithless men, which would be to their destruction; but daily is it received, and sweetly, and to their salvation, by the faithful.

Verus Deus, verus homo semel in cruce pependit, se Patri redemptionis hostiam efficacem offerens: semper tamen invisibiliter est in mysterio, non passus sed quasi pati repræsentatus.

Once did Christ, true God and true Man, hang upon the cross, and offer himself to the Father, as an effectual victim of redemption; yet is he ever invisibly present in the mystery, not suffering, but represented as suffering.

Dominus Jesus Christus sine vulnere quotidie sacrificatus, mortalibus in terra præstitit cœlesti fungi ministerio.

The Lord Jesus Christ, who is daily sacrificed, but without a wound, grants to mortals on earth to fulfil a heavenly ministry.

Hæc igitur singularis victima Christi mortis est recordatio, scelerum nostrorum expurgatio, cunctorum fidelium devotio, et æternæ vitæ adeptio.

This incomparable Victim is, then, the remembrance of Christ's death, the cleansing away of our crimes, the devotion of all the faithful, and the pledge of life eternal.

TUESDAY AFTER TRINITY SUNDAY

The history of the blessed Eucharist is one with that of the Church herself: the liturgical usages, which have varied in the celebration of the most august of all the Sacraments, have followed the great social phases of the Christian world. This was a necessity; for the Eucharist is the vital centre, here below, whither everything in the Church converges; it is the inner bond which unites together that society of which Christ is the Head, the society whereby He is to reign over the nations, which are to be His inheritance.¹ Union with Peter, the Vicar of Christ, must always be the indispensable condition, the external mark, of the union of the members with the invisible Head; but supported, in an ineffable manner, on the rock which bears the Church, the divine mystery

¹ Ps. ii. 8.

wherein Christ gives Himself to each one of His servants must ever be the essential mystery of union; and, as such, the centre, and the bond, of the great Catholic communion. Let us, to-day, get a clear notion of this fundamental truth, on which was based the very formation of the Church, at her commencement; and let us consider the influence it exercised on the forms of eucharistic worship during the first twelve centuries. To-morrow, we will continue the subject, by examining how subsequent loss of fervour, and heresy, and social degeneracy, induced the Church to gradually modify these forms, which, after all, are but accidental: they were admirably adapted to the favoured times they had served, but would scarcely suit the changed circumstances and requirements of later generations of the Church's children.

It was on the eve of His Passion that our Lord instituted the great Memorial, which was to perpetuate, in all places, the one Sacrifice, whereby are perfected for ever they that are sanctified.¹ The cross was 'the altar of the world,' as St. Leo calls it;² and on that cross, says the same holy Doctor, was made, a few hours after the last Supper, 'the oblation of the whole human nature; for the whole human race was united with this last act of infinite adoration and reparation, offered by its Head, to the supreme Majesty of God.'³ The Church, issuing with the Blood and water from the side of her Saviour, was then but in her infancy; and the mystery of divine union—which Jesus had come upon the earth to produce, by Himself uniting to the Father, in the Holy Ghost, the members of His mystical body— was to have its immediate realization in those members only by its successive application to each. This was the object of the sublime institution of the

¹ Heb. x. 14. ² Serm. viii. de Pass. ³ Ibid. iv. de Pass.

Eucharist at the last Supper. It was a new Testament, which gave to the future Church the possession of the mystery, whereby each generation would be linked on to its predecessors by the unity of the one Sacrifice, and would find in that same unity the mutual bond of its members.

Immediately after instituting this new Passover, Jesus said to His disciples: 'A new commandment I give unto you: that ye love one another, as I have loved you: and, by this shall all men know that ye are My disciples.'¹ This was Jesus' first injunction to His disciples after giving Himself to them in the Eucharist; this love of, and union with, each other, was to be the mark of the Covenant, which He then, through His apostles, contracted with all those who were to believe in Him through the word of their preaching.² His very first prayer, after that first giving of His Body and Blood under the eucharistic species, is for that same union of His faithful ones with one another; a union admirable as is the mystery which produces and maintains it; a union so intimate, that its model is the union existing between Jesus and His eternal Father: May they all be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee; that they may be made perfect in one.³

Under the direction of the holy Spirit, the Church understood, from the very first, the intentions of her divine Master. The three thousand, who were converted on the day of Pentecost, are described, in the Acts, as persevering in the doctrine of the apostles, in the communication of the breaking of bread, and in prayers.⁴ And so great is the power of union derived from their all partaking of the heavenly Bread, that they were remarked by the Jews as

¹ St. John xiii. 34, 35. ² Ibid. xvii. 20.
³ Ibid. 21-23. ⁴ Acts ii. 42.

a class of men forming a society distinct from every other, which won the esteem of all that beheld them, and drew others daily to join them.¹

A few years later the Church, led on by the same holy Spirit, passed beyond the narrow limits of Judea, and carried her treasures to the Gentiles. It was a world of corruption, where all was discord between man and man, and where the only remedy for the outrages of individual egotism was the tyranny of a Cæsar. Into such a world the Christians
came, and showed it, from east to west, the marvel of a new people, which, by the sole influence of its virtues, recruited its members from every class of society, and from every clime, and was stronger and more united than any nation that had ever appeared on earth. The pagans were in admiration at this strange and inexplicable novelty; without knowing what they were doing, without troubling themselves with any further inquiry, they bore testimony to the perfection wherewith these Christians fulfilled the dying wishes of their Founder; they thus spoke of them: 'See how they love one another!'

It was, indeed, a mystery; but the faithful, the initiated, understood it;¹ for it had been thus explained to them by the apostle: 'We, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one Bread.'²

This text is admirably commented by St. Augustine in a sermon he preached to the neophytes, a few hours after their Baptism:³ 'I remember,' he says, 'the promise I made, of explaining to you, who have been baptized, the mystery of the Lord's Table, which you now see, and of which you were made partakers in the night just past. . . That Bread which you see on the altar, that Bread which has been sanctified by the word of God, is the Body of Christ: that chalice, or, rather, what that chalice contains, which has been sanctified by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ. By these did Christ our Lord will to give us His Body and His Blood, which He shed for us, unto the remission of our sins. If you have properly received them, you are what you have received, for the apostle says: "We, being many, are one bread, one body." It is thus that he expounded the Sacrament of the Table of the Lord: We, being many, are one bread, one body. We are, by this Bread, instructed how we are to love unity. Was this Bread made out of one grain? Were there not many grains of wheat? But, before they came to be bread, they were separated one from the other; they became joined by means of water, and by a certain bruising: for, unless the wheat be ground, and be moistened with water, it could never take the form we call bread. It was the same with you, until you were, so to say, ground by the humiliation of fasting, and by the sacrament of exorcism. Baptism and water came to you; you were moistened, that so you might come to the state of bread. But, even so, there is no bread without fire. What, then, does fire signify? It is the chrism; for the oil which makes our fire is the Sacrament of the Holy Ghost. . . The Holy Ghost, therefore, comes; after water, comes fire; and you are made Bread, which is the Body of Christ. . . Christ willed that we should be His Sacrifice—the Sacrifice of God. . . Great, very great are these mysteries! . . Do you so receive them, as to take care that you have unity in your hearts! Be one, by loving one another, by holding one faith, one hope, and undivided charity. When the heretics receive this Bread, they receive testimony against themselves; for they are seeking to make division, whereas this Bread is the sign of unity.'⁴ The Scripture, speaking of the first Christians, says that they had but one heart and one soul;⁵ and it is the unity which is signified by the wine in the holy mysteries. 'For,' continues St. Augustine, 'the wine was once in so many bunches of grapes; but now it is all one, one in the sweetness of the chalice; for it has gone through the crushing of the wine-press. So you, after those fastings, and labours, and humility, and contrition, have come, in the name of Christ, to the chalice of the Lord; and you are there on that table, and there in that chalice. You are there together with us, for we have eaten together, and drunk together, and that because we live together.'⁶ Thus did Christ our Lord (by the wine made one out of many grapes) signify us, and He wished us to be one with Him, and, by His Table, consecrated the mystery of our peace and unity.⁷

These admirable expressions of St. Augustine are but the substance of the doctrine regarding the holy Eucharist, held by the Church in the fourth century. They give us the very essence of that doctrine, in all its fulness and in all the clearness of its literal truth; no other could have been given to neophytes, who, up to that time, had been kept in complete ignorance of the august mysteries, of which they were henceforth to partake. Of the discipline of that secrecy we shall have to speak a little further on. The doctrine of the Eucharist here laid down by the great bishop of Hippo, is identical with that given by all the fathers. In Gaul, St. Hilary of Poitiers,⁸ and Saint Cæsarius of Arles;⁹ in Italy, Saint Gaudentius of Brescia;¹⁰ at Antioch and Constantinople, St. John Chrysostom;¹¹ at Alexandria, St. Cyril:¹² all had the same way of putting this dogma of faith before their people. Christ is not divided: the Head and the members, the Word and His Church are inseparably one in the unity of the mystery instituted for the very purpose of producing that unity. And this unanimous teaching of the fathers, who lived in the golden age of Christian eloquence, was reproduced by Paschasius Radbert, in the ninth century,¹³ by Rupert in the twelfth,¹⁴ and by William of Auvergne in the beginning of the thirteenth.¹⁵

It would be too long to give the names, and still more to quote passages, in testimony of how all the Churches, for the first twelve centuries, looked upon the holy Eucharist in this same way, that is, as instituted for the purpose of union. If we follow this traditional teaching back to the apostolic source whence it originated, we shall find St. Cyprian, in the age of persecution, speaking to his people upon the union between the divine Head and His members, which is the necessary result of the holy Sacrament; he shows this, not only by the nature of bread and wine, the essential elements for the consecration of the mysteries, but likewise by the mingling of water with the wine in the eucharistic cup: the water, he says, signifies the faithful people; the wine denotes the Blood of Christ; their union in the chalice—union necessary for the integrity of the Sacrifice, union the most complete and inseparable—expresses the indissoluble alliance between Christ and His Church, which consummates the Sacrament.¹⁶ The same St. Cyprian shows that the unity of the Church by the Chair of Peter, which is the subject of one of his finest treatises, is divinely established on the sacred mysteries; he speaks enthusiastically of the multitude of believers, the 'Christian unanimity' being held together, in the bonds of a firm and indivisible charity, by the Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.¹⁷ Christ in His Sacrament, and Christ in His Vicar, is, in reality, but the one same Rock that bears the building which is erected upon it; the one sole Head, visible in His representative, His Vicar, and invisible in His own substance in the Sacrament.

This sentiment of union, as the result of the Eucharist, was rooted in the soul of the early Church; her very mission was to bring about the union of all the children of God, that were dispersed throughout the world;¹⁸ and when the violence of her enemies obliged her to provide her children with some secret sign, whereby they might recognize each other, and not be recognized by pagans or persecutors or blasphemers, she gave them the mysterious ICHTHUS, the FISH, which was the sacred symbol of the Eucharist. The letters which form the Greek word for fish (ichthus) are the initials of a formula in the same language, which gives this sentence: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. The fish is shown to us in the Book of Tobias¹⁹ as a figure of Christ, who is the food of the wayfarer, casts out the devil by His virtues, and gives light to the world grown old in iniquity. Again: it is not without a prophetic and mysterious purpose, that the fish is mentioned in Genesis, as being blessed by the Creator, at the commencement of the world, just as man himself was.²⁰ It is found with the bread miraculously multiplied in the Gospel, when our Lord prefigures the marvels of the Eucharist. It is brought again to our notice, after the Resurrection; it is found lying on hot coals, and is offered by Jesus, together with bread, as a repast to seven of His disciples, on the banks of lake Tiberias.²¹ Now, what is this fish, this bread? The fathers answer: Christ is the Bread of that mysterious repast; He is the Fish taken from the living water, and is roasted on the altar of the cross by the fire of His love, and feeds the disciples on His own substance, and offers Himself to the entire world as the true ICHTHUS!²² No wonder, then, that we find this sacred sign on almost everything that the Christians of the first three centuries possessed; on precious stones, rings, lamps, inscriptions, paintings, there was the fish, in some shape or other. It was the watchword, the tessera of the Christians, in those days of persecution. An inscription of the second century, discovered in modern times at Autun, thus speaks of the Christians: 'This divine race of the heavenly ICHTHUS, this noble-hearted race, receive from the Saviour of the saints the nourishment which is sweet as honey, and drink long draughts of the divine fount, holding ICHTHUS in their hands.'²³ A holy bishop of Asia Minor of that same early period, by name Abercius of Hierapolis, who was divinely led into various lands, everywhere recognizes the disciples of Christ by the holy fish, which makes all, however separated by distance, to be one. 'I have,' says he, shortly before the close of his life of travel, 'I have seen Rome: I have beheld the queen city, in her robes and sandals of gold; I have made acquaintance with the people decked with bright rings. I have visited the country of Syria, and all her cities. Passing the Euphrates, I have seen Nisibis; and all people in the east were in union with me, for we all formed but one body; everywhere, faith presented to all, and gave as nourishment to all, the glorious and holy ICHTHUS, which came from the only fount, and was taken by the most pure Virgin.'²⁴

This, then, was the bond of that mighty union between Christians, which was such a puzzle to the pagan world; and the more the real cause of that unity was kept concealed from its eyes, so much the more violent was the fury wherewith it attacked the Church. Our Lord had said: 'Give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine.'²⁵ These words contained, in principle, the discipline of secrecy, which was observed in the Church till the conversion of the western world was completed. The holiness of the Sacraments, the sublimity of the Christian doctrines, necessitated an extreme reserve on the part of the faithful, living amongst people whose moral degradation and brutal corruption were such as our Saviour had foretold. But it was most of all imperative to hide from the stare and sacrilege of pagans the most holy Eucharist, that 'great pearl of the sacred Body of the Lamb,' as Venantius Fortunatus calls it.²⁶ Hence the Christian assemblies, when they met for divine worship, were divided into two classes, the initiated and the uninitiated, i.e. the faithful and the catechumens. The distinction began with the apostolic age, and was kept up till the eighth century. A few weeks before the solemn administration of Baptism, there took place, as we have elsewhere explained,²⁷ the giving, or as it was termed, the tradition, of the Symbol, to the future members of the Church; but the eucharistic mystery, the arcanum by excellence, was, even then, kept back from the fortunate candidates for holy Baptism. This explains the varied precautional expressions, the reticence, the studied obscurity of phraseology, used by the fathers in their discourses to their flock, and this for years after the times of Constantine and Theodosius. The catechumens were admitted while the holy Scriptures were being read, or while the Psalms were being chanted; but as soon as the bishop had given his discourse on the portion which had been read, either of the Gospel or other passages of the sacred Volume, these catechumens were dismissed by the deacon; and this missa, or missio, gave its name to that first portion of the liturgy; it was called the Mass of the catechumens; just as the second part, from the oblation to the final dismissal, was called the Mass of the faithful.

And yet, though holy mother Church kept so jealous an eye on her treasure as not to let it be fully known except to her true children, made such by Baptism, with what delight did she, at the feasts of Easter and Pentecost, reveal to her new-born children, as soon as they came from the font, the ineffable secret hitherto kept in her heart as bride, the full mystery of the ICHTHUS! Having incorporated them into Christ by the saving waters, enrolled them in His army, and marked them with the sign of His soldiers by the anointing conferred by the bishop, with what maternal fondness did she lead them, from the laver first, and then from the chrismarium, to the hallowed precinct of the mysteries instituted by the Word Incarnate! There Jesus, their Head, was awaiting His new members, that He might draw all the more closely the bonds which already knit them to His mystic body, and unite them to Himself in the infinite homage of that one great Sacrifice, which He Himself was offering to the eternal Father,

¹ Acts ii. 47. ² 1 Cor. x. 17. ³ Serm. ccxxvii. In die Paschæ. Ad Infantes, de Sacramentis. ⁴ Serm. ccxxix. Fer. ii. Paschæ, de Sacramentis fidelium. ⁵ Acts iv. 32. ⁶ Serm. ccxxix. ⁷ Ibid. cclxxii. In die Pentecost. Ad Infantes, de Sacramentis. ⁸ Lib. viii. de Trinit. ⁹ Hom. vii. ¹⁰ Serm. ii. ad Neoph. ¹¹ In ep. i. ad Cor. Hom. xxiv. ¹² Lib. x. in Johan. ¹³ De corp. et sang. Domini, cap. x. ¹⁴ De div. Off., lib. ii., c. 2. ¹⁵ De Sacrament. Euchar., cap. iv. ¹⁶ Ep. lxiii. ¹⁷ Ep. lxxvi. ¹⁸ St. John xi. 52. ¹⁹ Tob. vi. ²⁰ Gen. i. 22, 28. ²¹ St. John xxi. 9. ²² St. Paulin. Ep. xiii; St. Aug. Confess. xiii. 23; St. Ambr. Hymn. Pasch.; Prosp. African. De promission. ²³ Inscript. Augustod. Spicileg. Solesm. i. ²⁴ Titul. Abercii. Spicileg. Solesm. iii. ²⁵ St. Matt. vii. 6. ²⁶ Venant. Fortun. lib. ii. carm. 25. ²⁷ Volume for Lent; Wednesday of the fourth week.

This wondrous unity of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which included in one oblation both Head and members; this unity of Sacrifice, which kept alive and strengthened the union of each Christian community and of the whole Church, was admirably expressed by the magnificent forms of the primitive liturgy. After the catechumens had been dismissed and the unworthy expelled, all the faithful, without exception, from the emperor and his court down to the poorest cottager whether man or woman, advanced towards the altar, each one offering his share of bread and wine for the sacred mysteries. Themselves a kingly priesthood, as St. Peter calls them,¹ a living victim figured by the gifts they brought, they assisted, standing, at the immolation of the divine Victim, whose members they truly were; then united in the kiss of peace, the external sign of their union of heart, they received in their hands, and still standing, the sacred Body, their spiritual nourishment; the deacons offered them the chalice, and they drank of the precious Blood. Even babes in their mothers' arms were eager for the divine drink, and received some drops, at least, into their innocent mouths. The sick, who could not leave their rooms, and prisoners, were not deprived of being united with their brethren in the sacred banquet; they received the precious Gifts at the hands of ministers, who were sent to them for the purpose by the bishop. The anchorets in their deserts, Christians living in the country, and all such as could not be present at the next assembly, took the Body of our Lord with them, that thus they might not, because of distance, be deprived of uniting in the coming celebration of the mysteries of salvation. Those were ages when unity was continually being attacked by persecution, schism, and heresy, all three at once; and the Church, to counteract the danger, had no hesitation in facilitating, by every lawful means, the use and application of the venerable Sacrament, which is the sign of unity, and the innermost centre, and the strongest tie, of the Christian community.

¹ 1 St. Pet. ii. 9.

It was from the same principle of unity, that, although there were generally several churches or centres in each city for the assemblies of the faithful, and a greater or less number of clergy, yet all the faithful and clergy came together for the collect or synaxis, into some one place, fixed upon by the bishop. 'Where the bishop shall show himself,' says St. Ignatius of Antioch, 'there let the multitude be; just as, where Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful, either to baptize, or to celebrate the agape (the Eucharist) without the bishop.¹ Do all of you assemble, for prayer, in the one same place; let there be unity of common prayer, unity of mind, unity of hope. . . Do all of you come together, as though you were one man, into the temple of God, as to one altar, as to one Christ Jesus, the great high-priest of the unborn God. Let us enjoy the one Eucharist; for one is the Flesh of our Lord Jesus, and one His Blood which was shed for us; one also is the Bread which was broken to us all, and one the Cup which was distributed to all; one altar to the whole Church, and one bishop surrounded by the presbyterium and the deacons.'²

The presbyterium was the college of priests of each city; they kept near the bishop, were his council, and celebrated the sacred functions together with him. It would seem that, at the beginning, they were twelve in number, the more closely to represent the apostles; but in the great cities that number was soon doubled. We find that, towards the close of the first century, there were, in Rome, five and twenty priests, who were respectively set over twenty-five titles, that is, churches, of the metropolis. The pontiff took first one, and then another, of these titles, for the celebration of the mysteries. The twenty-four priests of the other titles united with the pontiff in the solemnity of one and the same Sacrifice, and concelebrated at one and the same altar. In their respective places, the seven deacons, and all the inferior clerics, each according to his rank, co-operated in the thrice holy mysteries. We have already seen the active part taken in the same by the faithful people.

¹ Ad Smyrn. vii. — ² Ad Magnes. vii. Ad Philadelph. iv.

It was the very time when the eagle of Patmos, St. John the Evangelist, was being favoured with his inspiration and vision of the gorgeous ritual of heaven. He beheld the Lamb that was slain, yet standing in the midst of the four and twenty Elders who were seated on thrones encircling the throne of God, which is also the throne of the eternal High Priest. Clad in white garments, and wearing golden crowns, these four and twenty Elders held harps in their hands, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. Then came the seven spirits, who were before the throne of God, like so many burning lamps; and then, thousands of thousands of angels, who were round about the throne, singing praise to the Sacrifice and triumph of the Lamb; and then, every creature, which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, all cried out, giving benediction, and honour, and glory, and power, to Him that liveth for ever and ever.¹ This admirable vision represented the fullness and unity of the Sacrifice, which was offered once, but to last for ever, and was offered by Him who is the Head of all created beings. The Church on earth, the exiled bride of Jesus, did her best, when offering that same Sacrifice, to repeat the sublime ritual of heaven. And as in heaven the divine Lamb, the eternal High Priest, drew after Him the celestial hierarchy, so likewise on earth all the Churches came round the officiating pontiff, and united with him in the holy Sacrifice, each one according to the sacred Order he held.

¹ Apoc. iv, v.

It was impossible for the universal Church, subject as she is to the conditions of place and time, to meet here below at one altar; but the unity of the Sacrifice, which was everywhere offered, was, like the unity of the Church herself, expressed by the mutual transmission, between the various bishops, of the sacred Species that had been consecrated by them; and these, each one put into the chalice from which he received the precious Blood. St. Irenæus,¹ who lived in the second century, tells us that the supreme hierarch, the Pontiff of Rome, used to send these sacred gifts, not only to Churches in the west, but even into Asia, as emblems of the unity existing between the Churches there, and the Church, the mistress and mother of all others. So, too, when the number of the faithful became so great as to induce the Church to allow individual priests to celebrate the holy mysteries privately, the priests of the town where a bishop resided never thought of exercising this isolated function, until they had received from the bishop a fragment of the Bread he had consecrated, and which they mingled with their own Sacrifice. It was the fermentum, the sacred leaven of Catholic communion.

¹ Ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. 14.

As an appropriate conclusion to the above subject, we append the following beautiful liturgical formula taken from the Apostolic Constitutions, a writing admitted by critics to have been completed in the third century.

THANKSGIVING FOR THE MYSTERIES¹

Gratias agimus tibi, Pater noster, pro vita quam manifestasti nobis per Jesum Filium tuum; per quem tum omnia creasti, tum universis provides; quem et misisti, ut ad salutem nostram homo fieret; quem etiam permisisti pati et mori; quem et resuscitans glorificare voluisti, et sedere fecisti ad dexteram tuam; per quem et promisisti nobis resurrectionem mortuorum.

We give thanks unto thee, O Father, for the life thou hast manifested unto us by thy Son Jesus; by whom thou hast both created all things, and providest for all; whom thou also sendedst, that, for our salvation, he might be made Man; whom thou also permittedst to suffer and to die; whom also, raising him up again, thou willedst to glorify, and madest him to sit at thy right hand; by whom also thou didst promise us the resurrection of the dead.

Tu, Domine omnipotens, Deus æterne: quemadmodum hoc erat dispersum, et quum fuit congregatum, factum est unus panis, ita congrega Ecclesiam tuam a finibus terræ in regnum tuum.

O almighty Lord, eternal God! as this (element), which was once disunited, being united hath become one Bread, so do thou assemble together thy Church from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom.

Adhuc gratias agimus, Pater noster, pro pretioso sanguine Jesu Christi effuso nostra causa: et pro pretioso corpore: cujus et hæc antitypa celebramus, quum ipse nobis constituerit mortem illius annuntiare: per ipsum enim tibi gloria in sæcula.

We also give thanks to thee, our Father, for the precious Blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed for our sake; and for his precious Body; of which we are now celebrating the antitypes (the mysteries); for he himself did appoint that we should announce his death; for, by him, is glory (given) to thee for ever.

Amen.

¹ Lib. vii. cap. 26.

WEDNESDAY AFTER TRINITY SUNDAY

We have not, as yet, reached the feast of the divine Memorial; not until the morrow, shall we have it in all its splendour. But this evening, at first Vespers, the Church will begin her acclamations to the eternal Priest; and, although the sovereign Pontiffs have not ordained that a vigil, properly so called, shall precede the feast of Corpus Christi, yet have they granted indulgences¹ to a voluntary fast practised on this its eve. Let us now resume the history of the Church's worship of the great mystery.

We have already seen how the unity of the Church is based upon the Eucharist. Our Lord Jesus Christ, in that Sacrament, is the corner-stone, upon which rises, in the harmony of its several parts, the temple of living stones, built to the glory of God.² Jesus is the High Priest, ordained for men, Himself being Man, that He may present to God the homage of His brethren, by offering, to His and their Father, a Sacrifice in the name of all. And although this homage of regenerate mankind—this Sacrifice which is the highest expression of that homage—owes its whole worth to the infinite dignity of Him who is the Head of the Church, yet the Sacrifice is completed only by the union of the members with the Head. The Head must have the body. The Church is, as the apostle tells us, the fullness, the completion, of Him who is filled in all;³ the Church perfects the Sacrifice, as being herself an integral portion of the Victim who is offered upon the altar. What is true of the Church, is true, likewise, of each one of us, who are members of Christ; and we are really His members, provided we be united, in the great Action of the Sacrifice, by that intimate union which makes one body of many members.

¹ Two hundred days, for the fast, or for any other good work substituted for the same, at the discretion of the confessor.
² Eph. ii. 21.
³ Heb. v. 1.

Herein consists the social influence of the Eucharist. The human family had been broken up by sin; it regains its lost unity by the Blood of the Lamb; and the original intention, which God had in creating the world, is fulfilled. After all other beings, the creature man came forth out of nothing. He was to give a voice of praise to the whole of creation; for his own twofold nature, material and spiritual, made him the compendium of all other creatures. When he was restored by redemption, he regained his position in the glorious choir of beings. The Eucharist, the thanksgiving, the praise by excellence, is the sweet produce of the human race. The Eucharist, that grand hymn of divine Wisdom sung to the King of ages, ascends from this earth of ours, blending two harmonies into one: the ineffable harmony of the eternal Canticle, that is, the Word in the Father's bosom, and the harmony of the new canticle, which is repeated by the choir of creatures to the glory of their Creator.

¹ Eph. i. 22, 23.

The ages of faith lived on this grand truth; they thoroughly understood the priceless worth of the gift bestowed by the Man-God upon His Church. Appreciating the honour thence accruing to our earth, they felt themselves bound to respond to it, in the name of all creatures, by giving to the celebration of the sacred mystery everything that ritual could impart of grandeur and solemnity. The liturgy, for the Christians of those times, was exactly what is implied by the word: it was the public function, the social act by excellence; and, as such, it claimed every sort of external pomp; and the presence of the whole people round the altar was looked upon as a matter of course. As to the lawfulness of what are called private Masses, it would be easy to prove, by most authentic facts of history, that what the Catholic Church teaches regarding them, was her teaching from the very commencement; and yet, practically, and as a general rule, the richness of ceremonial, the enthusiasm of sacred chant, the magnificence of sacred rites, were, for a long period, regarded as inseparable from the offering up of the holy Sacrifice.

The solemnity of divine service, as celebrated in any Catholic cathedral on the grandest feast of the year, is but a feeble image of the magnificent forms of the ancient liturgies, such as we described them yesterday. The Church herself, whose desires for what is most perfect never vary, ever evinces a marked predilection for the remnants she has been able to keep up of her ancient forms of worship; but, as far as the generality of her people is concerned, there can be no doubt of the existence of a growing feeling of indifference for the external pomp wherewith the holy Sacrifice is so deservedly accompanied; whatever demonstrations of Christian piety still exist, are directed elsewhere. The cultus of the divine Presence in the Eucharist, as developed in these our own times, is certainly a blow to the heresy which

denies that Presence; it is, too, a joy to every Catholic who loves God; but care must be taken lest a movement which is so profitable to individual souls and so redounding to the glory of the holy Sacrament, should be turned, by the craft of the enemy, against the Eucharist itself. Now, this might easily be the case, if, in consequence of such devotion being ill-regulated, the very primary object of the eucharistic dogma, which is Sacrifice, were permitted to lose its place either in the appreciation, or in the practical religion, of the faithful.

In the admirable connexion existing throughout the whole body of Christian revelation, there can be no such thing as one dogma becoming a danger to another. Every new truth, or every truth presented under a new aspect, is a progress in the Church, and an acquisition for her children. But the progress is only then a true one, when, in its application, the new truth, or its new aspect, is not treated with such prominence as to throw a more important truth into the shade. Surely no family would ever count that gain of new property to be a boon, which would jeopardise or lessen the rich patrimony which past ages had secured. The principle is a self-evident one; and must be borne in mind, when studying the different phases of the history of any human society, and especially when the history of the Church is in question. Although the holy Spirit, who is ever urging the Church to what is highest, is incessantly adorning her for the eternal nuptials and decking her brow with a gradual increase of light, yet is it but too often the case, that the human element of which she partakes through her members makes its weight tell upon the bride of Christ. When that happens, she redoubles her maternal solicitude for these her children; they are too delicate to live on the summits, and bear the bracing atmospheres to which their forefathers were accustomed.

She herself continues her aspirations after what is most perfect, and approaches gradually nearer to heaven; but for the sake of her weakly children, she quits the mountain paths she loved to tread in better times, for those paths kept her closer to her divine Spouse; she comes lower down, she is content to lose something of her external charms, she stoops, that she may the better reach the children she has to save. This her condescension is admirable; but it certainly gives no right to the children, who live in these less healthy times, to think themselves better than their forefathers. Is a sick man better than the one who is in health, because the food, which is indispensable for keeping up the little strength he has, is given to him under new forms, and such as will suit his debilitated frame?

Because, in these our days, a certain increase of devotion towards the divine Host, who dwells in our tabernacles, has been observed in some souls, and the external demonstration of this devotion is under a new form, it has been asserted, that 'no age ever equalled our own in the *cultus* of the most holy Sacrament!' And because of this holy enthusiasm, the nineteenth century, which with its restless activity has opened out so many new methods of devotion, has been called by a certain writer 'the great age of the Eucharist!' Would to God these assertions were correct! For it is quite true, and history is rich in bearing testimony to the fact, 'that an age is more or less glorious, according to its devotion towards the adorable Eucharist.' But it is no less true that, if the different centuries be compared with each other for devotion towards the Sacrament of love, which, at all times, is the very life of the Church, there can be no doubt that that ought to be counted as the golden age, in which our Lord's intentions in instituting the divine mystery were the best understood and carried out, and not that wherein individual devotion was busiest.

Now, leaving aside, for the present, all principles connected with dogma, which will find their place more appropriately a few days later, we have history to bear witness to this fact, that, so long as the western nations kept up their faith and fervour, the Church, who is the faithful and sure interpreter of her Jesus' intentions, maintained the discipline observed in the worship practised towards the Eucharist during the early ages. After her twofold victory over the pagan persecutions and the obstinate dogmatism of the emperors of Byzantium, the Church, the noble depositary of the new Testament, was in possession of a freedom greater than she has had at any other period; her children, too, made it their perfection to follow her every wish. Thus free to act as she knew was best, and sure to be obeyed, she kept to the way of eucharistic worship which her martyrs had followed, and her doctors had so enthusiastically developed in their writings: that is, she took the energies of the new children she had received by the conversion of barbarian nations, and centred them in the Sacrifice, that is, in the holy fatigues of solemn Mass, and the Canonical Hours, which are but a natural irradiation of the Sacrifice.

Nothing in those times was more Catholic, nothing less individual and private, than the eucharistic worship thus based on the social character which pertains to the Sacrifice. It was the uppermost idea even in such of the faithful as, through sickness or other personal reasons, were obliged to communicate of the universal Victim separately from the rest of the people. It was the one leading thought which made them turn their hearts and their adorations towards the gilded dove, or the ivory tower, in which were reserved, under the mysterious integrity of the species, the precious remnants of the Sacrifice. Faith in the real presence, a faith quite as animated and deep as any that can be witnessed in our own times, was the soul of the whole liturgy; it was the basis of the entire system of the Church's rites and ceremonies, all of which are unmeaning if you take away the Catholic dogma of the Eucharist. This dogma was admitted by all the children of the Church as a principle beyond discussion; it was their dearest treasure; it was both foundation-stone and roofing of the house built amongst men by eternal Wisdom. To a superficial observer it might seem as though the faithful of those early ages were less intent upon it than we now are: but is it not always the case, that the rock which supports the edifice, and the timber which roofs it, call for less solicitude when the building is under no risk, either from the indifference of its inmates, or from the attacks of enemies outside?

The Church herself cannot grow decrepit; but it is a law in history, that, even within her fold, and in spite of the vitality she imparts to nations, no society ever maintains itself long at its highest pitch of perfection. Men are like stars in this, that their apogee marks the period of their decline; they seem to mount on high only that they may speedily descend: and, after the fullest vigour of age, we gradually approach the impotency of the old man. So it was to be with Christendom itself, with that grand confederation which had been established, by the Church, in the strong unity of unfeigned charity, and of faith untainted by error. The Crusades were, for a second time, rousing the world to holy enterprise; the preaching of St. Bernard was stirring mankind to zeal for the cause of God. The impulse was so immense, that it seemed as though the event marked the culminating point of Christ's reign upon earth, and secured perpetuity to the power of the Church. And yet, that was the very period when old signs of decay returned, and with fresh intensity. The heroic Pontiff, St. Gregory VII., had stemmed the evil for a considerable time; but, at the period we speak of, a relapse set in, and advanced with its work of ravage, till it brought about the great revolt of the fifteenth century, and the general apostasy of nations.

The celebrated prophetess of the middle ages, Saint Hildegard, was then scanning, with her eagle eye, the miseries of her own day, and the still more sombre threatenings of the future. She that was used to write the messages of God to Pontiffs and kings, penned these words in a letter to Werner and his brother priests of Kircheim, who had written to Hildegard, and solicited her reply: 'It was while lying for a long time on a bed of sickness, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and seventy, that I saw, wakeful both in body and mind, a most beautiful image, having a woman's appearance: she was all perfect in her suavity, and most dear in the charms of her beauty, which was such, as that the human mind could in no wise comprehend it. Her stature was so great, that it reached from earth even up to heaven. Her face, too, beamed with exceeding brightness, and her eye was fixed on heaven. She was clad in a spotless garment, made of white silk. The mantle which covered her, was adorned with most precious stones, of emerald, sapphire, and likewise of beads and pearls. The shoes on her feet were of onyx. But her face was covered with dust, and her garment was rent on the right side, and her mantle had lost its elegant beauty, and her shoes were dimmed. And she with a loud and plaintive voice, cried out towards the high heavens: "Hearken, O heaven, that my face is defiled! And wail, O earth, that my garment is rent! And thou, O abyss, tremble, because my shoes are dimmed! Foxes have holes, and birds of the air nests;¹ but I have not helper or comforter, nor staff whereon to lean, and whereby to have support. . . . They that should have adorned me in every way, have, in all these things, abandoned me. For it is they that besmear my face, by dragging the Body and Blood of my Spouse into the great uncleanness of the impurity of their living, and the great filth of their fornications and adulteries; and by buying and selling holy things, defiling them, as a child would be defiled were he put down in mire before swine. . . The wounds of Christ my Spouse are contaminated. . . . Princes and a headlong people will rush upon you, O priests! They will cast you forth, and put you to flight, and will take your riches away from you. . . They will say: Let us cast out from the Church these adulterers, and extortioners, and men that are full of all wickedness! And in doing this they will have it that they do a service unto God, because they say that it is by you that the Church is defiled. . . By God's permission, many nations will begin to rage against you in their judgments, and many people will devise vain things concerning you, for they will count as nought your priestly office and your consecration. Kings of the earth will assist these in your overthrow, and they will thirst after the earthly things (you possess); and the princes in whose dominions you live, shall make a convention in this one plan, that they may drive you out of their territories, because you, by your most wicked deeds, have driven away the innocent Lamb from your midst." And I heard a voice from heaven, saying: "This image is the Church!"'

¹ St. Matt. viii. 20.

What a fearful description of the evils brought upon the Church in the twelfth century! What a prophecy of its far off results! These miseries were in keeping with the way in which the august mystery of the altar was treated. It has always been so. The disorders of the sanctuary necessarily brought about relaxation in the people. They grew wearied of receiving the heavenly food from hands that were, but too often, unworthy ones. The guests at the banquet of divine Wisdom became rare, so rare indeed that, in the year 1215 a General Council, the fourth of Lateran, passed the well-known law which obliges, under the severest penalties, the faithful of both sexes to receive Communion at least once in the year. The evil became so great, that the legislation of Councils and the genius of Innocent III, the last of the great Popes of the middle ages, would not have sufficed to arrest it, had not God given to His Church the two Saints, Dominic and Francis; they reclaimed the priesthood, and, for a time, brought back the people to the practice of Christian piety. But the ancient forms of the liturgy had perished during the interval of the crisis.

The oblation in common, which supposed that all communicated in the divine Victim, had given place to private foundations, and to honoraries or *stipendium*; in themselves, they were quite lawful, but they had been so considerably increased by the introduction of the mendicant Orders, that a change in the liturgy was the consequence. Private Masses, for special intentions, were multiplied, in order to satisfy obligations which had been contracted with individual donors; and, by a necessary consequence, the imposing rite of concelebration, maintained in Rome till the thirteenth century, entirely disappeared in the western Church. The Sacrifice of the Mass was no longer brought before the faithful with the majestic ceremonial which, in former times, had secured to it a preponderance over the whole religion and life of the Christian people. The holy Eucharist soon began to be given out of the time of Mass, and for reasons which were not always serious ones. More than one scholastic theologian encouraged the practice, if not with true learning, at least with sharp definitions and categorical divisions; so that Communion became, in the minds of some men, quite a distinct section in the institution of the Eucharist. This was the forerunner of what we so often find practised in our own times: Communions made isolatedly and furtively on principle, that is, in accordance with an ideal of spirituality, which has a dread of a crowd, and a repugnance to the excitement of the Church's ceremonies!

The notion, then, of the Sacrifice, which includes the chief motive of the Presence of the Incarnate Word in the Eucharist, was no longer brought before the people with the emphatic pre-eminence of former ages. As a counter result of this, the truth of this Presence of our God under the eucharistic Species gained an ascendancy over the soul in a more exclusive, and therefore in a more impressive and direct, way. It was at this period that, out of a spirit of holy fear and from a feeling of respect—a feeling which can never be too great—several ancient usages began to be discontinued. Usages which had been established in order to express more fully the application of the Sacrifice, were now suppressed as exposing the sacred Species to involuntary irreverence. It is thus that the custom of giving the chalice to the laity, and communion to infants, fell into disuse.

An immense ritual change, then, was brought about. The Church accepted it, although she was aware of its being, in more than one point, a degeneracy as compared with former ages. The time had come, when the grand social forms of the liturgy, requiring as they did the strong union of Christian nations for their realisation, would be but unrealities. The jealous mistrust of States against the Church—that is, against the power which was the sole bond of mutual union between the several nations—was ever on the increase, and only waited for an occasion to break out into open hostility. Diplomacy became a system of rupture between one country and another, whereas the Church had been the framer and maintainer of their union.

If the evil from within was thus great, still greater were the dangers to which the faithful were exposed by the onslaughts of heresy. And yet, it is precisely in such a time as this, that the superhuman prudence of the Church is most manifested. In defence of the faith, which is the essential element of her existence here below, she formed a rampart out of the very ruins caused by the liturgical revolution she had been compelled to accept; she sanctioned with her authority what was worthy of sanction, and thereby controlled the movement. She took advantage of the increase of devotion to the real Presence, which the movement had excited; she gave a fresh direction to her liturgy, by substituting a ceaseless expression of the dogma, for the less precise, though not less complete and far grander, forms of the earlier period. It was a reply to him all the stronger because of its being more direct. We have already seen how, in consequence of the covert attacks of false doctrine, there was an evident reason felt in the thirteenth century for instituting a special feast in honour of the Eucharist, as the mystery of faith. That reason became sheer necessity at the approach, foreseen by God alone, of the bold triumph of the sacramentarian heresy. It was necessary to forestall the attack; and, by so doing, to render the coming assault less hurtful to the Christian world, and less injurious to our Lord present in the Sacrament of His love. The means for efficaciously realizing these two ends was the development of exterior devotion to the real Presence. The Church would thus proclaim her unshaken faith in the dogma, and the adorable Sacrament would receive, by the renewed fervour of faithful souls, a compensation for the indifference and insults of others.

Established throughout the world by the authority of the Roman Pontiffs, the feast of Corpus Christi was, therefore, both in itself and in its developments, as we were observing yesterday, the commencement of a new phase in the Catholic worship of the holy Eucharist. Once the feast was instituted, there followed processions, benediction, Forty-Hours, expositions, watchings in adoration; each of which was an additional affirmation of the Church's belief in the real Presence; the piety of her children was re-enkindled; and the tribute of homage, which is so justly His due, was offered to our Lord under the sacramental Species.

O holy Church, our mother, thou bride of the Son of God, those times are past when thou couldst reproduce on this earth a likeness to the heavenly Jerusalem. Free to follow the inspirations of thy heart as bride, thou didst surround the great Sacrifice with the gorgeous ceremonial, which gave our ancestors an insight into the grandeurs of the mystery they saw thus celebrated. That royal magnificence of ritual would be too much for such times as these we live in. The nations of the earth have allowed themselves to be misled: for the glory they once enjoyed, when thou gavest them unity with each other through the unity of the sacred mysteries, is now exchanged for the dishonour and misery of alliance with the old enemy. Whilst thou, with nothing to fear, and strong in the consciousness of thy rights and thy influence for good, wast beautifying, in peace, the garden of thy Spouse; whilst thou wast rejoicing in the sweet fragrance of that garden, and in the fruits of the mystic vine: a strange noise was heard, the noise of 'the chariots of Aminadab',¹ driven by the hands of thine own children turned traitors. It would have been but a just punishment, hadst thou then left this ungrateful earth, and gone to thy divine Spouse in heaven above. But, O loving 'Sulamitess', with all this increase of the evils of thine exile, thou gavest ear to the cries of them who willed to be ever thy faithful children; and thou remainedst for us, dear mother, that we might receive thy teachings, and thence derive light and life.

We know it: instead of the peaceful grandeurs which thou, beautiful queen, didst once display when thy sovereignty was undisputed; instead of choirs of exultation and triumph resounding in thy courts, we are to see thee, henceforth, as a warrior, and thy hymns are to be the songs of the camp; but how beautiful are thy steps, in the armour of thy pilgrimage, O thou daughter of the King!² 'Thou art terrible as an army set in array; but thou art, too, all sweet and comely, when, laying aside the robe of gold and all the richly varied clothing which decked thee standing at the right hand of the King's throne, thou girdest thyself, like Him, with the sword, and piercest the hearts of His enemies with the arrows of thy truth and zeal.'³

¹ Cant. vi. 11, 12.
² Ibid. vii. 1, 2.
³ Ps. xliv. 6.

Turning our thoughts, for a moment, to the Greek Church, how different is the spectacle! She is motionless and sterile as a branch severed from the trunk. She retains, like so many withered leaves, the ancient forms of her liturgy, which has indeed an imposing unity, but it is the unity of schism. The very heresy, which here, in our own country, celebrates its unmeaning Supper in the cathedrals built by our forefathers, is it more out of place than the lifeless schism of the east, so scrupulously keeping up the ancient forms which are its condemnation, and making a parade of vestments which sit so awkwardly on rebels? What life can the members of such a Church derive from these dead forms of worship?

She alone is mother who knows how to meet the wants of her children, for her affection tells her not to give to delicate ones the food that suits the strong. She alone is the bride of the Lamb, who has the instinctive talent of making, in each period of time, the most of the treasure of her Spouse, the priceless Pearl He has committed to her care; and to this end she hesitates not to modify, if need be, her dearest practices, her most cherished schemes for good; yea, and changes the delights and grandeurs of her queenly supremacy for the hard work of battling with the enemy of her Lord.

We recognize thee, O bride of Christ, by this mark, that thou now lispest with us who are weak, thou who heretofore, didst sing so divinely with the strong; and that thou, who so long enjoyedst the peace and company of thy Spouse, art as ready and as powerful to meet and vanquish His enemies, now that they are filling His world. Thus struggling, thus labouring, and yet misunderstood and blamed by an ever-increasing number of ungrateful children, thou wilt not abandon them; thou remainest, that thou mayst carry to the last of the elect the sacred Host which is to unite him with the great Sacrifice. Affectionate and generous mother! we will follow thee in thy militant career; through the laborious passes of the steep road which leads thee to thy eternal rest; we will follow thee because thou bearest with thee the treasure of the world. The bolder the attacks of heresy, and the more insulting the neglect or blasphemies of ungrateful children, the louder shall be the profession of our faith, the humbler our adorations, the warmer and truer the demonstrations of our love towards the sacred Host.

FIRST VESPERS OF THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI

We have, at last, reached the great feast which, since Monday, has kept our minds attentive. Our earth is preparing to acknowledge, by the homage of a solemn triumph, the presence of Christ, its Priest and King, in the sacred Host. Everywhere are the faithful busy preparing the triumph which is to be given to it to-morrow. These preparations are inspired by faith and love; and whilst they are progressing, the Church is ushering in the great feast by the celebration of first Vespers. Tuning her harp to the sublime antiphons of the angelic Doctor, St. Thomas, she proclaims, in a chant which is worthy of the words, that her Jesus is the eternal Priest according to the order of Melchisedech, and that the divine banquet He has prepared brings the children of the Church around the table of the Lord, like so many young olive plants.

The limits we have been obliged to observe in this work, would require us to exclude all those portions of the Office for the present feast, at which the faithful generally do not assist. But as this Office, which was composed by St. Thomas of Aquin, is one of exceptional beauty, we have resolved to give it in its entirety. The magnificence of these hymns, and psalms, and antiphons, and responsories—all of which are teeming with genuine Catholic spirit—will furnish the faithful with the best materials for contemplation, whereby to enlighten their minds and inflame their hearts during the whole octave. On each of the days of this week, they will be eager to adore that beautiful King of glory, who is going to hold His court in the midst of His people, with no other veil between Himself and them than the light cloud of the sacramental Species. During these happy hours, which love is ingenious enough to steal from one's ordinary occupations, let the faithful prefer to take, wherewith to give utterance to their sentiments, the formulas which the Church herself uses when singing to her Spouse in the sacred banquet of His love. Not only will they there find the poetry, doctrine, and gracefulness of diction, which the bride ever has at her command when she addresses her beloved Jesus, but they will soon learn by experience that, like the divine food itself, those approved and sanctified formulas suit every soul; for these formulas of the Church adapt themselves to the several dispositions and degrees of spiritual advancement, and thus become, to each one of her children, the fittest and warmest expression of every want and desire.

The first Vespers of the feast of Corpus Christi are exactly the same as the second, with the single exception of the Magnificat antiphon. By this antiphon, O quam suavis, the Church declares to us, her children, how great is the sweetness of our Lord, and that it is manifested to us by the sweetness of the eucharistic Bread; but she also tells us who they are that taste this sweetness, and derive from it the fruits of salvation: they are the souls that are led to the divine banquet by the spiritual hunger of an humble and ardent desire. With such sentiments, let us, with the immaculate Mary, magnify the Lord, who exalteth the humble and putteth down the mighty, the proud. It is to the humblest of the daughters of Adam that we are indebted for the Bread of heaven: it was formed, in her chaste womb, by the Holy Ghost, as we shall explain further on; but let us, thus early, rejoice in the thought that the feast of Corpus Christi leads us to Mary, and bids us give her the tribute of our gratitude.

ANTIPHON OF THE MAGNIFICAT

O quam suavis est, Domine, Spiritus tuus! qui ut dulcedinem tuam in filios demonstrares, pane suavissimo de cælo præstito, esurientes reples bonis, fastidiosos divites dimittens inanes.

O how sweet, O Lord, is thy Spirit; for that thou mightest show the sweetness thou bearest for thy children, thou, with a Bread most sweet given from heaven, fillest the hungry with good things, sending away empty the haughty rich.

COLLECT

Deus, qui nobis sub Sacramento mirabili Passionis tuæ memoriam reliquisti: tribue, quæsumus, ita nos Corporis et Sanguinis tui sacra mysteria venerari, ut redemptionis tuæ fructum in nobis jugiter sentiamus. Qui vivis.

O God, who under the wonderful Sacrament, hast left us a memorial of thy Passion: grant us, we beseech thee, so to reverence the sacred mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that, in our souls, we may always feel the fruit of thy Redemption. Who livest &c.

The octave of Corpus Christi has the same privileges as that of the Epiphany. It admits of no feasts, except those of first class; and even on these a commemoration must be made of the octave at Mass, Lauds, and Vespers. Feasts of double and semi-double rite are merely commemorated. Our solemnity also tells upon all the hymns of the several feasts which may be kept during this octave; for, if the metre admit it, they conclude with the following doxology, which is the one used at Compline and the Little Hours of to-morrow's Office:

Jesu tibi sit gloria, Qui natus es de Virgine, Cum Patre et almo Spiritu, In sempiterna sæcula.

Glory be to thee, O Jesus, who wast born of the Virgin! and to the Father, and to the holy Spirit, for everlasting ages.

Amen. Amen.

This continually repeated mention of virginal fecundity, during the feast in honour of the Eucharist, is an affectionate homage paid to the Virgin-Mother. The Church is mindful that the first blasphemy against the dogma of the Sacrament of the altar, consisted in denying that the eucharistic Body of Christ was the one born of Mary.² Seeing, too, that the later heretics, who denied the real Presence, have constantly insulted the Mother of Jesus who resides in the holy Sacrament, the Church united them together in one and the same formula of confession and praise, when standing before the sacred Host.

¹ In the monastic rite, it is as follows:
Gloria tibi Domine,
Qui natus es de Virgine, Cum Patre et sancto Spiritu, In sempiterna sæcula. Amen.
² Mgr. Pie, Bishop of Poitiers. Homily given at Issoudun, Sept. 8, 1869.

Those early and brave witnesses of the faith, Saints Ignatius and Irenæus, did the like; for, as St. Augustine says: Christ took flesh from Mary's flesh; and it is that very flesh that He gave us to eat for our salvation; and we adore it as the foot-stool of His feet!¹

At this evening hour, when holy Church is proclaiming the adorable Sacrament, let us be imbued with these same sentiments, and offer our love to the sacred Host, which, in a few hours, is to be receiving our joyous adorations. We may, for this purpose, make use of the following formula, which has been such a favourite in so many of our Churches, ever since the fourteenth century. It used formerly to be sung, in Germany and France, during the Elevation, as an appropriate termination to the trisagion; for, as we find in the best manuscripts, this piece concluded with the same words as the Sanctus, namely, in excelsis. Liturgical compositions of this kind went under the name of tropes, and were much loved by the faithful of the middle ages; it is from them that our proses or sequences are derived.

Ave, verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine, Vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine,

Hail! true Body, born of the Virgin Mary; Which truly suffered, and was immolated on the cross, for man.

Cujus latus perforatum fluxit aqua et sanguine:

Whose side was pierced, and streamed with Water and Blood.

Esto nobis prægustatum
mortis in examine.

Be thou our foretaste (of heaven) when we are struggling with death!

O Jesu dulcis! O Jesu pie! O Jesu, Fili Mariæ!

O sweet Jesus! O good Jesus! O Jesus, Son of Mary!

¹ Enarrat. in Psalm. xcviii. 9.

THE FEAST

OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus, qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations; who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

A GREAT solemnity has this day risen upon our earth: a feast both to God and to men: for it is the feast of Christ the Mediator, who is present in the sacred Host, that God may be given to man, and man to God. Divine union—such is the dignity to which man is permitted to aspire; and to this aspiration God has responded, even here below, by an invention which is all of heaven. It is to-day that man celebrates this marvel of God's goodness.

And yet, against both the feast and its divine object, there has been made the old-fashioned objection: 'How can these things be done?'¹ It really does seem as though reason has a right to find fault with what looks like a senseless pretension of man's heart.

Every living being thirsts after happiness; and yet, and because of that, it aspires only after the good of which it is capable; for it is the necessary condition of happiness that, in order to its existence, there must be the full contentment of the creature's desire. Hence, in that great act of creation which the Scripture so sublimely calls His playing in the world,² when, with His almighty power He prepared the heavens, and enclosed the depths, and balanced

¹ St. John iii. 9; vi. 63. ² Prov. viii. 30, 31.

the foundations of the earth,¹ we are told that divine Wisdom secured the harmony of the universe by giving to each creature, according to its degree in the scale of being, an end adequate to its powers. He thus measured the wants, the instinct, the appetite (that is, the desire) of each creature, according to its respective nature; so that it would never have cravings which its faculties were insufficient to satisfy. In obedience, then, to this law, was not man, too, obliged to confine, within the limits of his finite nature, his desires for the good and the beautiful, that is, his searching after God, which is a necessity with every intelligent and free being? Otherwise, would not certain beings have to place their happiness in objects which must ever be out of the reach of their natural faculties?

Great as the anomaly would appear, yet does it exist: true psychology, that is, the true science of the human mind, bears testimony to this desire for the infinite. Like every living creature around him, man thirsts for happiness; and yet, he is the only creature on earth that feels within itself longings for what is immensely beyond its capacity. Whilst docile to the lord placed over them by the Creator, the irrational creatures are quite satisfied with what they find in this world; they render to man their several services, and their own desires are all fully gratified by what is within their reach. It is not so with man; he can find nothing in this his earthly dwelling, which can satiate his irresistible longings for something which this earth cannot give, and which time cannot produce; for that something is the infinite. God Himself, when revealing Himself to man through the works He has created, that is, when showing Himself to man in a way which his natural powers

¹ Prov. viii. 27, 29.

can take in; when giving man to know Him as the First Cause, as the Last End of all creatures, as unlimited perfection, as infinite beauty, as sovereign goodness, as the object which can content both our understanding and our will—no, not even God Himself, thus known and thus enjoyed, could satisfy man. This being, made out of nothing, wishes to possess the Infinite in his own substance; he longs after the sight of the face, he ambitions to enjoy the life, of his Lord and God. The earth seems to him but a trackless desert, where he can find no water to quench his thirst. From early dawn of each wearisome day, his soul is at once on the watch, pining for that God who alone can quell his desires; yea, his very flesh too, has its thrilling expectations for that beautiful Infinite One.¹ Let us listen to the psalmist, who speaks for us all: 'As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God! My soul hath thirsted after the strong, living God: when shall I come and appear before the face of God? My tears have been my bread, day and night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God? These things I remembered, and poured out my soul in me: for I shall go over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God. With the voice of joy and praise, the noise of one that is feasting. Why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God, for I will still give praise unto Him: the salvation of my countenance and my God.'²

If reason is to be the judge of such sentiments as these, they are but wild enthusiasm and silly pretensions. Why talk of the sight of God, of the life of God, of a banquet wherein God Himself is to be the repast? Surely these are things far too sublime for

¹ Ps. lxii. ² Ibid. xli.

man, or for any other created nature to reach. Between the wisher and the object longed for, there is an abyss—the abyss of disproportion, which exists between nothingness and being. Creation, all powerful as it is, does not, in itself, imply the filling up of that abyss. If the disproportion could ever cease to be an obstacle to the union aspired to, it would be by God Himself going that whole length, and then imparting something of His own divine energies to the creature that had once been nothing. But what is there in man, to induce the Infinite Being, whose magnificence is above the heavens, to stoop so low as that? This is the language of reason.

But on the other hand, who was it that made the heart of man so great and so ambitious that no creature can fill it? how comes it that, whilst the heavens show forth the glory of God and the firmament declareth how full of wisdom and power is every work of His hands,¹ in man alone there is no proportion, no order? Could it be that the great Creator has ordered all things, excepting man alone, with measure, and number, and weight?² That one creature, who is the master-piece of the whole creation; that creature, for whom all the rest was intended, as for its king; is he to be the only one that is a failure, and to live as a perpetual proclaimer that his Maker could not, or would not, be wise, when He made man? Far from us be such a blasphemy! 'God is love,' says St. John;³ and love is the knot which mere human philosophy can never loose, and therefore it must ever leave unsolved the problem of man's desire for the Infinite.

God is charity; God is love. The wonder in all this question, is not our loving and longing for God, but that He should have first loved us.⁴ God is love;

¹ Ps. xviii. 2. ² Wisd. xi. 21. ³ 1 St. John iv. 8. ⁴ Ibid. 10.

and love must have union; and union makes the united like one another. Oh! the riches of the divine Nature, wherein are infinite Power, and Wisdom, and Love! These three constitute, by their divine relations, that blessed Trinity, which has been the light and joy of our souls ever since that bright Sunday's feast which we kept in its honour. Oh! the depth of the divine counsels, wherein that which is willed by boundless Love, finds, in infinite Wisdom, how to fulfil in work, what will be to the glory of Omnipotence!

Glory be to Thee, O holy Spirit! Thy reign over the Church has but just begun this year of grace; and Thou art giving us light whereby to understand the divine decrees. The day of Thy Pentecost brought us a new Law, a Law where all is brightness; and it was given to us in place of that old one of shadows and types. The 'pedagogue', who schooled the infant people in the knowledge of truth, has been dismissed; light has shone upon us through the preaching of the apostles; and the children of light, set free, knowing God, and known by Him, are daily leaving behind them the weak and needy elements of early childhood.¹ Scarcely, O divine Spirit! was completed the triumphant octave, wherein the Church celebrated Thy coming, and her own birth which that coming brought about, when all eager for the fulfilment of Thy mission of bringing to the bride's mind the things taught her by her Spouse,² Thou showedst her the divine and radiant mystery of the Trinity; that not only her faith might acknowledge, but her adoration and her praise might also worship it, and she and her children find their happiness in its contemplation and love. But that first of the great mysteries of our faith, the unsearchable dogma of

¹ Gal. iii. 5, 24, 25; iv. 9. ² St. John xiv. 26.

the Trinity, does not represent the whole richness of Christian revelation: Thou, O blessed Spirit, hastenest to complete our instruction, and widen the horizon of our faith.

The knowledge Thou hast given us of the essence and the life of the Godhead, was to be followed and completed by that of His external works, and the relations which God has vouchsafed to establish between Himself and us. In this very week when we begin, under Thy direction, to contemplate the precious gifts left us by Jesus when He ascended on high;¹ on this first Thursday, which reminds us of that holiest of all Thursdays, our Lord's Supper, Thou, O divine Spirit, bringest before our delighted vision the admirable Sacrament, which is the compendium of the works of God, one in Essence and three in Persons; the adorable Eucharist, which is the divine memorial² of the wonderful things achieved by the united operation of Omnipotence, Wisdom, and Love. The most holy Eucharist contains within itself the whole plan of God, with reference to this world; it shows how all the previous ages have been gradually developing the divine intentions, which were formed by infinite love, and, by that same love, carried out to the end,³ yea, to the furthest extremity here below, that is, to Itself; for the Eucharist is the crowning of all the antecedent acts done by God in favour of His creatures; the Eucharist implies them all; it explains all.

Man's aspirations for union with God—aspirations which are above his own nature, and yet so interwoven with it as to form one inseparable life—can have but one possible cause, and it is God Himself, God who is the author of that being called man. None but God has formed the immense capaciousness of man's

¹ Ps. lxvii. 19. ² Ibid. cx. 4. ³ St. John xiii. 1.

heart; and none but God is willing or able to fill it. Every act of the divine will, whether outside Himself or within, is pure love, and is referred to that Person of the blessed Trinity who is the Third; and who, by the mode of His Procession, is substantial and infinite love. Just as the almighty Father sees all things, before they exist in themselves, in His only Word, who is the term of the divine intelligence: so, likewise, that those same things may exist in themselves, the same almighty Father wishes them, in the Holy Ghost, who is to the divine will what the Word is to the infinite intelligence. The Spirit of love, who is the final term to the fecundity of Persons in the divine Essence, is, in God, the first beginning of the exterior works produced by God. In their execution, those exterior works are common to the Three Persons, but they are attributed to the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as He, being the Spirit of love, solicits the Godhead to act outside Itself. He is the Love who, with its divine weight and influence of love, sways the blessed Trinity to the external act of creation; infinite Being leans, as it were, towards the deep abyss of nothingness, and out of that abyss creates. The holy Spirit opened the divine counsel, and said: 'Let us make man to Our image and likeness!' Then God created man to His own image; He created him to the image of God,¹ taking His own Word as the model to which He worked; for that Word is the sovereign archetype, according to which is formed the more or less perfect essence of each created being. Like Him, then, to whose image he was made, man was endowed with understanding and free-will. As such, he would govern the whole inferior creation, and make it serve the purpose of its Creator, that is, he would turn it into a homage of praise and glory to

Gen. i. 26, 27.

its God; and though that homage would be finite, yet it would be the best of which it was capable.

This is what is called the natural order; it is an immense world of perfect harmonies; and, had it ever existed without any further perfection than its own natural one, it would have been a master-piece of God's goodness; and yet, it would have been far from realizing the designs of the Spirit of love.

With all the spontaneity of a will which was free not to act, and was as infinite as any other of the divine perfections, the holy Spirit wills that man should, after this present life, be a partaker of the very life of God, by the face-to-face vision of the divine Essence; nay, the present life of the children of Adam here, on this earth, is to put on by anticipation the dignity of that higher life; and this so literally, that the future one in heaven is to be but the direct sequel, the consequent outgrowth, of the one led here below. And how is man, so poor a creature in himself, to maintain so high a standing? How is he to satisfy the cravings thus created within his heart? Fear not: the Holy Ghost has a work of His own, and He does it simultaneously with the act of creation; for the three Persons infuse into their creature, man, the image of Their own divine attributes; and upon his finite and limited powers graft, so to say, the powers of the divine nature. This destiny for an end which is above created nature—these energies superadded to man's natural powers, transforming, yet not destroying, them, and enabling the possessor to attain the end unto which God calls him—is called the supernatural order, in contradistinction to that lower one, which would have been the order of nature, had not God, in His infinite goodness, thus elevated man above his own mere state as man from the very beginning of his existence.

Man will retain all those elements of the natural order which are essential to his human nature, and, with those essential elements, the functions proper to each: but there is a principle, that, in every series, that should give the specific character to the aggregate which was the end proposed by the ruling mind. Now, the last end of man was never other in the mind of his Creator than a supernatural one; and consequently the natural order, properly so called, never existed independently of the supernatural.

There has been a proud school of philosophy, called 'free and independent,' which professed to admit no truths except natural ones, and to practise no other virtues than such as were merely human: but such theories cannot hold. The disciples of godless and secular education, by the errors and crimes into which their unaided nature periodically leads them, demonstrate, almost as forcibly as the eminent sanctity of souls which have been faithful to grace, that mere nature, or mere natural goodness, never was, and never can be, a permanent and normal state for man to live in. And even granting that he could so live, yet man has no right to reduce himself to a less exalted position, than the one intended for him by his Maker. 'By assigning us a supernatural vocation, God testified the love He bore us; but, at the same time, He acted as Lord, and evinced His authority over us. The favour He bestowed upon us has created a corresponding duty. Men have a saying, and a true one: He that hath nobility, hath obligations; and the principle holds with regard to the supernatural nobility, which it has pleased God to confer upon us.'¹

It is a nobility which surpasses every other; it makes man not only an image of God, but like unto Him!¹ Between God, the Infinite, the eternal, and man, who but a while back was nothing and ever must be a creature, friendship and love are henceforth to be possible: such is the purpose of the capabilities and powers, and the life, bestowed on the human creature by the Spirit of love. So then, those longings for his God, those thrillings of his very flesh, of which we were just now reading the inspired description by the psalmist,² are not the outpouring of foolish enthusiasm! That thirsting after God, the strong, the living God; that hungering for the feast of divine union; these are not empty ravings! Made partaker of the divine nature, as St. Peter so strongly words the mystery,³ is it to be wondered at if man be conscious of it, and let himself be drawn, by the uncreated flame, into the very central Fire it came from to him? The holy Spirit, too, is present in His creature, and is witness of what Himself has produced there; He joins His own testimonies to that of our own conscience, and tells our spirit that we are truly what we feel ourselves to be, the sons of God.⁴ It is the same holy Spirit, secreting Himself in the innermost centre of our being, that He may foster and complete His work of love, who, at one time, opens to our soul's eye, by some sudden flash of light, the future glory that awaits us, and then inspires us with a sentiment of anticipated triumph;⁵ then, at another time, breathes into us those unspeakable moanings, those songs of exile, whose voice is choked with the hot tears of love, for that our union with our God seems so long deferred.⁶ There are, too, certain delicious hymns, which, coming from the very depths of souls wounded with divine love, make their way up to the throne of God; and the music is so sweet to Him, that it almost looks as though it had been victorious, and had won the union! Such music of such souls does really win, if not the eternal union—for that could not be during this life of pilgrimage, and trials, and tears—still wonderful unions here below, which human language has not the power to describe.

¹ Gen. i. 26. ² Ps. lxii. ³ Ibid. xli. ⁴ 2 St. Pet. i. 4. ⁵ Rom. viii. 16. ⁶ Eph. i. 17, 18; Rom. v. 2. ⁷ Rom. viii. 26.

In this mysterious song between the divine Spirit and man's soul, we are told by the apostle that He, who searcheth hearts, knoweth what the Spirit desireth, because He asketh for the saints according to God.¹ What a desire must that be, which the holy Spirit desireth! It is as powerful as the God who desires it. It is a desire, new indeed, inasmuch as it is in the heart of man, but eternal, inasmuch as it is the desire of the holy Spirit, whose Procession is before all time. In response to this desire of the Spirit, the great God, from the infinite depths of His eternity, resolved to manifest Himself in time, and unite Himself to man while yet a wayfarer. He resolved thus to manifest and unite Himself, not in His own Person, but in His Son, who is the brightness of His own glory, and the true figure of His own substance.² God so loved the world,³ as to give it His own Word, that divine Wisdom, who, from the bosom of His Father, had devoted Himself to our human nature. That bosom of the Father was imaged by what the Scripture calls 'Abraham's bosom,' where, under the ancient covenant, were assembled all the souls of the just, as in the place where they were to rest till the way into the holy of holies should be opened for the elect.⁴ Now, it was from this bosom of His eternal Father, which the psalmist calls the bride-chamber,⁵ that the Bridegroom came forth at the appointed time, leaving His heavenly abode, and coming down into this poor earth, to seek His bride; that when He had made her His own, He might lead her back with Himself into His kingdom, where He would celebrate the eternal nuptials. This is the triumphant procession of the Bridegroom in all His beauty;¹ a procession, whereof the prophet Micheas, when speaking of His passing through Bethlehem, says that His going forth is from the days of eternity.² Yes, truly, from the days of eternity; for as we are taught by the sublime principles of Catholic theology, the connexion between the eternal procession of the divine Persons and the temporal mission, is so intimate, that one same eternity unites the two together in God: eternally the Trinity has beheld the ineffable birth of the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father; eternally, with the same look, it has beheld Him coming, as Spouse, from that same Father's bosom.

¹ Rom. viii. 27. ² Heb. i. 3. ³ St. John iii. 16. ⁴ Heb. ix. 8. ⁵ Ps. xviii. 6.

If we now come to compare the eternal decrees of God one with the other, it is not difficult to recognize which of them holds the chief place, and, as such, comes first in the divine intention of creation. God the Father has made all things with a view to this union of human nature with His Son: union so close, that, for one individual member of that nature, it was to go so far as a personal identification with the Only-Begotten of the Father. So universal, too, was the union to be, that all the members were to partake of it, in a greater or less degree; not one single individual of the race was to be excluded, except through his own fault, from the divine nuptials with eternal Wisdom, which was made visible in a Man, the most beautiful above all the children of men.³ For, as the apostle says, God, who heretofore commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath Himself shined in our hearts, giving them the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in, and by, the face of Christ Jesus.⁴ So that the mystery of the marriage-feast is, in all truth, the mystery of the world; and the kingdom of heaven is well likened to a King, who made a marriage for His Son.⁵

¹ Ps. xliv. 5. ² Mich. v. 2. ³ Ps. xliv. 3. ⁴ 2 Cor. iv. 6. ⁵ St. Matt. xxii. 1-14.

But where is the meeting between the King's Son and His betrothed to take place? Where is this mysterious union to be completed? Who is there to tell us what is the dowry of the bride, the pledge of the alliance? Is it known who is the Master who provides the nuptial banquet, and what sort of food will be served to the guests? The answer to these questions is given this very day, throughout the earth; it is given with loud triumphant joy. There can be no mistake; it is evident from the sublime message, which heaven and earth re-echo, that He who has come is the divine Word. He is adorable Wisdom, and has come forth from His royal abode to utter His voice in our very streets, and cry out at the head of multitudes, and speak His words in the entrance of city-gates;¹ He stands on the top of the highest places by the way, in the midst of the paths, and makes Himself heard by the sons of men.² He bids His servants go to the tower and the city walls, with this His message: 'Come! eat my Bread, and drink the Wine which I have mingled for you; for Wisdom hath built herself a house, supported on seven pillars; there she hath slain her victims, mingled her wine, and set forth her table;³ all things are ready; come to the marriage!'⁴

¹ Prov. i. 20, 21. ² Ibid. viii. 1-4. ³ Ibid. ix. 1-6. ⁴ St. Matt. xxii. 4.

O Wisdom, that camest forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end, disposing all things with strength and sweetness!¹ we besought Thee, in the season of Advent, to come unto Bethlehem, 'the house of bread'; Thou wast the long-expected of our hearts. The day of the glorious Epiphany showed us the mystery of the nuptials, and manifested to us the Bridegroom; the bride was made ready in the waters of the Jordan; we commemorated the Magi, who, with their gifts, hastened to the royal nuptials, where the guests were regaled with a miraculous wine.² But the water, which, to make up for the deficiency of a bad tree, was changed into wine, was a prophetic figure of future mysteries. The Vine, the true Vine, of which we are the branches,³ has yielded its sweet-smelling flowers, and its fruits of honour and riches.⁴ Wheat hath abounded in our valleys, and they shall sing a hymn of praise;⁵ for this strength of the earth shall cover the mountain-tops, and its fruit shall go up beyond Libanus.⁶

¹ Prima ex Ant. maj. Adventus. ² Ant. Epiph. ad Benedictus. ³ St. John xv. 5. ⁴ Ecclus. xxiv. 23. ⁵ Ps. lxiv. 14. ⁶ Ibid. lxxi. 16.

O Wisdom, Thou noble queen, whose divine perfections enamour, from early childhood, hearts that are taken with true beauty!⁷ the day of the true marriage-feast has come. Thou art a mother full of honour, and a young bride in Thy charms, and Thou comest to nourish us with the bread of life, and give us to drink of a cup of salvation.⁸ Thy fruit is better than gold; and Thy blossoms than choicest silver.⁹ They that eat Thee, shall still hunger after Thee; and they that drink Thee, shall again thirst for Thee;¹⁰ for Thy conversation hath no bitterness, nor Thy company any tediousness, but joy and gladness,¹¹ and riches, and glory, and virtues.¹²

⁷ Wisd. viii. 2. ⁸ Ecclus. xv. 2, 3. ⁹ Prov. viii. 19. ¹⁰ Ecclus. xxiv. 29. ¹¹ Wisd. viii. 16. ¹² Prov. viii. 18.

During the days of this great solemnity, when Thou art seated in a pillar of a cloud, and placest Thy throne in the holy assembly, we would fain take the mystery of Thy divine banquet, and ponder over its marvels, and then publish them, yea, go to choir with Thee, O beautiful Wisdom, and sing Thy praise in the presence of Thy angels, who will be there adoring the sacred Host! Do Thou vouchsafe to open our lips, and fill us with Thy holy Spirit, O divine Wisdom! that so our praise may be worthy of its theme; and, as Thou hast promised in Thy Scriptures, may it abound, may it be full to overflowing, in the mouths of Thy faithful worshippers!

¹ Man. Pie, Bishop of Poitiers. First synodal instruction on the chief errors of our times, viii.

MATINS

The night Office for this festival has an interest of its own: it is the memory of that holy night when, as the Church expresses it, faith shows us our Lord presiding, for the last time, at the figurative Pasch, and following up the feast of the typical lamb with the banquet of His own Body. For the reasons specified yesterday, we give the entire Office of to-day.

In order to induce the faithful to prefer the prayers of the liturgy to all others, we would remind them that the sovereign Pontiffs have solemnly opened the treasures of the Church in favour of such as, being contrite, and having confessed their sins, shall assist at any of the Canonical Hours, either on the day of the feast, or during its octave. Pope Martin V, by his constitution *Ineffabile Sacramentum*, which allows this feast and octave to be celebrated with the ringing of bells and solemnity even in places which are under an interdict, confirmed and added to the indulgences granted by Urban IV, in the Bull *Transiturus*. Finally, Pope Eugenius IV, mentioning the acts of these two Pontiffs,¹ doubled the indulgences granted by them. These indulgences are as follows: two hundred days are granted for fasting on the eve, or for any other good work substituted for the fast, at the discretion of the confessor; on the day of the feast, four hundred days for assisting at first Vespers, Matins, Mass, or second Vespers; two hundred days for holy Communion, over and above those granted for assisting at Mass; a hundred and sixty days for each of the Hours of Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, and Compline; two hundred days for the Procession, on the day of the feast itself, or during the octave: two hundred days, likewise, for assisting at Vespers, Matins, or Mass, during the octave, and eighty days for each of the other Hours.

After the Pater, Ave, and Credo, have been said silently, the Church commences her Office by her usual Latin supplication:

℣. Domine, labia mea aperies.
℟. Et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam.

℣. O Lord! thou wilt open my lips.
℟. And my mouth shall declare thy praise.

℣. Deus, in adjutorium meum intende.
℟. Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina.

℣. Incline unto mine aid, O God!
℟. O Lord! make haste to help me.

℣. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui sancto.
℟. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

℣. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
℟. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Alleluia.

¹ Const. *Excellentissimum*.

Then follows, with its glad refrain, *Christum Regem*, the Invitatory psalm, whereby the Church invites her children, every night, to come and adore the Lord. On this feast, she as bride, addressing herself to us as the faithful subjects and courtiers of the King of glory, invites us to pay our homage to Him, whose goodness towards us is all the more telling, because of His infinite majesty.

INVITATORY

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus: * Qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations: who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

PSALM 94

Venite, exsultemus Domino, jubilemus Deo salutari nostro: præoccupemus faciem ejus in confessione, et in psalmis jubilemus ei.

Come, let us praise the Lord with joy: let us joyfully sing to God our Saviour; let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise to him with psalms.

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus: * Qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations: who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

Quoniam Deus magnus Dominus, et Rex magnus super omnes deos: quoniam non repellet Dominus plebem suam, quia in manu ejus sunt omnes fines terræ, et altitudines montium ipse conspicit.

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods; he will not reject his people; for in his hand are all the ends of the earth, and the heights of the mountains are his.

Qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

Quoniam ipsius est mare, et ipse fecit illud, et aridam fundaverunt manus ejus: venite adoremus, et procidamus ante Deum: ploremus coram Domino, qui fecit nos, quia ipse est Dominus Deus noster: nos autem populus ejus, et oves pascuæ ejus.

For the sea is his, and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land: come, let us adore, and fall down, and weep before the Lord that made us; for he is the Lord our God; and we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus: * Qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations: who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

Hodie si vocem ejus audieritis, nolite obdurare corda vestra, sicut in exacerbatione secundum diem tentationis in deserto: ubi tentaverunt me patres vestri, probaverunt, et viderunt opera mea.

To-day if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation according to the day of temptation in the wilderness: where your fathers tempted me; they proved me, and saw my works.

Qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

Quadraginta annis proximus fui generationi huic, et dixi: Semper hi errant corde: ipsi vero non cognoverunt vias meas, quibus juravi in ira mea, si introibunt in requiem meam.

Forty years was I nigh unto this generation and I said: These always err in heart: and these men have not known my ways: so, I swore in my wrath, that they shall not enter into my rest.

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus: * Qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations: who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui sancto: Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost: as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus: * Qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations: who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

After the Invitatory, in which we have commemorated the transfer of Christ's kingdom to the Gentiles, the Church intones the triumphant hymn, which, in its noble verses, recounts the last Supper, and celebrates the wonderful favours bestowed upon men on that glorious night.

HYMN

Sacris solemniis juncta sint gaudia, Et ex præcordiis sonent præconia:
Recedant vetera, nova sint omnia, Corda, voces, et opera.

Let our joys blend with this sacred solemnity: and let our praises resound from our inmost heart; let old things give way; let all be new, both hearts, and words, and works!

Noctis recolitur cœna novissima,
Qua Christus creditur agnum et azyma Dedisse fratribus, juxta legitima Priscis indulta patribus.

We are celebrating that night's last Supper, when, as faith tells, Christ gave to his brethren the Lamb and unleavened bread, as the law given to the ancient fathers prescribed.

Post agnum typicum, expletis epulis, Corpus Dominicum datum discipulis, Sic totum omnibus, quod totum singulis, Ejus fatemur manibus.

After giving them the figurative lamb, and when the repast was over, we confess with faith that our Lord, with his own hands, gave his Body to his disciples: and so gave It, that the whole was given to all, and the whole to each.

Dedit fragilibus Corporis ferculum, Dedit et tristibus Sanguinis poculum, Dicens: Accipite quod trado vasculum, Omnes ex eo bibite.

They were frail, and he gave them his Body as food: they were sad, and he gave them his Blood for their drink; saying: Take the Cup I deliver unto you! Do ye all drink thereof!

Sic sacrificium istud instituit, Cujus officium committi voluit Solis presbyteris, quibus sic congruit Ut sumant, et dent ceteris.

Thus did he institute this Sacrifice, whose ministry he willed should be entrusted to priests alone; who were so to partake of it themselves, as to give it to others.

Panis angelicus fit panis hominum; Dat panis cœlicus figuris terminum:
O res mirabilis! manducat Dominum Pauper, servus, et humilis.

The Bread of angels becomes the Bread of men; the Bread of heaven puts an end to the types; O wonderful thing! he that is poor, and a servant, and lowly, eateth the Lord!

Te, trina Deitas, unaque, poscimus, Sic nos tu visita, sicut te colimus: Per tuas semitas duc nos quo tendimus, Ad lucem quam inhabitas.

We beseech thee, O triune Deity, do thou so visit us, as we worship thee; lead us by thy ways to the term we aim at, to the light wherein thou dwellest.

Amen.

These preludes made, we begin the solemn Office of the night, which is divided into three vigils or nocturns.

THE FIRST NOCTURN

Christ is the just Man by excellence; He is the tree, which brings forth its fruit in due season, the fruit, that is, of salvation, which the Lord gave us to taste at the time of His death. The first psalm offers us this beautiful symbolism, which the fathers have so often dwelt upon in their writings.

ANT. Fructum salutiferum gustandum dedit Dominus, mortis suæ tempore.

ANT. The Lord gave us to taste of the fruit of salvation, at the time of his death.

PSALM 1

Beatus vir, qui non abiit in consilio impiorum, et in via peccatorum non stetit, et in cathedra pestilentiæ non sedit:

Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence.

Sed in lege Domini voluntas ejus, et in lege ejus meditabitur die ac nocte.

But his will is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he shall meditate day and night.

Et erit tanquam lignum quod plantatum est secus decursus aquarum, quod fructum suum dabit in tempore suo.

And he shall be like a tree, which is planted near the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit in due season.

Et folium ejus non defluet: et omnia quæcumque faciet prosperabuntur.

And his leaf shall not fall off: and all whatsoever he shall do shall prosper.

Non sic impii, non sic: sed tanquam pulvis quem projicit ventus a facie terræ.

Not so the wicked, not so: but like the dust which the wind driveth from the face of the earth.

Ideo non resurgent impii in judicio: neque peccatores in concilio justorum.

Therefore the wicked shall not rise again in judgment: nor sinners in the council of the just.

Quoniam novit Dominus viam justorum: et iter impiorum peribit.

For the Lord knoweth the way of the just: and the way of the wicked shall perish.

ANT. Fructum salutiferum gustandum dedit Dominus, mortis suæ tempore.

ANT. The Lord gave us to taste of the fruit of salvation, at the time of his death.

The second psalm of this nocturn tells us of the peace and abundance enjoyed by the man who puts his confidence in the God of justice. Corn, wine, and oil are the riches of God's house: it is mainly by these three elements, that the Church confers a daily increase of holiness on them that have become her children by the water of Baptism. What, indeed, has she, to be compared with the beautiful corn of the elect, and wine that produceth virgins?¹

ANT. A fructu frumenti et vini multiplicati fideles in pace Christi requiescunt.

ANT. The faithful, multiplied by the fruit of corn and wine, rest in the peace of Christ.

PSALM 4

Cum invocarem exaudivit me Deus justitiæ meæ: in tribulatione dilatasti mihi.

When I called upon him, the God of my justice heard me: when I was in distress, thou hast enlarged me.

Miserere mei: et exaudi orationem meam.

Have mercy on me: and hear my prayer.

Filii hominum, usquequo gravi corde? ut quid diligitis vanitatem, et quæritis mendacium?

O ye sons of men, how long will ye be dull of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after lying?

Et scitote quoniam mirificavit Dominus sanctum suum: Dominus exaudiet me, cum clamavero ad eum.

Know ye also that the Lord hath made his holy one wonderful: the Lord will hear me, when I shall cry unto him.

Irascimini, et nolite peccare: quæ dicitis in cordibus vestris, in cubilibus vestris compungimini.

Be ye angry, and sin not: the things ye say in your hearts, be sorry for them on your beds.

Sacrificate sacrificium justitiæ, et sperate in Domino: multi dicunt: Quis ostendit nobis bona?

Offer up the sacrifice of justice, and trust in the Lord: many say, Who showeth us good things?

Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, Domine: dedisti lætitiam in corde meo.

The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us: thou hast given gladness in my heart.

A fructu frumenti, vini et olei sui: multiplicati sunt.

By the fruit of their corn, their wine, and oil, they are multiplied.

In pace in idipsum: dormiam et requiescam.

In peace, in the self-same, I will sleep and I will rest.

Quoniam tu, Domine, singulariter in spe: constituisti me.

For thou, O Lord, singularly hast settled me in hope.

ANT. A fructu frumenti et vini multiplicati fideles in pace Christi requiescunt.

ANT. The faithful, multiplied by the fruit of corn and wine, rest in the peace of Christ.

¹ Zach. ix. 17.

We have already seen how the holy Eucharist was the bond of union between the faithful, and the centre of Catholic communion. What the Sacrifice of the new Testament is for us Christians, from a social

point of view, that same were the mosaic sacrifices, heretofore, for the Jews, although in a manner wholly external and figurative. The following antiphon tells us the reason of the Church's selecting Psalm xv for the third one of this nocturn: it is, that she might remind us of her own superiority, in this respect, over the rejected Synagogue. Himself is the glorious portion of the cup of her joy.

ANT. Communione calicis quo Deus ipse sumitur, non vitulorum sanguine, congregavit nos Dominus.

ANT. The Lord hath brought us together, by the communion of the cup, wherein God himself is received; not by the blood of calves.

The Lord is her inheritance and

PSALM 15

Conserva me, Domine, quoniam speravi in te: dixi Domino, Deus meus es tu, quoniam bonorum meorum non eges.

Preserve me, O Lord, for I have put my trust in thee: I have said to the Lord, thou art my God, for thou hast no need of my goods.

Sanctis, qui sunt in terra ejus: mirificavit omnes voluntates meas in eis.

To the saints, who are in his land, he hath made wonderful all my desires in them.

Multiplicatæ sunt infirmitates eorum: postea acceleraverunt.

Their infirmities were multiplied: afterwards they made haste.

Non congregabo conventicula eorum de sanguinibus: nec memor ero nominum eorum per labia mea.

I will not gather together their meetings for blood-offerings, nor will I be mindful of their names by my lips.

Dominus pars hæreditatis meæ, et calicis mei: tu es qui restitues hæreditatem meam mihi.

The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: it is thou that wilt restore mine inheritance to me.

Funes ceciderunt mihi in præclaris: etenim hæreditas mea præclara est mihi.

The lines have fallen unto me in goodly places: for mine inheritance is goodly unto me.

Benedicam Dominum, qui tribuit mihi intellectum: insuper et usque ad noctem increpuerunt me renes mei.

I will bless the Lord, who hath given me understanding: moreover, my reins also have corrected me even till night.

Providebam Dominum in conspectu meo semper: quoniam a dextris est mihi, ne commovear.

I set the Lord always in my sight: for he is at my right hand, that I be not moved.

Propter hoc lætatum est cor meum, et exsultavit lingua mea: insuper et caro mea requiescet in spe.

Therefore my heart hath been glad, and my tongue hath rejoiced: moreover, my flesh also shall rest in hope.

Quoniam non derelinques animam meam in inferno: nec dabis Sanctum tuum videre corruptionem.

Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell: nor wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption.

Notas mihi fecisti vias vitæ, adimplebis me lætitia cum vultu tuo: delectationes in dextera tua usque in finem.

Thou hast made known to me the ways of life, thou shalt fill me with joy with thy countenance: at thy right hand are delights even to the end.

ANT. Communione calicis quo Deus ipse sumitur, non vitulorum sanguine, congregavit nos Dominus.

ANT. The Lord hath brought us together, by the communion of the cup, wherein God himself is received; not by the blood of calves.

℣. Panem cœli dedit eis, alleluia.

℟. Panem angelorum manducavit homo, alleluia.

℣. He hath given them the Bread of heaven, alleluia.

℟. Man hath eaten the Bread of angels, alleluia.

The priest begins the Lord's Prayer:

Pater noster,

Our Father.

The rest is said in silence, as far as the last two petitions. The priest says aloud:

℣. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem.

℣. And lead us not into temptation.

The choir answers:

℟. Sed libera nos a malo.

℟. But deliver us from evil.

Then the priest:

Exaudi, Domine Jesu Christe, preces servorum tuorum, et miserere nobis, qui cum Patre et Spiritu sancto vivis et regnas in sæcula sæculorum.

Graciously hear, O Lord Jesus Christ, the prayers of thy servants, and have mercy upon us: who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest for ever and ever.

The choir answers: Amen.

Then one of the choir rising, turns towards the priest, and bowing down, says:

Jube, domne, benedicere.

Pray, Father, give thy blessing.

Then the priest:

Benedictione perpetua benedicat nos Pater æternus.

May the eternal Father bless us with an everlasting blessing.

℟. Amen.

℟. Amen.

The first nocturn lessons are taken from one of St. Paul's epistles. After chiding the faithful of Corinth for having allowed abuses to creep into their religious meetings, the apostle recounts the institution of the blessed Eucharist. He tells them the dispositions they should bring with them to the holy Table, and speaks of the grievous crime committed by him who approaches unworthily.

Our readers will observe how admirably the responsories are composed of passages from both old and new Testament Books; they are thus brought side by side, the more clearly to show the harmony between the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel, on the mystery of the Eucharist. The Office of the blessed Sacrament is thus enriched with the chief prophecies and figures which had foretold the adorable Presence and had kept the just men of the former Covenant in expectation of the promise, which is now our reality.

FIRST LESSON

De Epistola prima Beati Pauli apostoli ad Corinthios.

From the first Epistle of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians.

Convenientibus vobis in unum, jam non est Dominicam cœnam manducare. Unusquisque enim suam cœnam præsumit ad manducandum. Et alius quidem esurit, alius autem ebrius est. Numquid domos non habetis ad manducandum et bibendum? aut Ecclesiam Dei contemnitis, et confunditis eos, qui non habent? Quid dicam vobis? Laudo vos? In hoc non laudo.

When ye come together into one place, it is not now to eat the Lord's Supper, (your meetings are not worthy of the mystery ye celebrate). For every one taketh before his own supper to eat. And one, indeed, is hungry, and another is drunk. What! have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the Church of God, and put them to shame that have not? What shall I say unto you? Do I praise you? In this I praise you not.

℟. Immolabit hœdum multitudo filiorum Israel ad vesperam Paschæ. ✶ Et edent carnes, et azymos panes.

℟. The multitude of the children of Israel shall sacrifice a kid, at the evening of the Pasch. ✶ And they shall eat flesh, and unleavened cakes.

℣. Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus: itaque epulemur in azymis sinceritatis et veritatis. ✶ Et edent.

℣. Christ our Pasch is sacrificed: therefore let us feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. ✶ And they shall eat.

BLESSING. Unigenitus Dei Filius nos benedicere et adjuvare dignetur.

BLESSING. May the only-begotten Son of God vouchsafe to bless and help us.

℟. Amen.

℟. Amen.

SECOND LESSON

Ego enim accepi a Domino, quod et tradidi vobis, quoniam Dominus Jesus, in qua nocte tradebatur, accepit panem, et gratias agens fregit, et dixit: Accipite et manducate: hoc est corpus meum, quod pro vobis tradetur: hoc facite in meam commemorationem. Similiter et calicem, postquam cœnavit, dicens: Hic calix novum testamentum est in meo sanguine. Hoc facite, quotiescumque bibetis, in meam commemorationem. Quotiescumque enim manducabitis panem hunc, et calicem bibetis, mortem Domini annuntiabitis donec veniat.

For I have received of the Lord, that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks broke, and said: Take ye and eat: this is my Body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me. In like manner, also, the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in my Blood; this do ye, as often as ye shall drink, for the commemoration of me. For, as often as ye shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, ye shall show the death of the Lord until he come.

℟. Comedetis carnes, et saturabimini panibus: ✶ Iste est panis, quem dedit vobis Dominus ad vescendum.

℟. Ye shall eat flesh, and shall have your fill of bread: ✶ This is the Bread, which the Lord hath given you, that ye might eat it.

℣. Non Moyses dedit vobis panem de cœlo, sed Pater meus dat vobis panem de cœlo verum. ✶ Iste est.

℣. Moses gave you not bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true Bread from heaven. ✶ This is.

BLESSING. Spiritus sancti gratia illuminet sensus et corda nostra.

BLESSING. May the grace of the Holy Ghost enlighten our senses and our hearts.

℟. Amen.

℟. Amen.

THIRD LESSON

Itaque quicumque manducaverit panem hunc, vel biberit calicem Domini indigne, reus erit corporis et sanguinis Domini. Probet autem seipsum homo: et sic de pane illo edat, et de calice bibat. Qui enim manducat et bibit indigne, judicium sibi manducat et bibit, non dijudicans corpus Domini. Ideo inter vos multi infirmi et imbecilles, et dormiunt multi. Quod si nosmetipsos judicaremus, non utique judicaremur. Dum judicamur autem, a Domino corripimur, ut non cum hoc mundo damnemur.

Therefore, whoever shall eat of this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Body of the Lord. Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep. But if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But whilst we are judged, we are chastised by the Lord, that we be not condemned with this world.

℟. Respexit Elias ad caput suum subcinericium panem, qui surgens comedit et bibit: ✶ Et ambulavit in fortitudine cibi illius usque ad montem Dei.

℟. Elias beheld at his head a hearth-cake; who, rising, eat, and drank: ✶ And he walked in the strength of that food, unto the mount of God.

℣. Si quis manducaverit ex hoc pane, vivet in æternum. ✶ Et ambulavit. Gloria. ✶ Et ambulavit.

℣. If any man shall eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever. ✶ And he walked. Glory. ✶ And he walked.

THE SECOND NOCTURN

The fourth psalm of our Matins speaks of the all-powerful efficacy of the Christian Sacrifice. The Lord's protection and help in the battles of this life; joy, exaltation, abundance: all are assured to the man who will but have recourse to it. For the Victim is Christ, with which no other can compare for perfection; it is a whole-burnt offering, whose sweet odour ascends, from our earthly altar, to heaven's sanctuary, and thence brings down the salvation of the right hand of the Most High. It is to Christ Himself that the psalmist here makes his prayer for victory.

ANT. Memor sit Dominus sacrificii nostri, et holocaustum nostrum pingue fiat.

ANT. May the Lord be mindful of our sacrifice, and our whole-burnt offering be made fat.

PSALM 19

Exaudiat te Dominus in die tribulationis: protegat te nomen Dei Jacob.

May the Lord hear thee in the day of tribulation: may the name of the God of Jacob protect thee.

Mittat tibi auxilium de sancto: et de Sion tueatur te.

May he send thee help from the sanctuary: and defend thee out of Sion.

Memor sit omnis sacrificii tui: et holocaustum tuum pingue fiat.

May he be mindful of all thy sacrifices: and may thy whole-burnt offering be made fat.

Tribuat tibi secundum cor tuum: et omne consilium tuum confirmet.

May he give thee according to thine own heart: and confirm all thy counsels.

Lætabimur in salutari tuo: et in nomine Dei nostri magnificabimur.

We will rejoice in thy salvation: and in the name of our God we shall be exalted.

Impleat Dominus omnes petitiones tuas: nunc cognovi quoniam salvum fecit Dominus Christum suum.

May the Lord fulfil all thy petitions: now have I known, that the Lord hath saved his anointed.

Exaudiet illum de cœlo sancto suo: in potentatibus salus dexteræ ejus.

He will hear him from his holy heaven: the salvation of his right hand is in powers.

Hi in curribus, et hi in equis: nos autem in nomine Domini Dei nostri invocabimus.

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God.

Ipsi obligati sunt, et ceciderunt: nos autem surreximus et erecti sumus.

They are bound, and have fallen: but we are risen, and are set upright.

Domine salvum fac regem, et exaudi nos in die qua invocaverimus te.

Lord! save the king: and hear us in the day that we shall call upon thee.

ANT. Memor sit Dominus sacrificii nostri, et holocaustum nostrum pingue fiat.

ANT. May the Lord be mindful of our sacrifice, and our whole-burnt offering be made fat.

The soul that follows her Lord wants for nothing. Happy sheep! its Shepherd's crook leads it to such rich pastures, to such refreshing water springs! Let us join the saintly servant of God, and sing the praises of the Chalice which inebriateth, and of the Table prepared for him against all enemies; when he leaves that Table, he goes forth like a lion breathing fire: he has been made an object of terror to the devil.¹

ANT. Paratur nobis mensa Domini adversus omnes qui tribulant nos.

ANT. The Lord's Table is prepared before us, against all them that afflict us.

PSALM 22

Dominus regit me, et nihil mihi deerit: in loco pascuæ ibi me collocavit.

The Lord ruleth me, and I shall want nothing: he hath set me in a place of pasture.

Super aquam refectionis educavit me: animam meam convertit.

He hath brought me up on the water of refreshment: he hath converted my soul.

Deduxit me super semitas justitiæ: propter nomen suum.

He hath led me on the paths of justice, for his own name's sake.

Nam etsi ambulavero in medio umbræ mortis, non timebo mala: quoniam tu mecum es.

For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils: for thou art with me.

Virga tua, et baculus tuus: ipsa me consolata sunt.

Thy rod and thy staff: they have comforted me.

Parasti in conspectu meo mensam, adversus eos qui tribulant me.

Thou hast prepared a table before me, against them that afflict me.

Impinguasti in oleo caput meum: et calix meus

For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils: for thou art with me.

Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me.

Thou hast prepared a table before me, against them that afflict me.

Thou hast anointed my head with oil: and my chalice,

¹ St. John Chrysos. In Joan.

inebrians quam præclarus
est!

Et misericordia tua subsequetur me, omnibus diebus vitæ meæ.

Et ut inhabitem in domo Domini, in longitudinem dierum.

Ant. Paratur nobis mensa Domini adversus omnes qui tribulant nos.

which inebriateth me, how goodly is it!

And thy mercy will follow me, all the days of my life.

And that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, unto length of days.

Ant. The Lord's Table is prepared before us, against all them that afflict us.

The sixth psalm of these Matins was inspired into David's soul, when he was obliged to keep far off from the tabernacle and the holy ark, because of Saul's angry persecution, which necessitated his hiding in the mountains near the Jordan. It is the beautiful canticle already cited by us, as so strongly expressing man's thirst, even in this mortal life, after his God. The mere recollection of the feasting, which awaits him in the wonderful tabernacle in the house of God, comforts him amidst his troubles, and rouses his hope. Let us get the spirit of this celestial poetry into us; it will kindle within us the flame of love.

Ant. In voce exsultationis resonent epulantes in mensa Domini.

Ant. Let them that feast at the Table of the Lord, make the voice of joy resound.

PSALM 41

Quemadmodum desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarum: ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus.

Sitivit anima mea ad Deum fortem vivum: quando veniam et apparebo ante faciem Dei?

Fuerunt mihi lacrymæ
meæ panes die ac nocte:

As the hart panteth after the fountains of water: so my soul panteth after thee, O God.

My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God: when shall I come and appear before the face of God?

My tears have been my bread day and night: whilst

dum dicitur mihi quotidie: Ubi est Deus tuus?

Hæc recordatus sum, et
effudi in me animam meam: quoniam transibo in locum tabernaculi admirabilis, usque ad domum Dei:

In voce exsultationis, et confessionis: sonus epulantis.

Quare tristis es, anima mea: et quare conturbas me?

Spera in Deo, quoniam adhuc confitebor illi: salutare vultus mei, et Deus
meus.

Ad meipsum anima mea conturbata est: propterea memor ero tui de terra Jordanis, et Hermoniim a monte modico.

Abyssus abyssum invocat, in voce cataractarum tuarum.

Omnia excelsa tua, et fluctus tui super me transierunt.

In die mandavit Dominus
misericordiam suam, et nocte canticum ejus.

Apud me oratio Deo vitæ
meæ, dicam Deo: Susceptor meus es.

Quare oblitus es mei? et quare contristatus incedo, dum affligit me inimicus?

Dum confringuntur ossa mea; exprobraverunt mihi qui tribulant me inimici mei.

Dum dicunt mihi per singulos dies: Ubi est Deus
tuus? Quare tristis es, anima mea? et quare conturbas me?

Spera in Deo, quoniam adhuc confitebor illi: salutare vultus mei, et Deus
meus.

Ant. In voce exsultationis resonent epulantes in mensa Domini.

℣. Cibavit eos ex adipe
frumenti, alleluia.

℟. Et de petra, melle
saturavit eos, alleluia.

Pater noster.

it is said to me daily: Where is thy God?

These things I remembered, and poured out my soul in me: for I shall go over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God:

With the voice of joy, and praise: the noise of one feasting.

Why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou trouble me?

Hope in God, for I will still give praise to him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God.

My soul is troubled within myself: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan and Hermoniim from the little hill.

Deep calleth on deep, at the noise of thy flood-gates.

All thy heights and thy billows have passed over me.

In the day-time, the Lord hath commanded his mercy: and a canticle to him, in the night.

With me is prayer to the God of my life, I will say to God: Thou art my support.

Why hast thou forgotten me? and why go I mourning whilst mine enemy afflicteth me?

Whilst my bones are broken, mine enemies, who trouble me, have reproached me.

Whilst they say unto me, day by day: Where is thy God? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me?

Hope thou in God, for I will still give praise unto him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God.

Ant. Let them that feast at the Table of the Lord, make the voice of joy resound.

℣. He hath fed them with
the fat of wheat, alleluia.

℟. And filled them with
honey out of the rock, alleluia.

Our Father.

After the Pater noster, which is said as prescribed above in the first nocturn, the priest says:

Ipsius pietas et misericordia nos adjuvet, qui cum Patre et Spiritu sancto vivit et regnat in sæcula sæculorum. ℟. Amen.

May his goodness and mercy help us, who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth for ever and ever. ℟. Amen.

The angelic Doctor provides us with the second nocturn lessons: his own words are going to be read to us, words which will aid our faith to enter into the science of the divine Sacrament, "as far as it can be understood by man whilst on the way, and humanly be defined." These were the words of our Lord, when approving the doctrine "of Thomas, on the Sacrament of the Body." Three cities, Paris, Naples, and Orvieto, had the honour of being, each in its turn, the scene of these manifestations of Christ to His faithful servant, the angelic Doctor. There is still venerated in the church of St. Dominic at Orvieto, the crucifix by which our Lord spoke, when

¹ Act. SS. ad diem 7 Martii; cap. ix. 63.

giving His divine approval to the Office we are actually celebrating. Let us, then, listen with veneration to the following passage, which the Church has selected from one of the saint's treatises. As to its scholastic phraseology, let us remember that, although in itself it is not learning, yet it was the war-dress wherewith our forefathers of the thirteenth century deemed it necessary to accoutre theology, when she had to come to close argument with dry logicians.

Benedictio. Deus Pater
omnipotens sit nobis propitius et clemens.

℟. Amen.

Blessing. May God the Father almighty be propitious and merciful unto us.

℟. Amen.

FOURTH LESSON

Sermo Sancti Thomæ
Aquinatis.

Immensa divinæ largitatis beneficia, exhibita populo Christiano, inæstimabilem ei conferunt dignitatem.
Neque enim est, aut fuit aliquando tam grandis natio, quæ habeat deosappropinquantes sibi, sicut adest
nobis Deus noster. Unigenitus siquidem Dei Filius, suæ
divinitatis volens nos esse participes, naturam nostram assumpsit, ut homines deos faceret, factus homo. Et hoc insuper quod de nostro assumpsit, totum nobis contulit ad salutem. Corpus namque suum pro nostra reconciliatione in ara crucis hostiam obtulit Deo Patri: sanguinem suum fudit in pretium simul et

Sermon of Saint Thomas of Aquin.

The immeasurable blessings of divine bounty, which have been shown to the Christian people, confer an inestimable dignity upon it. For neither is there, nor ever was there, a nation so great, that hath gods so nigh them, as our God is present with us. For the only-begotten Son of God, wishing that we should be partakers of his divinity, assumed our nature, and was made Man, that he might make men gods. And, moreover, he conferred upon us, unto salvation, the whole of that which he assumed of ours. For he offered to God his Father, for our reconciliation, his own Body, as a victim, on the altar of the cross: he shed his Blood, that

lavacrum: ut redempti a miserabili servitute, a peccatis omnibus mundaremur. Ut autem tanti beneficii jugis in nobis maneret memoria, corpus suum in cibum, et sanguinem suum in potum, sub specie panis et vini sumendum, fidelibus dereliquit.

℟. Cœnantibus illis, accepit Jesus panem, et benedixit, ac fregit, deditque
discipulis suis, et ait: * Accipite et comedite: Hoc est corpus meum.

℣. Dixerunt viri tabernaculi mei: Quis det de carnibus ejus, ut saturemur?
* Accipite.

Benedictio. — Christus perpetuæ det nobis gaudia
vitæ.

℟. Amen.

it might be our ransom and our laver to cleanse us: that being redeemed from a miserable slavery, we might be cleansed from all sins. But that the remembrance of so great a benefit might abide in us, he left to the faithful, under the species of bread and wine, his Body for food, and his Blood for drink.

℟. Whilst they were at
supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake, and gave to his disciples, and saith: * Take ye, and eat: This is my Body.

℣. The men of my tabernacle said: Who can give us
of his Flesh, that we may be filled? * Take ye.

Blessing. May Christ grant unto us the joys of eternal life.

℟. Amen.

FIFTH LESSON

O pretiosum et admirandum convivium, salutiferum, et omni suavitate repletum! Quid enim hoc convivio pretiosius esse potest? in quo non carnes vitulorum et hircorum, ut olim in lege, sed nobis Christus sumendus proponitur verus Deus. Quid hoc Sacramento mirabilius? In
ipso namque panis et vinum in Christi Corpus et Sanguinem substantialiter convertuntur, ideoque Christus Deus, et homo perfectus sub modici panis et vini specie continetur. Manducatur itaque a fidelibus, sed minime laceratur: quinimo, diviso Sacramento, sub qualibet divisionis particula integer perseverat. Accidentia autem sine subjecto in eodem subsistunt, ut fides locum habeat, dum visibile invisibiliter sumitur aliena specie occultatum: et sensus a deceptione reddantur immunes, qui de accidentibus judicant sibi notis.

℟. Accepit Jesus calicem,
postquam cœnavit, dicens:
Hic calix novum testamentum est in meo sanguine: * Hoc facite in meam commemorationem.

℣. Memoria memor ero,
et tabescet in me anima mea. * Hoc facite.

Benedictio. Ignem sui amoris accendat Deus in
cordibus nostris.

℟. Amen.

O precious and wonderful banquet! health-giving, and replete with every sweetness! For what can possibly be more precious than this banquet? wherein, not the flesh of calves and goats, as heretofore in the Law, but Christ, very God, is put before us, that we may take him. What more wonderful than this sacrament? for, in it, bread and wine are substantially changed into the Body and Blood of Christ: and, therefore, Christ, perfect God and Man, is contained under the species of a little bread and wine. He is, therefore, eaten by the faithful, but not lacerated: nay, when the Sacrament is divided, he remains whole, under each particle of the division. But the accidents subsist in the same, without a subject, in order that there may be room for faith, inasmuch as the visible is invisibly taken, being hid under a species not its own; and the senses are kept free from deception, for they judge of accidents, (which are the only things) known by them.

℟. Jesus took the cup, after he had supped, saying: This
Chalice is the new testament in my Blood: * Do ye this for the commemoration of me.

℣. Remembering, I will remember, and my soul shall
languish within me. * Do ye this.

Blessing. May God enkindle within our hearts the fire of his love.

℟. Amen.

SIXTH LESSON

Nullum etiam sacramentum est isto salubrius, quo purgantur peccata, virtutes augentur, et mens omnium spiritualium charismatum abundantia impinguatur. Offertur in Ecclesia pro vivis et mortuis: ut omnibus

Again, there is no sacrament more health-giving than this, in which sins are wiped away, virtues are increased, and the mind is made rich with the abundance of all spiritual gifts. It is offered, in the Church, for the living and the dead; that

prosit, quod est pro salute omnium institutum. Suavitatem denique hujus Sacramenti nullus exprimere sufficit, per quod spiritualis dulcedo in suo fonte gustatur: et recolitur memoria illius, quam in sua passione Christus monstravit, excellentissimæ charitatis. Unde ut arctius hujus
charitatis immensitas fidelium cordibus infigeretur, in ultima cœna, quando Pascha cum discipulis celebrato, transiturus erat de hoc
mundo ad Patrem, hoc Sacramentum instituit, tanquam passionis suæ memoriale perenne, figurarum
veterum impletivum, miraculorum ab ipso factorum maximum, et de sua contristatis absentia solatium singulare reliquit.

℟. Ego sum panis vitæ:
patres vestri manducaverunt manna in deserto, et mortui sunt: * Hic est panis de cœlo descendens: ut
si quis ex ipso manducet, non moriatur.

℣. Ego sum panis vivus,
qui de cœlo descendi: si
quis manducaverit ex hoc pane, vivet in æternum. *
Hic est. Gloria. * Hic est.

what was instituted for the salvation of all, may profit all. Finally, no one can adequately express the sweetness of this Sacrament, by which spiritual sweetness is tasted in its very source: and remembrance is solemnly made of that most perfect charity evinced by Christ in his Passion. Wherefore, in order that the immensity of this charity might the more deeply be impressed on the hearts of the faithful, it was at the last Supper, when, having celebrated the Pasch with his disciples, he was about to pass out of this world unto his Father, that he instituted this Sacrament, and left it as the perpetual memorial of his Passion, the fulfilment of the ancient figures, the greatest of the miracles done by him, and the special consolation to them that were to be sad because of his absence.

℟. I am the Bread of life:
your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead: * This is the Bread coming down from heaven; that if any man eat thereof, he may not die.

℣. I am the living Bread,
that came down from heaven; if any man shall eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever. * This is the Bread. Glory. * This is the Bread.

THE THIRD NOCTURN

The seventh psalm of these Matins is a sequel to the one immediately preceding it in the psalter. The two are inspired by the same trying circumstances; there is the same idea running through both; and several of the expressions are identical. We have the cry of the poor soul when, being harassed by her enemy, she is longing for her God; she has the wish and the confidence of at last seeing the holy mount, and that altar of God, where God gives Himself in the Person of the Incarnate Word, of Christ, who comes for the purpose of restoring their youth to His happy adorers and guests.

Ant. Introibo ad altare Dei: sumam Christum qui renovat juventutem meam.

Ant. I will go into the altar of God: I will take the Christ, who reneweth my youth.

PSALM 42

Judica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam de
gente non sancta: ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me.

Quia tu es, Deus, fortitudo mea: quare me repulisti, et quare tristis incedo, dum affligit me inimicus?

Emitte lucem tuam, et veritatem tuam: ipsa me deduxerunt, et adduxerunt in montem sanctum tuum, et in tabernacula tua.

Et introibo ad altare Dei: ad Deum, qui lætificat juventutem meam.

Confitebor tibi in cithara Deus, Deus meus: quare
tristis es, anima mea, et quare conturbas me?

Spera in Deo, quoniam adhuc confitebor illi: salutare vultus mei, et Deus
meus.

Ant. Introibo ad altare Dei: sumam Christum qui renovat juventutem meam.

Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man.

For thou art, God, my strength: why hast thou cast me off? and why go I sorrowful, whilst the enemy afflicteth me?

Send forth thy light, and thy truth: they have conducted me, and brought me unto thy holy hill, and into thy tabernacles.

And I will go in to the altar of God: to God, who giveth joy to my youth.

To thee, O God, my God, I will give praise upon the harp: why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me?

Hope in God, for I will still give praise unto him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God.

Ant. I will go in to the altar of God: I will take the Christ, who reneweth my youth.

The eighth psalm celebrates, with enthusiasm, the sovereign goodness of the God of Jacob. He had, by numberless prodigies, worked the deliverance of His people. Open thy mouth, He said, and I will fill it; and He this day keeps His word, notwithstanding the frequent sad frowardness of His unworthy children. He feeds them with the fat of wheat; He fills them with honey out of the rock; that is to say, He gives them to taste the ineffable sweetness of Christ, who is the wheat of the elect and the rock of the desert.¹

Ant. Cibavit nos Dominus ex adipe frumenti: et
de petra, melle saturavit nos.

Ant. The Lord hath fed us with the fat of wheat: and hath filled us with honey out of the rock.

PSALM 80

Exsultate Deo adjutori nostro: jubilate Deo Jacob.

Sumite psalmum, et date tympanum, psalterium jucundum cum cithara.

Buccinate in Neomenia tuba, in insigni die solemnitatis vestræ.

Quia præceptum in Israel
est: et judicium Deo Jacob.

Testimonium in Joseph posuit illud, cum exiret de terra Ægypti: linguam quam non noverat, audivit.

Divertit ab oneribus dorsum ejus: manus ejus in cophino servierunt.

In tribulatione invocasti me, et liberavi te: exaudivi te in abscondito tempestatis: probavi te apud aquam contradictionis.

Audi, populus meus, et contestabor te: Israel, si audieris me, non erit in te deus recens, neque adorabis
deum alienum.

Ego enim sum Dominus
Deus tuus, qui eduxi te de
terra Ægypti: dilata os tuum, et implebo illud.

Et non audivit populus meus vocem meam: et Israel non intendit mihi.

Et dimisi eos secundum desideria cordis eorum, ibunt in adinventionibus suis.

Si populus meus audisset me: Israel si in viis meis ambulasset:

Pro nihilo forsitan inimicos eorum humiliassem; et super tribulantes eos misissem manum meam.

Inimici Domini mentiti sunt ei: et erit tempus eorum in sæcula.

Et cibavit eos ex adipe frumenti: et de petra, melle saturavit eos.

Ant. Cibavit nos Dominus ex adipe frumenti; et
de petra, melle saturavit nos.

Rejoice unto God, our helper: sing aloud to the God of Jacob.

Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel: the pleasant psaltery with the harp.

Blow up the trumpet on the new moon, on the noted day of your solemnity.

For it is a commandment in Israel, and a judgment to the God of Jacob.

He ordained it for a testimony in Joseph, when he came out of the land of Egypt, he heard a tongue which he knew not.

He removed his back from the burdens, his hands had served in baskets.

Thou calledst upon me in affliction, and I delivered thee: I heard thee in the secret place of tempest: I proved thee at the waters of contradiction.

Hear, O my people, and I will testify to thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me, there shall be no new god in thee: neither shalt thou adore a strange god.

For I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.

But my people heard not my voice: and Israel hearkened not to me.

So I let them go according to the desires of their heart: they shall walk in their own inventions.

If my people had heard me: if Israel had walked in my ways:

I should soon have humbled their enemies: and laid my hand on them that troubled them.

The enemies of the Lord have lied to him: and their time shall be for ever.

And he fed them with the fat of wheat: and filled them with honey out of the rock.

Ant. The Lord hath fed us with the fat of wheat: and hath filled us with honey out of the rock.

Christ is that living God, who makes my heart and my flesh rejoice. Let us take this next psalm, and sing the praises of the altars of the Lord of hosts, our King and our God. Those altars are a house for the sparrow, and a nest for the turtle-dove. Happy they who dwell in those lovely tabernacles!

Ant. Ex altari tuo, Domine, Christum sumimus,
in quem cor et caro nostra exsultant.

Ant. We receive Christ from thine altar, O Lord; in whom our heart and flesh rejoice.

PSALM 83

Quam dilecta tabernacula tua, Domine virtutum!
concupiscit et deficit anima mea in atria Domini.

Cor meum et caro mea exsultaverunt in Deum vivum.

Etenim passer invenit sibi domum: et turtur nidum sibi, ubi ponat pullos suos.

Altaria tua, Domine virtutum: Rex meus, et Deus
meus.

Beati, qui habitant in domo tua, Domine: in
sæcula sæculorum laudabunt te.

Beatus vir, cujus est auxilium abs te: ascensiones in corde suo disposuit, in valle lacrymarum, in loco quem posuit.

Etenim benedictionem dabit legislator, ibunt de virtute in virtutem: videbitur Deus deorum in Sion.

Domine, Deus virtutum,
exaudi orationem meam: auribus percipe, Deus Jacob.

Protector noster aspice, Deus: et respice in faciem
Christi tui.

Quia melior est dies una in atriis tuis, super millia.

Elegi abjectus esse in domo Dei mei: magis quam habitare in tabernaculis peccatorum.

Quia misericordiam et veritatem diligit Deus: gratiam et gloriam dabit Dominus.

Non privabit bonis eos, qui ambulant in innocentia: Domine virtutum, beatus
homo qui sperat in te.

Ant. Ex altari tuo, Domine, Christum sumimus,
in quem cor et caro nostra exsultant.

℣. Educas panem de terra, alleluia.

℟. Et vinum lætificet cor
hominis, alleluia.

Pater noster.

How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! my soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord.

My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.

For the sparrow hath found herself a house, and the turtle a nest for herself, where she may lay her young ones.

Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God!

Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord! they shall praise thee for ever and ever.

Blessed is the man whose help is from thee: in his heart he hath disposed to ascend by steps, in the vale of tears, in the place which he hath set.

For the lawgiver shall give a blessing, they shall go from virtue to virtue: the God of gods shall be seen in Sion.

O Lord God of hosts! hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob.

Behold, O God! our protector: and look on the face of thy Christ.

For better is one day in thy courts, above thousands.

I have chosen to be an abject in the house of my God, rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners.

For God loveth mercy and truth: the Lord will give grace and glory.

He will not deprive of good things them that walk in innocence: O Lord of hosts! blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.

Ant. We receive Christ from thine altar, O Lord; in whom our heart and flesh rejoice.

℣. Bring forth bread out
of the earth, alleluia.

℟. And may wine cheer the
heart of man, alleluia.

Our Father.

After the Pater noster, which is said as in the first two nocturns, the priest says:

A vinculis peccatorum nostrorum absolvat nos omnipotens et misericors Dominus. ℟. Amen.

May the almighty and merciful Lord deliver us from the chains of our sins. ℟. Amen.

Here is read the first sentence of the Gospel of the Mass of this feast; and the interpretation of it, as given by St. Augustine, is immediately added. The holy Doctor dwells particularly on the unity which our Lord intended to produce among His followers by the august Sacrament. He shows the necessity of the interior dispositions required for receiving this Sacrament with fruit; and lays special stress on this one effect: that it is to make man live for Christ, just as He lives for His Father.

Benedictio. Evangelica lectio sit nobis salus et protectio. ℟. Amen.

Blessing. May the reading of the Gospel bring us salvation and protection. ℟. Amen.

SEVENTH LESSON

Lectio sancti Evangelii secundum Joannem.
Cap. vi.

In illo tempore, dixit Jesus turbis Judæorum: Caro
mea, vere est cibus: et sanguis meus, vere est potus. Et reliqua.

Homilia sancti Augustini Episcopi.

Cum cibo et potu id appetant homines, ut neque esuriant, neque sitiant, hoc veraciter non præstat, nisi
iste cibus et potus, qui eos, a quibus sumitur, immortales et incorruptibiles facit: id est, societas ipsa sanctorum: ubi pax erit, et unitas plena atque perfecta. Propterea quippe, sicut etiam ante nos hoc intellexerunt homines Dei, Dominus noster Jesus Christus Corpus
et Sanguinem suum in eis rebus commendavit, quæ ad
unum aliquid rediguntur ex multis. Namque aliud in unum ex multis granis conficitur: aliud in unum ex multis acinis confluit. Denique jam exponit quomodo id fiat, quod loquitur: et quid sit manducare Corpus ejus, et Sanguinem bibere.

℟. Qui manducat meam
carnem et bibit meum sanguinem, * In me manet, et ego in eo.

℣. Non est alia natio tam
grandis, quæ habeat deos
appropinquantes sibi, sicut Deus noster adest nobis. *
In me.

Benedictio. — Divinum auxilium maneat semper nobiscum. ℟. Amen.

Lesson from the holy Gospel

At that time, Jesus said to the multitude of the Jews: My flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. And the rest.

Homily of Saint Augustine, Bishop.

Seeing that men desire this, by the food and drink they take, that they may suffer neither hunger nor thirst, this result is not gained by any other than this food and drink, which makes those who take it immortal and incorruptible; that is, the very fellowship of the saints, where there is peace, and full and perfect unity. For—as also men of God, who preceded us, understood this subject—it was for that purpose that our Lord Jesus Christ commended his Body and Blood in such things as are brought, from being many, into one. For the first of these is made into one, out of several grains; and the second flows into one, out of several berries. He now, at last, explains how that is effected which he is speaking: and what it is to eat his Body, and drink his Blood.

℟. He that eateth my flesh,
and drinketh my blood, * Abideth in me, and I in him.

℣. There is no other nation
so great, that hath its gods so nigh unto it, as our God is present with us. * Abideth.

Blessing. May the divine assistance remain always with us. ℟. Amen.

EIGHTH LESSON

Qui manducat carnem meam, et bibit meum sanguinem, in me manet, et ego in illo. Hoc est ergo manducare illam escam, et illum bibere potum, in Christo manere, et illum manentem in se habere. Ac per hoc, qui non manet in Christo, et in quo non manet Christus, procul dubio nec manducat spiritaliter carnem ejus, nec bibit ejus sanguinem, licet carnaliter et visibiliter premat dentibus sacramentum Corporis et Sanguinis Christi: sed magis tantæ rei sacramentum ad judicium sibi
manducat et bibit, quia immundus præsumpsit ad
Christi accedere sacramenta, quæ aliquis non digne sumit,
nisi qui mundus est: de quibus dicitur: Beati mundo corde, quoniam ipsi Deum videbunt.

℟. Misit me vivens Pater,
et ego vivo propter Patrem: * Et qui manducat me vivet propter me.

He that eateth my Flesh, and drinketh my Blood, abideth in me, and I in him. This, then, it is to eat that meat, and drink that drink: to abide in Christ, and have Him abiding in one's self. And therefore, he that abideth not in Christ, and in whom Christ doth not abide, certainly does not spiritually either eat his Flesh, or drink his Blood, although he may, carnally and visibly, press the sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood with his teeth: but rather does he eat and drink the sacrament of so great a thing unto his own judgment, because being unclean he has presumed to approach the sacraments of Christ, which no one worthily receives unless he be clean: of whom it is said: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.

℟. The living Father hath
sent me, and I live by the Father: * And he that eateth me shall live by me.

¹ Zach. ix. 17; 1 Cor. x. 4.

℣. Cibavit illum Dominus pane vitæ et intellectus. * Et qui manducat. Gloria. * Et qui manducat.

rather, he eateth and drinketh the sacrament of so great a thing to his own judgment, seeing that he, unclean as he is, hath presumed to approach Christ's sacraments, which no one worthily receives unless he be clean: of whom it is said: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.

℟. The living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: * And he that eateth me, shall live by me.

℣. The Lord hath fed him with the bread of life and understanding. * And he. Glory. * And he.

BENEDICTIO. Ad societatem civium supernorum perducat nos Rex angelorum. ℟. Amen.

BLESSING. May the King of angels lead us to the fellowship of heavenly citizens. ℟. Amen.

NINTH LESSON

Sicut, inquit, misit me vivens Pater, et ego vivo propter Patrem: et qui manducat me, et ipse vivet propter me. Ac si diceret: Ut ego vivam propter Patrem, id est, ad illum tamquam ad majorem referam vitam meam, exinanitio mea fecit, in qua me misit. Ut autem quisquam vivat propter me, participatio facit, qua manducat me. Ego itaque humiliatus vivo propter Patrem: ille erectus vivit propter me. Si autem ita dictum est, vivo propter Patrem, quia ipse de illo, non ille de ipso est: sine detrimento æqualitatis dictum est. Nec tamen dicendo, et qui manducat me, et ipse vivet propter me: eamdem suam et nostram æqualitatem significavit, sed gratiam mediatoris ostendit.

As, says he, the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so, he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. It is as though he should say: That I should live by the Father (that is, should refer my life to him as to one greater), it was done by that emptying of myself, in which he sent me. But that any one live by me, it is done by that participation whereby he eateth me. I, therefore, being brought low, live by the Father; man, being raised up, liveth by me. But if the words, I live by the Father, are taken in this sense, that the Son is of the Father, not the Father of the Son, they must be so taken without lessening the equality (between Father and Son). And yet, we are not to take those words, So he that eateth me, the same shall live by me, as meaning equality between Christ and ourselves: (they do not mean that) but they show the grace (bestowed by him in his office) of Mediator.

HYMN OF THANKSGIVING

Te Deum laudamus: te Dominum confitemur.

Te æternum Patrem; omnis terra veneratur.

Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi cœli et universæ Potestates,

Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim: incessabili voce proclamant:

Sanctus,

Sanctus,

Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth!

Pleni sunt cœli et terra majestatis gloriæ tuæ.

Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus.

Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus,

Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.

Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur ecclesia:

We praise thee, O God! we acknowledge thee to be our Lord.

Thee, the Father everlasting, all the earth doth worship.

To thee the Angels, to thee the heavens, and all the Powers,

To thee the Cherubim and Seraphim, cry out without ceasing:

Holy!

Holy!

Holy! Lord God of Sabaoth!

Full are the heavens and the earth of the majesty of thy glory.

Thee the glorious choir of the Apostles,

Thee the laudable company of the Prophets,

Thee the white-robed army of Martyrs doth praise.

Thee the holy Church, throughout the world, doth acknowledge:

Patrem immensæ majestatis;

Venerandum tuum verum, et unicum Filium;

Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum.

Tu Rex gloriæ, Christe.

Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius,

Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum.

Tu devicto mortis aculeo: aperuisti credentibus regna cœlorum.

Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes in gloria Patris.

Judex crederis esse venturus.

The Father of incomprehensible majesty,

Thy adorable, true, and only Son,

And the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete.

Thou, O Christ, art the King of glory.

Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.

Thou, being to take upon thee to deliver man, didst not disdain the Virgin's womb.

Thou, having overcome the sting of death, hast opened to believers the kingdom of heaven.

Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.

Thee we believe to be the Judge to come.

All kneel at the following verse:

Te ergo quæsumus, tuis famulis subveni, quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.

Æterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari.

Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuæ.

Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in æternum.

Per singulos dies, benedicimus te.

Et laudamus nomen tuum in sæculum, et in sæculum sæculi.

Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire.

Miserere nostri, Domine; miserere nostri.

Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.

In te, Domine, speravi; non confundar in æternum.

We beseech thee, therefore, to help thy servants, whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious Blood.

Make them to be numbered with thy saints in eternal glory.

O Lord, save thy people, and bless thine inheritance.

And govern them, and exalt them for ever.

Every day we magnify thee.

And we praise thy name for ever and ever.

Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us, this day, without sin.

Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us.

Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, as we have put our trust in thee.

In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust: let me not be confounded for ever.

The three vigils of the night are over. The Church has kept watch for her Spouse; and, to beguile the hours, which seemed to go so slowly on, she has been singing the praises of her Beloved, and beseeching Him, with most ardent prayers, to come quickly. Blessed mother Church! For, blessed are they whom, when the Lord returneth from the nuptials, He shall find watching, ready to open to Him at His first knocking. He will gird Himself, as Jesus says in the Gospel, and will make them sit down to meat; and, passing, will minister unto them; and, if He shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants!¹ These divisions, called nocturns, which are so long a portion of the Divine Office, yet are independent of the seven Canonical Hours of the day, have been interpreted as signifying those long ages, when the human race, sitting as it was in darkness, and a prey to the anger of God, was asking for the Mediator, who was to justify the world by His Blood,² and to bring back the light, by restoring that peace with heaven which had been broken by original sin. Equally with the prayers of the Patriarchs and the desires of the Prophets, the supplications of the Church and of all the just were being heard in anticipation, and were hastening the time when the Messias was to come, and to offer the great Sacrifice, whereby sin was to have an end, the justice of God be made manifest, and the covenant with many be confirmed.³

¹ St. Luke xii. 36-38. ² Rom. v. 9. ³ Dan. ix. 24, 27.

But the Church still awaits her Spouse every day. It is true, He came but once to die; but He comes down every day from heaven, in order to enrich His bride, in the act of the daily Sacrifice; wherein a ceaseless application is made of the merits of the Sacrifice of the cross, which was offered up once for all, and for all future ages. This daily visit of her Jesus is the one hour to which the Church directs all she does; it divides her days into two parts, one of desire, the other of thanksgiving. She gives expression, seven times in each day, to the feelings of her heart; and to this her sacrifice of praise, which is the joyful outcome of the eucharistic Sacrifice, she invites her children. It is from the royal prophet that she learnt to do this,⁴ as also to set singers before the altar, making sweet melody by their voices.⁵

⁴ Ps. cxviii. 164. ⁵ Ecclus. xlvii. 11.

For, as soon as David had brought the Ark into Jerusalem, with all the solemnity recorded in Scripture, and had completed the sacrifices, he appointed a choir of levites to minister before it, and to glorify and praise the Lord God of Israel, in the name of all the people. Later on, when, full of days, he crowned on Sion that son of his, who was to have the happiness, denied to himself, of building the temple of Jehovah, he put into Solomon's hands the plans of the great building, which was to substitute stability for the tent-like structure of the days of desert life. David himself drew up the permanent arrangement which was to regulate divine worship as required by the new order of things. To the four-and-twenty priestly families, who were appointed to take their turns, week by week (or, in our own way of expressing it, to be hebdomadarians) in the offering of the sacrifices, there were added, as a natural complement, four thousand singers or psalmists, who were likewise divided into four-and-twenty sets; they were to keep up an unbroken ministry of prophecy or praise, under the direction of Asaph, Heman, and Idithun, and receive lessons from two hundred and eighty-eight, who, as being skilled in the science of sacred chant, and in giving praise with harp, psaltery, and cymbal, taught the song of the Lord to their brethren.⁶ Praise, or choral chanting, was prophecy in those days, just as now, in the new Testament, it is confession, that is, celebration; they sang in hope, as we sing in faith; but the object of all these chants, both theirs and ours, was and is the same, that is, Christ our Lord; and hence, so many of the sacred formulas of Israel have become those of our mother the Church.

⁶ 1 Paralip. xvi. xxiii. xxv. xxviii.

David was the perfect type of Christ. As such, he would not merely provide the people with the words of their chants by giving them his inspired psalms, but he takes his place among the very levites, clad, like them, with a robe of fine linen, and directing their songs, on that great day of the carrying of the Ark into the holy city.⁷ 'O most excellent precentor!' says the devout and learned abbot Rupert: 'he leads the sacred choirs, and dances before the Ark of the Lord's covenant. O king! O prince of sacred rites! what means this excessive enthusiasm in one so noble as thou? Observe, how he, who is not of the priestly race, commands the priests, and gives his orders to the levites, that they be sanctified; he appoints the chanters; he selects who are to sing mysteries, and who the song of victory for the octave; he arranges them that are to blow the trumpets, them that are to strike the horns, and them that are to sound harps or cymbals, or psalteries, or organs. In all these things, he foresaw his Son, Christ our Lord; he ventured upon an office, which he knew was to belong to this his Son; for the Ark of the Covenant was a figure of the human Nature to be assumed by Him, since it contained the manna of the Word, and the tables of the Testament, and the rod of priestly and kingly power. It is for this reason that our David, after He had destroyed the kingdom of death, as the other David had destroyed that of Saul, carries the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, and sets it in the heavenly tabernacle, which He had Himself prepared. The Church, seeing this, excites herself, like the former people, to sing with her David. The whole multitude, therefore, of the sons of Jacob sing harmoniously; and David himself plays the harp in the house of the Lord; for, whatsoever Israel sings, she learns it from David, her master, her precentor, who, with the finger of God, strikes the harps of our hearts. It is David that rouses the souls of men, so that they give forth sounds of bodily harmony, at one time low, at another high, or grandly; and under the dictate of one same faith, the immense body of the Church, spread as she is throughout all nations, sings everywhere a chant which is varied, yet one, and she sings it to her Head, who is Christ, and it sounds sweetly in His ear.'⁸

⁷ 1 Paralip. xv. ⁸ Rupert, De div. Off. lib. 1. cap. 17.

But the dawn of our feast is breaking. Turning towards the east, the Church knows, through the twilight, that her Spouse is preparing to visit her. She is all joy at this hour, when the king of day is about to shine on our earth; she has her solemn Office of Lauds, full of gladness and praise, as its name indicates; and in this Office she invites earth, and sea, and firmament, to sing canticles which are worthy of our Jesus, who is the true Sun, for He is rising upon us, and, as the psalmist tells us, is Himself rejoicing, as a giant to come to the altar of Sacrifice.

LAUDS

℣. Deus, in adjutorium meum intende.

℟. Domine ad adjuvandum me festina.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto;

Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen. Alleluia.

℣. Incline unto my aid, O God.

℟. O Lord, make haste to help me.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Alleluia.

The first psalm of Lauds shows us, in all His power and infinite sweetness, the Lord, the King of nations, hidden in the sacred Host. By the ever-living Sacrifice, He establishes, He strengthens, the world, notwithstanding all there is to move and disturb it. The voice of the deep sea is wonderful; but far more so, in the high heaven, is the voice of the divine Victim. Infinite Wisdom bears testimony to it on this day, for it is Wisdom that hath built the house, and set forth the table, for the great Sacrifice. Let us lead lives worthy, by their holiness, of this house, whose priceless treasure is proclaimed this day by Wisdom.

ANT. Sapientia ædificavit sibi domum, miscuit vinum, et posuit mensam, alleluia.

ANT. Wisdom hath built himself a house, mingled his wine, and set forth his table, alleluia.

¹ Ps. xviii. 6.

PSALM 92

Dominus regnavit, decorem indutus est: indutus est Dominus fortitudinem et præcinxit se.

The Lord hath reigned, he is clothed with beauty: the Lord is clothed with strength, and hath girded himself.

Etenim firmavit orbem terræ: qui non commovebitur.

For, by his Sacrifice, he hath established the world, which shall not be moved.

Parata sedes tua ex tunc: a sæculo tu es.

Thy throne, O divine Wisdom! is prepared from old: thou art from everlasting.

Elevaverunt flumina, Domine: elevaverunt flumina vocem suam.

The floods have lifted up, O Lord! the floods have lifted up their voice.

Elevaverunt flumina fluctus suos: a vocibus aquarum multarum.

The floods have lifted up their waves, with the noise of many waters.

Mirabiles elationes maris: mirabilis in altis Dominus.

Wonderful are the surges of the sea: wonderful is the Lord on high.

Testimonia tua credibilia facta sunt nimis: domum tuam decet sanctitudo, Domine, in longitudinem dierum.

Thy testimonies, O Wisdom! are become exceedingly credible: holiness becometh thy house, O Lord, unto length of days.

ANT. Sapientia ædificavit sibi domum, miscuit vinum et posuit mensam, alleluia.

ANT. Wisdom hath built himself a house, mingled his wine, and set forth his table, alleluia.

The following psalm invites all the inhabitants of earth to enter into the house of divine Wisdom, there to celebrate, in a becoming manner, the sweet presence of Him, whose delight it is to be thus dwelling among the children of men; and yet, this very Wisdom is the Lord of glory, the God who made us; we are His people, and the sheep of His exquisite pasture; let us proclaim His love with gladness and gratitude.

ANT. Angelorum esca nutrivisti populum tuum, et panem de cœlo præstitisti eis, alleluia.

ANT. Thou hast nourished thy people with the Bread of angels; and hast granted them Bread from heaven, alleluia.

PSALM 99

Jubilate Deo omnis terra, servite Domino in lætitia.

Sing joyfully unto God, all the earth! serve ye the Lord with gladness.

Introite in conspectu ejus; in exsultatione.

Come in before his Presence, with exceeding great joy.

Scitote quoniam Dominus ipse est Deus: ipse fecit nos, et non ipsi nos.

Know ye, that the Lord is God: he made us, and not we ourselves.

Populus ejus, et oves pascuæ ejus, introite portas ejus in confessione: atria ejus in hymnis, confitemini illi.

We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture; go ye into his gates, with praise: into his courts, with hymns, and give glory unto him.

Laudate nomen ejus, quoniam suavis est Dominus; in æternum misericordia ejus: et usque in generationem et generationem veritas ejus.

Praise ye his name, for the Lord is sweet; his mercy endureth for ever: and his truth to generation and generation.

ANT. Angelorum esca nutrivisti populum tuum, et panem de cœlo præstitisti eis, alleluia.

ANT. Thou hast nourished thy people with the Bread of angels; and hast granted them Bread from heaven, alleluia.

The two following psalms, which the Church joins together, are the prayer of the faithful soul at break of day. She has been awakened by the thirst for her God; she longs for the Bread of life, which is to fill her with marrow and fatness, that is, with the very substance of Christ, with what makes even kings delighted. She is overwhelmed with joy at the thought that to-day the object of her love is to receive a public triumph, which will, for at least a few hours, turn this earth—desert, trackless, and dry as it is—into a temple, where He will receive such solemn homage! All over the world, men are going to unite in one common feeling of adoration, joy, and praise: nations will gratefully honour the divine Fruit, which this our earth hath yielded.

ANT. Pinguis est panis Christi, et præbebit delicias regibus, alleluia.

ANT. The bread of Christ is fat, and it shall yield dainties to kings, alleluia.

PSALM 62

Deus, Deus meus: ad te de luce vigilo.

O God, my God, to thee do I watch at break of day.

Sitivit in te anima mea: quam multipliciter tibi caro mea.

For thee my soul hath thirsted, for thee my flesh oh! how many ways.

In terra deserta, et invia, et inaquosa: sic in sancto apparui tibi, ut viderem virtutem tuam et gloriam tuam.

In a desert land, and where there is no way, and no water: so, in the sanctuary, have I come before thee, to see thy power and thy glory.

Quoniam melior est misericordia tua super vitas: labia mea laudabunt te.

For thy mercy is better than lives: thee my lips shall praise.

Sic benedicam te in vita mea: et in nomine tuo levabo manus meas.

Thus will I bless thee all my life long: and in thy name I will lift up my hands.

Sicut adipe et pinguedine repleatur anima mea: et labiis exsultationis laudabit os meum.

Let my soul be filled, as with marrow and fatness, with thee, O Bread of life! and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips.

Si memor fui tui super stratum meum, in matutinis meditabor in te: quia fuisti adjutor meus.

If I have remembered thee upon my bed, I will meditate upon thee in the morning: because thou hast been my helper.

Et in velamento alarum tuarum exsultabo, adhæsit anima mea post te: me suscepit dextera tua.

And I will rejoice under the covert of thy wings; my soul hath stuck close to thee: thy right hand hath received me.

Ipsi vero in vanum quæsierunt animam meam, introibunt in inferiora terræ: tradentur in manus gladii: partes vulpium erunt.

But they have sought my soul in vain; they shall go into the lower parts of the earth: they shall be delivered into the hands of the sword, they shall be the portion of foxes.

Rex vero lætabitur in Deo, laudabuntur omnes qui jurant in eo: quia obstructum est os loquentium iniqua.

The just man, thus delivered, shall, as a king, rejoice in God; all they shall be praised who swear in Him: because the mouth is stopped of them that speak wicked things.

PSALM 66

Deus misereatur nostri, et benedicat nobis: illuminet vultum suum super nos, et misereatur nostri.

May God have mercy on us, and bless us: may he cause the light of his countenance to shine upon us, and may he have mercy on us.

Ut cognoscamus in terra viam tuam: in omnibus gentibus salutare tuum.

That we may know thy way upon earth, O Emmanuel! thy salvation in all nations.

Confiteantur tibi populi, Deus: confiteantur tibi populi omnes.

Let people confess unto thee, O God! let all people give praise unto thee.

Lætentur et exsultent gentes: quoniam judicas populos in æquitate, et gentes in terra dirigis.

Let the nations be glad and rejoice: for thou judgest the people with justice, and directest the nations upon earth.

Confiteantur tibi populi, Deus, confiteantur tibi populi omnes: terra dedit fructum suum.

Let the people, O God, confess unto thee: let all the people give praise unto thee: the earth hath yielded her Fruit.

Benedicat nos Deus, Deus noster, benedicat nos Deus: et metuant eum omnes fines terræ.

May God, our God, bless us, may God bless us: and all the ends of the earth fear him.

ANT. Pinguis est panis Christi, et præbebit delicias regibus, alleluia.

ANT. The Bread of Christ is fat, and it shall yield dainties to kings, alleluia.

The canticle in which the three children in the fiery furnace of Babylon bade all God's creatures to bless His name, comes to-day lending a voice to all nature, and inviting the whole of God's works to praise their Maker. How just it is that heaven and earth should unite in paying homage to Him, who, by the great Sacrifice, which is daily renewed by the offering made of it by the priests of the Church, has re-established all things, that are in heaven and on earth!¹

ANT. Sacerdotes sancti incensum et panes offerunt Deo, alleluia.

ANT. Holy priests offer incense and Bread unto God, alleluia.

CANTICLE OF THE THREE CHILDREN

Benedicite omnia opera Domini Domino: laudate et superexaltate eum in sæcula.

All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.

Benedicite angeli Domini Domino: benedicite cœli Domino.

O ye angels of the Lord, bless the Lord: O ye heavens, bless the Lord.

Benedicite aquæ omnes quæ super cœlos sunt, Domino: benedicite omnes virtutes Domini Domino.

O all ye waters, that are above the heavens, bless the Lord: O all ye powers of the Lord, bless the Lord.

Benedicite sol et luna Domino: benedicite stellæ cœli Domino.

O ye sun and moon, bless the Lord: O ye stars of heaven, bless the Lord.

Benedicite omnis imber et ros Domino: benedicite omnes spiritus Dei Domino.

O every shower and dew, bless ye the Lord: O all ye spirits of God, bless the Lord.

Benedicite ignis et æstus Domino: benedicite frigus et æstus Domino.

O ye fire and heat, bless the Lord: O ye cold and heat, bless the Lord.

Benedicite rores et pruina Domino: benedicite gelu et frigus Domino.

O ye dews and hoar-frosts, bless the Lord: O ye frost and cold, bless the Lord.

Benedicite glacies et nives Domino: benedicite noctes et dies Domino.

O ye ice and snow, bless the Lord: O ye nights and days, bless the Lord.

Benedicite lux et tenebræ Domino: benedicite fulgura et nubes Domino.

O ye light and darkness, bless the Lord: O ye lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord.

Benedicat terra Dominum: laudet et superexaltet eum in sæcula.

Oh! let the earth bless the Lord: let it praise and exalt him above all for ever.

Benedicite montes et colles Domino: benedicite universa germinantia in terra Domino.

O ye mountains and hills, bless the Lord: O all ye things that spring up in the earth, bless the Lord.

Benedicite fontes Domino: benedicite maria et flumina Domino.

O ye fountains, bless the Lord: O ye seas and rivers, bless the Lord.

Benedicite cete et omnia quæ moventur in aquis Domino: benedicite omnes volucres cœli Domino.

O ye whales, and all that move in the waters, bless the Lord: O all ye fowls of the air, bless the Lord.

Benedicite omnes bestiæ, et pecora Domino: benedicite filii hominum Domino.

O all ye beasts and cattle, bless the Lord: O ye sons of men, bless the Lord.

Benedicat Israel Dominum: laudet et superexaltet eum in sæcula.

Oh! let Israel bless the Lord: let them praise and exalt him above all for ever.

Benedicite sacerdotes Domini Domino: benedicite servi Domini Domino.

O ye priests of the Lord, bless the Lord: O ye servants of the Lord, bless the Lord.

Benedicite spiritus et animæ justorum Domino: benedicite sancti et humiles corde Domino.

O ye spirits and souls of the just, bless the Lord: O ye holy and humble of heart, bless the Lord.

Benedicite Anania, Azaria, Misael Domino: laudate et superexaltate eum in sæcula.

O Ananias, Azarias, Misael, bless ye the Lord, praise and exalt him above all for ever.

Benedicamus Patrem et Filium cum sancto Spiritu: laudemus, et superexaltemus eum in sæcula.

Let us bless the Father, and the Son, with the Holy Ghost; let us praise and exalt him above all for ever.

Benedictus es, Domine, in firmamento cœli: et laudabilis et gloriosus, et superexaltatus in sæcula.

Blessed art thou, O Lord, in the firmament of heaven: and worthy of praise, and glorious, and exalted above all, for ever.

ANT. Sacerdotes sancti incensum et panes offerunt Deo, alleluia.

ANT. Holy priests offer incense and bread unto God, alleluia.

The last three psalms of Lauds, which the Church unites under one antiphon, are also the last of the Psalter. They sing the praise of the Lord, and urge all creatures to bless His holy name. The first of the three has a great resemblance with the canticle of the three children; the second invites the saints to sing to the Lord who has glorified them, and, by the sacred Host, has given them to partake of His own happiness and power; the third calls on everything that can breathe forth music, to come, this day, and honour the God who is present with us by the Eucharist, and to give Him their sweetest melodies.

ANT. Vincenti dabo manna absconditum et nomen novum, alleluia.

ANT. To him that conquereth, I will give hidden manna, and a new name, alleluia.

PSALM 148

Laudate Dominum de cœlis: laudate eum in excelsis.

Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise ye him in the high places.

Laudate eum omnes angeli ejus: laudate eum, omnes virtutes ejus.

Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.

Laudate eum, sol et luna: laudate eum omnes stellæ et lumen.

Praise ye him, O sun and moon: praise ye him, all ye stars and light.

Laudate eum, cœli cœlorum: et aquæ omnes quæ super cœlos sunt, laudent nomen Domini.

Praise him, ye heaven of heavens: and let all the waters, that are above the heavens, praise the name of the Lord.

Quia ipse dixit, et facta sunt: ipse mandavit, et creata sunt.

For he spoke, and they were made: he commanded, and they were created.

Statuit ea in æternum, et in sæculum sæculi: præceptum posuit, et non præteribit.

He hath established them for ever, and for ages of ages;

Laudate Dominum de terra: dracones et omnes abyssi.

Ignis, grando, nix, glacies, spiritus procellarum: quæ faciunt verbum ejus.

Montes et omnes colles: ligna fructifera, et omnes cedri.

Bestiæ et universa pecora: serpentes et volucres pennatæ.

Reges terræ et omnes populi: principes, et omnes judices terræ.

Juvenes, et virgines, senes cum junioribus, laudent nomen Domini: quia exaltatum est nomen ejus solius.

Confessio ejus super cœlum et terram: et exaltavit cornu populi sui.

Hymnus omnibus sanctis ejus: filiis Israel, populo appropinquanti sibi.

¹ Eph. i. 10.

he hath made a decree, and it shall not pass away.

Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all ye deeps.

Fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy winds, which fulfil his word.

Mountains and all hills: fruitful trees, and all cedars.

Beasts and all cattle; serpents and feathered fowls.

Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth.

Young men and maidens: let the old with the younger, praise the name of the Lord: for his name alone is exalted.

His praise is above heaven and earth: and he hath exalted the horn (the power) of his people.

A hymn to all his saints: to the children of Israel a people approaching unto him.

PSALM 149

Cantate Domino canticum novum: laus ejus in Ecclesia sanctorum.

Lætetur Israel in eo, qui
fecit eum: et filii Sion exsultent in rege suo.

Laudent nomen ejus in choro: in tympano et psalterio psallant ei.

Quia beneplacitum est Do-

Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: let his praise be in the Church of the saints.

Let the new Israel rejoice in him that made him: and let the children of Sion be joyful in their King.

Let them praise his name in choir: let them sing to him with the timbrel and the psaltery.

For the Lord is well pleased

mino in populo suo: et exaltabit mansuetos in salutem.

Exsultabunt sancti in gloria: lætabuntur in cubilibus
suis.

Exaltationes Dei in gutture eorum: et gladii ancipites in manibus eorum.

Ad faciendam vindictam in nationibus: increpationes in populis.

Ad alligandos reges eorum in compedibus: et nobiles eorum in manicis ferreis.

Ut faciant in eis judicium conscriptum: gloria hæc est
omnibus sanctis ejus.

with his people: and the meek he will exalt unto salvation.

The saints shall rejoice in glory: they shall be joyful in their beds.

The high praises of God shall be in their mouth: and two-edged swords in their hands.

To execute vengeance upon the nations: chastisements among the people;

To bind their kings with fetters: and their nobles with manacles of iron;

To execute upon them the judgment that is written: this glory is to all his saints.

PSALM 150

Laudate Dominum in sanctis ejus: laudate eum in firmamento virtutis ejus.

Laudate eum in virtutibus ejus: laudate eum secundum multitudinem magnitudinis ejus.

Laudate eum in sono tubæ: laudate eum in psalterio et cithara.

Laudate eum in tympano et choro: laudate eum in chordis et organo.

Laudate eum in cymbalis bene sonantibus, laudate eum in cymbalis jubilationis: omnis spiritus laudet Dominum.

ANT. Vincenti dabo manna absconditum, et nomen novum, alleluia.

Praise ye the Lord in his holy places: praise ye him, in the firmament of his power.

Praise ye him for his mighty acts: praise ye him according to the multitude of his greatness.

Praise him with sound of trumpet: praise him with psaltery and harp.

Praise him with timbrel and choir: praise him with strings and organ.

Praise him on high sounding cymbals, praise him on cymbals of joy: let every spirit praise the Lord.

ANT. To him that conquereth, I will give hidden manna, and a new name, alleluia.

The following capitulum is taken from the first Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. We have already had it, with what precedes and follows it, in the first nocturn lessons.

CAPITULUM

Fratres, ego enim accepi
a Domino quod et tradidi vobis, quoniam Dominus
Jesus in qua nocte tradebatur, accepit panem, et gratias agens, fregit, et dixit: Accipite, et manducate; hoc est Corpus meum, quod pro vobis tradetur: hoc facite in meam commemorationem.

Brethren, for I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke, and said: Take ye and eat: this is my Body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me.

The hymn is celebrated for its fourth strophe, which, in its graceful brevity, resumes the mystery of our Jesus, who is our companion, food, ransom, and recompense. Let us sing it with gratitude, confidence, and love.

HYMN *

Verbum supernum prodiens, Nec Patris linquens dexteram, Ad opus suum exiens, Venit ad vitæ vesperam.

The divine Word coming forth, yet leaving not his Father's right hand, went forth to do his work; and reached the evening of his life.

In mortem a discipulo Suis tradendus æmulis,
Prius in vitæ ferculo
Se tradidit discipulis.

When about to be given over, by a disciple, to his enemies, he first gave himself to his disciples, in the food of life.

* In the monastic breviary, it is preceded by this brief response: ℟. brev.—Panem cœli dedit eis, * Alleluia, alleluia. ℣. Panem
angelorum manducavit homo, * Alleluia. Gloria Patri. Panem cœli.

Quibus sub bina specie Carnem dedit et sanguinem: Ut duplicis substantiæ
Totum cibaret hominem.

He gave them his Flesh and his Blood under the twofold species, that he might thus feed man, who is of a twofold nature.

Se nascens dedit socium, Convescens in edulium, Se moriens in pretium, Se regnans dat in præmium.

He was born, and became our companion; he sat with us, and became our food; he died, and became our ransom; he reigns, and is our reward.

O salutaris Hostia, Quæ cœli pandis ostium:
Bella premunt hostilia, Da robur, fer auxilium.

O saving Host, that openest heaven's gate! we are pressed by wars and foes; Oh give us strength and aid!

Uni, trinoque Domino Sit sempiterna gloria: Qui vitam sine termino Nobis donet in patria.

May everlasting glory be to the Triune God! and may he give to us life without end, in our country above!

Amen.

Amen.

℣. Posuit fines tuos pacem, alleluia.

℣. He hath placed peace in
thy borders, alleluia.

℟. Et adipe frumenti satiat te, alleluia.

℟. And filleth thee with
the fat of corn, alleluia.

The canticle of Zachary is now sung: it is the Church's daily welcome of the rising Sun. It celebrates the coming of Jesus to His creatures; the fulfilment of the promises made by God; and the apparition of the divine Orient in the midst of our darkness.

ANT. Ego sum panis vivus, qui de cœlo descendi:
si quis manducaverit ex hoc pane, vivet in æternum, alleluia.

ANT. I am the living Bread, that am come down from heaven: if any man shall eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever, alleluia.

CANTICLE OF ZACHARY

Benedictus Dominus Deus
Israel: quia visitavit, et

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel: because he hath visited

fecit redemptionem plebis suæ.

Et erexit cornu salutis nobis: in domo David pueri sui.

Sicut locutus est per os sanctorum: qui a sæculo
sunt prophetarum ejus.

Salutem ex inimicis nostris: et de manu omnium qui oderunt nos.

Ad faciendam misericordiam cum patribus nostris: et memorari testamenti sui sancti.

Jusjurandum quod juravit ad Abraham patrem nostrum: daturum se nobis.

Ut sine timore de manu inimicorum nostrorum liberati: serviamus illi,

In sanctitate et justitia coram ipso: omnibus diebus nostris.

Et tu, puer, propheta Altissimi vocaberis: præibis
enim ante faciem Domini parare vias ejus.

Ad dandam scientiam salutis plebi ejus: in remissionem peccatorum eorum.

Per viscera misericordiæ
Dei nostri: in quibus visitavit nos Oriens ex alto.

Illuminare his, qui in tenebris et in umbra mortis sedent: ad dirigendos pedes nostros in viam pacis.

and wrought the redemption of his people.

And hath raised up an horn of salvation to us, in the house of David his servant.

As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who are from the beginning.

Salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us.

To perform mercy to our fathers, and to remember his holy testament.

The oath which he swore to Abraham, our father; that he would grant to us.

That being delivered from the hand of our enemies, we may serve him without fear.

In holiness and justice before him, all our days.

And thou, child, Precursor of the Emmanuel, shalt be called the prophet of the Most High: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways.

To give unto his people the knowledge of salvation, unto the remission of their sins.

Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us;

To enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death; to direct our feet into the way of peace.

ANT. Ego sum panis vivus, qui de cœlo descendi;
si quis manducaverit ex hoc pane, vivet in æternum,
alleluia.

ANT. I am the living Bread, that am come down from heaven; if any man shall eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever, alleluia.

COLLECT

Deus, qui nobis sub Sacramento mirabili passionis
tuæ memoriam reliquisti:
tribue, quæsumus, ita nos
Corporis et Sanguinis tui sacra mysteria venerari, ut redemptionis tuæ fructum
in nobis jugiter sentiamus. Qui vivis et regnas. Amen.

O God, who, under the wonderful Sacrament, hast left us a memorial of thy Passion: grant us, we beseech thee, so to reverence the sacred mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that, in our souls, we may always feel the fruit of thy Redemption. Who livest, &c.

The sun has risen in his splendour, while the sweet chants of the sanctuary have been greeting the coming of the divine Orient. The appointed ministers of the sacred psalmody have been giving, in the name of the whole world, the solemn tribute of Lauds to God the Creator and Redeemer; and now that the king of day is up, we behold a very busy scene outside the precincts of the holy place: the children of men are all intent on a work, in which neither the desire of lucre, nor the thirst after pleasure, have any share. Tidings of salvation have been heard; the voice of rejoicing is in the tabernacles of the just:¹ God is preparing to visit his creatures; Emmanuel, who is present in the sacred Host, is about to go forth from His sanctuary; He is coming into your cities and your fields, to hold His court in your green forests;² the Lord God hath shone upon you, He hath appointed this solemn day; prepare His throne with shady boughs, and cover the way to the horn of the altar with flowers!³

¹ Ps. cxvii. ² Ibid. cxvii. ³ Ibid. cxxxi.

This announcement has excited a holy enthusiasm in the souls of men. For several previous days, many a faithful heart has had something of the feelings which animated David, when he vowed his vow to the God of Jacob: 'I will not enter into the tabernacle of my house, I will not go up into the bed wherein I lie, I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or rest to my temples, until I find out a place for the Lord, and a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.'¹ O beautiful reposoirs! resting-places where are to stand the feet of the King of peace!² short-lived but exquisite designs! the produce of that sacred poetry which comes from the supernatural love of the Christian! We see them to-day, everywhere, save alas! where cold heresy has come to keep man from being too earnest in his worship of his Saviour! On every Catholic heart, even on those who, at all other times, seem to be out of the influence of grace, the mystery of faith makes its power tell; and many a wife, and daughter, and sister, who have seen the other feasts of the year of grace pass by and produce no effect on those dear to them who are out of the Church, on this bright summer morning have beheld them all busy in preparing decorations for the triumphant procession of Emmanuel (whom they have so long neglected to receive), and spending themselves in getting the best of everything they can give, or procure, for the God who is so soon to pass by that way, and, passing, to give these dear ones the blessing of a conversion! It is the wakening up of the faith of their Baptism; it is the grace of the Sacrament of love working at a distance; a grace of a reminder of other and happier days, of first Communion perhaps; and when Jesus passes through the crowd, He will

¹ Ps. cxxxi. 3-5. ² Isa. 7.

look at them, and they shall remember, and shall be converted to the Lord.¹

It is such a morning! Heaven is all gladness; earth is doing its best to be perfect; the mighty sea will look, here and there, on some procession of the holy Sacrament, and, seeing, will praise its Lord with the voice of its wonderful surges. The fields and all things that are in them, flowers, trees, branches, fragrance, all are rejoicing before the face of the Lord, because He cometh, not, indeed, to judge this world with justice, but to visit us with exceeding great love!²

It is very hard to be indifferent whilst everything around us is so excited at the near approach of our God. Let us, if we can take no other share in preparing for the procession, be full of love for that most dear King who is coming, not only to receive our homage, which is so justly His due, but moreover to load us with blessings.

All is now ready for the triumph of our Emmanuel. While the church bells are convoking the faithful to come to the great Sacrifice, for that now all things are ready,³ we offer our readers a page which will interest them: it is the last ever written for this Liturgical Year, from which they have been deriving so much instruction during the past months. Our much-loved father is drawing a plan of the feast; and we give it, almost exactly as we found it amongst his notes.

'The grand feast has, at length, dawned upon us; and everything is speaking of the triumph of faith and love. During the feast of the Ascension, when commenting those words of our Lord: It is expedient to you that I go,⁴ we were saying that the withdrawal

¹ Ps. xxi. 28. ² Ibid. xcv. 11-13. ³ Ibid. xcii. 4.
⁴ St. Matt. xxii. 4. ⁵ St. John xvi. 7.

of the visible presence of the Man-God from the eyes of men on earth, would bring among them, by the vivid operation of the Holy Ghost, a plenitude of light and a warmth of love which they had not had for Jesus, during His mortal career among them; the only creature that had rendered to Him, in her single self, the whole of those duties which the Church afterwards paid Him, was Mary, who was all illumined with faith.

*In his exquisite hymn, Adoro te devote, St. Thomas of Aquin says: 'On the cross the Divinity alone was hid; but here the Humanity, too, is hid'; and yet, on no day of the year is the Church more triumphant, or more demonstrative, than she is upon this feast. Heaven is all radiant; our earth has clad herself with her best, that she may do homage to Him, who has said: 'I am the Flower of the fields, and the Lily of the valleys!'¹ Holy Church is not satisfied with having prepared a throne whereon, during the whole of this octave, the sacred Host is to receive the adorations of the faithful; she has decreed, that these days of solemn and loving exposition be preceded by the pageant of a triumph. Not satisfied, to-day, with elevating the Bread of life, immediately after the words of Consecration: she will carry It beyond the precincts of her churches, amidst clouds of incense, and on paths strewn with flowers; and her children, on bended knee, will adore, under heaven's vaulted canopy, Him who is their King and their God.

*Those joys, which each separate solemnity of the year brought us, seem to come back upon us, all of them at once, to-day. The royal prophet had foretold this, when he said: 'He, (the Lord) hath made a remembrance (a MEMORIAL) of His wonderful works: He hath given Food to them that fear Him.'²

¹ Cant. ii. 1. ² Ps. cx. 4, 6.

Holy Church is filled with enthusiasm, holding in her arms that divine Spouse, who said: 'Lo! I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world!'¹ Nothing could be more formal; and the promise has been faithfully kept. It is true, we beheld Him ascending from Mount Olivet; He went up into heaven, and there He sitteth at His Father's right hand: but ever since the memorable day of Pentecost, when the holy Spirit took possession of the Church, the sacred mystery of the Supper has been celebrated, in virtue of those words spoken by Jesus: Do this in remembrance of Me; and from that day forward, the human race has never been deprived of the presence of its Head and its Redeemer.

'No wonder, therefore, that holy mother Church, possessing, as she does, the Word, the Son of God, is suddenly filled with wisdom. The sacramental Species, it is true, are there shrouding the mystery; but they are only existing for the purpose of leading into the invisible. . . .'

These are the last words written for this work by our venerated Abbot: they are followed by the indication of several passages from the works of Saint Augustine, bearing on the union between the Word and man, between divine Wisdom and our humanity, in the sacred mysteries. Our beloved father was just on the point of developing these outlines of the ineffable mystery of the marriage-feast in the eucharistic banquet, when death came upon him, and deprived us of his teaching, which we had all been so long and so impatiently expecting. The continuators of his Liturgical Year, have made these his words their guide during the whole octave of this feast. Our readers will pardon us, his children, for thus respecting the wishes of such a teacher. No doubt,

¹ St. Matt. xxviii. 20.

the theme he left them to finish, and the plan on which he intended to treat it, are very sublime; but they hesitated not to take both up, the more so as their own weakness would be less felt now, after the nine previous volumes, and the foregoing pages of this, have prepared the faithful soul for solid and choice instruction on the mysteries of our holy faith. There has been a progressive formation of the Christian, commencing with the subdued light of Advent, and leading up to the brilliant radiance of Pentecost; and all this must necessarily fit him for the sublime truths which we are still to put before him, and which, of course, we ourselves are but taking from the Scriptures and the fathers. Such was the plan proposed, such was the hope entertained, by the author of this work, when he wrote the following lines in the Christmas volume:

'In the mystery of Christmas and its forty days, the light is given to us, so to speak, softened down; our weakness required that it should be so. It is, indeed the divine Word, the Wisdom of the Father, that we are invited to know and imitate; but this Word, this Wisdom, is shown us under the appearance of a Child. . . . Now, every soul that has been admitted to Bethlehem, that is to say, into the house of bread, and has been united with Him who is the Light of the world, no longer walks in darkness. . . . The light has shone upon us, and we are resolved to keep up the light, nay, to cherish its growth within us, in proportion as the liturgical year unfolds its successive seasons of mysteries and graces. God grant that we may reflect in our souls the Church's progressive development of this divine light; and be led, by its brightness, to that union, which crowns both the year of the Church, and the faithful soul which has spent the year under the Church's guidance.'¹

And now, after these few words of necessary digression, we resume the explanation of the liturgy for this feast.

¹ The volume for Christmas, chap. iii.

MASS

The procession, which immediately precedes Mass on other feasts, is to-day deferred till after the offering of the great Sacrifice. In this procession, Jesus is to preside in Person: we must, therefore, wait until the sacred Action (so our fathers call the Mass) has bowed down to us the heavens where He resides.² He will soon be shrouded beneath the mysterious cloud. He is coming, that He may nourish His elect with the fat of wheat, of that Wheat which has fallen on our earth, and is to be multiplied by being mystically immolated on the countless altars of this earth.³ He is coming, to-day, that He may receive a triumph at the hand of His people, and hear the songs we shall so joyously sing to the God of Jacob. These are the ideas expressed by the Introit, wherewith the Church opens her rite during the holy Sacrifice; it is taken from Psalm lxxx, which is so sublime, and is one of those already recited in the Matins of this feast.

² Ps. xvii. 10. ³ St. John xii. 24, 25.

INTROIT

Cibavit eos ex adipe frumenti, alleluia: et de petra, melle saturavit eos, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Ps. Exsultate Deo adjutori nostro: jubilate Deo Jacob. ℣. Gloria Patri. Cibavit eos.

He fed them with the fat of wheat, alleluia: and filled them with honey out of the rock, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Ps. Rejoice unto God, our helper: sing joyfully unto the God of Jacob. ℣. Glory, &c. He fed them.

In the Collect, the Church reminds us of the intention our Lord had in instituting, on the eve of His Passion, the Sacrament of His love: it was to be a perpetual memorial of the Passion, which He was then going to suffer. Our mother prays that, being thus imbued with the spirit which leads her to pay honour to the Body and Blood of Christ, we may obtain the blessings which were purchased for us by His Sacrifice.

COLLECT

Deus, qui nobis sub Sacramento mirabili passionis tuæ memoriam reliquisti: tribue, quæsumus; ita nos Corporis et Sanguinis tui sacra mysteria venerari, ut redemptionis tuæ fructum in nobis jugiter sentiamus. Qui vivis.

O God, who, under the wonderful Sacrament, hast left us a memorial of thy Passion: grant us, we beseech thee, so to reverence the sacred mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that, in our souls, we may always feel the fruit of thy Redemption. Who livest, &c.

EPISTLE

Lectio Epistolæ Beati Pauli Apostoli ad Corinthios. I. Cap. xi.

Fratres, ego enim accepi a Domino quod et tradidi vobis, quoniam Dominus Jesus, in qua nocte tradebatur, accepit panem, et gratias agens fregit et dixit: Accipite et manducate: hoc est corpus meum, quod pro vobis tradetur: hoc facite in meam commemorationem. Similiter et calicem, postquam cœnavit, dicens: Hic calix novum testamentum est in meo sanguine: hoc facite quotiescumque bibetis, in meam commemorationem. Quotiescumque enim manducabitis panem hunc, et calicem bibetis: mortem Domini annuntiabitis donec veniat. Itaque quicumque manducaverit panem hunc, vel biberit calicem Domini indigne: reus erit corporis et sanguinis Domini. Probet autem seipsum homo: et sic de pane illo edat, et de calice bibat. Qui enim manducat et bibit indigne, judicium sibi manducat et bibit: non dijudicans corpus Domini.

Lesson of the Epistle of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians.

Brethren, for I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke, and said: Take ye and eat: this is my body which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me. In like manner, also, the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as ye shall drink, for the commemoration of me. For as often as ye shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, ye shall show the death of the Lord, until he come. Therefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But, let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.

The holy Eucharist, both as Sacrifice and Sacrament, is the very centre of the Christian religion; and therefore our Lord would have a fourfold testimony to be given, in the inspired writings, to its institution. Besides the accounts given by Saints Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we have also that of St. Paul, which has just been read to us, and which he received from the lips of Jesus Himself, who vouchsafed to appear to him, after his conversion, and instruct him.

St. Paul lays particular stress on the power, given by our Lord to His disciples, of renewing the act which He Himself had just been doing. He tells us, what the evangelists had not explicitly mentioned, that as often as a priest consecrates the Body and Blood of Christ, he shows (he announces) the death of the Lord: by that expression he tells us that the Sacrifice of the cross, and that of our altars, is one and the same. It is, likewise, by the immolation of our Redeemer on the cross, that the Flesh of this Lamb of God is truly meat, and His Blood truly drink, as we shall be told in a few moments, by the Gospel. Let not the Christian, therefore, forget it, even on this day of festive triumph. The Church insists on the same truth in her Collect of this feast: it is the teaching which she keeps repeating, in this formula, throughout the entire octave; and her object in this is to impress vividly on the minds of her children this last and earnest injunction of Jesus: 'As often as ye shall drink of this cup of the new Testament, do it for the commemoration of Me!' The selection she makes of this passage of St. Paul for the Epistle, should impress the Christian with this truth: that the divine Flesh which feeds his soul was prepared on Calvary; and that, although the Lamb of God is now living and impassible, He became our food, our nourishment, by the cruel death which he endured. The sinner, who has made his peace with God, will partake of this sacred Body with deep compunction, reproaching himself for having shed its Blood by his sins: the just man will approach the holy Table with humility, remembering how he, also, has had but too great a share in causing the innocent Lamb to suffer; and that, if he be at present in the state of grace, he owes it to the Blood of the Victim whose Flesh is about to be given to him for his nourishment.

But let us dread, and dread above all things, the sacrilegious daring, spoken against in such strong language by our apostle, which, by a monstrous contradiction, would attempt to put again to death Him who is the Author of life; and this attempt to be made in the very banquet, which was procured for us men by the precious Blood of this Saviour! Let a man prove himself, says the apostle; and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. This proving one's self is sacramental confession, which must be made by him who feels himself guilty of a grievous sin, which has never before been confessed. How sorry soever he may be for it, were he even reconciled to God by an act of perfect contrition, the injunction of the apostle, interpreted by the custom of the Church and the decision of her Councils, forbids his approaching the holy Table until he has submitted his sin to the power of the keys.

The Gradual and Alleluia-verse are a further instance of the parallelism between the two Testaments, which we have already noticed in the composition of the Matins responsories. The psalmist extols the bounty of God, to whom every living creature looks for its food; and Jesus offers Himself to us, as we have it in St. John's Gospel, as our truest nourishment.

GRADUAL

Oculi omnium in te sperant, Domine: et tu das illis escam in tempore opportuno.

℣. Aperis tu manum tuam, et imples omne animal benedictione.

Alleluia, alleluia.

℣. Caro mea vere est cibus, et sanguis meus vere est potus; qui manducat meam carnem, et bibit meum sanguinem, in me manet, et ego in eo.

The eyes of all hope in thee, O Lord: and thou givest them food in due season.

℣. Thou openest thy hand, and fillest with thy blessing every living creature.

Alleluia, alleluia.

℣. My flesh is truly meat, and my blood is truly drink; he that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.

Then follows the Sequence, that well-known composition of the Angelic Doctor. The Church, the true Sion, expresses her enthusiasm, and love, for the living and life-giving Bread, in words which, at first sight, would seem too precise and scholastic to be adapted to a poetic form or sentiment. The Eucharistic mystery is here developed with that concision and solemnity for which St. Thomas had such a wonderful talent. The words are accompanied by a chant which is worthy of them; and the two together excite in the Christian soul the sentiments of unearthly joy, which are so peculiar to this feast of the Sacrament of love.

SEQUENCE

Lauda Sion Salvatorem, Lauda ducem et pastorem In hymnis et canticis.

Quantum potes, tantum aude: Quia major omni laude, Nec laudare sufficis.

Laudis thema specialis, Panis vivus et vitalis Hodie proponitur.

Quem in sacræ mensa cœnæ,
Turbæ fratrum duodenæ
Datum non ambigitur.

Sit laus plena, sit sonora, Sit jucunda, sit decora Mentis jubilatio;

Dies enim solemnis agitur, In qua mensæ prima recolitur
Hujus institutio.

In hac mensa novi Regis, Novum Pascha novæ legis
Phase vetus terminat.

Vetustatem novitas, Umbram fugat veritas, Noctem lux eliminat.

Quod in cœna Christus gessit,
Faciendum hoc expressit In sui memoriam.

Docti sacris institutis, Panem, vinum in salutis Consecramus hostiam.

Dogma datur Christianis, Quod in carnem transit panis, Et vinum in sanguinem.

Quod non capis, quod non vides, Animosa firmat fides, Præter rerum ordinem.

Sub diversis speciebus, Signis tantum et non rebus, Latent res eximiæ.

Caro cibus, sanguis potus; Manet tamen Christus totus Sub utraque specie.

A sumente non concisus, Non confractus, non divisus, Integer accipitur.

Sumit unus, sumunt mille; Quantum isti, tantum ille: Nec sumptus consumitur.

Sumunt boni, sumunt mali: Sorte tamen inæquali,
Vitæ vel interitus.

Mors est malis, vita bonis: Vide paris sumptionis Quam sit dispar exitus.

Fracto demum Sacramento, Ne vacilles, sed memento, Tantum esse sub fragmento, Quantum toto tegitur.

Nulla rei fit scissura, Signi tantum fit fractura: Qua nec status, nec statura Signati minuitur.

Ecce panis angelorum, Factus cibus viatorum: Vere panis filiorum, Non mittendus canibus.

In figuris præsignatur,
Cum Isaac immolatur: Agnus Paschæ deputatur,
Datur manna patribus.

Bone Pastor, panis vere, Jesu nostri miserere: Tu nos pasce, nos tuere: Tu nos bona fac videre In terra viventium.

Tu qui cuncta scis et vales, Qui nos pascis hic mortales: Tuos ibi commensales, Cohæredes et sodales,
Fac sanctorum civium.

Amen. Alleluia.

Praise thy Saviour, O Sion! praise thy guide and shepherd, in hymns and canticles.

As much as thou hast power, so also dare; for he is above all praise, nor canst thou praise him enough.

This day there is given to us a special theme of praise—the living and life-giving Bread,

Which, as our faith assures us, was given to the twelve brethren, as they sat at the table of the holy Supper.

Let our praise be full, let it be sweet: let our soul's jubilee be joyous, let it be beautiful;

For we are celebrating that great day, whereon is commemorated the first institution of this Table.

In this Table of the new King, the new Pasch of the new Law puts an end to the old Passover.

Newness puts the old to flight, and so does truth the shadow; the light drives night away.

What Christ did at that Supper, that he said was to be done in remembrance of him.

Taught by his sacred institutions, we consecrate the bread and wine into the Victim of salvation.

This is the dogma given to Christians—that bread passes into Flesh, and wine into Blood.

What thou understandest not, what thou seest not, that let a generous faith confirm thee in beyond nature's course.

Under the different species, which are signs not things, there hidden lie things of infinite worth.

The Flesh is food, the Blood is drink; yet Christ is whole under each species.

He is not cut by the receiver, nor broken, nor divided: he is taken whole.

He is received by one, he is received by a thousand; the one receives as much as all; nor is he consumed, who is received.

The good receive, the bad receive, but with the difference of life or death.

'Tis death to the bad, 'tis life to the good: lo! how unlike is the effect of the one like receiving.

And when the Sacrament is broken, waver not! but remember, that there is as much under each fragment, as is hid under the whole.

Of the substance that is there, there is no division; it is but the sign that is broken; and he who is the signified, is not thereby diminished, either as to state or stature.

Lo! the Bread of angels is made the food of pilgrims; verily it is the Bread of the children, not to be cast to dogs.

It is foreshown in figures: when Isaac is slain, when the Paschal Lamb is prescribed, when Manna is given to our fathers.

O good Shepherd! true Bread! Jesus! have mercy upon us: feed us, defend us: give us to see good things in the land of the living.

O thou, who knowest and canst do all things, who feedest us mortals here below, make us to be thy companions in the banquet yonder above, and thy joint-heirs, and fellow-citizens with the saints!

Amen. Alleluia.

GOSPEL

Sequentia sancti Evangelii secundum Joannem. Cap. vi.

In illo tempore: Dixit Jesus turbis Judæorum: Caro mea vere est cibus: et sanguis meus vere est potus. Qui manducat meam carnem et bibit meum sanguinem, in me manet, et ego in illo. Sicut misit me vivens Pater, et ego vivo propter Patrem: et qui manducat me, et ipse vivet propter me. Hic est panis qui de cœlo descendit. Non sicut manducaverunt patres vestri manna, et mortui sunt. Qui manducat hunc panem, vivet in æternum.

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to John. Ch. vi.

At that time: Jesus said to the multitude of the Jews: My flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so, he that eateth me, the same, also, shall live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever.

The beloved disciple could not remain silent on the mystery of love. But, at the time when he wrote his Gospel, the institution of the Eucharist had been sufficiently recorded by the three evangelists who had preceded him, as also by the apostle of the Gentiles. Instead, therefore, of repeating what these had written, he completed it, by relating the solemn promise made by Jesus, on the banks of Lake Tiberias, a year before the last Supper.

He was surrounded by the thousands, who were in admiration at His having miraculously multiplied the loaves and fishes: Jesus takes the opportunity of telling them that He Himself is the true bread come down from heaven, which, unlike the manna given to their fathers by Moses, could preserve man from death. Life is the best of all gifts, as death is the worst of evils. Life exists in God as in its source;¹ He alone can give it to whom He pleases, and restore it to him who has lost it. Man, who was created in grace, lost his life, when he sinned, and incurred death. But God so loved the world as to send it, lost as it was, His Son,² with the mission of restoring man to life. True God of true God, Light of Light, the only-begotten Son is, likewise, true Life of true Life, by nature: and, as the Father enlightens them that are in darkness, by this Son who is His Light, so likewise, He gives life to them that are dead, and He gives it to them in this same Son who is His living Image. The Word of God, then, came amongst men, that they might have life, and abundant life.³ And whereas it is the property of food to increase and maintain life, therefore did He become our Food, our living and life-giving Food, which has come down from heaven; partaking of the life eternal which He has in His Father's bosom, the Flesh of the Word communicates this same life to them that eat It. That, as St. Cyril of Alexandria observes, which of its own nature is corruptible, cannot be brought to life in any other way, than by its corporal union with the Body of Him who is life by nature: now, just as two pieces of wax melted together by the fire make but one, so are we and Christ made one by our partaking of His Body and Blood. This life, therefore, which resides in the Flesh of the Word, made ours within us, shall be no more overcome by death; on the day appointed, this life will throw off the chains of the old enemy, and will triumph over corruption in these our bodies, making them immortal.⁴ Hence it is that the Church, with her delicate feelings as bride and mother, selects from this same passage of St. John her Gospel for the daily Mass of the dead; thus drying up the tears of the living who are mourning over their departed friends, and consoling them by bringing them into the presence of the holy Host, which is the source of true life, and the centre of all our hopes.

Thus not only was the soul to be renewed by her contact with the Word, but even the body, earthly and material as it is, was to share, in its way, in what our Saviour called the Spirit that quickeneth.⁵ 'They,' St. Gregory of Nyssa has so beautifully said, 'who have been led, by an enemy's craft, to take poison, neutralize, by some other potion, the power which would cause death; and as was the deadly, so likewise the curative must be taken into the very bowels of the sufferer; that so the efficacy of that which brings relief may permeate through the whole body. Thus we, having tasted that which ruined our nature, require something which will restore and put right that which was disordered; that, when this salutary medicine shall be within us, it may, as an antidote, drive out the mischief of the poison, which had previously been taken into the body. And what is this (salutary medicine)? No other than that Body, which had both been shown to be stronger than death, and was the beginning of our life. For, says the apostle, as a little leaven makes the whole paste to be like itself, so likewise that Body, which God had willed should be put to death, when it is within ours, transmutes and transfers it wholly into Itself. . . . Now, the only way whereby a substance may be thus received into the body, is by its being taken as food and drink.'⁶

The Offertory is taken from the words of Leviticus (xxi. 6.) wherein God commands the priests of the ancient covenant to be holy because of their having to offer holocausts and loaves of proposition to Him, as figures of something future. As much as the priesthood of the new Testament is superior to this ministry of the figurative Law, so much should the hands of Aaron be surpassed in holiness by those that have to offer to God the Father the true Bread of heaven, which is the sacrifice of infinite fragrance.

OFFERTORY

Sacerdotes Domini incensum et panes offerunt Deo: et ideo sancti erunt Deo suo, et non polluent nomen ejus, alleluia.

The priests of the Lord offer unto God the burnt-offering and loaves: and therefore shall they be holy to their God, and shall not defile his name, alleluia.

In the Secret, the priest prays that there may be in the Church that unity and peace, which are the special grace of the holy Sacrament, as the fathers teach us. The very bread and wine, which are offered, express this: the bread is made up out of many grains, and the wine out of many berries.

The Preface, both for the feast and the octave, is that of Christmas: we are thus reminded of the close connexion which exists between the two mysteries of the birth of Christ and the Eucharist. It was in Bethlehem, the house of bread, that Jesus, the Bread of life, came down from heaven, through the Virgin, His ever blessed Mother.

SECRET

Ecclesiæ tuæ, quæsumus Domine, unitatis et pacis propitius dona concede: quæ sub oblatis muneribus mystice designantur. Per Dominum.

Mercifully grant thy Church, O Lord, we beseech thee, the gifts of unity and peace, which are mystically represented in these offerings. Through, &c.

PREFACE

Vere dignum et justum est, æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere: Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus: quia per incarnati Verbi mysterium, nova mentis nostræ oculis lux tuæ claritatis infulsit: ut dum visibiliter Deum cognoscimus, per hunc in invisibilium amorem rapiamur.

It is truly meet and just, right and available to salvation, that we should always, and in all places, give thanks to thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God; for that, by the mystery of the Incarnate Word, a new ray of thy glory has appeared to the eyes of our soul: so that while we behold God visibly, we may be carried by him to the love of things invisible.

¹ Ps. xxxv. 10.
² St. John iii. 16.
³ St. John x. 10.
⁴ St. Cyril of Alex. In Joan. lib. x. cap. 2.
⁵ St. John vi. 64.
⁶ St. Gregory of Nyssa. Orat. Catech., cap. 37.

visibilium amorem rapiamur: et ideo cum Angelis et Archangelis, cum Thronis et Dominationibus, cumque omni militia cœlestis exercitus hymnum gloriæ tuæ canimus, sine fine dicentes.

may be carried by him to the love of things invisible: and therefore with the Angels and Archangels, with the Thrones and Dominations, and with all the heavenly host, we sing a hymn to thy glory, saying unceasingly.

Faithful to her Lord's injunction, which she brought before us in the Epistle, the Church reminds her children, in the Communion-anthem, that the announce the death of Christ, when they receive His Body; and that consequently they should tremble at the very thought of an unworthy Communion.

COMMUNION

Quotiescumque manducabitis panem hunc, et calicem bibetis, mortem Domini annuntiabitis, donec veniat: itaque quicumque manducaverit panem, vel biberit calicem Domini indigne, reus erit corporis et sanguinis Domini, alleluia.

As often as ye shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, ye shall show the death of the Lord, until he come: whosoever, therefore, shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord, alleluia.

The Church concludes the mysteries by praying for that eternal and unveiled union with the divine Word, of which she has a pledge and figure in partaking, here below, of the real substance of His Body and Blood, under the veil of faith.

POSTCOMMUNION

Fac nos, quæsumus Domine, divinitatis tuæ sempiterna fruitione repleri: quam pretiosi Corporis et Sanguinis tui temporalis perceptio præfigurat. Qui vivis.

Grant us, O Lord, we beseech thee, the everlasting possession of thyself: as a pledge of which, we have received thy Body and Blood. Who livest, &c.

THE PROCESSION

Who is this who comes up, embalming the desert of the world with her clouds of incense and myrrh, and perfumes unnumbered? The bride has awakened of her own accord, to-day. Full of desire to please Him, and very lovely, the Church is standing before the golden litter whereon is throned her Spouse in His glory. Near Him are drawn up the valiant ones of Israel: the priests and levites of the Lord who are strong even with God. Go forth, ye daughters of Sion! fix your gaze on the true Solomon, so beautiful in the diadem wherewith His mother crowned Him on the day of His espousals, the day of the joy of His heart!¹ The diadem is the Flesh received by the divine Word, from the Virgin Mother, when He took our human nature for His bride.² By this most perfect of bodies, by this sacred Flesh, the ineffable mystery of the marriage between man and eternal Wisdom is every day continued in the Eucharistic banquet. For our true Solomon, then, each day is the day of the joy of His heart, the day of nuptial rejoicing. Could anything be more just than that, once in the year, holy Church should give full freedom to the transports of her love for her divine Spouse, who resides with her in the Sacrament of love, although in a hidden manner? It is on this account that, in to-day's Mass, the priest has consecrated two Hosts; and that after having received one of these in Communion, he has placed the other in the glittering Ostensorium, which is to be carried in his trembling hands, beneath a canopy, while hymns of triumphant joy are being sung, and the faithful, in prostrate adoration, are being blessed by Jesus, who thus comes amongst them.

¹ Cant. iii. 6-11. ² St. Greg. Mag. in Cant.

This solemn homage to the sacred Host is, as we have already said, a later institution than the feast itself of Corpus Christi. Pope Urban IV. does not speak of it in his Bull of the Institution, in 1264. Twenty-two years later, Durandus of Mende wrote his Rational of Divine Offices, in which he several times mentions the processions which were then in use; but he has not a word upon that of Corpus Christi. On the other hand, Martin V. and Eugenius IV., in their Constitutions, which we have already quoted (May 26, 1429, May 26, 1433), plainly show that it was then in use, for they grant Indulgences to those who are present at it. Donatus Bossius of Milan tells us, in his Chronicle, that on Thursday, May 24, 1404, "the Body of Christ was, for the first time, solemnly carried through the streets of Padua; and this practice has since become the custom." Some writers have concluded from these words that the procession of Corpus Christi was not in use before that date, and that it first originated at Padua; but the words of Bossius scarcely justify such an inference, and the words he uses may be understood of a local custom.

Indeed, we find mention made of this procession, in a manuscript of the Church of Chartres in 1330; in an Act of the Chapter of Tournai in 1325; in a Council of Paris in 1323; and in one held at Sens in 1320. These two Councils grant indulgences to those who observe abstinence and fasting on the vigil of Corpus Christi, and they add these words: "As to the solemn procession made on the Thursday's feast, when the holy Sacrament is carried, seeing that it appears to have been introduced in these our times by a sort of inspiration, we prescribe nothing at present, and leave all concerning it to the devotion of the clergy and people." It seems, then, that the initiative to the institution of to-day's procession was given by the devotion of the faithful; and that this admirable completion of our feast began in France, and thence was adopted in all the Churches of the west.

There is ground for supposing that at first the sacred Host was carried in these processions veiled over, or enclosed in a sort of rich shrine. Even so far back as the eleventh century, it had been the custom, in some places, to carry It in this way during the processions of Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday morning. We have elsewhere spoken of these devotional practices, which, however, were not so much for the direct purpose of honouring the blessed Sacrament, as for that of bringing more forward the mystery of those solemnities.¹ Be this as it may, the use of ostensoria, or monstrances, as they are termed in a Council held in 1452 at Cologne, soon followed the institution of the new procession. They were made, at first, in shape like little towers. In a manuscript Missal, dated 1374, the letter D, the initial of the Collect for Corpus Christi, gives us a miniature illumination representing a bishop, accompanied by two acolytes, who is carrying a Host in a golden tower with four openings. But Catholic piety soon sought to compensate the Sun of justice for thus hiding Himself and His glory in the mystery of love. The sacred Host was now exposed to the gaze of the faithful, enclosed in a crystal sphere, surrounded by rays of gold, or of other precious material. Not to mention other, and more ancient records, we find a very marked instance of the rapidity wherewith this use of the monstrance was adopted: it occurs in a Gradual of the period of Louis XII. (1498-1515); the initial letter of the Introit for Corpus Christi has within it a sun or sphere, like those in present use; it is being carried on the shoulders of two figures vested in copes, who are followed by the King, and by several Cardinals and Prelates.²

And yet the Protestant heresy, which was then beginning, gave the name of novelty, superstition, and idolatry, to these natural developments of Catholic worship, prompted, as they were, by faith and love. The Council of Trent pronounced anathema upon these calumnies; and, in a Chapter apart, showed how rightly the Church had acted in countenancing these practices. The words of the Council are as follows: "The holy Council declares that there has been most piously and religiously introduced into God's Church the practice, that each year, on a certain special feast, the august and venerable Sacrament should be honoured with singular veneration and solemnity, and that It should be reverently and with every honour carried in processions through the public roads and places. For it is most just that certain holidays should be appointed, whereon all Christians should, with special and unusual demonstrations, evince their gratitude and mindfulness towards their common Lord and Redeemer, for this so unspeakable and truly divine favour, in which is represented His victory and triumph over death. And it was also necessary, that thus invincible truth should triumph over lying and heresy; that her enemies, seeing all that splendour, and being in the midst of such great joy of the whole Church, should either grow wearied and acknowledge their being beaten and broken, or, being ashamed and confounded, should be converted."³

But to us Catholics, faithful adorers of the Sacrament of love, "Oh! the joy of the immense glory the Church is sending up to God this hour! verily as if the world was all unfallen still. We think, and, as we think, the thoughts are like so many successive tide-waves filling our whole souls with the fulness of delight, of all the thousands of Masses which are being said or sung the whole world over, and all rising with one note of blissful acclamation, from grateful creatures, to the majesty of our merciful Creator. How many glorious processions, with the sun upon their banners, are now wending their way round the squares of mighty cities, through the flower-strewn streets of Christian villages, through the antique cloisters of the glorious cathedral, or through the grounds of the devout seminary, where the various colours of the faces, and the different languages of the people are only so many fresh tokens of the unity of that faith, which they are all exultingly professing in the single voice of the magnificent ritual of Rome! Upon how many altars of various architecture, amid sweet flowers and starry lights, amid clouds of humble incense, and the tumult of thrilling song, before thousands of prostrate worshippers, is the blessed Sacrament raised for exposition, or taken down for benediction! And how many blessed acts of faith and love, of triumph and of reparation, do not each of these things surely represent! The world over, the summer air is filled with the voice of song. The gardens are shorn of their fairest blossoms, to be flung beneath the feet of the Sacramental God. The steeples are reeling with the clang of bells; the cannon are booming in the gorges of the Andes and the Apennines; the ships of the harbours are painting the bays of the sea with their show of gaudy flags; the pomp of royal or republican armies salutes the King of kings. The Pope on his throne, and the school-girl in her village, cloistered nuns, and sequestered hermits, bishops and dignitaries and preachers, emperors and kings and princes, all are engrossed to-day with the blessed Sacrament. Cities are illuminated; the dwellings of men are alive with exultation. Joy so abounds that men rejoice they know not why, and their joy overflows on sad hearts, and on the poor, and the imprisoned, and the wandering, and the orphaned, and the home-sick exiles. All the millions of souls that belong to the royal family and spiritual lineage of St. Peter are to-day engaged more or less with the blessed Sacrament: so that the whole Church militant is thrilling with glad emotion, like the tremulous rocking of the mighty sea. Sin seems forgotten; tears even are of rapture rather than of penance. It is like the soul's first day in heaven; or as if earth itself were passing into heaven, as it well might do, for sheer joy of the blessed Sacrament."⁴

During the procession, the hymns of to-day's Office are sung, also the Lauda Sion, the Te Deum, and, if time permit, the Benedictus, Magnificat, or other liturgical pieces in keeping with the spirit of the feast, such as the hymns for the Ascension, as specified in the ritual. On the return to the church, the function concludes, as at other Benedictions, with the Tantum ergo, the versicle and Collect of the blessed Sacrament. But after the blessing has been given, the deacon does not put the sacred Host into the tabernacle, but on the throne prepared for It, around which, for eight days, the faithful will be keeping a devout and adoring watch.

¹ Passiontide and Holy Week; Paschal Time, vol. i.
² Tapers. De l'exposit. du S. Sacr., liv. ii. ch. 2.
³ Sess. xiii. cap. v. and Can. vi.
⁴ Father Faber: The Blessed Sacrament.

SECOND VESPERS

In the Office of Vespers or Evensong, the Church chants, and in presence of the adorable Sacrament exposed on the throne, the wonders of this great day. The first psalm is on the glories of Christ, our High Priest: The Lord hath sworn: He is a Priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech. Like that king of justice and peace, Christ selected bread and wine, as the materials of His Sacrifice: but under these appearances, was hidden the oblation worthy both of the eternal Priest who offered it, and of the Father, who begot Him before the day-star.

ANT. Sacerdos in æternum Christus Dominus secundum ordinem Melchisedech, panem et vinum obtulit.

ANT. Christ the Lord, being a Priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech, offered bread and wine.

Ps. Dixit Dominus, page 72.

The bread and wine of the Sacrifice pointed to a banquet: this banquet is commemorated in the following psalm, which speaks of a great memorial, made by our God, of all the wonders He has done for us creatures. This memorial is Christ's giving Himself, as food, to all them that fear Him. May his praise endure, then, for ever!

ANT. Miserator Dominus escam dedit timentibus se, in memoriam suorum mirabilium.

ANT. The merciful Lord hath given food unto them that fear him, as a memorial of his wonderful works.

Ps. Confitebor tibi, page 73.

The Eucharist, which is the compendium of all God's favours, is, at the same time, the most perfect act of thanksgiving, and the only adequate one, which we can offer to His divine Majesty. If, then, having come to the close of this day, and filled with emotion at the sight of the wonders of God's goodness towards us, we cry out with the psalmist: What shall I render unto the Lord for all the things that He hath rendered to me? let us answer, with the same prophet in the words of this third psalm: I will take the chalice

Ant. Calicem salutaris accipiam et sacrificabo hostiam laudis.

Ant. I will take the chalice of salvation, and will sacrifice the Host of praise.

PSALM 115

Credidi, propter quod locutus sum: ego autem humiliatus sum nimis.

Ego dixi in excessu meo: Omnis homo mendax.

Quid retribuam Domino: pro omnibus quæ retribuit mihi?

Calicem salutaris accipiam: et nomen Domini invocabo.

Vota mea Domino reddam coram omni populo ejus: pretiosa in conspectu Domini mors sanctorum ejus.

O Domine, quia ego servus tuus, ego servus tuus, et filius ancillæ tuæ.

Dirupisti vincula mea: tibi sacrificabo hostiam laudis, et nomen Domini invocabo.

Vota mea Domino reddam in conspectu omnis populi ejus: in atriis domus Domini, in medio tui Jerusalem.

I have believed, therefore have I spoken: but I have been humbled exceedingly.

I said in my excess: Every man is a liar.

What shall I render unto the Lord, for all the things that he hath rendered to me?

I will take the chalice of salvation: and I will call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord before all his people: precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

O Lord, for I am thy servant: I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid.

Thou hast broken my bonds: I will sacrifice unto thee the sacrifice of praise, and I will call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord in the sight of all his people: in the courts of the house of the Lord, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem.

Ant. Calicem salutaris accipiam, et sacrificabo hostiam laudis.

Ant. I will take the chalice of salvation, and will sacrifice the Host of praise.

The following psalm proclaims, with holy enthusiasm, the loveliness of the sight offered this day by our earth. Happiness and holiness seemed, this morning, to have taken possession of the world. The oil of gladness flowed from Christ, the Head, on all His members. The Church thrills with gladness at seeing, round about the holy Table, her children, like so many young olive plants, ready to bring forth fruits of grace and sanctification. May it be so! May this day be a new era for Sion, in abundance of all good things, and in the strengthening of peace in the holy city!

Ant. Sicut novellæ olivarum, Ecclesiæ filii sint in circuitu mensæ Domini.

Ant. May the children of the Church be around the Table of the Lord, as young olive plants.

PSALM 127

Beati omnes qui timent Dominum, qui ambulant in viis ejus.

Labores manuum tuarum quia manducabis: beatus es, et bene tibi erit.

Uxor tua sicut vitis abundans, in lateribus domus tuæ.

Filii tui sicut novellæ olivarum, in circuitu mensæ tuæ.

Ecce sic benedicetur homo qui timet Dominum.

Benedicat tibi Dominus ex Sion: et videas bona Jerusalem omnibus diebus vitæ tuæ.

Et videas filios filiorum tuorum, pacem super Israel.

Blessed are all they that fear the Lord: that walk in his ways.

For thou shalt eat the labours of thy hands: blessed art thou, and it shall be well with thee.

Thy wife as a fruitful vine, on the sides of thy house.

Thy children as olive plants, round about thy table.

Behold! thus shall the man be blessed, that feareth the Lord.

May the Lord bless thee out of Sion: and mayst thou see the good things of Jerusalem, all the days of thy life.

And mayst thou see thy children's children, peace upon Israel.

Ant. Sicut novellæ olivarum, Ecclesiæ filii sint in circuitu mensæ Domini.

Ant. May the children of the Church be around the Table of the Lord, as young olive plants.

'Glory be to God, and peace unto men!' Thus sang the angels when the Bread of heaven came to Bethlehem. We have already seen, and we will return during the days of this octave to see, that these are the two grand results of the Eucharist. In this fifth psalm of Vespers, the Church invites us to sing the praises of that peace which, by the grace of her Jesus, reigns in her borders, strengthens the bolts of her gates, and fills with blessing her children that are within her. But it is the divine nourishment, it is the wheat of heaven's own making, that produces this admirable peace, by uniting all the members to Christ in the unity of one body.

Ant. Qui pacem ponit fines Ecclesiæ, frumenti adipe satiat nos Dominus.

Ant. The Lord, who putteth peace in the borders of the Church, filleth us with the fat of wheat.

PSALM 147

Lauda Jerusalem Dominum: lauda Deum tuum Sion.

Quoniam confortavit seras portarum tuarum: benedixit filiis tuis in te.

Qui posuit fines tuos pacem: et adipe frumenti satiat te.

Qui emittit eloquium suum terræ: velociter currit sermo ejus.

Qui dat nivem sicut lanam: nebulam sicut cinerem spargit.

Mittit crystallum suam sicut buccellas: ante faciem frigoris ejus quis sustinebit?

Emittet verbum suum, et liquefaciet ea: flabit spiritus ejus, et fluent aquæ.

Qui annuntiat verbum suum Jacob: justitias, et judicia sua Israel.

Non fecit taliter omni nationi: et judicia sua non manifestavit eis.

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! praise thy God, O Sion!

Because he hath strengthened the bolts of thy gates: he hath blessed thy children within thee.

Who hath placed peace in thy borders: and filleth thee with the fat of corn, that is Jesus, the Bread of life.

Who sendeth forth his speech to the earth: his word runneth swiftly.

Who giveth snow like wool: scattereth mists like ashes.

He sendeth his crystal like morsels: who shall stand before the face of his cold?

He shall send out his word, and shall melt them: his wind, his holy Spirit, shall blow, and the waters shall run.

Who declareth his word unto Jacob: his justices and his judgments unto Israel.

He hath not done in like manner to every nation: and his judgments he hath not made manifest to them.

Ant. Qui pacem ponit fines Ecclesiæ, frumenti adipe satiat nos Dominus.

Ant. The Lord, who putteth peace in the borders of the Church, filleth us with the fat of wheat.

The capitulum gives us once more the words of the apostle of the Gentiles. It is a joy to hear him thus bearing his testimony to the institution of the Sacrament of love, and repeating to us the parting request of Jesus: Do this in commemoration of Me!

CAPITULUM

Fratres, ego enim accepi a Domino quod et tradidi vobis, quoniam Dominus Jesus in qua nocte tradebatur, accepit panem, et gratias agens, fregit, et dixit: Accipite, et manducate; hoc est Corpus meum, quod pro vobis tradetur: hoc facite in meam commemorationem.

Brethren, for I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke, and said: Take ye and eat: this is my Body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me.

The hymn, which then follows, gives us the whole doctrine of the Eucharist in a wise and concise wording. It is the one chosen by the Church for singing the praise of the adorable Sacrament: and its last two strophes are prescribed for the rite of Benediction, throughout the year.

HYMN¹

Pange, lingua, gloriosi Corporis mysterium, Sanguinisque pretiosi, Quem in mundi pretium, Fructus ventris generosi, Rex effudit gentium.

Nobis datus, nobis natus Ex intacta Virgine, Et in mundo conversatus, Sparso verbi semine, Sui moras incolatus Miro clausit ordine.

In supremæ nocte cœnæ
Recumbens cum fratribus, Observata lege plene Cibis in legalibus, Cibum turbæ duodenæ
Se dat suis manibus.

Verbum caro, panem verum Verbo carnem efficit: Fitque sanguis Christi merum: Et si sensus deficit, Ad firmandum cor sincerum Sola fides sufficit.

Tantum ergo Sacramentum Veneremur cernui! Et antiquum documentum Novo cedat ritui: Præstet fides supplementum
Sensuum defectui.

Genitori, Genitoque Laus et jubilatio, Salus, honor, virtus quoque Sit et benedictio: Procedenti ab utroque Compar sit laudatio. Amen.

Sing, O my tongue, the mystery of the glorious Body, and of the precious Blood which was shed as the world's ransom, by him who is the fruit of Mary's generous womb, the King of nations.

Given unto us, and born for us from the purest of Virgins, he lived in this our world, casting the seed of the word; and closed the days of his sojourn here by a way full of marvel.

On the night of the last Supper, he sat at table with his brethren; and having fully observed the Law as to its legal repast, he gave himself, with his own hands, as food to the assembled twelve.

The Word made Flesh, makes, by a word, that true bread should become Flesh, and wine the Blood of Christ; and though our sense may fail, faith of itself is enough to assure an upright heart.

Then let us, prostrate, adore so great a Sacrament: and let the ancient law give place to the new rite: let faith supply the senses' deficiency.

To the Father and the Son be praise and jubilation, salvation, honour, power, and benediction: to him that proceedeth from Both, be equal praise!

Amen.

℣. Panem de cœlo præstitisti eis, alleluia.

℟. Omne delectamentum in se habentem, alleluia.

℣. Thou hast given them bread from heaven, alleluia.

℟. Having in it all that is delicious, alleluia.

The antiphon which accompanies the canticle of our Lady, is a fervent exclamation of admiration for the sacred banquet of divine union, and for the living memorial of Jesus' sufferings: it is here that man's soul is filled with grace, and his very body receives the pledge of future glory. The phrase is not completed: the Church seems unable to finish these last words of her love of all that she has received by the Eucharist; but the gift is too great for human words!

ANTIPHON OF THE MAGNIFICAT

O sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur: recolitur memoria passionis ejus: mens impletur gratia: et futuræ gloriæ nobis pignus datur, alleluia.

O sacred banquet, wherein Christ is received; the memorial of his Passion is celebrated; the mind is filled with grace; and a pledge of future glory is given unto us, alleluia.

COLLECT

Deus, qui nobis sub Sacramento mirabili passionis tuæ memoriam reliquisti: tribue, quæsumus, ita nos Corporis et Sanguinis tui sacra mysteria venerari, ut redemptionis tuæ fructum in nobis jugiter sentiamus. Qui vivis et regnas. Amen.

O God, who, under the wonderful Sacrament, hast left us a memorial of thy Passion: grant us, we beseech thee, so to reverence the sacred mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that, in our souls, we may always feel the fruit of thy Redemption. Who livest, &c.

At the close of this great feast, which is consecrated by the Latin Church to the honour of the sacred Host, we will listen to the Greek Church, which in the following passages expresses the same faith regarding the blessed Sacrament. These quotations are used during and after the Communion, in the Liturgy, or Mass, called 'St. John Chrysostom's.'

BEFORE COMMUNION

Credo, Domine, et confiteor quod tu es Christus Filius Dei viventis, qui venisti in mundum ad salvandos peccatores, quorum primus ego sum.

Cœnæ tuæ mysticæ hodie communicantem me suscipe. Non enim inimicis tuis mysterium dicam, nec osculum tibi dabo velut Judas, sed ut latro tibi confiteor: memento mei, Domine, in regno tuo.

Domine, non sum dignus ut sub sordidum tectum animæ meæ ingrediaris: sed quemadmodum dignatus es in spelunca et præsepio brutorum recumbere, et in domo Simonis leprosi, etiam similem mei meretricem ad te accedentem suscepisti: ipse quoque dignare in præsepe animæ meæ rationis expertis et in coinquinatum meum corpus mortuum et leprosum ingredi: et sicut non abhorruisti os sordidum meretricis illibatos pedes tuos osculantis, ita, Domine Deus meus, ne a me etiam peccatore abhorrueris. Sed tanquam bonus et clemens, dignare me participem effici sanctissimi tui Corporis et Sanguinis.

Deus meus, condona, relaxa, remitte mihi delicta mea quæcumque sciens, vel per ignorantiam, vel verbo vel opere patravi. Indulge mihi cuncta ut bonus et clemens; intercessionibus intemeratæ tuæ et semper virginis Matris, incondemnatum me custodi, ut sumam pretiosum et immaculatum corpus tuum ad medelam animæ et corporis. Quoniam tuum est regnum, et virtus, et gloria: Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti: nunc et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

I believe, O Lord, and confess, that thou art Christ, Son of the living God, who camest into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first.

Receive me, communicating, this day, in thy mystic Supper. For I will not speak of thy mystery to thine enemies, nor, like Judas, give thee a kiss, but, like the thief, confess to thee: Remember me, O Lord, in thy kingdom!

Lord, I am not worthy that thou enter under the filthy roof of my soul: but, as thou deignedst to repose in the cave and manger of brute beasts; and in the house of Simon the leper, receive a sinner like myself, when she approached thee: deign, also, to enter into the crib of my senseless soul, and into my defiled, dead, and leprous body. And, as thou disdainedst not the unclean mouth of the sinner, who kissed thy most pure feet; so, O my Lord God, disdain not me, a sinner. But, good and merciful as thou art, vouchsafe to make me a partaker of thy most holy Body and Blood.

O my God! forgive, pardon, remit me whatsoever sins I have, either knowingly, or through ignorance, committed either by word or deed. Pardon me them all, for that thou art good and merciful; by the intercessions of thy most pure and ever virgin Mother, keep me from condemnation, that I may receive thy precious and immaculate Body unto the cure of soul and body. For thine is the kingdom, and power, and glory, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and always, and for ever and ever. Amen.

¹ In the monastic breviary, it is preceded by this responsory: ℟. breve.— Cibavit illos ex adipe frumenti. * Alleluia, alleluia. Cibavit. ℣. Et de petra, melle saturavit eos. * Alleluia. Gloria. Cibavit.

AFTER COMMUNION

Gratias agimus tibi, benigne Domine, benefactor animarum nostrarum, quod eti-

We give thee thanks, O kind Lord, thou benefactor of our souls, for that on this pre-

am præsenti die dignos fecisti nos cœlestium tuorum et immortalium mysteriorum. Viam nostram dirige, confirma nos in timore tuo, custodi vitam nostram, fac securos gressus nostros: precibus et intercessione gloriosæ Deiparæ, et semper virginis Mariæ, et omnium sanctorum.

Diac. Recti participes effecti divinorum, sanctorum, illibatorum, immortalium, supercœlestium, et vivificorum mysteriorum, digne gratias agamus Domino.

Chor. Domine, miserere.

Diac. Suscipe, salva, miserere, et conserva nos, Deus, tua gratia.

Chor. Domine, miserere.

Diac. Diem omnem perfectum, sanctum, pacificum, et a peccato immunem postulantes, nos ipsos, et invicem, et omnem vitam nostram Christo Deo commendemus.

Chor. Tibi, Domine.

Sacerdos, exclamando. Quoniam tu es sanctificatio nostra, et tibi gloriam referimus, Patri, et Filio, et sancto Spiritui, nunc et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum.

Chor. Amen.

sent day, also, thou hast made us worthy of thy heavenly and immortal mysteries. Direct thou our ways, strengthen us in thy fear, guard our life, make safe our steps; by the prayers and intercession of the glorious Mother of God, and ever virgin Mary, and of all the saints.

The deacon: Let us, who, being just, have been made partakers of the divine, holy, spotless, immortal, supercelestial and life-giving mysteries, worthily give thanks unto the Lord.

The choir: O Lord, have mercy.

The deacon: Receive, save, have mercy upon, and preserve us, O God, by thy grace.

The choir: O Lord, have mercy.

The deacon: Let us pray that every day of ours may be perfect, holy, peaceful, and free from sin, and let us commend ourselves, and one another, and our whole life, unto Christ our God.

The choir: Unto thee, O Lord!

The priest, lifting up his voice: For thou art our sanctification, and to thee we give glory, Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, now and always, and for all ages.

The choir: Amen.

FRIDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus, qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations; who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

God has satisfied the intense desires of man's heart. The house of the marriage-feast, built by divine Wisdom on the top of mountains, has had flowing unto it all the nations of earth.¹ Yesterday, the whole Catholic world was animated with sentiments of love towards the adorable Sacrament; and the people said to each other, in a holy transport of gratitude: 'Come! let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob.' Yesterday, the Bud of the Lord was seen by us all in magnificence and glory;² this divine Bud, this rich ear of corn that has sprung up from our earth, was carried in triumph, and excited the enthusiasm of the faithful, making them rejoice before It, as they that rejoice in the harvest. It was a heavenly harvest, that had been the expectation of nations. It was the precious ear of corn, despised indeed by Israel, but gleaned by Ruth, the stranger, in the field of the true Booz, in Bethlehem.

It is for this day of the great meeting of nations, foretold by Isaias, that the Lord had kept reserved on the mountain the feast on a victim such as had never been seen before, a feast of wine, the richest and purest.³ The poor have eaten at this banquet,

¹ Is. ii. 2. ² Ibid. iv. 2. ³ Ibid. xxv. 6.

and they have given fervent praise to their God; the rich have eaten, and have fallen down in adoration; and all the ends of the earth, prostrate in His sacred Presence, have remembered that He who thus gave them to feast was Christ their King.¹ 'This,' they said, 'is our God, we have waited for Him;² we have patiently waited for Him; He was the desire of our soul; we desired Him in the night, and, in the morning early, our first thoughts were upon Him; He is the Lord, and His remembrance could not be effaced, even through the long ages of expectation.'³ Thou, O Lord, art my God, I will exalt Thee, and give glory to Thy name, for Thou hast done wonderful things; Thy designs of old, faithful; faithfully hast Thou fulfilled Thy eternal decrees.⁴

These expressions of love on the part of the human race were but a feeble echo to the infinite love which God vouchsafed to have for His creature man. The divine Spirit, who has achieved the wonderful union between the children of Adam and eternal Wisdom, shows us, everywhere in the Scriptures, that this Wisdom was impatient of delay, that He was taking each obstacle as it came, and removing it, and was preparing, in countless ways, for the marriage-feast so much longed for.

We will devote these first two days of the octave to considering the leading features in the history of this eucharistic preparation; we shall be well repaid by the additional light which these truths will reflect upon the dogma itself. We are going to review the loving ways whereby eternal Wisdom sought, for so many long ages, to bring about His own union with ourselves. As a matter of course, we clothe these truths in Scripture language, for the Scriptures are

¹ Ps. xxi. 27-30. ² Is. xxv. 9. ³ Is. xxvi. 8, 9. ⁴ Ibid. xxv. 1.

our guide in this research; it is they that tell us the workings of the divine intentions in our regard. How, then, do the Scriptures speak of these, before the mystery of the Incarnation was actually accomplished?

The second Person of the adorable Trinity is there brought before us under the name of Wisdom: until the time of His union with man being accomplished in the most perfect degree possible, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, this is the name under which He passes in the Scriptures, a name which gives Him the appearance of a Bride. But once the mystery of perfect union is achieved, another name is given Him, the name of Spouse, or Bridegroom. His other name of Wisdom seems almost forgotten; and yet, in the ages of lively faith, it was not so; the people of those days were too full of the Scriptures to forget it. Thus we find the first Christian emperor dedicating, to this ruler and centre of his every thought, the trophy of his victory over paganism, and that of the triumph of the martyrs. 'All burning with love for the Wisdom of God,' says Eusebius, Constantine consecrated the ancient Byzantium, which he called by his own name, to the God of the martyrs;¹ and dedicated to eternal Wisdom the grandest structure of this new Rome, Saint Sophia, which for many ages was the finest Christian church in the world. Like our forefathers in the faith, let us, too, honour divine Wisdom, and gratefully think upon the love which urged Him, from all eternity, to unite Himself to man!

It is this love that explains the mysterious joy, which, as the Scripture tells us, He had at the beginning of time, when this world of ours was being gradually developed in all the beauty of its grand creation; for sin had not then come in, to break the harmony of this work of the Most High. At each

¹ De Vita Constant. lib. iii. cap. 48. ² Ibid.

additional manifestation of creative power, Wisdom takes delight, and by His delight, adds a new charm to this the future scene of the divine marvels, planned as those have been by His love. This Wisdom is delighted at the omnipotence which produces creation; He plays every day, as the creation goes on; He plays in this world, for each progress in its formation brings man nearer, man whose palace it is, and His delights are to be with the children of men.¹

Incomprehensible love! It precedes, though it foresees sin; and though foreseeing it, loves not the less! It has its divine delights to be with us, and we have attractions for it, in spite of all the bitterness caused by the sight of our future black ingratitude! The fall of man will, as one of its terrific consequences, modify much and cruelly the earthly existence which Wisdom is to have upon our earth. But in order that we may the more easily understand, and more fully appreciate, how immense must that love be, which could be proof against such obstacles, let us turn our thoughts, to-day, to the course that these loving intentions would have taken, had man persevered in the state of innocence. Although the sacred Scriptures were written for the benefit of fallen man, and are ever telling us of the mystery of the restoration of the sinful world, yet do they make frequent allusions to God's original intention; and with these to guide us, it is not difficult to mark out the leading features of the primitive plan.

Wisdom, speaking of Himself, says: 'The Lord possessed me, in the beginning of His ways.'² Is He not the first of all creatures?³ Not, of course, as to that divine form of which the apostle speaks, and by which Wisdom is equal to God,⁴ but in that human

¹ Prov. viii. 30, 31. ² Ibid. viii. 22. ³ Ecclus. i. 4. ⁴ Philipp. ii. 6.

existence, which He has selected, in preference to all other possible natures, for the one whereby to unite Himself with finite being. That selection was one of an unlimited and most gratuitous love; it made the type and law of entire creation to be One who would so closely resemble us human beings. What an honour! We are told in holy Writ that the most high and almighty Creator created wisdom before all things, and created her in the Holy Ghost; and that, taking her as His type, and number, and measure, He poured her out upon all His works, and upon all flesh.¹ When the fullness of the appointed time came, divine Wisdom Himself was to come, giving to all creation, of which He was the head and centre, its purpose and meaning. He was to blend and unite with the infinite homage, which resulted from His own divine personality, the homage of every existing creature, and thus give perfection to the external glory of the Father by His own eternal and infinite adoration. Then was to appear the dignity of that human nature, chosen by divine Wisdom, from the beginning, to be His created form, and the instrument of that homage to the Father, which is perfect and divine, because of the personal union of this created nature with the Nature of God the Son. Eternal Wisdom will thus be one with the Son of the purest of virgins; the nuptial-song will be taken up by all creatures, both in earth and heaven; and through this Son of Man, who will then be called the Spouse, Wisdom will continue, to the end of time, in the soul of every individual that does not refuse the honour, the ineffable mystery of His divine marriage with our nature.

He wishes, then, to unite Himself with each one of us. But what means will He adopt for this deifying

¹ Ecclus. i. 4. 8-10.

union? Of all the Sacraments, which our Lord might have instituted after His Incarnation, in the supposition of man's not forfeiting his state of innocence, there is not one, says Suarez, which has so many probabilities on its side, as the Eucharist; there is not one which, in itself, is so desirable, and so independent of sin; for the notion of expiation, which, in our present state, lingers about It, as the memorial of Jesus' Passion, may be prescinded from It without affecting the essence of the Sacrament—that essence being the real Presence of our Lord, and the close union whereby He unites us to Himself.¹ It is the same with the Eucharist as a Sacrifice: the primary notion of sacrifice, as we shall see further on, does not absolutely include the idea of sin. So that, when Christ, as the head of the human family, comes into this world, to offer up a Sacrifice in the name of us all, that Sacrifice will be one which is worthy of His Father and of Himself. Spouse as He is, and by virtue of the divine unction Priest too, it is by the Eucharist as a Sacrifice that He will act in this twofold character; for by that Sacrifice He brings the human race into union with Himself by the embrace of the sacred Mysteries; and, when He has divinized it by union with Himself, making it one body of which He is the Head, He offers it to His eternal Father.

But for the coming of the Spouse there must be a numerous retinue, to do Him honour and tell His praises, when the day arrives for His entrance into the banquet-hall; and from now till the time when earth, being peopled enough, shall have ready for her King-Priest a court that is worthy of Him, so many ages are to intervene! What will Wisdom be doing in the interval? We have already seen how

¹ De Sacr. Disp. iii. sect. 3.

in the early days of creation He played before His Father, and was all transported with delight. But when the work was done, the Creator withdrew into the repose and rest of the seventh day. Seated on His Father's right hand, in the splendours of the Saints, will Wisdom wait inactive for that day to come, when He, who has begotten Him before the day-star and has betrothed Him to human nature, shall send Him down to this earth, there to consummate the alliance, for which He has been eternally longing? The sacred Scriptures give a very different description of Him, during the time preceding His actual coming. They tell us that Wisdom is so active, though so gentle, that He is more active than all active things, and was everywhere, and put Himself in every place, and in the Prophets, so that He was easily found by them that wished to find Him; He even anticipated their research, and was more ready to show Himself, than they could possibly be to find Him. If any soul was intent, like some early riser, to find Him, He soon met such a seeker; nay, Himself went about seeking for such as were worthy of Him, and when He met them in the ways, here or there in this wide world, this beautiful Wisdom would show Himself to them with all cheerfulness. Thus do the Scriptures describe Wisdom as engaged during the ages preceding His Incarnation. He does not, as yet, quit the throne of glory on which He sitteth, lighting up all heaven with His beauty, but He is preparing the day of His marriage, by impressing it on man's mind and notice in every possible way; He meets him at every turn to speak of it, to tell him of how He, Wisdom, loves him; He selects certain symbols of the wondrous mysteries He intends to achieve when the time comes. Let us take one of these symbols for our lesson to-day, that we may

not lose a particle of what Jesus has ever done to make Himself known. But before we go further, let us listen to the Scripture character drawn of this beautiful Wisdom: He is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of His goodness; holy, one, manifold, subtle, eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hindereth, beneficent, gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure, having all power, overseeing all things, and containing all spirits, intelligible, pure, subtile!¹ And now to a choice symbol chosen by Jesus, whereby He spoke of Himself, before He came to the nuptials.

The Lord God, says Scripture, had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning, wherein He intended to place man, whom He was not to create till the sixth day. In the midst of this paradise there grew a tree of singular beauty, to which God had attached a great mystery; its name was the tree of life. A river, with four streams, watered this garden of delights;² it was shown later on to Saint John as a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.³ The tree and the river bear no allusion to future sin; they had been put in paradise, the abode of innocence, before man himself; they are portions of the primitive plan of God; and therefore, in themselves, signify only what has reference to the state of innocence.

Now, an ancient writer, published under the name of St. Ambrose, says: 'The tree of life in the midst of paradise, is Christ in the midst of His Church.'⁴ 'So then,' says St. Augustine, 'Christ was the tree of life; neither would God have man to live in paradise, without presenting to him mysteries of things spiritual under corporal forms. In the other trees, therefore, he had food; but in that one (of life), he had a sacred symbol (sacramentum). And what is it that was symbolized, but Wisdom, of which it is said, She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her?⁵ For it is right to give to Christ the name of a thing which had been made in order to signify Him.'⁶ St. Hilary, too, bears testimony to this same traditional interpretation. After quoting the same text from Proverbs, he says: 'Wisdom, which is Christ, is called the tree of life; because, as we are taught by the authority of the Prophets, on account of its being a symbol (sacramentum) of His future Incarnation and Passion, our Lord compared Himself to a tree, when He said: A tree is known by its fruit. . . . This tree, then, is living; yea, not living only, but rational also, for it gives its fruit when it wills, and, as the Psalm says, in its own time. And what is that time? That of which the apostle speaks, when he says that God might make known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He had purposed in him, in the dispensation of the fullness of times: the dispensation of the fruit, then, is reserved for the fullness of times.'⁷ But what is to be the fruit of this tree—the leaves of which fall not off, and are for the healing of the nations⁸—but divine Wisdom, in His own very self and substance? In His divine form He is the food of the angels too; but He is to be that of man in His two Natures, that thus, by His Flesh, reaching man's soul, He may fill that soul with His Divinity, as it was beautifully expressed in the Office composed by Blessed Juliana.⁹

¹ Wisd. vii. 22-26; vi. 13-17; ix. 4, 10. ² Gen. ii. 8-10. ³ Apoc. xxii. 1. ⁴ Append. Ambros. *In Apocalyps.* c. ii. v. 7. ⁵ Prov. iii. 18. ⁶ De Genes. ad Litt. lib. 8. ⁷ Tract. in Psalm. i, 9, 10. ⁸ Ps. i. 3. Apoc. xxii, 2. ⁹ Page 146.

Thus, therefore, divine Wisdom had preceded man in paradise: Adam was not yet there, but Wisdom was; for His love made Him hasten thither, and take up His abode there, ready to receive man on his arrival, in that tree of life, which He, together with the Most High, had planted in the garden of delights. Speaking of this tree, the bride of the Canticle said: 'As the apple-tree among the barren trees of the woods, so is my Beloved among the sons of men; I sat down under His shadow whom I desired, and His fruit was sweet to my palate!'¹ This sweet fruit of the tree of life was a figure of the Eucharist.

But how is this? we were yesterday invited by Wisdom to eat bread in His house, and not fruit in His garden. What means this change of language? It is because man has brought about an immense change of purpose: in his pride, he has eaten of a fruit which was not good, a forbidden fruit, the eating of which has ruined him; he has been driven from the garden of delights; Cherubim and a flaming sword have been placed, to keep the way of the tree of life. Instead of fruits of paradise, the food of man is, henceforth, to be bread, which costs toil and sweat, bread, which means grinding under a millstone, and burning with fire. Such is the sentence passed on man by a justly angered God.² But alas! this most just condemnation is to go far beyond the guilty one; it will strike man, but it will strike divine Wisdom, too, who has given Himself to man to be his food and companion. In the immensity of His love, Wisdom will not abandon this fallen nature of man; He will, that He may save it, take upon Himself all the consequences of the fall, and, like fallen man, will become passible and mortal. The marriage-feast is not to be in Eden, as was first intended. Poor Eden! she had been so exquisitely prepared for that feast; she had her fragrant fields of loveliest emerald, and her fruit which was so fair to behold, and so pleasant to eat of,³ and so immortalizing with a youth that was to last for ever! To reach man, now that he is fallen, eternal Wisdom must make His way through the briars and thickets of His new abode. The marriage-feast will be kept in a house, which it has cost Him infinite pains to build to Himself, as a cover against the miseries of the land of exile. And as to the food served for the banquet, it is not to be the fruit spontaneously yielded by the tree of life; it is to be the divine Wheat, ground by suffering, and baked on the altar of the cross.

¹ Cant. ii. 3. ² Gen. iii. 19. ³ Gen. ii. 9.

All history culminates in the sacrifice of our Lord, and all creation converges to it, as to its centre. The reason of this is, that, in the creation and government of the world, God seeks His own glory, as the last end for which He does all His works. Now, the Sacrifice offered by the Incarnate Word alone gives to God the infinite glory due to His sovereign majesty. The Christians of the first ages of the Church thoroughly understood all this. It is the idea which inspired the fine Preface of the liturgy given under the name of St. James, in the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions. We wish we could give our readers the whole of this liturgy: we intend, however, to quote, during the days of this octave, some of the most striking passages.

CONSTITUTIO JACOBI.

Vere dignum et justum est ante omnia laudare te verum Deum, ex quo omnis paternitas in cælo et in terra nominatur, solum ingenitum, omnis boni largitorem. Tu enim es primus natura, et lex existendi, ac omnem numerum superans.

It is truly right and just, that, before all things, we should give praise to thee, who art true God, from whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named, who art the only unbegotten, the giver of every good thing. For thou art first by nature, and the law of existence, and surpassing all number.

Qui omnia ex nihilo in rerum naturam protulisti per unigenitum Filium tuum: ipsum vero ante omnia sæcula genuisti absque intermedio Verbum Deum, Sapientiam viventem, primogenitum omnis creaturæ, Angelum magni consilii tui, pontificem tuum, regem autem et Dominum omnis naturæ quæ intelligi ac sentiri potest. Tu namque, Deus æterne, cuncta per ipsum condidisti, et per ipsum cuncta dignaris convenienti providentia; per quem enim largitus es ut essent, per eumdem etiam ut bene essent dedisti.

Thou it is that broughtest all things, out of nothing, into the nature of things, by thine only-begotten Son: but him thou begottest before all ages, without an instrument, God the Word, living Wisdom, the first-born of every creature, the Angel of thy great counsel, thy Priest, the King, also, and Lord of every nature that can be understood or felt. For thou, eternal God! createdst all things by him, and by him thou vouchsafest a suitable providence to all things; for, by whom thou gavest things to be, by the same thou gavest them well-being.

Deus et Pater unigeniti Filii tui, per eum ante omnia fecisti cherubinos et seraphinos, exercitus, virtutes et potestates, principatus et thronos, archangelos et angelos.

O God and Father of thy only-begotten Son! by him thou madest, before all things, the cherubim and seraphim, the hosts, the virtues and powers, the principalities and thrones, the archangels and angels.

Atque post hæc omnia, per eum fabricasti hunc qui apparet mundum, cunctaque quæ in eo sunt. Nam tu es qui cælum ut pellem extendisti, et terram supra nihilum collocasti sola voluntate; qui noctem ac diem fabricatus es; qui in cælo solem posuisti ad dominium diei, et lunam ad dominium noctis, atque chorum stellarum in cælo delineasti in laudem magnificentiæ tuæ; qui mare magnum a terra separasti, et illud quidem animalibus parvis ac magnis refersisti, hanc autem cicuribus ac indomitis replevisti, herbis coronasti, floribus decorasti, seminibus ditasti.

And, after all these, thou madest by him this visible world and all that is in it. For thou art he that stretchedst out the heavens as a tent, and settedst the earth upon nothing, by thine only will; that madest night and day; that, in the heavens, placedst the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night, and inscribedst a choir of stars in heaven unto the praise of thy magnificence; thou dividedst the great sea from the land, replenishing the one with animals little and great, and filling the other with creatures, both tame and wild, crowning it with herbs, beautifying it with flowers, enriching it with seeds.

Neque solum per Christum condidisti mundum, sed et in ipso mundi civem hominem efficisti, ac eum mundi mundum, seu ornatus ornatum constituisti. Dixisti enim Sapientiæ tuæ: 'Faciamus hominem ad imaginem nostram, et ad similitudinem; et dominentur piscibus maris et volatilibus cæli.' Ideoque fecisti eum ex anima immortali et corpore dissipabili; et dedisti ei, in anima quidem rationalem dijudicationem, justi ac injusti discretionem; in corpore autem donasti quinquertium sensuum atque motum progressivum.

Neither only createdst thou the world by Christ, but in him, also, thou madest man citizen of the world, appointing him the world of the world, or the ornament of the ornament. For thou saidst unto thy Wisdom: 'Let us make man to our image and likeness; and let them have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air.' Wherefore, also, thou madest him of an immortal soul and a body liable to dissolution; and thou gavest him, in his soul, rational judgment, and discernment between right and wrong; and in his body, five senses, and progressive motion.

Tu namque, Deus omnipotens, per Christum in Edene ad orientem plantasti paradisum, omni genere esculentarum plantarum ornatum, et in eum tanquam in opiparam domum induxisti hominem; quem, cum efficeres, lege naturali ac insita donasti, quo intus ac ex se haberet cognitionis Dei semina. Introducens autem eum in paradisum deliciarum, potestatem quidem omnium ad participandum concessisti, unius vero solius gustatum in spem meliorum rerum interdixisti, ut si mandatum custodiret, illius servati mercedem ferret immortalitatem.

For thou, O almighty God, plantedst by Christ, in Eden, at the east, a paradise, adorned with every sort of plant fit for food, and into it, as into a well-provisioned house, thou didst lead man, to whom, when thou createdst him, thou gavest a natural and innate law, to the end that he might have within and of himself the seeds of the knowledge of God. And when introducing him into the paradise of delights, thou grantedst him leave to partake of all things save one, whereof, to give him the hope of better things, thou forbadest him to taste, that, if he kept that commandment, he might receive immortality, as the recompense of his observance.

Cum autem mandatum neglexit, et, fraude serpentis mulierisque consilio, gustavit prohibitum fructum; ex paradiso quidem juste illum expulisti, bonitate vero tua funditus pereuntem non despexisti; sed qui ei subjeceras creaturam, dedisti ut suis sudoribus ac laboribus sibi pararet victum, te omnia producente, augente ac maturante: atque eum brevi somno affectum, per jusjurandum ad regenerationem vocasti; decreto mortis soluto, vitam ex resurrectione promisisti.

But when he neglected the commandment, and, by the serpent's guile, and the woman's counsel, tasted the forbidden fruit, thou drovest him from paradise, justly indeed, yet, in thy goodness, thou despisedst him not, though utterly ruined; but, having previously subjected creation unto him, thou grantedst him to procure food by his own sweat and labour, though it was thou by whom all things are produced, increase, and ripen. And when he had slept the short sleep (of death), thou, by an oath, calledst him to a new birth; and, loosing the decree of death, thou promisedst him life, after the resurrection.

We will close this day with the several hymns, composed under the direction of Blessed Juliana; they were used for each of the Little Hours of the Office, which preceded that of St. Thomas. It was a custom of the Church of Liége to vary the hymns, at these Hours, according to the different seasons and feasts.

AT PRIME

Summe Deus clementiæ, Great God of mercy! who,
Qui ob salutem mentium for the salvation of souls, Cœlestis alimentiæ grantest us the remedy of a
Nobis præstas remedium; food that comes from heaven.

Mores, vitam et opera Direct thou our manners, Rege momentis omnibus, and life, and works; and give Et beatis accelera us speedily to spend our life Vitam dare cum civibus. with the blessed citizens of heaven.

AT TIERCE

Sacro tecta velamine Shrouded with a sacred veil, Pietatis mysteria the mystery of love feeds our Mentes pascunt dulcedine, souls with a sweetness, which Qua satiant cœlestia. contents even them that are in
heaven.

Sit ergo cum cœlestibus, With the blessed in heaven,
Nobis commune gaudium, then, let us have one same joy, Illis quod sese præstitit, for, to them he gave himself,
Nobis quod se non abstulit. and us he did not leave.

AT SEXT

Splendor superni luminis, O brightness of supernal Laudisque Sacrificium, light, O Sacrifice of praise! Cœnam tui da numinis grant us the banquet of thy
Tuæ carnis post prandium. Divinity, after this of thy
Flesh.

Saturatus opprobriis It was for this, that, filled Ad hoc cruci configeris, with reproach, thou wast nailed Et irrisus ludibriis to the cross, and derided with Crudeli morte plecteris. scoffs, wast made to suffer a cruel death.

AT NONE

Æterna cœli gloria, O thou, that art the eternal
Lux beata credentium, glory of heaven, the blessed Redemptionis hostia, light of believers, the victim Tuarum pastus ovium; of redemption, and the pasture of thy sheep!

Hujus cultu memoriæ By our worship of this me-
Diræ mortis supplicio morial of thy cruel death, lead
Nos de lacu miseriæ us from the abyss of misery,
Educ, qui clamas: Sitio. O thou that criest: I thirst.

Præsta, Pater, per Filium, Grant, O Father, through
Præsta, per almum Spiri- thy Son, grant through the Spi-
tum: rit of love, that we, to whom Quibus hoc das edulium thou givest such nourishment Prosperum serves exitum. as this, may be brought by thee to a prosperous end.

Amen. Amen.

SATURDAY

WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus, qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations, who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

Man has been cast forth from Eden, and has gone into the dreary land of his exile. He has nothing left him of the tree of life, but the recollection that it was once his. It remains in the happy land where it was first planted; how could it go after the sinner man, now that he is banished into the vale of tears? No! it remains in paradise; far from the abode of suffering, and out of mortals' sight, it continues in all its loveliness, bearing testimony to the primitive intentions of God, which were peace, innocence, and love. The day will come when we shall see it again, for it is to be one of the charms of the new earth, into which our Lord will lead His chosen people on the day of the great Pasch, and of the restoration of all things! Happy day! after which, as the apostle tells us, every creature longeth, bowed down as it now is, and made subject, by reason of a fault which was not its own, to the inconstancy of ceaseless change. Man, who, against the creature's will, subjected it to the servitude of corruption, keeps up within it the hope that, the time of deliverance being come, it, too, will partake, in its own way, of the glorious liberty of the children of God. The glory of the new paradise will be greater than that of the one of old; for, it is not under the veil of symbols, or in a passing way, that the deifying union is to be fulfilled, but divine Wisdom will give Himself, and for ever, and without veil, to man, in an eternal embrace.

And yet this union, whose permanent enjoyment is to make the eternal bliss of heaven, is to be contracted even now, and on this very earth of ours; for it is the economy of the divine plan, that, in all things, the future life should have its roots in the present one, and should be but the revelation, in the light of glory, of the ineffable realities formed here by grace. What, then, after the fall, will be the conditions of the alliance, from which eternal Wisdom has not been turned by the sin committed by His creature man?

Oh the depth of the riches of this Wisdom of God!³ His love is strong as death,⁴ and, even after man's disloyalty, will be infinitely admirable in its delicate ways of gaining its object. There is to be nothing unbecoming in the alliance He is bent on! He will admit no compromise with the depravity which has befallen our now sinful race! His mercy is infinite; and, through that, He has pardoned the offence, the moment the offender expressed his sorrow; but the pardon is not one which was to mean no compensation, no expiation on man's side; that would have ill-suited the dignity of such a Spouse as He. And since sinful man cannot offer an adequate expiation, He, Wisdom, undertakes to pay the culprit's whole debt, and give him back the holiness he has forfeited; this done, He will take our human nature, and espouse her to Himself as His much-loved bride. 'I will espouse thee unto Me, in justice and judgment,' says this God to man, by His prophet Osee.¹

And He adds: 'I will espouse thee unto Me in faith.'² For, just as the entrance of divine Wisdom into this world, which He comes to save from pride by humility, is to be without exterior parade or glory, so, likewise, the divine union is to be effected in the mystery of the sacred Species of the nuptial banquet, and these Species will offer nought to view but the appearance of bread and wine, such as one could find on any table. But faith will see through that veil; and the unspeakable dignity conferred on the children of men by this heavenly food, will reflect its brightness on the whole creation.

The whole world of creatures, each in its own way, was in expectation of this marvellous manifestation, which was to be made upon the sons of God,³ by the union to be contracted between Wisdom and man. The prophet thus speaks of this universal expectation: 'And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens; and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and these shall hear Jezrahel.'⁴ Jezrahel means the seed or race of God. God will give to man, through corn and wine, the substance to be offered in the mysteries; and, through oil, the priesthood, which is to transform them into the marriage-dowry, in the very action of the Sacrifice. It is to be by the Sacrifice, and by Blood, that this alliance of justice and love is to be contracted.

We read in Scripture that Moses was one day traversing the desert; he had on him a legal transgression; the angel of the Lord met him, and was about to slay him, when Sephora, the wife of this future leader of Israel, averted the divine vengeance by the rough and speedy circumcision of her son, Eliezer: then marking with his blood the feet of the guilty one, she said to him: 'A spouse of blood art thou to me.'¹ Thus, and with far greater truth, could divine Wisdom say to the human race; for He is not to save, He is not to be united with man, except by the Blood of this Son of Man, who is one in person with that same Wisdom.

Nay, far from lessening, this very sight of man's misery has increased the ardour of His love. Later on this Man-God will say: 'I have a baptism, wherewith I am to be baptized: and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!'² It was the same from the very first: no sooner has expiation been shown as the royal way, whereby humanity is to be restored to Him, and again made worthy of Him, by the shedding of divine Blood—Wisdom has ever had that thought before Him. He is impatient for the great immolation of Calvary; and until its time comes, He will suggest to His people rites and sacrifices figurative of that one Sacrifice, and of the banquet of the adorable Victim, the marriage-feast.

His garden, the place of His delight, is no longer paradise; it is this parched earth of ours, where man has now, more than ever, need of being loved of God. Ye Cherubim, whom God has stationed to guard the tree of life, 'tis well that sinful man be kept from approaching it. But the flaming sword ye hold in your hands, will not prevent divine Wisdom from leaving paradise, and joining our human race here in its banishment. He was not only the tree, but He is, likewise, the river of life. Speaking of Himself, He says, in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: 'Like a brook out of a river of a mighty water, as though I were but a mere channel of a river, I came out of paradise. I said: "I will water My garden of plants, and I will water abundantly the fruits of My meadow." And behold! My brook became a great river, and My river became like a sea; for I make doctrine to shine forth unto all, as the morning light, and I will declare it afar off, yea, even to the most distant ages. I will penetrate to all the lower parts of the earth, and will visit all that sleep, and will enlighten all that hope in the Lord.'¹

This living light, which from early morning enlightens the whole earth with divine Wisdom, is the varied teaching of prophecies and figures, which were given by God through the course of ages, and, from the rock-hewn cradle of man's creation, put the shadow of the Messias upon the whole universe. By means of this manifold teaching, Wisdom conveyeth Himself, through nations, into holy souls;² rouses man up, when discouragement makes him slumber;³ cherishes his hopes, and bids him hope, by looking at the future. Those bloody sacrifices, which were prescribed immediately after man's departure from Eden, as the ritual expression of his early worship of God, will be offered up by all after generations; and even when idolatry shall have led mankind into the abyss of every crime, those sacrifices will raise up their voice, and keep up the prophecy which they are intended to proclaim—the prophecy of a Victim, who will be one of infinite worth. The stream of primitive traditions will, as it flows through time and space, become impregnated with foreign elements, and transmit many a worthless or even dangerous material; still, it is through the rite of sacrifice, observed by the whole world, that the desire and expectation of Christ will be maintained among all nations.¹ Satan, that old serpent thief, may succeed in inducing men to build altars to himself, and on those altars offer him sacrifice, which is due to God alone; but he cannot stifle the voice of truth which accompanies every sacrifice, the voice which teaches that an innocent and pure victim may be substituted in place of guilty man, and work his expiation. This will arouse the notion of the promised Mediator in many a soul bewildered by the orgies of this satanic worship; and here, again, the very sight of the serpent was made to be the cure of them he had stung, and became the sign and ensign of the son of Jesse. O root of Jesse! root of the Wisdom of the Most High! who is there that can understand the depth of Thy counsels, or penetrate the devices of Thy immense love?² Verily, Thou art more beautiful than any light of day; for that light yields when night comes on; whereas Thou, O Wisdom, art overcome by no evil, be it as black as sin!³

All those ancient sacrifices were powerless to produce grace; their very multiplicity proved their inability to do so;⁵ but what they could and did effect was the keeping alive in mankind the remembrance of the fall, and the expectation of a Redeemer; they were, likewise, the basis of those supernatural acts, which are requisite for man's justification and salvation. But, besides their representing the redemptive element, which the fall of man has introduced into the plan of God, these bloody sacrifices express, also, the union of God with His creature, which was the primary and chief object of creation. That union was to be effected in the banquet prepared by Wisdom, the eucharistic banquet, wherein He, Wisdom, the Son of God, was to be received by man, and thus united with him. This sublime mystery was also expressed by those figurative sacrifices, wherein the people partook of the victims offered: for, in the Eucharist, the Victim is the Man-God, offered to God, and eaten of by man; the Deity is appeased by the Blood of the divine Lamb, and mankind is restored, because nourished by His Flesh, which thus feeds him to a new and divine life. Such was the general law observed by all nations, when offering sacrifice: the portion intended for God was consumed by fire, and thus transmitted to heaven; but another portion of the same victim was taken and eaten by the people: and all this signified that there was communion between heaven and earth, and that the receivers were all made one, because they all partook of the same sacred food. How admirably are thus grouped together all the mysteries of God's goodness towards His creature man! And what a prophecy this was! It was unceasing, for it was proclaimed each time a sacrifice was offered up, and there were thousands every day. It was thus that the divine Lamb, whom they foretold, was slain from the very beginning of the world;¹ His Blood, in all these early ages, was applied, through hope and faith, to the souls of men, and cleansed them from their sins; and the mysterious ritual, with its inspired code of prescriptions, was keeping man on

¹ Apoc. xxii. 2. ² Rom. viii. 19-22. ³ Rom. xi. 33. ⁴ Cant. viii. 6.

¹ Osee ii. 19. ² Ibid. 20. ³ Rom. viii. 19. ⁴ Osee ii. 21-22.

¹ Exod. iv. 24-26. ² St. Luke xii. 50.

¹ Ecclus. xxiv. 41-45. ² Wisd. vii. 27. ³ Ps. cxviii. 28.

¹ Gen. xlix. 10; Agg. ii. 8. ² Num. xxi. 6-9; Is. xi. 10. ³ Ecclus. i. 6. ⁴ Wisd. vii. 29, 30. ⁵ Heb. x. 1-4.

¹ Apoc. xiii, 8.

the alert, and preparing him for the banquet of the nuptials of the Lamb.¹ Then, let Wisdom extol His own triumph! It is He who caused that in the heavens there should rise a light which never fails, and covers the whole earth as with a cloud; He alone has compassed the circuit of heaven, has penetrated into the bottom of the deep, has traversed the waves of the sea, and has stood in all the earth, and in every people, as the King of all, holding the chief rule, and vanquishing, strongly and sweetly, the hearts of all, both high and low.²

Meanwhile, the time of banishment is running on; the long period of expectation is more than half over. The nearer the realization of the promised alliance comes, the more ardent are the longings of chosen souls. As to our Jesus Himself, He seems to desire a preparation of a more telling kind than any of these others that have preceded. He will turn His attention to the very spot where He is to dwell on this earth. And where is that? His Father, the Creator of all things, whose every word is fulfilled by His Son, has a chosen people; and among these He would have His Son be nationalized, if we may reverently use such a word. He said to Him: 'Let thy dwelling be in Jacob, and thine inheritance in Israel!'³ In obedience to this His Father's will, He establishes Himself in Sion, He takes His rest in the holy city, and fixes His power in Jerusalem.⁴ Jerusalem! It is the city of peace, and is to be the scene of such stupendous mysteries! It is here that Isaac, the child of promise, had come carrying on his shoulders the wood for his self-sacrifice; here his father was about to slay him, when a ram was mysteriously substituted; and the mount of the one

¹ Apoc. xix. 7-9. ² Ecclus. xxiv. 6-11.
³ Ecclus. xxiv. 12, 13. ⁴ Ibid. 15.

true Sacrifice was thus selected. It is here, also, that there then lived a king-priest, who bore the likeness of the Son of God;¹ it was Melchisedech; and when Abraham, the father of believers, came to him, this Melchisedech offered what was to be the sacrifice of the alliance to come, a sacrifice of bread and wine; and thereby showed to Abraham, who saw into the future, the day of Christ, his Son.²

It is at the very period, when the world at large has fallen into idolatry, and offered to false gods the homage of its sacrifices, that divine Wisdom leads into this chosen dwelling-place the people of whom He is to be born as Man; it is the fulfilment of the command: Let thy dwelling be in Jacob! let thine inheritance be in Israel! In this one people Wisdom will maintain His Father's claims, and keep alive and pure the light of the expectation of nations. He delivers it, at the cost of countless prodigies, from the Egyptian bondage.³ The feast of the Paschal Lamb—slain the same day on which, at a future time, is to be celebrated the Supper of the Lord, and the immolation of the true Lamb—is the signal of deliverance, and of a triumphant march, through the waters of a sea, to the mount of the alliance: the chosen people becomes the bride of God,⁴ the priestly kingdom, and the holy nation.⁵ Figure, in all things, of God's true people traversing the desert of this world, Israel drinks of the waters which come from the rock, and the Rock is Christ;⁶ a bread rained down daily from heaven, strengthens him amidst the fatigues of journey and battle; and this bread of angels, as the Scripture terms it, took any taste the eater wished it to have.⁷ God Himself dwells with Israel under his tents. He has had a tabernacle made for him, on the

¹ Heb. vii. 3. ² St. John viii. 56. ³ Wisd. x. 15.
⁴ Ezech. xvi; Osee ii, etc. ⁵ Exod. xix. 6.
⁶ 1 Cor. x. 4, 11. ⁷ Wisd. xvi. 20-29.

plan of one shown by God on the mount; and in front of this tabernacle there is an altar, on which a chosen family, consecrated by oil of unction, may alone offer, under the direction of a high-priest, the manifold legal sacrifices, each of which points to some excellency or other of the one great Sacrifice of the future. From this altar, on which burns a fire that is never quenched, there goes up to heaven without interruption the smoke of the flesh and blood of the victims slain. They are a supplication for the coming of that saving Host, which is to put an end to these hecatombs. There are also offerings of flour and wine, the necessary accompaniment of holocausts and peace-offerings; these prefigure the august Memorial which is to keep up and perfect the divine Sacrifice of the cross, by an unbloody application of it. There is, in these early days, a sacrifice which goes under the name of a memorial; it is an offering by itself, consisting of fine flour, and unleavened loaves and wafers. Then, there are the proposition loaves; they are kept within the veil, as the most holy of the sacrifices, as being a perpetual memorial of sacrifice and covenant;² and what a mysterious, yet unmistakable, figure is all this of the future eucharistic Presence, kept up in the Church under the sacred Species, even when the celebration of the mysteries is over!

As there is but one altar in Jacob, which, by its oneness, points towards Him who, at a future time, is to be both victim and altar; so there is but one place, the tabernacle and its surroundings, and later on the temple and the holy city, where it is lawful to celebrate those sacred banquets of communion, which, according to universal custom, close the sacrifice in which they are offered. The last time that Moses had his people assembled around him, in the plains of the

¹ Levit. ii. 2, 9. ² Ibid. xxiv. 7-9.

Jordan, he thus spoke to them: 'Beware lest thou offer thy holocaust in every place that thou shalt see. In the place which the Lord your God shall choose, that His name may be therein, thither shall ye bring your holocausts, and victims, and tithes, and the first-fruits of your hands. There shall ye feast before the Lord your God, ye and your sons and your daughters, your men-servants and maid-servants, and the levite that dwelleth in your cities; and thou shalt rejoice, and be refreshed, before the Lord thy God, in all things, whereunto thou shalt put thy hand.'¹

The material prosperity promised to the Jewish people, as a reward of his faithfully observing the numerous figurative prescriptions of the law of Sinai, was itself but a figure of the spiritual blessings which were to transform the soul, and prepare it for the coming of divine Wisdom in the flesh. But Israel is slow to raise himself above material things. He easily falls a prey to all the scandals he witnesses among the Gentiles. Severe punishments teach him that he is not safe, except in keeping the law given to him. He keeps the letter of the ritual precepts with scrupulous exactitude, but sees nothing of their chief meaning, which is the Redeemer to come, and the spiritual dispositions which those outward observances were intended to prompt. God is continually warning him by the prophets, and seeking to reclaim him to the spirit of His divine institutions. Thus, in the psalms, He remonstrates with him, but with such paternal affection that one can scarcely suspect a complaint, though there is a most bitter one: 'Hear, O My people! and I will speak: O Israel! and I will testify unto thee. I am God, thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; and thy

¹ Deut. xii. 7, 11-13.

burnt-offerings are always in My sight. I will not take calves out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy flocks; for all the beasts of the wood are Mine, the cattle on the hills, and the oxen. I know all the fowls of the air, and with Me is the beauty of the field. If I should be hungry, I would not tell thee; for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof. Shall I eat the flesh of bullocks? or shall I drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise, and pay thy vows unto the Most High!... The sacrifice of praise shall glorify Me; and there is the way by which I will show him the salvation of God, that is, my Christ, who is the Saviour signified by all these sacrifices!'¹ Later on, however, to this people, stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears,² which has gone deeper and deeper into outward formalism, and knows no other virtue or perfection, God speaks in strong language, expressing His disgust for sacrifices, which they have robbed of the only worth they possessed in His sight, that is, their prophetic sense. 'To what purpose do ye offer Me the multitude of your victims?' says He by the prophet Isaias, 'I am full; I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck-goats. When ye came to appear before Me, who required these things at your hands, that ye should walk, (defiling) My courts? Offer sacrifice no more in vain: your incense is an abomination unto Me!'³ But these warnings are not heeded; pride increases in the carnal Jew, in proportion to his narrow heart and views. He dreams of a Messias who is to be an earthly conqueror. As to the true Messias, whose divine characteristics are foretold by the victims offered in sacrifice, this Jew will deny Him, for he finds Jesus too closely re-

¹ Ps. xlix. 7-14, 23. ² Acts vii. 51. ³ Is. i. 11-13.

sembling these poor victims, by His sufferings and meekness.

Then comes the last of the prophets, Malachias. He turns to the Gentiles: they have been less favoured than Israel, but they have kept up the expectation of a Saviour, and, when He comes, they will lovingly receive Him. Malachias announces the final abrogation of a worship which had been so perverted, and the substitution of a divine memorial, which shall be the same in all places, and shall make all people one, by their all partaking of the great Sacrifice to come: I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, to the priests of Israel; I will not receive a gift of your hand; for, from the rising of the sun, even to the going down, My name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered unto My name a clean oblation.¹

The fullness of time has come; then, bless God, O ye Gentiles! Make the voice of His praise to be heard!² Too long, life has been to you but the empty dream of night. You hungered after the fruit of life; you thirsted for living water. But, like the hungry man who dreams of a sumptuous repast, yet never satisfies the hunger which gnaws him; like the thirsty man who dreams that he drinks, yet, on waking, is tormented with the same burning thirst, and finds his soul still empty; so was the multitude of your erring people.³ Yet now, behold! The standard of Jesse appears on the mountain, and rallies you around it. Ye Gentiles, that once were strangers, feed now to your heart's content, in the deserts turned into fruitfulness!⁴ The water from the rock flows plentifully through your once parched lands. The glory of Libanus, the beauty of Carmel

¹ Malach. i. 10, 11. ² Ps. lxv. 8. ³ Is. xxix. 7, 8. ⁴ Ibid. v. 17.

and Saron, adorn your hills, and refresh your lonely plains; your wilderness shall rejoice, and flourish like the lily.¹ Rain shall be given to your seed; and the bread of the corn of your land shall be delicious.² 'Tis just it should be so; for, shall the labourer plough all day long? Shall he be ever opening and harrowing his ground? No; the time comes when, having made smooth the surface of his field, he sows and scatters his seeds, and puts wheat in the rows he has marked. Such is the providence shown to the Gentiles by the Lord God of hosts; and thereby He evinces both the sureness of His divine counsels, and the magnificence of His justice.³

Eternal Wisdom had not given up the mysterious designs of His love. He kept close to the fallen human race, even when He severely chastised it. He owed it to Himself to put guilty man to the test, so to make him feel, before raising him up, how deep had been his fall. It was on this account that He permitted him to be overtaken by night, and fear, and anguish; He Himself sends him sufferings, in order that, having thus brought him to sound the frightful depth of his misery, He might trust Himself to the safe welcome and keeping of His creature's humility. This done, He would raise him up by repentance, and strengthen him with hope, and, joyously meeting him, disclose to him again His divine charms, and enrich him with the treasures which are in the keeping of His love.⁴

This is Saturday; let us turn to Mary, who was made for us Gentiles the seat of Wisdom. In her chaste womb was wrought the mystery of mercy, which had been the expectation of all the long ages past. Her most pure blood provided the substance

¹ Is. xxxv. 1, 2, 7. ² Ibid. xxx. 23.
³ Ibid. xxviii. 24-29. ⁴ Ecclus. iv. 18-21.

of that spotless Body wherewith the most beautiful of the sons of men contracted the indissoluble alliance of our nature with eternal Wisdom. Mary's soul is enraptured at seeing the ineffable mystery of these divine nuptials effected in her chaste womb. She is that enclosed garden, where, more delightedly than in the early days of the universe, Wisdom enjoys light and love; the flowery couch of the Canticle, perfumed, by the holy Spirit, with the sweetest balm; the glorious tabernacle, incomparably more holy than that of Moses. It is within her, under the immaculate veil of her flesh, that, by the unspeakable embrace of the two natures in the unity of God's only-begotten Son, the Holy Ghost pours forth the unction, which makes Him Spouse, and, at the same time, Priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech.

Let man, then, be of good courage; the Bread of heaven, the Bread of the covenant, has at last come down upon our earth; and although nine months must pass before the great night comes, when He is to be made visible to us all in Bethlehem, yet, even now, the High Priest is at His work in this His holy temple. 'Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldest not,' He says to His eternal Father; 'but a Body Thou hast fitted unto Me. Holocausts for sin did not please Thee. Then said I: "Behold I come;" in head of the book it is written of Me, that I should do Thy will, O God!'²

We will close, to-day, our selections from the Office of the Blessed Juliana, by the following hymn; it is assigned to Compline in the ancient book of the Church of St. Martin-au-Mont.

¹ Cant. i. 15. ² Heb. x. 5-7.

SATURDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE

HYMN FOR COMPLINE

Christus noster vere cibus, Christus noster vere potus, Caro Christi vere cibus, Sanguis Christi vere potus.

Vera caro quam sumimus, Quam assumpsit de Virgine: Verus sanguis quem bibimus, Quem effudit pro homine.

Vere tali convivio, Verbum caro comeditur; Per quod viget religio, Per quod cœlum ingredimur.

Panis iste dulcedinis Totus plenus, et gratiæ,
Alvo gestatus Virginis, Rex est æternæ gloriæ.

Hujus panis angelici Saginemur pinguedine; Ut tam pii viatici Delectemur dulcedine.

O cœleste convivium!
O redemptorum gloria! O requies humilium! Æterna confer gaudia. Præsta Pater per Filium,
Præsta per almum Spiritum;
Quibus hoc das edulium, Prosperum serves exitum.

Amen.

Christ is truly our meat, Christ is truly our drink; the Flesh of Christ is truly our meat, the Blood of Christ is truly our drink.

The true Flesh which he took from the Virgin, is what we eat; the true Blood, which he shed for man, is what we drink.

In this banquet, the Word made Flesh is truly eaten; it is on him that our worship rests, and by him that we enter heaven.

This Bread, which is all full of sweetness and grace, is the King of eternal glory, that was carried in the Virgin's womb.

Let us feed on the richness of Angels' Bread; that we may find delight in the sweetness of a viaticum so full of mercy.

O thou heavenly banquet! O glory of the redeemed! O repose of the humble! grant us eternal joys.

Grant, O Father, through thy Son, grant, through the Spirit of love, that we, to whom thou givest such nourishment as this, may be brought by thee to a prosperous end.

Amen.

We will continue our selections from the magnificent Preface given in the liturgy of the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions.

CONSTITUTIO JACOBI

Neque hoc solum: verum etiam et posteris ejus, a te in multitudinem innumerabilem effusis, eos qui tibi adhæserunt glorificasti, eos vero qui a te defecerunt punivisti; admisso quidem Abelis sacrificio ut innocentis, fratricidæ autem Caini munere ut detestandi fastidito.

Tu enim es opifex hominum, vitæ largitor, indigentiæ expletor; legum dator, easque servantium remunerator, transgredientium vindex. Qui diluvium mundo propter impie viventium multitudinem intulisti, et eo ex diluvio in arca eripuisti cum octo animabus justum Noam, finem quidem eorum qui præterierant, originem vero successurorum. Qui horrendum ignem adversus Sodomitanam pentapolim concitasti, ac sanctum Lotum ex incendio eruisti.

Tu es qui Abrahamum liberasti avita impietate, et mundi hæredem constituisti, ipsique Christum tuum apparere fecisti. Qui Melchisedecum pontificem divini cultus designasti. Qui Isaacum effecisti filium promissionis. Qui Jacobum ad Ægyptum introduxisti.

Tu, Domine, Hebræos ab Ægyptiis oppressos, ob promissa patribus eorum facta, non neglexisti. Cumque homines legem naturalem corrupissent, et creaturam modo fortuitam arbitrarentur, modo plusquam oportet honorarent; non sivisti errore duci; quin potius edito sancto famulo tuo Moyse, per eum legem scriptam in adjutorium naturalis tribuisti; et creaturas ostendisti opus tuum esse, errorem vero de multitudine deorum exterminasti.

Aaron et posteros ejus honore sacerdotali decorasti. Hebræos, cum peccarent, castigasti; cum reverterentur, suscepisti. Ægyptios decem plagis ultus es; mari diviso trajecisti Israelitas; insecutos Ægyptios delevisti submersione. Ligno amaram aquam dulcescere fecisti; ex petra dura aquam profudisti; e cœlo mannam depluisti; præbuisti ex aere escam, ortygometram: constituisti nocte columnam ignis ad illustrationem, et die columnam nubis ad umbraculum in æstu. Per Jesum ducem a te declaratum septem gentes evertisti, Jordanem dirupisti, fluvios Ethan siccasti, muros prostravisti absque machinis.

Pro omnibus, tibi gloria, Domine omnipotens.

Te adorant innumerabiles copiæ angelorum, archangelorum, thronorum, dominationum, principatuum, potestatum, virtutum, et cherubini, item seraphini senis alis, binis quidem velantes pedes suos, binis vero capita, et duabus aliis volantes, ac dicentes una cum mille millibus archangelorum et denis millibus denum millium angelorum, indesinenter ac sine vocis intermissione clamantibus:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Sabaoth: pleni sunt cœli et terra gloria ejus: Benedictus in sæcula.

Amen.

And not this only; but, when thou hadst increased the posterity of man to an innumerable multitude, thou glorifiedst them that kept faithful to thee, but punishedst them that fell off; accepting the sacrifice of Abel, because he was innocent, rejecting the gifts of the fratricide Cain, because he was abominable.

For thou art the maker of mankind, the giver of life, the supplier of indigence; the giver of laws, and the rewarder of such as keep them, the avenger of them that transgress. 'Twas thou didst bring a deluge upon the world, because of the multitude of the ungodly; from which deluge thou by the ark deliveredst the just Noe, with eight souls, Noe who was the end of the foregoing generations, but the source of them that were to follow. 'Twas thou that kindledst a fearful fire against the five cities of Sodom, and snatchedst holy Lot from the burning.

'Twas thou deliveredst Abraham from the impiety of his forefathers, and madest him the heir of the world, and showedst him thy Christ. 'Twas thou appointedst Melchisedech to be high-priest of thy divine worship; thou that madest Isaac the son of the promise; thou that broughtest Jacob into Egypt.

Thou, Lord, didst not abandon the Hebrews, when they were oppressed by the Egyptians, on account of the promises made to their fathers. And when men had corrupted the natural law, and had, at one time, looked on creation as the effect of chance, and, at another, had honoured it more than it deserved, thou permittedst them not to be led astray by error, yea, thou raisedst up thy holy servant Moses, giving, through him, the written law, as an aid to the natural; thou showedst that creatures are thy work, and tookest away the error of plurality of gods.

'Twas thou didst adorn Aaron and his posterity with the priestly honour; that punishedst the Hebrews when they sinned, receiving them when they repented; that inflictedst the ten plagues on the Egyptians; that carriedst the Israelites across the divided sea; that drownedst the Egyptians, who pursued them. 'Twas thou madest the bitter water become sweet, by the wood; that broughtest water out of the hard rock; that rainedst manna from heaven; that grantedst quails to come from the air, as food; that appointedst a pillar of fire by night to give light, and a pillar of a cloud by day to overshadow them from heat. By Josue, proclaimed by thee as leader, thou didst overthrow the seven nations; thou dividedst the Jordan, driedst up the rivers of Ethan, and overturnedst the walls without instruments.

Glory be to thee, O almighty Lord, for all these things!

Thee do adore the innumerable hosts of angels, archangels, thrones, dominations, principalities, powers, virtues, and cherubim; the seraphim, also, with their six wings, with two covering their feet, with two their heads, and with two flying, and saying with thousand thousands of archangels, and ten thousand times ten thousand angels incessantly, and with uninterrupted voices, crying out:

Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord of hosts: heaven and earth are full of his glory: be he blessed for ever!

Amen.

SUNDAY

WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus, qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ the King, who ruleth the nations: who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

The Desired of all nations,¹ the Angel of the testament whom Israel longs for, has come down from heaven. Wisdom has come among us. Who, asks the prophet, shall go up into heaven to take Wisdom, and bring Him down from the clouds? Who shall pass over the sea, and bring Him from distant lands, Him, the treasure more precious than the purest gold? The fountain of Wisdom has been forsaken by Israel. He has not even been heard of in the land of Chanaan; He has not been seen in Idumea. The children of Agar, the princes of the nations, the philosophers of earthly wisdom, the ingenious inventors, the searchers after science, the hoarders of riches, and makers of strength and beauty which do but cheat the beholder—all these have not known the ways of Wisdom, they have not understood His paths.³ But, lo! the Son promised to David has sat upon His throne of glory; He is the source of Wisdom; the four rivers of paradise have derived all their waters from Him. His thoughts are more vast than the sea, and His counsels more deep than the great ocean.⁴ He has come to fulfil the mysterious design of the divine and sovereign will, that is, to re-establish all things that are in heaven and on earth,⁵ by uniting all in Himself. He is truly Mediator, for He is Himself both God and Man; and being also High Priest, He is the bond of that holy religion, which fastens all things on to the Creator, in the unity of one same homage. His Sacrifice is the master-piece of divine Wisdom: it is by that Sacrifice, that, embracing all created beings in the immensity of the love whose impatient ardour has been the theme of our past considerations, He makes the whole world become one sublime holocaust to His Father's glory. Let us, then, proceed to consider Him in this immolation of His victim; let us reverently watch Him setting forth His table.⁶ The Eucharist has been instituted for the very purpose of ceaselessly applying, here on earth, the reality of Christ's Sacrifice. To-day, therefore, we will turn our thoughts to this Sacrifice, as it is in itself; this will enable us the better to understand how it is continued in the Church.

¹ Agg. ii. 8. ² Malach. iii. 1. ³ Baruch. iii. 12-38. ⁴ Ecclus. xxiv. 34-39. ⁵ Eph. i. 10. ⁶ Prov. ix. 2.

God has a right to His creature's homage. If earthly kings and lords may claim from their vassals this recognition of their sovereignty, the sovereign dominion of the great and first Being, the first cause and last end of all things, demands it, on an infinitely juster title, from beings called forth from nothing by His almighty goodness. And just as, by the rent or service which accompanies it, the homage of vassals implies, together with the avowal of their submission, the real and effective declaration that they hold their property and rights from their liege-lord; so the act whereby the creature, as such, subjects himself to his Creator, should adequately manifest, by and of itself, that he acknowledges Him as the Lord of all things, and as the author of life. Moreover, if, by the infringement of His commands, he has deserved death, and lives only because of the infinite mercy of this his sovereign Lord—then his act of homage or fealty will not be complete, unless it also express an avowal of his guilt, and the justice of the punishment. Such is the true notion of sacrifice, so called because it sets apart from the rest of similar beings, and makes sacred, the offering whereby it is expressed: for spirits purely immaterial, the offering or oblation will be interior and exclusively spiritual; but, as regards man, this oblation must be spiritual, and at the same time material, for, being composed of a soul and a body, he owes homage to his God for both. Sacrifice may not be offered but to the one true God, for it is the effective acknowledgment of the Creator's sovereign dominion, and of that glory which belongs to Him, and which He will not make over to another.¹ It is essential to religion, be the state that of innocence or of fall; for religion, the queen of moral virtues, whose object is the worship due to God, necessarily demands sacrifice, as its own adequate exercise and expression. This sacrifice offered by unfallen man would have been witnessed in Eden. It would have been one of adoration and thanksgiving; its material portion would have been that garden's richest fruits, those symbols of the divine fruit, promised by the tree of life; sin would not have put its own sad stamp on such sacrifice, and blood would not have been required. But man fell; and then sacrifice became the only means of propitiation, and the necessary centre of religion, in this land of exile. Until Luther's time, all the nations of the earth held and lived up to this truth; and when the so-called reformers excluded sacrifice from religion, they took away its very basis. Nor is the duty of sacrifice limited to man's earthly existence: the creature when in heaven, and in the state of glory, must still offer sacrifice to his Creator; for he has as great an obligation, when he is in the brightness of the vision, as when he lived amid the shadows of faith, to offer to the God who has crowned him the homage of those gifts received.

¹ Is. xlviii. 11.

It is by sacrifice that God attains the end He had in view by creation, that is, His own glory.¹ But in order that this universe might offer a homage in keeping with the magnificence of its Maker, there was needed some one leader or head, who should represent all creation in his one person; and then, using it as his own property, should offer it, in all its integrity, together with himself, to the Lord God. There was something better than this; and it is just what God has done: by giving His own Son, clad in our nature, to be the Head of creation, He obtains an infinite return of glory; for the homage of this inferior nature assumes the dignity of the Person offering it; and the honour thus paid becomes truly worthy of the supreme Majesty. And as a banker knows how to draw golden interest from even the least sum intrusted to his keeping, so our God has, from a world made out of nothing, produced a fruit of infinite worth.

Oh truly marvellous finish to His work of creation!¹ The immense glory rendered to the Father by the Word Incarnate, has brought God and the creature nearer to each other; it tells upon the world, by filling up its hateful depths of misery with grace, yea, abundant and rich; and thereby the distance between God and us does not exclude the union for which He first made us. The Sacrifice of the Son of Man becomes the basis and cause of the supernatural order, both in heaven and on earth. Christ was the first and chief object of the decree of creation; and therefore, it was for Him, and upon Him as type, and in harmony with the qualities of the nature which He was, at a given future time, to assume to Himself, that, at the Father's bidding, there came forth out of nothing the various grades of being, spiritual and material, all of which were intended to form the palace and court of the future God-Man.

It was the same, also, in the order of grace: this God-Man, who is to be the most beautiful among the children of men, is, in all truth, the Well-Beloved. The Spirit of love, as a precious and fragrant ointment, will flow from this one Well-Beloved, from this dear Head, upon all His members, yea, and even to the lowest skirt of His garment,² generously communicating true life, supernatural being, to those whom Christ shall have graciously called to a participation of His own divine substance, in the banquet of love. For the Head will lead on His members; these will unite to His, their own homage, which, being in itself too poor to be offered to God's infinite Majesty, will—by their incorporation with the Incarnate Word in the act of His Sacrifice—put on the dignity of Christ Himself.

It is on this account, as we have already noticed, and cannot too strongly urge, that one should inveigh against the narrow-minded individualism which is now so much the fashion, of attaching more importance to the practices of private devotion, than to the solemnity of those great acts of the liturgy, which form the very essence of religion. Thus, as we were just saying, it is by the Sacrifice of the God-Man, that the entire creation is consummated in unity, and that true social life is founded upon God. God is one in His Essence; the ineffable harmony of the three divine Persons does but bring out more clearly, by its sublime fecundity, this infinite Unity. The creature, on the contrary, is multiplicity; and the division resulting from Adam's fall has strongly emphasized this mark of finite and borrowed being. And yet, having come forth from God's hands, it must return thither, it must, that is, procure His glory; and this it cannot do, save on the condition of that unhappy division being removed, which separates it from both God and its fellow-creatures; its very multiplicity must reproduce, as it tends towards its Maker, an image of the fruitful harmony of the three divine Persons. That they also may be one in Us, as We also are one:³ there is the grand revelation of God's intentions, when He produced creatures; and the revelation is made to us by the Angel of the great Counsel, who has come upon this earth, that He might carry out the divine plan. Now, what is it that brings all the several elements of the social body into oneness, by bringing them back to their Creator? It is religion. And what is the fundamental act of religion? Sacrifice. Sacrifice is both the means and the scope of this magnificent unification in Christ; its perfect realization will mark the consummation of the eternal kingdom of the Father, who will have become, through His Christ, all in all.⁴

But this royalty of endless ages, which is to be procured for the Father by Christ's reign here below,⁵ has enemies, and they must be subdued. The principalities, and powers, and virtues, of satan's kingdom are leagued against it. They were jealous of man, the image of God's own likeness; and that envy made them turn their attacks upon man; they led him to disobedience, and disobedience brought death into the world.⁶ By man, now become its slave, sin took occasion, by every one of God's commandments, to insult that God.⁷ Far from studying how to offer to its Maker the homage due to Him, the human race seemed bent on intensifying the poverty of its original nothingness, by adding to it the baseness of every sort of defilement. So that, before being capable of acceptableness with the Father, the future members of Christ have need of a Sacrifice of propitiation and acquittance. Their Christ will Himself have to live the expiatory life, which comports a sinner; He will have to suffer their sufferings, and die the death.⁸ Death was the penalty threatened, from the very commencement, as sanction of God's commandment; it was the severest penalty the transgressor could possibly pay; and yet was not adequate to the offence offered, by the transgression, to the infinite Majesty of God, unless a divine Person, taking upon Himself the terrible responsibility of this infinite debt, were Himself to undergo the punishment, and so restore man to innocence.

Oh! then, let our High Priest come forth; let the divine Head of our human race show Himself! Because He hath loved justice, and hated iniquity, therefore hath God anointed Him with the oil of gladness, above His fellows,⁹ His brethren. He was Christ by the priesthood destined to be His from the very bosom of His Father, and confirmed by a solemn oath;¹⁰ He is Jesus, too, for the sacrifice He is about to offer will save His people from their sins:¹¹ Jesus-Christ, then, is to be for ever the name of the eternal Priest. What power and what love are there in His Sacrifice! Priest and Victim at one and the same time, He swallows death in order to destroy it, and, by that very act, crushes sin by suffering its penalty in His own innocent Flesh; He satisfies, even to the last farthing, yea, and far beyond it, the justice of His Father; He takes the decree that was against us, nails it to the cross, and blots out the hand-writing; and then, stripping the principalities and powers of their tyrant sway, He triumphs over them in Himself!¹² Our old man was crucified together with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed; renovated by the Blood of his Redeemer, he can rise, together with Him, from the tomb, and begin a new life.¹³ 'Ye are dead,' says the apostle, 'and your life is hidden with Christ in God; when Christ shall appear, who is your life, then ye also shall appear with Him in glory.'¹⁴ For it is as our Head that Christ suffered; His Sacrifice includes the whole body, of which He is the Head, and He transforms it, by uniting it to Himself, for an eternal holocaust, the sweet fragrance of which is to fill heaven itself.

'The Word comes forward,' says St. Ambrose, 'in the robes of the High Priest, which Moses described;¹⁵ He is clad with the world in its magnificence, that He may fill all with the fullness of God. He is the Head which rules the body, and He unites it closely to Himself.'¹⁶ Speaking of Himself, He said: 'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things unto Myself.'¹⁷ David had sung all this, in the Psalm, wherein he said: 'All flesh shall come unto thee.'¹⁸ How so? 'Because,' answers St. Augustine, 'He took flesh; and that flesh, which He took, shall draw all flesh. He took its first-fruits, when He took flesh from the Virgin's womb; the rest, the whole human race, will follow, and will complete the holocaust, of which this same Psalm says, that the vow shall be paid in Jerusalem.'¹⁹ For, what is this vow, made by Christ our Head, but the vow which He Himself describes so fully in the next Psalm? I will go into thy house with burnt-offerings; I will pay thee my vows, which my lips have uttered. And my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble: I will offer up to thee holocausts full of marrow, with the incense of rams; I will offer to thee bullocks with goats!²⁰

What is this day, whereon our High Priest was in trouble? It is that of which the apostle speaks, when he tells us that, with a strong cry and tears, He offered up prayers and supplications to His Father, who was able to save Him from death.²¹ But why does Jesus mention rams and bullocks and goats—those offerings become useless and rejected of God? Did He not Himself say, when He came into our world: 'Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldst not; but a Body Thou hast fitted unto Me'?²² Yea, truly: and it is this Body of Christ, says St. Augustine, which is here shown to us, in this Psalm; He presents His Body, as the offering He vows to His Father; the rams are the leaders of the Church.²³ 'Hear my prayer,' continues the psalmist, prophesying of our High Priest, 'O hear my prayer: all flesh shall come unto Thee.' Princes and people of all nations, children, young men and old, Jews and Gentiles, Greeks, Romans, Barbarians, all are on the cross and are the victim vowed to the Father. It is with all these, and in their name, and for their sake, in the entirety and unity of His Body, that Christ said to His Father: 'I will go into Thy house with burnt-offerings; send Thy fire, the fire of Thy Spirit, the divine flame of Me, eternal Wisdom; let it burn and wholly burn this Body which I have taken to Myself; let it be a holocaust, that is, let it be all Thine, O Father!'²⁴

Come, then, O ye children of God! bring unto the Lord the offspring of rams!²⁵ The voice of the Lord has been heard in its power; He bids the flame of fire come down upon the mount; the holocaust is already burning, and from Calvary the fire will spread throughout the world. The divine fire pursues its work, each succeeding generation; it absorbs into itself each of the members of the great Victim, that is, each one of the faithful; it devours sin; it burns out the dross of vice; it purifies, even in the dust of the grave, the flesh that has once been sanctified by the touch of Christ, in the sacred Mystery. It is a true fire of heaven; it is the uncreated flame; it destroys nought but evil; it sends, indeed, suffering and death among men, but only that it may deliver them from the wreck and ruin of the fall, and, by expiation, remake the whole human race. The day will come when, this fire of the great Sacrifice having drawn into itself the last member of Christ's mystical body, the very flesh itself of the elect will reappear all spiritual and glorified; and this wonderful transformation of the victim will make it a sacrifice truly worthy of the Lord God, and an assertion, far stronger than was its destruction by death, of the sovereign power and dominion of Him who is the Author of life. Then will the complete body of the Word Incarnate ascend, like purest incense, from the holy mount whereon the Church had fixed her tent here below, and make its way even to the altar of heaven; it will be the eternal aliment of the divine flame, the immense holocaust, in which 'the city of the redeemed, the people of the saints, will be offered to God as the universal sacrifice by the great High Priest, who offered Himself for us in His Passion, in the form of a servant and slave, that we might be the body of so great a Head.'²⁶

In this universal sacrifice of adoration and thanksgiving, wherein expiation will no longer have part, the very spirits of the angelic hosts will be included; for they, too, are the sacrifice of the Lord, making up, together with ourselves, the one only city of God of which the Psalm sings.²⁷ St. Cyril of Alexandria thus speaks on the angels forming part of the universal sacrifice: 'We have all received of the fullness of Christ, as St. John tells us; for every creature, not only visible but invisible also, receives of Christ; for the Angels and Archangels, and the spirits that are above these, and, finally, the very Cherubim, are sanctified in the Holy Ghost, not otherwise than by Christ alone. So that He (Christ) is the altar, He is the incense, He is the High Priest, just as He is the blood of the cleansing away of sins.'

Having, therefore, as our great High Priest Jesus the Son of God who by one oblation hath perfected for ever the holy city, let us hold fast the teaching of this glorious faith. As the high priest of old went, on the day of atonement, himself alone into the Holy of holies, holding in his hands the blood of propitiation, so our High Priest, Jesus, having purchased eternal redemption for us, has withdrawn Himself, for a time, from our sight. Minister of the true sanctuary and tabernacle, set up by God Himself, Jesus has entered, by His triumphant Ascension, beyond that veil which still hides God's sovereign Majesty from our view. There, in the sanctuary of heaven, is He celebrating, with unbroken

¹ Prov. xvi. 4. ² Ps. cxxxii. 2. ³ St. John xvii. 21, 22. ⁴ 1 Cor. xv. 24-28. ⁵ Ibid. 24, 25. ⁶ Wisd. ii. 23, 24. ⁷ Rom. vii. 11. ⁸ Gen. ii. 17. ⁹ Ps. xliv. 8. ¹⁰ Ps. cix. 4. ¹¹ St. Matt. i. 21. ¹² Col. ii. 14, 15. ¹³ Rom. vi. 4-10. ¹⁴ Col. iii. 3. ¹⁵ Exod. xxviii. ¹⁶ De fuga sæculi, xvi. ¹⁷ St. John xii. 32. ¹⁸ Ps. lxiv. 3. ¹⁹ Enarrat. in Ps. lxiv. ²⁰ Ps. lxv. 13-15. ²¹ Heb. v. 7. ²² Heb. x. 5, 6. ²³ Enarrat. in Ps. lxv. ²⁴ St. Aug. passim in Psalmos. ²⁵ Ps. xxviii. 1. ²⁶ St. Aug. De civit. Dei, x. 6. ²⁷ Ibid. 7; and in Ps. lxxxvi.

³ De adorat. in spir. et ver., lib. ix. ⁴ Heb. iv. 14; x. 14.
⁵ Heb. ix. 12, 21. ⁶ Ibid. viii. 2.

unity, the rite of His Sacrifice; presenting thereby to His Father, in the human nature which He has assumed, and which is now marked with the bright stigmata of His Passion, the august Victim, whose immolation here on earth called for the consummation in heaven. Meanwhile, as heretofore the people of Israel awaited the high priest's return out of the Holy of holies, so too we Christians here below keep close to our Priest, and are ever at prayer round the altar which is in the outer court. 'It is the day of atonement,' says Origen, 'and it lasts till the setting sun, that is, till the world comes to an end. We stand nigh the door, awaiting our High Priest who is within the Holy of holies, praying, not for the sins of all, but for the sins of them that are awaiting Him. ... There were two portions of the holy place, as we are told by Scripture: one was visible and accessible to all the priests; but the other was invisible, and no one might enter into it, save only the high priest; and, while he was there, the rest stood outside. I believe that by this first portion is to be understood the Church wherein we now are, while in the flesh. In this portion priests are ministering at the altar of holocausts which is fed by that fire of which Jesus speaks, saying: "I came to cast fire upon earth, and I will it to be enkindled." . . . It is there, in that first portion, that the High Priest offers the victim; and it is thence, also, that He goes forth, in order to enter into the inner veil, the second portion, which is heaven itself, and the throne of God. But take notice of the wonderful order of the mysteries: the fire, which He takes with Him into the Holy of holies, He takes from the altar of that first portion; and the incense He takes from that same portion, yea, and the vestments wherewith He is robed He received in that same place.'¹

Nor is that all: even after His departure, the fire of the Sacrifice is not extinguished in the outer court; and the Victim of atonement, whose Blood gives Him admission into the most holy sanctuary, continues to burn, and be offered on our outer altar.

¹ In Levit. Hom. ix.

MASS

This Sunday within the octave of Corpus Christi is the second after Pentecost. The Introit is taken from Psalm xvii, which sings the praises of God, who protects His people, and delivers them from their enemies. Let us lovingly extol this God, who is our support and our refuge.

INTROIT

Factus est Dominus protector meus, et eduxit me in latitudinem: salvum me fecit, quoniam voluit me.

Ps. Diligam te, Domine, virtus mea: Dominus firmamentum meum, et refugium meum, et liberator meus. Gloria Patri. Factus est.

The Lord hath become my protector, and set me at large: he hath saved me, because he loved me.

Ps. I will love thee, O Lord, my strength: the Lord is my support, my refuge, and my deliverer. Glory, &c. The Lord, &c.

In the Collect, the Church prays that we may have both the love and the fear of God's holy name. For the fear here spoken of, the fear which children have for their father, does not exclude love; on the contrary it strengthens love, by guarding it against the negligence and oversights into which certain souls are led by a false familiarity.

COLLECT

Sancti nominis tui, Domine, timorem pariter et amorem fac nos habere perpetuum: quia nunquam tua gubernatione destituis, quos in soliditate tuæ dilectionis instituis. Per Dominum.

Grant us, O Lord, both a constant love and fear of thy holy name: since thou never withdrawest thy protection from those whom thou solidly groundest in thy love. Through, &c.

COMMEMORATION OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Deus, qui nobis sub Sacramento mirabili passionis tuæ memoriam reliquisti: tribue, quæsumus, ita nos Corporis et Sanguinis tui sacra mysteria venerari, ut redemptionis tuæ fructum in nobis jugiter sentiamus. Qui vivis et regnas. Amen.

O God, who, under the wonderful Sacrament, hast left us a memorial of thy Passion: grant us, we beseech thee, so to reverence the sacred mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that, in our souls, we may always feel the fruit of thy Redemption. Who livest, &c.

EPISTLE

Lectio Epistolæ beati Joannis Apostoli. 1 Cap. iii.

Carissimi, nolite mirari, si odit vos mundus. Nos scimus quoniam translati sumus de morte ad vitam, quoniam diligimus fratres. Qui non diligit, manet in morte: omnis qui odit fratrem suum, homicida est. Et scitis quoniam omnis homicida non habet vitam æternam in semetipso manentem. In hoc cognovimus caritatem Dei, quoniam ille animam suam pro nobis posuit: et nos debemus pro fratribus animas ponere. Qui habuerit substantiam hujus mundi, et viderit fratrem suum necessitatem habere, et clauserit viscera sua ab eo: quomodo caritas Dei manet in eo? Filioli mei, non diligamus verbo, neque lingua, sed opere et veritate.

Lesson of the Epistle of Saint John the Apostle. 1 Ch. iii.

Dearly beloved, wonder not if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not, abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother, is a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself. In this we have known the charity of God, because he hath laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shut up his bowels from him: how doth the charity of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

These impressive words of the beloved disciple could not be addressed to the faithful on a more appropriate occasion than in this joyous octave. God's love for us is both the model and the motive of that which we owe to our fellow-men; the divine charity is the type of ours. 'I have given you an example,' says our Lord, 'that, as I have done unto you, so ye may also do.'¹ If, then, He has gone so far as to lay down His life for us, we also should be ready, if occasion so required, to lay down ours in order to procure our neighbour's salvation; and still more ready to help him, to the best of our power, when he is in need; we should love, not in word, or in tongue, but in deed, and in truth.

¹ St. John xiii. 15.

Now, what else is the divine Memorial, which is shining on us in all its splendour, than an eloquent demonstration of infinite love? A living remembrance, and abiding representation of that death of our Lord, upon which the apostle bases his argument.

Hence it is that our divine Master deferred His promulgation of the law of fraternal love, which He came upon our earth to establish, till He instituted the holy Sacrament, which was to give the strongest support to the observance of that law. No sooner has He effected the august mystery, no sooner has He given Himself to mankind under the sacred Species, than He exclaims: 'A new commandment I give unto you: that ye love one another, as I have loved you.'¹ Truly, the commandment was a new one, considering that the world, to which it was given, had egotism as its leading law. This new commandment was to be the distinctive mark of all Christ's disciples,² and, as one of the shrewd observers of the early pagan times says, to consign them to the hatred of the human race,³ which was in open violation of this law of love. It was in answer to the hostile reception given by the world to the new progeny, that is, to the Christians, that St. John thus speaks, in the Epistle of this Sunday: Wonder not, dearly beloved, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brethren. He that loveth not, abideth in death.

The union of the members with each other, through their divine Head, is the condition on which the existence of the Christian religion is based. The Eucharist is the vigorous nourishment of this union; it is the strong bond of Christ's mystical body, which thereby maketh increase in charity.⁴ Charity, therefore, and peace, and concord, are, together with the love of God Himself, the best proof that our reception of holy Communion is not turning to our condemnation, and the most needful of all preparations for our participation in the sacred Mysteries. It is the meaning of that injunction of our Lord: 'If thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee, leave there thine offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother; and then coming, thou shalt offer thy gift.'⁵

¹ St. John xiii. 34. ² Ibid. 35. ³ Tacitus, Ann. xv.
⁴ Eph. iv. 16. ⁵ St. Matt. v. 23, 24.

The Gradual, which is taken from the Psalms, gives thanks to God for the protection He has accorded us in the past; and prays for its continuation, seeing that our enemies are as unrelenting as ever.

GRADUAL

Ad Dominum cum tribularer clamavi, et exaudivit me.

℣. Domine, libera animam meam a labiis iniquis et a lingua dolosa.

Alleluia, alleluia.

℣. Domine Deus meus, in te speravi: salvum me fac ex omnibus persequentibus me, et libera me. Alleluia.

In my troubles, I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me.

℣. O Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips and a deceitful tongue.

Alleluia, alleluia.

℣. O Lord my God, in thee have I put my trust: save me from those that persecute me, and rescue me. Alleluia.

GOSPEL

Sequentia sancti Evangelii secundum Lucam. Cap. xiv.

In illo tempore: dixit Jesus pharisæis parabolam hanc: Homo quidam fecit cœnam magnam, et vocavit multos. Et misit servum suum hora cœnæ dicere invitatis ut venirent, quia jam parata sunt omnia. Et cœperunt simul omnes excusare. Primus dixit ei: Villam emi, et necesse habeo exire, et videre illam: rogo te, habe me excusatum. Et alter dixit: Juga boum emi quinque, et eo probare illa: rogo te, habe me excusatum. Et alius dixit: Uxorem duxi, et ideo non possum venire. Et reversus servus nuntiavit hæc domino suo. Tunc iratus paterfamilias, dixit servo suo: Exi cito in plateas, et vicos civitatis: et pauperes, ac debiles, et cæcos, et claudos introduc huc. Et ait servus: Domine, factum est ut imperasti, et adhuc locus est. Et ait dominus servo: Exi in vias et sepes: et compelle intrare, ut impleatur domus mea. Dico autem vobis, quod nemo virorum illorum, qui vocati sunt, gustabit cœnam meam.

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to Luke. Ch. xiv.

At that time, Jesus spoke this parable to the pharisees: A certain man made a great supper, and invited many. And he sent his servant, at the hour of supper, to say to them that were invited, that they should come, for now all things are ready. And they began all at once to make excuse. The first said to him: I have bought a farm, and I must needs go out and see it: I pray thee, hold me excused. And another said: I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to try them: I pray thee, hold me excused. And another said: I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. And the servant returning, told these things to his lord. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant: Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city; and bring in hither the poor, and the feeble, the blind, and the lame. And the servant said: Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said to the servant: Go out into the highways, and hedges; and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. But I say unto you that none of those men that were invited, shall taste of my supper.

The Gospel just read was appointed for this Sunday long before the institution of the Corpus Christi feast, as we learn from Honorius of Autun,¹ and Rupert.² The Holy Spirit, who guides the Church in her arrangement of the liturgy, was thus anticipating and completing the instructions suited for the future grand solemnity.

The parable here spoken by Jesus at the table of one of the leading pharisees,³ was again used by Him, when He spoke so strongly in the temple, a few days previous to His Passion and death. And what is this supper, to which many are invited? What is this marriage-feast, but that which eternal Wisdom has been getting ready from the very beginning of the world? Nothing could exceed the magnificence of these preparations; there was a splendid banquet-hall, built on the top of a mountain,⁴ and supported by seven pillars⁵ of mysterious beauty; there were the choicest meats—purest bread, and wine the most delicious—served up to the King's table. With His own hands, the Wisdom of the Father pressed the rich cluster of Cyprus grapes into the cup;⁶ He Himself ground down the wheat, that had sprung up, without having been sown, from a soil holy beyond description; He immolated the Victim.⁷ Israel, the Father's chosen people, was the fortunate guest invited by the loving kindness of the Master, that is, Wisdom, the Son of the Father, who had sent messengers without end to the children of Jacob. The Wisdom of God had said: 'I will send unto them prophets and apostles.'⁸ But this favoured people, this loved one, as the Book of Deuteronomy says, 'grew fat and kicked,' that is, it abused the gifts bestowed on it; it seemed to study how to provoke the anger of God its Saviour, by despising His invitations, and going its own way. This daughter of Sion, in her adulterous pride, preferred the bill of divorce to the marriage-feast;⁹ Jerusalem rejected the heavenly messengers, and killed the prophets,¹⁰ and crucified the Spouse Himself.

¹ Gemma anim. iv. 45, 46. ² De Div. Off. xii. 2. ³ St. Luke xiv. 1.
⁴ Is. ii. 2. ⁵ Prov. ix. 1.

But even so, eternal Wisdom still offers the first place at the supper to the ungrateful children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; He does so because of their saintly fathers. It is to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, that the apostles are first sent.⁸ 'What delicate attention!' may we justly exclaim with St. John Chrysostom. 'Before His crucifixion, Christ calls the Jews; He does the same after it, He goes on inviting them. Instead of crushing them with a terrible chastisement, as it seemed most just He should do, He invites them to a marriage; He loads them with honours. But they that have slain

¹ Cant. i. 13. ² Prov. ix. 2. ³ Ecclus. xxiv. 13.
⁴ St. Luke xi. 49. ⁵ Deut. xxxii. 15. ⁶ Is. i. 1.
⁷ St. Matt. xxiii. 34-37. ⁸ Ibid. x. 6; Acts xiii. 46.

His prophets, and murdered even Him—these same, invited so pressingly by such a Spouse, urged so lovingly to go to the wedding, and that by the very Victim of their own making—these same, I say, pay no regard to the invitation, and give, as an excuse, their yokes of oxen, and their wives, and their estates!'¹ Soon, these priests, these scribes, these hypocrite pharisees, will persecute and slay these apostles also; and the servant of our parable will find none in Jerusalem, whom he can induce to come to the Master's supper, except the poor, and little, and sickly ones, of the roads and by-lanes, with whom there is no ambition, or avarice, or pleasure, to keep them from the divine banquet.

Then will be realized the vocation of the Gentiles, that great mystery of a new people being substituted for the former one, in the covenant with Jehovah. 'The marriage of My Son is, indeed, ready,' will God the Father say to His servants; 'but they that were invited, were not worthy. Go ye therefore: abandon the wicked city that hath not known her time, and My visit; go ye into the high-ways, and hedges, and countries of the Gentiles; and as many as ye shall find, call ye to the marriage!'²

O ye Gentiles, praise the Lord for His mercy!³ You have been invited, without any merits of your own, to a feast that was prepared for another people; take heed, lest you incur the reproach given to the intended guests, who were excluded from the promises made to their fathers. O thou lame one, and blind, that hast been called from the by-path of thy sin and misery, hasten to the holy table! But then, take care, out of respect to Him who calls thee, to put off the rags of thy former life; and quickly put on the

¹ Freely from Hom. 69, in Matt.
² St. Matt. xxii. 8-14; St. Luke xix. 44. ³ Rom. xv. 9.

wedding-garment! The invitation given thee has made a queen of thy soul; 'give her, then, the purple robe and diadem, and set her on a throne! Think of the marriage thou art invited to attend, the marriage of God! Oh! the soul that goes to it, should be clad and decked with a garment richer than all the garments of earth!'¹

Like the Gradual, the Offertory is an earnest prayer for God's help; it is His mercy that encourages the soul to make this prayer.

OFFERTORY

Domine, convertere, et eripe animam meam: salvum me fac propter misericordiam tuam.

Turn to me, O Lord, and deliver my soul: O save me, for thy mercy's sake.

In the Secret, the Church prays for the twofold effect of the holy Sacrament, in the transformation of man's soul: purification from the remnants left by sin, and progress in the works which lead to life everlasting.

SECRET

Oblatio nos, Domine, tuo nomini dicanda purificet: et de die in diem ad cœlestis vitæ transferat actionem. Per Dominum.

May this Sacrifice, offered to thy name, purify us, O Lord: and make us, every day, advance towards a heavenly life. Through, &c.

COMMEMORATION OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Ecclesiæ tuæ, quæsumus Domine, unitatis et pacis propitius dona concede: quæ sub oblatis muneribus mystice designantur. Per Dominum.

Mercifully grant thy Church, O Lord, we beseech thee, the gifts of unity and peace, which are mystically represented in these offerings. Through, &c.

¹ From St. John Chrys. ubi supra.

During the Communion, holy Church, enriched as she is with heavenly favours, pours forth her gratitude towards Him, who, though the Most High God, is also her Spouse, and loads her with exquisite gifts.

COMMUNION

Cantabo Domino, qui bona tribuit mihi, et psallam nomini Domini altissimi.

I will sing unto the Lord, who hath bestowed good things on me, and I will sing a psalm to the name of the Lord, the Most High.

Let us pray with the Church, in the Postcommunion, that our frequent participation in these sacred Mysteries may not be fruitless in our souls, but may effect with increased assurance the whole work of our salvation.

POSTCOMMUNION

Sumptis muneribus sacris, quæsumus, Domine, ut cum frequentatione mysterii crescat nostræ salutis effectus. Per Dominum.

Having received, O Lord, this sacred oblation, grant, that by frequenting these mysteries, the work of our salvation may increase. Through, &c.

COMMEMORATION OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Fac nos, quæsumus Domine, divinitatis tuæ sempiterna fruitione repleri: quam pretiosi Corporis et Sanguinis tui temporalis perceptio præfigurat. Qui vivis.

Grant us, O Lord, we beseech thee, the everlasting possession of thyself: as a pledge of which, we have received thy Body and Blood. Who livest, &c.

VESPERS

The Vespers for this Sunday within the octave of Corpus Christi, are the same as those of the feast itself (page 273), excepting what follows:

CAPITULUM

Carissimi, nolite mirari, si odit vos mundus. Nos scimus quoniam translati sumus de morte ad vitam, quoniam diligimus fratres.

Dearly beloved, wonder not if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren.

℣. Cibavit illos ex adipe frumenti, alleluia.

℣. He hath fed them with the fat of corn, alleluia.

℟. Et de petra, melle saturavit eos, alleluia.

℟. And hath filled them with honey from the rock, alleluia.

ANTIPHON OF THE MAGNIFICAT

Exi cito in plateas et vicos civitatis: et pauperes ac debiles, cæcos et claudos, compelle intrare, ut impleatur domus mea, alleluia.

Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city; and compel the poor and the feeble, the blind and the lame, to come in, that my house may be filled, alleluia.

OREMUS

Sancti nominis tui, Domine, timorem pariter et amorem fac nos habere perpetuum: quia nunquam tua gubernatione destituis, quos in soliditate tuæ dilectionis instituis. Per Dominum.

LET US PRAY

Grant us, O Lord, both a constant love and fear of thy holy name: since thou never withdrawest thy protection from those whom thou solidly groundest in thy love. Through, &c.

COMMEMORATION OF THE OCTAVE

ANT. O sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur: recolitur memoria passionis ejus: mens impletur gratia: et futuræ gloriæ nobis pignus datur, alleluia.

ANT. O sacred banquet, wherein Christ is received; the memorial of his Passion is celebrated; the mind is filled with grace; and a pledge of future glory is given unto us, alleluia.

℣. Panem de cœlo præstitisti eis, alleluia.

℣. Thou hast given them bread from heaven, alleluia.

℟. Omne delectamentum in se habentem, alleluia.

℟. Having in it all that is delicious, alleluia.

OREMUS

Deus, qui nobis sub Sacramento mirabili passionis tuæ memoriam reliquisti: tribue, quæsumus, ita nos Corporis et Sanguinis tui sacra mysteria venerari, ut redemptionis tuæ fructum in nobis jugiter sentiamus. Qui vivis.

LET US PRAY

O God, who, under the wonderful Sacrament, hast left us a memorial of thy Passion: grant us, we beseech thee, so to reverence the sacred mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that, in our souls, we may always feel the fruit of thy Redemption. Who livest, &c.

The liturgy given in the Apostolic Constitutions, under the name of St. James, thus continues, after the Trisagion; it is the bishop who is speaking:

CONSTITUTIO JACOBI

Sanctus enim vere es ac sanctissimus, altissimus, et superexaltatus in sæcula. Sanctus quoque unigenitus tuus Filius, Dominus noster et Deus, Jesus Christus.

For truly thou art holy, and most holy, most high and exalted above all for ever. Holy, also, is thine only-begotten Son, our Lord and God, Jesus Christ.

Qui ad omnia tibi Deo suo et Patri, tum in varia creatione, tum in providentia convenienti ministrans, non despexit genus humanum quod peribat: sed post naturalem legem, post legalem admonitionem, post propheticas reprehensiones; cum legem naturalem una cum lege posita violarent, atque e memoria abjicerent diluvium, conflagrationem Sodomiticam, plagas Ægyptiis et cædes Palæstinis illatas, cumque illico perituri essent omnes; ex sententia tua ipse elegit, creator hominis homo fieri, legislator sub legibus, pontifex hostia, pastor ovis; et te suum Deum ac Patrem placavit atque mundo reconciliavit, factus ex virgine, factus in carne, Deus Verbum, dilectus Filius, primogenitus omnis creaturæ, et secundum prophetias ab ipso de se prædictas ortus ex semine Davidis et Abrahami ac de tribu Judæ.

Who in all things ministered to thee his God and Father, both in thy manifold creation, and in thy suitable providence, not despising the human race, that had perished. But after the law of nature, after the admonition of the law, (of Sinai) after the chidings of the Prophets, when, violating both the natural and positive law, forgetting the deluge, the burning of Sodom, the plagues of Egypt, and the extermination of the inhabitants of Palestine, itself was on the verge of total destruction: he, thy Son, willed, by thy consent, to become Man, who was man's Creator; be under the law, who was the giver of the law; be the victim, who was Priest; be the sheep, he who was Shepherd. He also appeased thee, his God and Father, and reconciled thee with the world, being made of a Virgin, became flesh, God the Word, the Son beloved, the first born of every creature, and was, according to the prophecies foretold by him of himself, sprung from the seed of David and Abraham, and of the tribe of Juda.

Et factus est in utero Virginis, formator omnium qui gignuntur; incarnatus est, qui carnis expers; qui sine tempore genitus, in tempore natus est; sancte vixit, et legitime docuit; omnem morbum et omnem infirmitatem ab hominibus expulit; signa et prodigia in populo edidit; cibum, potum, somnum cepit is qui cunctos alimenta indigentes nutrit omneque animal implet beneplacito: manifestavit nomen tuum iis qui illud ignorabant; fugavit ignorantiam; pietatem exsuscitavit; voluntatem tuam implevit; opus quod ei dedisti consummavit: atque his omnibus feliciter gestis, per proditionem illius qui malitiæ morbo languebat, comprehensus est manibus flagitiosorum pontificum et populi iniqui; a quibus multa passus est, et omnem ignominiam sustinuit, permissu tuo.

He was made in the Virgin's womb, who was the Maker of all men that are begotten; He became Flesh, who was without flesh; he that was born when time was not, was born in time. He lived in holiness, and taught the truth; he drove every sickness and disease from men; wrought signs and wonders among the people. He took food, drink, and sleep, who feeds all the needy with nourishment, and fills every living creature with blessing. He made known thy name to them that knew it not; he put ignorance to flight; he raised up charity; he fulfilled thy will; he finished the work thou gavest him to do. And when he had brought all these to a happy issue, he was betrayed by the man who was sick with the disease of wickedness, and (thus betrayed) was seized by the hands of wicked priests and iniquitous people, from whom, by thy permission, he suffered many things, and every kind of insult.

Traditus est Pilato præsidi; judicatus est, Judex; condemnatus est, Salvator; cruci affixus est, qui pati non potest; mortuus est, natura immortalis; sepultus est, vitæ effector; ut illos propter quos advenerat a passione solveret et a morte eriperet, ut diaboli vincula rumperet illiusque ex fallacia liberaret homines.

He was delivered up to the governor, Pilate; the Judge was judged: the Saviour was condemned; he that could not suffer was nailed to the cross; he, that by nature was immortal, died: he, the giver of life, was buried: that he might loose them, for whose sake he had come, from suffering and death, that he might break the bonds made by the devil, and deliver men from his deceit.

Resurrexit e mortuis tertia die: quadraginta diebus commoratus cum discipulis, assumptus est in cœlos; et ad dexteram assidet tibi, Deo ac Patri suo.

He rose again, the third day, from the dead; abode forty days with his disciples; was taken up into heaven, and sits at the right hand of thee, his God and Father.

Itaque memores passionis ejus et mortis, et a mortuis resurrectionis, atque in cœlum reditus; necnon secundi adventus quem idem facturus est, in quo cum gloria et potestate veniet judicare vivos et mortuos, et reddere singulis juxta opera eorum: tibi regi ac Deo panem hunc et calicem hunc offerimus, secundum constitutionem ejus, gratias tibi per eum agentes.

We, therefore, calling to mind his Passion and Death, and his Resurrection from the dead, and his return to heaven; his second coming, also, which he is to make, in which he will come, with glory and power, to judge the living and the dead, and render to each one according to his works: to thee, King and God, we offer this Bread and this Chalice, according to his appointment, giving thanks unto thee through him.

MONDAY

WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus, qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations, who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

The Lord hath sworn, and He will not repent Him of His oath: He hath sworn: 'Thou art a Priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech!'¹

Thus did the sons of Levi sing to the expected Messias, in one of the loveliest of their psalms. This noble and privileged family, this corona fratrum, standing, in all its glory, around the altar whence daily ascended the smoke of victims, this community of brethren celebrated, on the sacred harp, the priesthood of the good things to come, and announced their own being set aside. Shadow and figure as it was, their own priesthood was to disappear before the brightness of the divine realities of Calvary. They were indebted to the sacerdoce of the nations, for their being called to perpetuate the worship of the true God, in His one temple; but this precarious honour would cease, when the reconciliation of the world took place. Being Son of Juda, through David, the High Priest Christ receives nought of Aaron. When the inspired psalmist sings a hymn in honour of our Jesus' priesthood, he goes back, in thought, to the ages beyond Moses; he passes the time of the twelve patriarchs and their father Israel; and there, in the distant past, he meets with the type of a priesthood, which is to have no limits, either of

¹ Ps. cix. 4.

place or time: it is Melchisedech. Melchisedech received, through Abraham, the homage of Abraham's son, Levi; the priest of the uncircumcised nations gives a blessing to the venerable holder of the promise; and this mighty blessing, which is extended to the patriarch's entire race, derives its efficacy from a mysterious sacrifice: the peaceful offering of bread and wine to the Most High!

The priesthood of the King of justice and peace, not only precedes that of Aaron as to time, but it is also to outlive it. And observe, it is at the very time when God was making a covenant with one single race, and thereby seemed to be turning away from all other nations, and was establishing the priestly order, to their exclusion—it is precisely then that the king-priest of Salem, who has neither beginning of days nor end of life,² suddenly comes before us as the imposing image of our eternal Priest offering the divine Memorial, which is to perpetuate the great Sacrifice on the earth, and for ever take the place of the bloody sacrifices of the Mosaic dispensation.

The Sacrifice of the cross lasts all ages of time, and fills eternity. And yet, as to time, it was the offering of one day; and as to place, it was made but on one spot. It matters not: in every place, in every age, man must have the sacrifice ceaselessly offered up in his presence; he must have its offering renewed daily in his midst. As we have already seen, sacrifice is the centre of the whole of religion; and man cannot dispense with religion, for it unites him to God as the sovereign Lord, and constitutes the primary bond of social life. As, then, to satisfy the imperious necessity which showed itself from the very beginning of the world, divine Wisdom appointed those figurative offerings, which foretold the one great Sacrifice

¹ Gen. xiv. 18-20. ² Heb. vii. 3.

whence they derived what merit soever they possessed; so, in like manner, once the oblation of the great Victim has been made, it will continue to supply the demands of mankind, and provide the world with a permanent Sacrifice; it is to be a Memorial and not a figure; it destroys not the unity of the Sacrifice of the cross; and it applies the fruits of that one Sacrifice to each member of each future generation.

We will not here describe the Lord's Supper, and the institution of that new priesthood, which is as far above its predecessor as the promises it holds are more glorious, and the covenant of which it forms the basis¹ is more divine. We have had all the details of that marvellous history related to us on Maundy Thursday. It was on that day—that day expected from all eternity; it was at that hour (cum facta esset hora)—that hour so long put off, that divine Wisdom sat down to the supper and banquet of the new Covenant; He sat down, having with Him the twelve apostles, who represented mankind. Putting an end to figures by a final immolation of the Paschal Lamb, Jesus exclaimed: 'With desire (that is, with immense desire) I have desired to eat this Pasch with you!'² The Man-God thus eased His sacred Heart, which had so long waited for this hour; He had so loved it, and it has now come! Then, forestalling the Jews, He immolates His victim—the divine Lamb; signified by Abel, foretold by Isaias, shown by John the Precursor;³ and, by a miraculous anticipation, there is already in the holy chalice the Blood which, in a few hours hence, is to be flowing on Calvary; already His divine hand presents to the disciples the bread now changed into His Body, which has become the ransom of the

¹ Heb. viii. 6. ² St. Luke xxii. 14, 15. ³ St. Greg., Moral. xxix. 31.

world: 'Take ye and eat,' says Jesus: 'this is My Body, which shall be delivered for you! Take and drink this Chalice, which is the new testament in My Blood! This do ye for the commemoration of Me:'¹ that is, 'As I am now anticipating, for your sake, the death I am to suffer on the morrow, so you, when I have left this world, do this same for the commemoration of Me.'

The covenant, the alliance, is now made. The new Testament is declared, and, like its predecessor, is sealed by Blood. If, as yet, it be of no force, save in prevision of the Testator's real death,² the reason is that Jesus, who is the Victim of the divine vengeance for the salvation of the whole world, has made a solemn covenant with His eternal Father,³ that this universal redemption is not to be effected but by the morrow's cruel work. He has made Himself the Head of guilty mankind; He has made Himself responsible to God for the crimes of His own race; for the destruction of sin, therefore, He willingly submits to the stern laws of expiation, and, by the torments He undergoes, reveals to the world how immense are the claims of eternal justice.⁴ Notwithstanding all this, the earth, from that very Thursday night, is in possession of the Chalice which is to announce the Saviour's death until He come⁵ by communicating⁶ to each member of the human family Christ's real and true Blood, shed for our sins.⁷

And surely it was most fitting that our adorable High Priest Himself, and without all that display of outward violence which, a few hours later, is to disconcert the whole apostolic college, should offer Himself, with His own hands, as a true Sacrifice to His Father. He would thus evince how spontaneous

¹ 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25. ² Heb. ix. 16-18. ³ Ibid. xii. 2. ⁴ Rom. iii. 25, 26. ⁵ 1 Cor. xi. 26. ⁶ Ibid. x. 16. ⁷ St. Luke xxii. 20.

was His death,¹ and do away with our ever having such a thought as that the treachery, or violence, or crime, of a handful of men, could be the origin and cause of the whole world's salvation.²

It is on this account that, lifting up His eyes to His Father³ and giving thanks, He says, and in the present, (as the Greek text gives the words): 'This is My Body, which is given for you; this is My Blood, which is shed for you.'⁴ These words, which He bequeaths with all their efficacy of power to the representatives of His priesthood, really produce what they express. They not only change the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ; but as a mystical sword, they truly separate under the twofold Species, and, as far as their own power is concerned, they offer separately to the Father, the Body and Blood of our Lord, which are indeed united, but they are so by the omnipotent will of the infinite Majesty of God, who was abundantly and eternally satisfied by the offering made on Calvary. As often, then, as the words of Consecration, which may be likened to those which drew the world out of nothing, are pronounced over wheaten bread and wine of the grape, by the mouth of a priest—no matter how long may be the time, or how distant the place, from the Sacrifice offered on Calvary—that same moment, the august Victim, our Jesus, is then and there really present. It was one and the same Victim both at the Last Supper, and on the cross, and It continues the same in the oblation made to the Father, now, and to the end of time, and in all places, by the one High Priest, Christ our Lord, who borrows, and makes His own, the hands and voice of the priests of His Church, who have been chosen and consecrated, in the Holy Ghost, for this dread ministry.

¹ St. John x. 18. ² St. Greg. Nyss. Orat. 1. in Chr. resurr. ³ Canon Miss. ⁴ St. Luke xxii. 19, 20.

Oh! how great will these men be, who have been taken from among the rest of men, by the imposition of hands! New Christs, that is, new anointed priests, identified by their ministry with the Son of Mary, they are the privileged members of divine Wisdom; they are closely united by love with the power which He Himself has; they are the companions of Jesus in doing that grand work which He, Wisdom, is ever doing throughout all ages: that is, the immolation of the great Victim, and the mingling of the Chalice,¹ wherein our humanity, blended with its Head in the unity of the one same Sacrifice, derives also love for both its God and its fellow-members, and is made to be partaker of the divine nature, as St. Peter words the mystery of union.²

Praise, then, and glory be to Jesus, the sovereign High Priest, for these noble sons of the human race! They are a marvel to heaven, and the pride of our earth! Surrounded by them, as the palm-tree with its victory-speaking palms, or the cedar with its incorruptible branches,³ this divine Pontiff comes forward, clothed with dignity, power, and holiness, like the olive-tree budding forth its young plants.⁴ And as the cypress-tree, that rears itself on high⁵ hides its vigorous trunk beneath the forest of its ever-green branches, so, hiding His own direct action, and, as it were, retreating behind the countless priests who derive all their power and unction from Him, our true High Priest draws them all to unity with Himself.

On that night ever blessed, that night of the divine Supper, when, as He said, the hour had come for the Father and Son to glorify one the other;⁶ ere yet He had ascended the blood-stained steps of the altar

¹ Prov. ix. 2. ² 2 St. Pet. i. 4. ³ Ecclus. l. 13, 14. ⁴ Ecclus. l. 11. ⁵ Ibid. ⁶ St. John xvii. 1.

of the cross, where was to be consummated the perfection of glory;¹ He already manifested the power of His divine priesthood. Under the likeness and name of Simon, son of Onias, who did such great things for the temple and saved his people from destruction, it is Jesus, whose praises are inspired and celebrated by the Holy Spirit, in that last of the Books descriptive of eternal Wisdom—Ecclesiasticus.² Into the, as yet, feeble hands of His apostles, whom He vouchsafes to call His friends³ and His brethren,⁴ our Lord entrusts the oblation, which was to immortalize, and thus to complete, His Sacrifice to the King of ages. His divine hands are stretched out, offering, as a libation, the blood of the grape: He pours it forth at the very foot of the altar, which is already being put up; and the fragrance of that offering makes its way to the most high Prince. Our High Priest saw into the future; He heard the songs of triumph which would hymn the praises of the divine Memorial; He heard the sacred psalmody, which would fill the great house, the Church, with ceaseless and sweet harmony, around the tabernacle of His Presence; He saw millions prostrate in the adoration of Him, the Lord their God, and paying to the Almighty their now perfect homage. Then did He rise from the table of the Supper; He went out in His strength and His love,⁵ that He might, for a whole long day, stretch forth His hands in presence of the crowd of unbelieving and hostile children of Israel;⁶ He renewed His oblation, consummated His Sacrifice by His Blood, for by the cross He wished to show the power of God.⁷

'The evening Sacrifice, which was the Passion of Christ,' says St. Augustine, 'became, in His Resur-

¹ Ecclus. l. 11, 12. ² Ibid. 1-5. ³ St. John xv. 15. ⁴ Ibid. xx. 17. ⁵ St. John xiv. 31. ⁶ Is. lxv. 2. ⁷ Ecclus. l. 15-23.

rection, the oblation of the morning.'¹ This transformation was signified, under the Law, by the solemn presentation to the Lord of a sheaf of the first-fruits of the barley-harvest, on the third day following the slaying of the Paschal Lamb.² But the time for offering the very bread itself, the true wheat and food of souls, had not yet come; and the Law subjoined as follows: 'Ye shall count, therefore, from the morrow after the Sabbath, wherein ye offered the sheaf of the first-fruits, seven full weeks, even unto the morrow after the seventh week be expired, that is to say, fifty days: and then ye shall offer a new sacrifice unto the Lord: two loaves of flour, the first-fruits of the Lord.'³ Fifty days were to transpire, in the new Covenant, before the divine agent came, who alone could transform these gifts, this bread and wine. Pentecost, the glorious Pentecost, arose at last; and the creating Spirit came with a mighty wind. The Flesh of the Word, and the divine Blood, which He formed at the very outset, and still holds in His keeping, could not be reproduced in the sacred Mysteries, without the incommunicable operation of Him whose glorious master-piece they are. 'It is by the Spirit, who is eternal Fire,' says the Abbot Rupert, 'that Mary conceived; it is by Him that Jesus offered Himself, a living Victim to the living God; and it is by the same Fire that He now burns on our altars, for it is by the operation of the Holy Ghost that the bread is changed into His Body.'⁴ So too St. Denis the Areopagite, the great disciple of the apostle St. Paul, teaches us⁵ that when Jesus, the supreme Hierarch, called His disciples to share in His sovereign priesthood, although as God He was the author of all consecration, yet He left the consummation of their priesthood to the Holy Ghost; and He bade His apostles to remain in Jeru-

¹ In Psalm. cxl. ² Lev. xxiii. 10, 11. ³ Ibid. 15-17. ⁴ Rupert. in Exod. lib. ii. c. 7. ⁵ De Eccl. Hier. cap. v. 3. sec. v.

salem, and there await the promise of the Father that they should be baptized with the Holy Ghost a few days later on.¹

'The priest,' says St. John Chrysostom, 'comes forth, carrying, not fire, as under the Law, but the Holy Ghost.'² 'It is a man who appears before us, but it is God who works.'³ 'How shall this be done?' said Mary to the angel, 'for I know not man.' Gabriel answers her: 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.'⁴ 'And thou now askest me,' says St. John Damascene to an inquirer, 'how do the bread and wine and water become the Body and Blood of Christ?' I answer thee: 'The Holy Ghost overshadows the Church, and achieves this mystery, which is beyond all word and all imagination.'⁵

Therefore it is that, as St. Fulgentius observes, the Church could not more seasonably pray for the coming of the Holy Ghost, than at the consecration of the Sacrifice, wherein, as under the shadow of the Spirit in the Virgin's womb the Wisdom of the Father united Himself with the Man chosen by Him for the divine espousal, so the Church herself is united by the Holy Ghost to Christ, as a bride is to her spouse, or the body to its head.⁶ It is on account of all this that the hour of Tierce (nine o'clock), the hour wherein the divine Paraclete came into this world, is the one set apart by the Church, on each of her festivals, for the solemn celebration of the great Sacrifice, over which this blessed Spirit presides in the omnipotence of His operation.

¹ Acts, i. 4, 5. ² De Sacerd. lib. iii. c. 4.
³ Tom. v. serm. 38. ⁴ St. Luke i. 34, 35.
⁵ De fid. orthod. lib. iv. c. 13. ⁶ Ad Monim. lib. ii. c. 10.

O holy hour of Tierce! O sacred nine o'clock, as men call that third hour! It is then that the bride, the Church of Christ, feels an alleviation of her exile; for, though still on earth, she gives to her God a homage that is worthy of Him, and receives back from Him every grace wherewith to bless her dear children. In this sense, the Mass is her fortune, her dower; it belongs to her to regulate its celebration, to prescribe the formulas and the ceremonies, and to receive its fruits. The priest is her minister: she prays; he immolates the Victim, and gives her prayer an infinite power. The indelible character of the priesthood, stamped by God Himself on the priest's soul, makes him the exclusive depositary of the marvellous, the divine, power, and gives to the Sacrifice, offered by his hands, a validity which no human power can control; but he may not, licitly and lawfully, make the oblation, save in and with the Church.

This mutual dependence, this union which confounds not, of the priest and the Church, in the sacred Mysteries, was deeply impressed on the minds of the early Christians. In the cemetery of St. Callixtus—that central point of the Roman cemeteries, and the one set apart for the burial of the bishops of the mother-church during the entire third century—there is a whole series of paintings, going back as far as the beginning of the Catacomb itself. These were a symbolic teaching to the initiated how the dogma of the Eucharist was instituted by our Lord, as basis of the religion whereof the Popes, who were buried there in the papal crypt, had been the faithful guardians. The repast of the seven disciples, for whom, during their mysterious fishing, Jesus Himself had been preparing bread and a fish roasted on hot coals,¹ is painted in one of the rooms, on the centre of the wall facing the entrance-door. On either side of this central subject, there are two other smaller ones: one is the sacrifice of Abraham, with its well-known meaning; the other represents a non-historic scene, which, however, evidently forms a counterpart with the one on the other side; it speaks of the Sacrifice of the Christian Church, under symbolism so profound as to hide the secret of the Mysteries from the profane. On a table lies a loaf, whose meaning is made plain enough by the fish, the eucharistic ichthus, being placed near it. On the spectator's right hand is an aged female; she is standing, with her arms stretched out as an Orante, and is offering up her prayer to heaven; on the left is the figure of a young man; he wears a simple pallium, which was the usual garb of the Christian cleric in the second century; with an air of authority, he is holding his open hands over the table and its gifts. We know the meaning of all this; it is the Church, who is united in the consecration with the priest, her minister and her son.¹

¹ St. John xxi. 8, 9.
¹ De Rossi, Rom. sott. tom. ii.

With what fidelity does this queen, who is in mourning for her Spouse, carry out the testament, which left her, in the Sacrifice, the eternal and undying remembrance of His Death! And He gave her that testament at His last Supper! Whilst He gives Himself to her in the mystery of love, she is forcibly reminded, by the state of immolation in which she sees Him, that she is not to be taken up so much with the joy His sweet presence causes her, as with the duty of completing and continuing His work, by immolating herself together with Him. Under the altar where she and her Jesus meet, she, the valiant woman,² has laid the relics of her martyrs; for she is aware that the Passion of her Lord demands from her children, who are His members, something which will fill up what is wanting of His sufferings.¹ She was produced from His open side when on the cross, and she was espoused to Him in death; that first embrace, which, from her very birth, put her Spouse's bleeding Body into her arms, has communicated to the soul of this second Eve the same inebriation of devotedness and love, which sent the heavenly Adam into His deep sleep on Calvary.

² Prov. xxxi. 10.
¹ Col. i. 24.

To this Church, then, to this mother of the living, the immense human family runs with all its manifold miseries, and countless wants. She makes good use of the treasure confided to her; that treasure is the Mass, and it supplies every necessity; and, by that same, she is enabled to fulfil all her duties, both as bride, and as mother. Each day identifying herself, more and more, with the universal Victim, who imparts to her Sacrifice His own infinite worth, the Church adores God's sovereign Majesty, gives Him thanks for His favours, sues for the pardon of the past and present sins of her children, and asks for them the bestowal of blessings temporal and eternal. The precious Blood of Jesus flows from her altar upon the suffering souls in purgatory, assuages their fire of expiation, or leads them to the place of refreshment, light, and peace.²

² Can. Miss.

So great is the power of the Sacrifice offered in the Church, that, of itself, and (as far as the principal effect is concerned) independently of the merits of the priest or of the people present, it fulfils the four ends whose realization includes the sum total of religion: adoration, thanksgiving, propitiation, and impetration. Independently of the merits of the human priest—for it is the Victim which gives the Sacrifice its worth; and the Victim on our altars is the same that was on Calvary; a Victim equal to the Father, offering Himself, as He did on the cross, for these same ends, and in one same Oblation. The Creator of space and time is not bound to observe their laws, and He has proved His divine independence in this mystery. "Just as, though offered in many places it is one and the same Body and not several bodies," says St. John Chrysostom, "so is it with the unity of the Sacrifice, though offered in different ages."¹ Between the altar and the cross there is but the difference of the manner of the offering. Bloody on the cross, unbloody on the altar, the offering is one,² notwithstanding this diversity of mode. The immolation of the august Victim on the cross was a visible one, for it was amidst all the cruel horrors which slew Him; but the violence of the executioners concealed the Sacrifice offered to God, by the Incarnate Word, in the spontaneity of His generous love. At our altar, the immolation is not visible; but the religious worship of the Sacrifice is as patent as the noon-day brightness, and as splendid in its glorious ritual. Upon the earth, which on that terrible Friday had drunk the stream of its shedding, the precious Blood left the malediction of deicide; but the chalice of salvation held by the Church's hand sheds benediction throughout our planet.

¹ In Ep. ad Heb. Hom. 17. ² Heb. x. 14.

O glorious condition of this earth of ours, from whose surface the Lamb that is slain,³ who is now receiving on the throne of God the homage due to His triumph, is presenting each day, in His state of infinite lowliness as Man, total satisfaction to His Father for the sins of the world, and a glory adequate to the perfections of the divine Majesty! The angels are in admiration as they look down upon this our globe, mere speck as it is amidst the bright heavenly spheres, and yet so loved, from the very outset, by eternal Wisdom; they surround, trembling the while, this altar on earth, so closely resembling, so one with, theirs in heaven, that on the two the one same High Priest pays homage to the one same God in the one same infinite Offering. Hell, from its deepest depths, trembles at it; and raging as it does against God, and vowing vengeance against man, it holds no object so hateful as this Sacrifice. What untiring efforts has satan been making, what artful designs has he planned, in order to make this much-detested Sacrifice cease! And alas! there has been, even in the very heart of Christendom, some partial success to those efforts and designs: there has been the protestant heresy, which has destroyed thousands of our altars, especially in our own dear fatherland; and there is still the spirit of revolution, which is spreading as our modern times grow older, and whose avowed aim is to shut up our churches, and do away with the priests who offer sacrifice!

³ Apoc. v. 6–12.

So it is: and therefore our world, which heretofore used to be set right again after the storms that swept its surface, now complains that the impending ruin is an universal one, and one wherein there is no strength, save in the very chastisements sent by God. It vainly busies itself with its plans of safety, and, at each turn, feels that the human legislation it would trust to is but an arm of human folly stretched out to support a decrepit age of proud weakness. The Blood of the Lamb, once the world's power, no longer flows upon it with its former plenty. And yet the world goes on; it does so, because of that same Sacrifice, which, though despised, and in many lands totally suspended, is still offered in thousands of happy spots on earth; and on the world will go, for the time yet to come, until, in a final access of mad frenzy, it shall have put the last priest to death, and taken away from every altar here below the eternal Sacrifice.¹

¹ Dan. xi. 31.

The incalculable influence of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and its unlimited power, are brought forward in the following beautiful formula, which is a continuation of what we have already taken from the Apostolic Constitutions.

CONSTITUTIO JACOBI

Poscimus te ut super hæc dona placate respicias, tu qui nullius indiges Deus, et beneplaceas in eis ad honorem Christi tui, atque supra hoc sacrificium mittas sanctum tuum Spiritum, testem passionum Domini Jesu: ut participes illius ad pietatem confirmentur, remissionem peccatorum consequantur, diabolo ejusque errore liberentur, Spiritu sancto repleantur, digni Christo tuo fiant, vitam sempiternam impetrent, te illis reconciliato, Domine omnipotens.

We beseech thee that thou mercifully look down upon these gifts, thou, O God, who standest in need of none of our things; and be thou well-pleased in them for the honour of thy Christ; send down upon this sacrifice thy Spirit, who was witness of the Lord Jesus' sufferings; in order that they who are partakers of his (Body and Blood) may be strengthened unto piety, may obtain the remission of their sins, may be delivered from the devil and his deceit, may be filled with the Holy Ghost, may be made worthy of thy Christ, and may obtain life everlasting, by thy being reconciled to them, O almighty Lord.

Adhuc oramus te, Domine, pro sancta Ecclesia tua, quæ a finibus ad fines extenditur, quam acquisisti pretioso sanguine Christi tui: ut eam inconcussam ac minime fluctuantem conserves usque in sæculi consummationem; item pro universo episcopatu recte verbum veritatis tractante ac distribuente, pro omni presbyterio, pro diaconis, ac universo clero: ut omnes sapientiam a te donatos Spiritu sancto impleas.

We further pray thee, O Lord, for thy holy Church, which is spread from one end of the world to the other, which thou hast purchased by the precious Blood of thy Christ: preserve it unshaken and free from disturbance until the consummation of time; we also pray for the whole episcopacy which rightly treats and distributes the word of truth; for the whole presbytery, for deacons, and the entire clergy: that, having enriched them all with Wisdom, thou mayst fill them with the holy Spirit.

Adhuc rogamus te, Domine, pro rege et iis qui in sublimitate sunt et pro cuncto exercitu, ut res nostræ in pace versentur; quo totum vitæ nostræ tempus in quiete et concordia trajicentes, te per Jesum Christum spem nostram gloria afficiamus.

We further pray thee, O Lord, for the king and them that are in authority, and for the whole army, that all our affairs may be in peace; that, thereby, spending the whole time of our life in quietness and concord, we may glorify thee, through him who is our hope, Christ Jesus.

Adhuc offerimus tibi pro omnibus sanctis qui a sæculo placuerunt tibi, patriarchis, prophetis, justis, apostolis, martyribus, confessoribus, episcopis, presbyteris, diaconis, subdiaconis, lectoribus, cantoribus, virginibus, viduis, laicis et omnibus quorum tu nosti nomina.

We further offer thee (this Sacrifice) for all the saints who have been pleasing to thee from the beginning: patriarchs, prophets, righteous, apostles, martyrs, confessors, bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, lectors, cantors, virgins, widows, laity, and all whose names are known to thee.

Adhuc offerimus tibi pro populo hoc: ut eum in laudem Christi tui exhibeas regale sacerdotium, gentem sanctam: pro iis qui in virginitate et castitate vivunt; pro viduis Ecclesiæ; pro iis qui in nuptiis honestis degunt; pro infantibus

We further offer thee (this Sacrifice) for this people: that thou mayst make them, unto the praise of thy Christ, a royal priesthood, a holy nation: for those who live in virginity and chastity; for the widows of the Church; for those who live in honourable wedlock; for the infants

We further offer it to thee for this people, that thou wilt make them, to the praise of thy Christ, a kingly priesthood and a holy nation; for them that live in virginity and chastity; for the Church's widows; for them that live in honourable wedlock; for the

plebis tuæ: uti nostrum
neminem rejiciendum habeas.

Adhuc poscimus te pro urbe hac et habitantibus in ea; pro ægrotis, pro dura
servitute afflictis, pro exsulibus, pro proscriptis, pro navigantibus, et iter facientibus: ut sis auxiliator, omnium adjutor ac defensor.

Adhuc rogamus te pro iis qui oderunt nos et propter nomen tuum nos persequuntur, pro iis qui foris sunt ac errant: ut adducas eos ad bonum, et furorem eorum mitiges.

Adhuc rogamus te et pro Ecclesiæ catechumenis, et
pro iis qui ab adversario jactantur, et pro pœnitentiam agentibus fratribus
nostris: ut primos quidem perficias in fide, alteros vero mundes a vexatione mali, tertiorum autem pœnitentiam suscipias, condonesque cum iis tum nobis quæ
delinquimus.

Offerimus quoque tibi pro aeris temperatura et frugum ubertate: ut indesinenter bona a te collata percipientes, assidue laudemus te qui das escam omni carni.

Etiam rogamus te pro iis qui ob causam probabilem absentes sunt: ut omnes

infants of thy people: that thou mayst not cast any one of us away.

We further beseech thee for this city and its inhabitants; for the sick; for them that are in cruel servitude; for them that are in banishment; for them that are in prison; for them that are travelling by sea or land: that thou be their supporter, thou the helper and defender of all.

We further beseech thee for them that hate and persecute us for thy name's sake; for them that are without, and are astray: that thou lead them to what is good, and appease their fury.

We further also beseech thee for the Church's catechumens, and for the possessed by satan, and for our brethren the penitents: that thou mayst perfect the first in faith, cleanse the second from the attacks of the wicked one, and accept the penance of the third, pardoning both them and us the offences committed by us.

We offer it to thee, likewise, for favourable weather and abundant crops: that ever receiving the good things thou bestowest, we may cease not to praise thee, who givest food to all flesh.

We also beseech thee for them that are absent for a just cause: that thus, main-

nos in pietate conservatos a te, in Christi tui, Dei universæ naturæ sub sensum
et intelligentiam cadentis, regisque nostri regno congreges, immutabiles, inculpatos, irreprehensos.

Quoniam tibi omnis gloria, veneratio, gratiarum actio, honor, adoratio, Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui sancto, nunc, et semper, et in infinita ac sempiterna sæcula sæculorum.

Atque omnis populus Amen respondeat.

taining us in holiness, thou mayst unite us all, immovable, blameless, and without reproach, in the kingdom of thy Christ, who is the God of every creature both sensible and intellectual, and is also our king.

For to thee be all glory, worship, thanksgiving, honour, adoration, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now, and ever, and for endless everlasting ages.

And let all the people answer: Amen.

We have taken the following fine sequence from Daniel's Thesaurus Hymnologicus. Unlike so many other liturgical pieces composed, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in honour of the blessed Sacrament, we find in it somewhat of the soul and spirit of the great Christian poets of earlier times.

DE S. SACRAMENTO

(Infra Septuagesimam et Quadragesimam)

De superna Hierarchia, Vera descendit Sophia In uterum Virginis: Optatus Dux in hac via Venit natus de Maria, Esse portans hominis.

Magnæ Matris magnus Natus,
Modo miro mundo natus, Mundi tollit crimina: Aufert morbos, dat salutem, Ante suos fert virtutem, Hostis fugans agmina.

True Sophia, true Wisdom, came down from the hierarchy of heaven, into the Virgin's womb: our long-desired Guide in this life, came, born of Mary, having the nature of Man.

Noble Son of noble Mother, born into this world in a wonderful manner, he takes that world's sins away: he expels disease, bestows health, leads on his people with power, and puts the hostile ranks to flight.

Zelator mirabilis, Effectus passibilis, In cruce damnatur: Legislator veteris Legis plagis asperis Pro nobis plagatur.

Agnus in Cruce levatus, Et pro nobis immolatus, Fit salutis hostia: Vitæ nostræ reparator,
Et virtutum restaurator, Cœli pandit ostia.

Sacramenta dictat prius; Cœna magna, bene scius
Quæ jam erant obvia:
Præbens panem benedicit;
Hoc est corpus meum, dicit; Sit mei memoria.

Ista benedictio Fit a Dei Filio Vini propinati; Et cum benedicitur, Tunc sanguis efficitur Verbi incarnati.

Deo nota sunt hæc soli:
Credi debent atque coli, Amoto scrutinio: Justus tantum expers doli Sumat illa:—sed tu noli Involute vitio.

Cave, Juda, ne damneris: Petre, sume, ut salveris: Cibus est fidelium: Ad cujus mensam armatur Justus, reus et nudatur, Præda factus hostium.

Tua, Christe, sunt hæc mira,

He that is wonderful in his love, having become passible, is condemned to the cross: he that is the giver of the old Law, is for our sake wounded with cruel wounds.

The Lamb being lifted up on the cross, and immolated for us, is made the Victim of salvation: the repairer of our life, the restorer of all virtues, opens heaven's gates.

At the great Supper, he first declares his mysteries, knowing well what awaited him. Taking bread, he blesses it; 'This', he says, 'is my Body: be it a remembrance of me!'

The wine in the cup which he presents, is blessed by him, who is Son of God; and when blessed, it becomes the Blood of the Word made Flesh.

By God alone are these things understood; we are to believe and worship them, without prying into their depths: let the just man alone approach to receive them, who is of simple faith: if thou art cloaked in vice, approach not!

Take heed, thou Judas! for thou wilt find thy condemnation! Thou, O Peter, take and find salvation! This is the food of believers. At this Table, the just man is clad with armour; but the guilty one is stripped, and is made a prey to the foes.

These, O Christ, are thy

Serva sumentes ab ira Judicii: Orna nos veste gratiæ,
Defende nos a facie Supplicii. Reparator salvifice, Dignos cibo nos effice Medicinæ cœlicæ.

marvellous works: Oh! save us, who receive them, from an angry judgment. Adorn us with the garb of grace! Defend us from punishment. O thou restorer of salvation! O heavenly Physician! make us worthy of the food thou givest us!

TUESDAY

WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus, qui se manducantibus dat Spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ the King, who ruleth the nations: who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

Wisdom prosecutes the fulfilment of the divine plan framed before all ages. His union, or, to use the scriptural expression, His marriage, with human nature in the womb of His Virgin Mother, has shown His love; and Jesus, the Son of Man, who never had any personality but the Word Himself, immolated on the cross in a daily-renewed Sacrifice, offers an infinite glory to the eternal Father. But the august Victim, who comes down upon earth at the word of the priest, does not return to heaven amidst some sacred flame, like that which used to consume the ancient holocausts. Immovable and passive as are the elements, whose substance has been changed into His by the marvellous power of the Sacrifice, Jesus remains at the altar under the appearance of bread and wine, for such they seem to be to the eyes and the other senses:—this is the blessed Sacrament, the outward sensible sign of a mysterious banquet.

'O Sacrament of Sacraments! O most divine and holy Sacrament! lifting up the veil of the symbolic mysteries which surround thee, show thyself to us in thy perfection, and fill our mental vision with thine incomparable and pure light!'¹ Thus, in his inimitable style, speaks the interpreter of the divine hierarchies, the eagle of Athens, when, having explained the holy ceremonies of the Sacrifice, he soars aloft in the contemplation of the archetypes, or principles, of the sacred rites, which he has just been describing. Let us follow, as far as may be, the sublime philosophy of our Christian Plato, who has given a sort of consecration to the language and formulas of pagan wisdom, by making them the receptacles and teachers of Christian dogma; and, like St. Paul, has made every height of science obey and subserve the mysteries of Christ.²

The priest, then, has just pronounced the words of Consecration, and the tremendous Mysteries are there on the altar: he shows them, veiled under the sacramental Species. The Host, after being concealed for a few moments, is held up before the adoring multitude; it was one, and now he divides it into several portions: he presents to all the faithful the one same Chalice; he mystically multiplies and distributes UNITY, and thus completes the Sacrifice. For the simple and hidden unity of the Word, by espousing to Himself the whole nature of man, came forth from the bosom of His Father into this visible, many-creatured world of the senses; and, conforming Himself to this multiplicity, without in any way changing His own oneness, uniting our lowliness with His own dignity, uniting our life with His own, uniting us as His members to Himself as our Head,

¹ S. Dion. De Eccl. hier. c. iii. 1.
² Ibid. 3, § 2. ³ 2 Cor. x. 5.

He would have us all be one with Himself:¹ so, the divine Sacrament, which in its own essence is one, and simple, and indivisible, lovingly multiplies itself under the exterior symbol of the Species; in order that, returning from the multiplicity of the receivers into the unity which is its own principle, it will bring into unity them that received it in holy dispositions.²

EUCHARIST or thanksgiving, is its most suitable name; for this Sacrament holds within it Him who is the object of all praise, and all the heavenly gifts He has bestowed upon us. It is the admirable summary of all the divine operations which God has achieved for man: it is the stay of our life; it gives back to our souls the divine image, and that upon the model of an archetype which is eternal beauty; it leads us, by admirable ascensions, into a path which, naturally, we could never have entered; by it are repaired the ruins of the original fall; by it we cease to be poor; it takes our whole being, gives its whole self to us, and thereby makes us partakers of God Himself and of all His gifts.

'It is on this account,' continues St. Denis, 'that what is common to all the Sacraments, is attributed, by excellence, to this one; and hence it is, by a special name, called Communion and Synaxis. For albeit every Sacrament be such as gathereth our lives, divided asunder as they are in many ways, into that one state whereby we are joined to God, and by a godlike bringing together of things which stand apart, brings these our lives into communion and union with Him who is one; yet, to the reception of those sacred symbols, there is given consummation, by the divine and perfective gifts of this one Sacrament. For there is no function performed by the sacred minister, to which the most divine Eucharist

¹ S. Dion. De eccl. hier. § 2. ² § 3. ³ Ibid. § 7.

does not succeed, bringing with it the completion of conjunction with the one God, and conferring on the receiver (of that previous Sacrament) the communion with God by the gift of the consummating Mysteries (of the Eucharist). So then, if the other Sacraments, not giving what they do not possess, remain, so to say, incomplete, not able to achieve perfect union between us and the one God; if their aim is to prepare the receiver to become partaker of the more excellent Mysteries of God; it is with all reason and justice that the wisdom of the hierarchs gave to this Sacrament the name of Communion or Synaxis, which is grounded on the truth of what it contains.'¹

'O Sacrament of love!' cries out St. Augustine: 'O sign of unity! O bond of charity!'² The unitive power of the Eucharist produces, as St. Denis so sublimely teaches, the union between God and His creature; but St. Augustine dwells on it as peacefully forming Christ's mystical body; and so preparing it for the eternal Sacrifice, and for the universal and perfect communion in heaven. This is the leading idea, which inspires the holy bishop of Hippo with those magnificent passages, which we have already put, at least in part, before our readers. Though others of the holy fathers and doctors are very fine when treating of the Eucharist, we have kept to St. Augustine more closely than to the rest; and in so doing, we were but following the example set us by the Church herself, who finds her own teachings regarding the blessed Eucharist so faithfully expressed by his words, that, up to this Tuesday, she has taken him, in the beautiful homilies of her Matins during the octave, as her exclusive preacher.

He was telling us eight days ago—and he was but giving us the echo of all tradition—that the holy

¹ S. Dion. De Eccl. hier. § 1. ² In Joan. Tract. xxvi. 13.

Eucharist is the centre and bond of the great Catholic communion, in this land of exile. On the very feast itself of Corpus Christi, he completes his teaching, when commenting the passage for the day's Gospel; the Church took his commentary, making it the official explanation of her Gospel. The holy doctor then told us that the words of our Saviour, when announcing His intention to institute the Mystery of love, included not only the earth, but heaven itself; they signified the whole body of Christ's Church: 'I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is My Flesh for the life of the world; for My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed.'¹ This meat, this drink, which He promises to give us, are truly and primarily His own veritable Flesh, and the very Blood which flows in His veins; it is the very Victim slain on the cross: but, as a consequence of this, it is also the Church, which is established upon His own real substance, and is immolated with Him as one same victim with Himself, in one and the same Sacrifice: 'It is the holy Church,' says St. Augustine, 'the Church of all Christ's members, the predestined, and the called, and the justified, and the glorified. . . . Seeing that men desire this, by the food and drink they take, that they may suffer neither hunger nor thirst—this result is gained by no other than this food and drink, which makes those who take it immortal and incorruptible: that is, the very fellowship of the saints, where there is peace, and full and perfect unity.'² It is a banquet of ineffable sweetness and plenty, wherein each of the elect is a partaker of the whole body, and gives it, by the very fact of his own participation, increase and completeness.

¹ St. John vi. 51, 52, 56. ² In Joan. Tract. xxvi. 15, 17.

This is the eternal Passover spoken of by our Redeemer, when He put an end to the figurative one by the reality, veiled though it was, of the Sacrament. 'I say unto you, that, from this time forward, I will not eat it again, till it be fulfilled (that is, completed) in the kingdom of God;¹ I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father.'² Oh! that day, that endless day, that day of light and vision whereof David sang! On that day, throwing aside all the veils that are now shrouding Him from our eyes, and Himself the first to be inebriated with love in that divine banquet, eternal Wisdom, with an embrace uniting both Head and members together, will give man to drink of the torrent of His own divine pleasures, and of that fount of life which He Himself has in the bosom of the Father.³ Christ, our Head, has long since ascended beyond the clouds; the Church, flowing with delights and leaning upon her Beloved, is continually going up after Him from this desert-land;⁴ one or another of His members, our brethren, is every moment going in, to complete the number of guests at the blessed and eternal and new Passover; and as each one goes in, Jesus says: 'This now is bone of My bones, and flesh of My flesh;'⁵ for all these are then united to Him as the bride to her Spouse, for they are but one body. It is the Eucharist which has produced this marvellous capability of perfect union between the members and their divine Head. This union will not be manifested till the day of glory: but it is here below, under the shadow and cloud of faith, that the Eucharist is thus transforming the elect into Christ, that is, into eternal union with Him, so as to make one body.

¹ St. Luke xxii. 16. — ² St. Matt. xxvi. 29. ³ Ps. xxxv. 8-10. ⁴ Cant. viii. 5. ⁵ Gen. ii. 23.

He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him.¹ 'This, then, it is,' says St. Augustine, 'to eat that meat, and drink that drink: to abide in Christ, and have Him abiding in oneself.' 'The sign that a man has eaten and drunk (of this Sacrament) is that he abides in Christ, and Christ in him; that he dwells in Christ, and Christ in him.'² This is the very nature of the eucharistic banquet, this banquet of mutual abiding; a banquet at which man cannot worthily eat of the Bread of life without becoming gradually more and more the bread of Christ, that one bread spoken of by the apostle, which is kneaded up by the Church in the holy Mysteries, that it may become one with the sacred Flesh of Christ, as St. John Chrysostom so forcibly expresses it;⁵ and may give, as St. Augustine says, growth and strength in unity to the mystical body of Christ.⁶ 'I am the wheat of Christ,' said the holy martyr, Ignatius of Antioch; 'may I be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found to be the pure bread of Christ, . . . to be offered in sacrifice to God.'⁷ This same thought of the great martyr of the early ages was taken up, and enlarged upon, in the eighth century, by the monk St. Beatus and his disciple Heterius: they are sending to Elipandus, Archbishop of Toledo, their reply to the Nestorians of Spain; and, in the first portion of it, they thus speak of the treatment the faithful receive from these heretics:⁸ 'They are our persecutors: but, by persecuting us, they are but shaking the wheat out of the straw; when they torture us, they are but separating the dregs from the wine. We ought to go down on our knees, and pray for them that thus make us become the food of God. As wine, when it has come forth from the press, is put into the chalice, so it is with you: after those fastings, after those fatigues, and humiliations, and crushings, you have now come into the Lord's cup, in Christ's name. You are bread upon His table; you are wine in His goblet. We are all one and the same together; for there is but the one chalice in which we all are, because there is but the one Passion and Death of Christ, whereby we have all been redeemed. We all drink together, though we do not live together. A heretic seeks to separate; this is his effort, to tear asunder, not to piece; to break, not to join. He separates the Word from the Flesh. He separates the Head from the body, by saying that the Head is by itself, and the body by itself. Unfortunate man! he knows not how Christ is the Head of the Church;¹ and that the Church is conjoined to that Head; and that that is the whole Christ, Head and Body. Heretics are not food for the Lord; for it was not of them that He said: "My meat is, to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His work";² and that work consists in making one bread out of many grains, that is, making one soul out of many souls, one in one charity, one faith, and one hope. For if the souls which He makes one by one faith were not the food of God, He would not have said of the countries white and ready for the harvest, though at that time not visible to the disciples: I have meat to eat which ye know not!'³

¹ St. John vi. 57. ² In Joan. Tract. xxvi. 18. ³ Ibid. Tract. xxvii. 1. ⁴ 1 Cor. x. 17. ⁵ Hom. xlvi. in Joan. — ⁶ Serm. 57, 137. ⁷ Ad Rom. ⁸ Ad Elipand. lib. i. 72.

He hungered after this food, and oh! with what hunger! He longed, He thirsted, for that banquet of His last Supper, wherein He, the omnipotent guest, gives Himself as food to man, and would make the whole of humanity His own food. 'As the fire devours the wood that is thrown into the furnace, so our Redeemer eats and assimilates to Himself, at this sacred table, the whole body of holy Church; He makes it His own, and thus it gains strength and grows.'¹ So spoke William of Paris, at the beginning of the thirteenth century; and he was but repeating what St. Leo the Great and St. Augustine had taught, ages before, saying: 'The participation of the Body and Blood of Christ has this as its chief work—to change us into Him,'² 'and in such wise, as that being made His body, and having become His members, we may be what we receive:' (ut in id quod sumimus transeamus, ut simus quod accipimus.)³

Eternal Wisdom had all the children of men in view, when He assumed human flesh. If the unity which marks all the works of God seemed to require that He should unite Himself to one only in the same hypostasis or Person, that same law of unity was, so to say, a promoter of His loving design to make this Man-God the Head of a mystical body, in which each of the elect was to be united to Christ. The economy of the Incarnation is described to us by the holy fathers of the Church in this way—that the great mystery is not quite completed, until, by the Eucharist, the Head joins to Himself His members, and is united to the body which He is to animate and govern. 'It is on this account,' says Paschasius Radbert,⁴ 'that He so rejoices at the Supper, and gives thanks to God, His Father, for that His desires are at last fulfilled. He desired, before He suffered,⁵ to eat the true Passover; in order that, when the hour came for Him to deliver Himself up as the price of our ransom, we might already be in Him as one body. And thus, we had to be crucified, and buried, and to rise again, together with Him.'⁶

The union between the Head and the members produced by the Eucharist is so close, that, taking the words of our Saviour, who compares it to the union existing between the Father and Himself,¹ St. Hilary and St. Cyril of Alexandria adduce it as an argument, the one to defend the consubstantiality of the Word² against the Arians; and the other to prove against the Nestorians the union, real and physical, and not merely one of influence or affection, which unites the Word and human nature in the Incarnation. One by nature with His Father, one, in Christ, with the flesh He assumed, eternal Wisdom makes us, through that flesh, one with Himself, in the Father.

¹ De Sacram. Euch. c. 4. ² St. Leo, Serm. 14, De Pass. ³ St. Aug. Serm. 57. ⁴ Ep. ad Frudeg. ⁵ St. Luke xxii. 15. ⁶ Rom. vi.

But already by anticipation the Holy Ghost, that Bond eternal, had brought the elect into unity. He the divine indweller of the children of God, He the sanctifying, the indivisible Spirit, assembles the sons of Adam in the unity of His own spirit of grace. 'As the power of Christ's flesh makes one body⁴ of all nations,' says St. Cyril,⁵ 'so the holy Spirit makes all spirits one; and yet, hereby, neither spirits nor bodies are confounded; as the apostle said: One body and one spirit, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and in us all.'⁶ Still, in the marvellous union of creatures brought about, to the glory of the Father, by the Spirit of Father and Son, it is to the Son, as Incarnate Word, that is, as eternal Wisdom, who is taken with love for the children of men,⁷ that belongs this immense work of union, which so gloriously terminates in, which so stupendously leads up to, the divine espousals with human nature.

¹ St. John xvii. 21. — ² De Trinit. lib. viii. — ³ In Joan. lib. x. ⁴ Eph. iii. 6. ⁵ In Joan. ubi supra. ⁶ Eph. iv. 4, 6. ⁷ Prov. viii. 31.

So it is too, with ourselves; we are just at the close of this Mystery of love, which we have been contemplating, though too briefly, in the most dear company of divine Wisdom; we are to spend the two days, still remaining of our octave, in considerations which are less exclusively on the dogma of the blessed Eucharist; and we now find ourselves returning to the thought which was our starting-point. God is love, as we were then saying; and love demands union; and union must make the united alike. This resemblance between God and man could not be realized save by man's being raised to what St. Peter calls a participation of the divine nature;¹ now, this is the special work of the Holy Ghost; and He effects it by grace, which is the result of His own personal indwelling² in the soul He has sanctified. Like the unction of purest oil, He penetrates the inmost recesses, and the very substance, of that happy soul. It is thus He acted in Christ: He inundated, with His divine plenitude, the human nature assumed by the Word in the womb of the Virgin-Mother, when eternal Wisdom united Himself with that nature which, though inferior and created, was, from that moment, holy and perfect in the holy Spirit. He, the Spirit, acts proportionately in the same way with the Church: she is the holy city, and He prepares her for the feast of the nuptials of the Lamb; she is the bride of Christ, and He gives her to be clothed with robes all glittering and white, which are the virtues of the saints.³ When He has made her one by Baptism, and strengthened her in holiness by the second of the Sacraments, He has but to lead her to her Spouse, saying with her the come⁴ of the sacred Mysteries which are to complete His work, and unite together the bride and the Spouse. Thus the children of the bride, being made one body with Christ, are made partakers of her own nuptials with eternal Wisdom. If, then, we have all been baptized in the one only Spirit, it was, as the apostle teaches us, that we might all form that one body, in which Jews and Gentiles, bondsmen and free, are not individuals set off against each other by their personal differences; they are members of Christ, and have all been made to drink, in the one same holy Spirit, the divine Word, whose sacred Flesh is given to us in the mystery of salvation.

¹ 2 St. Pet. i. 4. ² 1 Cor. iii. 16. ³ Apoc. xix. 7-9. ⁴ Ibid. xxii. 17.

St. Peter, in his first Epistle, speaks of our taking the holy Eucharist as though it were, not only food, but milk for babes. He says, speaking to the early Christians, and, through them, to us also: 'As new-born babes, desire ye the rational milk;'² he means our Lord Jesus Christ, as is evident from the context. Clement of Alexandria thus quotes the passage: 'As new-born babes, desire ye the Word!' Yes, it is the Word, the milk of those who are converted and become little children,³ who are born again of the Holy Ghost;⁴ it prepares them for the solid food of the eternal feast, that is, for the Word unveiled. It is a delicious food, sweet as grace, strengthening as life, pure as is the light. It is that heavenly dew which fell from the bosom of the Father into the womb of the Virgin-Mother; and this same, the Word Incarnate, gives Himself to the Church, for she, too, is virgin and mother. Pure as a virgin, and affectionate as a mother, she invites her children to come, and she feeds them on this rational milk, this Word, this most beautiful One among the sons of men; she gives her little ones the Body of Christ, and strengthens them with the Word of the Father. Oh! let us run to this blessed mother, and drink of that Word, who turns all our evils away from us, making us forget, by correcting, them.⁵ The mother's breast is everything to her child: life, joy, its whole world. With what eagerness it throws itself on its treasure, as St. John Chrysostom was saying in the Office of

¹ Cor. xii. 13. ² 1st. Pet. ii. 2. — ³ St. Matt. xviii. 3.
⁴ St. John iii. 9. ⁵ Freely from Clem. Alex. Pædag. i. 6.

yesterday;¹ with what ardour it kisses the fount of all its blessings! And yet, a mother's milk is but an image of that which I am speaking of. That other ceases, when the first few months are gone; but the one I partake of is an exhaustless spring; it forms me into the perfect man, making me reach the age of the fullness of Christ.²

All these sublime teachings were like household words to the early Christians; and we cannot be surprised, therefore, that one of the favourite symbols of the holy Eucharist was milk. St. Perpetua relates³ that, on the evening before she and her companions were to suffer martyrdom, Pastor put a delicious milk into her mouth: the details she gives of that touching scene, show us that she is speaking of the blessed Sacrament. Among the paintings in the catacombs, we not unfrequently find this emblem, beautifully eloquent in its varied accompaniments. Sometimes it is a vase of milk, held in Pastor's hand,⁴ or lying by his side;⁵ sometimes it is that same vase resting on a hillock, and the sheep are respectfully keeping over it;⁶ sometimes it is the Lamb of God, the Pastor of pastors, who is holding it hanging on His shepherd's crook;⁷ but all this means and conveys the same mystery. In one of these paintings, however, the teaching is almost palpable:⁸ the precious vase of milk is placed on the back of the Lamb, who is holding the palm-branch of His triumph over death, though it cost Him His Blood; the vase is thus incorporated, so to say, with Him, and has a nimbus round it, as holding within it the divine Word, the food of the angels⁹ adapted, by the

¹ Hom. 60, ad Pop. Antioch. ² Eph. iv. 13.
³ Ruinart. act. sinc. p. 87. ⁴ Via Appia. De Rossi, i. tav. x. 16.
⁵ Via Nomentana, Bosio, 455. ⁶ Via Appia. De Rossi, i. tav. 12.
⁷ Via Ardeatina, Bin 29. ⁸ Via Lavicana, Bosio, 363.
⁹ Isd. xvi. 20.

workings of love, to suit our human weakness. For, as St. Augustine so admirably explains this doctrine, 'Man does not live on one food, and angel on another: truth, divine Wisdom, is the one food of every intelligence.¹ The Angels, the Powers, the heavenly spirits feed on it; they eat of it; they grow upon it, and yet the mysterious food lessens not.² In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;³ take it, if you can; eat it; it is food. Perhaps you will say to me: "Oh! yes, it is verily food; but I—I am a babe; what I must have is milk; else I cannot reach that Word you tell me of." Well! since it is milk you require, and yet there is no other food for you save this of heaven (the Word), He will pass through the flesh, that He may thus be brought within reach of your lips;⁴ for food does not become milk, except by its passing through flesh. It is thus a mother does. What the mother eats is what her child drinks; but the little one not being, as yet, strong enough to take the bread as it is, the mother eats it, and then gives it to her child under a form that very sweetly suits the babe.⁵ He does not receive the food such as it lay upon the table, but after it has passed through the flesh, and is thus made suitable to the child.⁶ Therefore was the Word made Flesh, and dwelt among us;⁷ and man hath eaten thus the bread of angels. Eternal Wisdom came down even to us, by the Flesh and Blood of Him that was our Saviour; He came as milk, which was full of all blessing to us.'⁸ Oh! truly, the bride may well say to the Spouse: 'Thy breasts are better than wine.'⁹ He, beautiful Wisdom, has carried out His loving design. From the outset, right up to the

¹ In Ps. cxxxiv. ² In Ps. xxxiii. ³ St. John i. 1. ⁴ In Ps. cxix.
⁵ In Ps. xxxiii. ⁶ In Ps. xxx. ⁷ St. John i. 14. ⁸ Ps. lxxvii. 25.
⁹ In Ps. xxx. et cxxxiv. Confess. vii. 18. ¹⁰ Cant. i. 1.

attainment of His purpose, there have been numberless obstacles; but He has mastered them all, and with a power to which one thing alone can be compared—His matchless sweetness.

The antiphonary of the celebrated monastery of Benchor, in Ireland, published by Muratori, and drawn up not later than the seventh century, gives us the following hymn, which is at once dignified and simple:

HYMN

(Quando communicarent Sacerdotes)

Sancti, venite, Christi corpus sumite, Sanctum bibentes Quo redempti sanguinem.

Salvati Christi Corpore et sanguine, A quo refecti Laudes dicamus Deo.

Dator salutis, Christus Filius Dei Mundum salvavit Per crucem et sanguinem.

Pro universis Immolatus Dominus,
Ipse sacerdos Exstitit et hostia.

Lege præceptum
Immolari hostias, Qua adumbrantur Divina mysteria.

Lucis indultor Et Salvator omnium Præclaram sanctis
Largitus est gratiam.

Accedant omnes Pura mente creduli,

Come, ye just, take Christ's Body, and drink the sacred Blood, whereby ye were redeemed.

By Christ's Body and Blood we were saved; by the same being fed, let us sing our praises to God.

Christ, the Son, the giver of salvation, saved the world to God his Father, by his Cross and Blood.

This Lord, who was slain for all, was himself both Priest and Victim.

It was commanded in the Law, that victims should be slain; hereby were foreshadowed our divine Mysteries.

He that gives the light, and is the Saviour of all men, has given to the just a splendid favour.

Let all the faithful approach with pure minds, and

¹ Wisd. viii. 1.

Sumant æternam
Salutis custodiam.

Sanctorum custos Rector quoque Dominus,
Vitam perennem Largitur credentibus.

Cœlestem panem
Dat esurientibus, De fonte vivo Præbet sitientibus.

Alpha et Omega Ipse Christus Dominus,
Venit venturus Judicare homines.

receive the eternal pledge of salvation.

The Lord, who is keeper and ruler of the saints, grants life everlasting to them that believe.

To the hungry he gives bread from heaven; to the thirsty he gives a drink from the living fount.

He, Christ our Lord, Alpha and Omega, is coming, who is to come to judge mankind.

Our readers, after this charmingly simple appeal, which was so long heard in Erin, will be interested, too, by the following lyric antiphon, which was formerly used in the Church of Gaul. It was sung at the moment of Communion, on days of great solemnity, as an invitation calling the faithful to a participation in the Immortal Mystery.

Venite, populi, ad sacrum et immortale mysterium, et libamen agendum.

Cum timore et fide accedamus: manibus mundis, pœnitentiæ munus communicemus, quoniam Agnus
Dei propter nos Patri sacrificium propositum est.

Ipsum solum adoremus, ipsum glorificemus: cum angelis clamantes: Alleluia.

Come, O ye people! receive the sacred and immortal mystery, and the libation prepared for you.

Let us approach with fear and faith; holding out clean hands, let us take, in communion the price of our repentance; for it is for our sake that the Lamb was offered as a sacrifice to God the Father.

Him alone let us adore, him let us glorify: and, with the angels, sing: Alleluia!

WEDNESDAY

WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus, qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations, who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

My days are vanished like smoke, and my bones are grown dry like fuel for the fire: I am smitten as grass, and my heart is withered: because I forgot to eat my bread. Thus sadly speaks the hundred and first Psalm, whose title is: Prayer of the poor man, when he was anxious, and poured out his supplication before the Lord.¹ And who is this poor man? It is Adam; it is the whole human race, the inheritor of Adam's miseries. God had given him His divine law, as his food; as the bread of his soul, He had given him the Word of God. Instigated by the old serpent, and led on by the woman, Adam took the forbidden fruit; he forgot the Word. Deservedly has he been blighted as the grass of the field: deservedly has his heart been withered; for he has despised the fruit of life, he has drunk poison, he has preferred to eat ashes,² rather than the nourishment that was made for him.

But lo! there appeareth the true bread of heaven, He, in whose Flesh thou mayst, if thou wilt, find the Word thou hadst forgotten. Cry out, from the depths of thy poverty, to heaven; regain thy former plenty. Eat! for thou art member of Him who hath said: 'I am the living Bread, which came down from heaven.'³ Thou hadst forgotten to eat thy bread;

¹ Ps. ci. 1, 4, 5. ² Ibid. 10. ³ St. John vi. 51.

but now that Christ is crucified, all the ends of the earth shall remember, and shall be converted unto the Lord.¹ Poor withered grass! thy flesh² shall flourish again, because of the Saviour's Blood;³ it shall become, as St. Bernard tells thee, like that holy herb of the virgin field, that lies in the crib for thy sake.⁴

Bird of the desert! bird of the night, that sattest moaning on the heap of ruins, thy loneliness was scoffed at by the enemy that had scared thee. But the Lord God, thy Redeemer, hath broken the captive's chains. Peoples and kings, gathered together in Sion, declare His name in unity. It is their proclamation of His victory, the declaration of His glory and His strength.⁵ 'Jerusalem, then,' says St. Augustine, 'Jerusalem, our mother, having come back from exile, and surrounded by her many children, answereth Him, her God, in unity. That God is one; the Church is unity; unity alone can give response to the God who is One.'⁶ And Jesus, who is the Head of this triumphant unity, which overthrows the kingdom of Babylonish discord and disunion, gives Himself this response to His Father: 'In the midst of the Church, will I praise Thee; in the sight of a great Church, I will pay My vows, I will offer the victim which is to save them; and the poor shall eat, and shall be filled; and their hearts, which before were parched up, shall become freshened unto life, and shall live for ever and ever.'⁷

Praise and glory be to this Christ, the Saviour, who thus, by His Flesh offered up in Sacrifice, restores to us the bread of life and understanding!⁸ O Body of Jesus! most august temple built by eternal Wisdom

¹ Ps. xxi. 28. ² Ps. xc. 6-8. ³ St. Aug. in Ps. ci.
⁴ St. Bernard. ad mil. templ. vi. ⁵ Ps. ci. 24.
⁶ In Ps. ci. ⁷ Ps. xxi. 23-27. ⁸ Ecclus. xv. 3.

to Himself! From His side, opened by a spear, comes the sacred stream, which brings the Word to our parched lips. He hath visited the earth, and inebriated it; He hath prepared their food for the children of men. But the cup He proffers is a chalice of sacrifice; the table He sets up, is an altar: for so is the preparation of the food He gives.² It is a Victim who gives us His own Flesh to eat, and His own Blood to drink; so that immolation, sacrifice, is the direct and necessary preparation of the banquet He puts before His guests.

Yea, are not they themselves Christ's food at that sacred table? He gives Himself, but He intends to have these His guests in return, and make them all His own. We are those guests; and what other preparation can we make, but that which He goes through—sacrifice? Such, such must be the preparation! Ita est præparatio ejus! Observe how, when
Wisdom is shown us in Scripture as setting forth the table, and inviting the little ones to eat His bread and drink His wine, He does not slay one, but many victims: He hath slain His victims!³ After His Incarnation, He uses the same language; He sends His messengers, He invites us to the marriage-feast, saying: 'I have prepared the feast; my beeves and fatlings are slain, my victims are ready; come! for all things are ready!'⁴ What means this, but that, for the very members of Christ—who are the victims fattened, as our Invitatory expresses it, with the fatness of the Spirit—the true immediate preparation for the sacred banquet is immolation, that is sacrifice, that is the Mass, celebrated, or assisted at, in most pious possible union with the great, the principal, Victim. — Quoniam ita est præparatio ejus!

¹ Ezechiel xlvii. 2. ² Ps. lxiv. 10.
³ Prov. ix. 2-5. ⁴ St. Matt. xxii. 4.

Christians! you have been brought around the one same Table, by the same love, the same thirst, which you have all for the strong living God;¹ understand this well, then: He will give Himself to you the more completely and intimately, in proportion as the same Sacrifice, which gives Him to you, shall have made you become the food of His own longing love. The hour of the Sacrifice is that, wherein the bride finds her well Beloved under the tree of the cross, takes Him as a bunch of myrrh, and puts Him next her heart:² it is the hour wherein the King takes her into His divine stores, and gives her to partake of the vine of Engaddi, after He has pressed out the precious drink in the wine-press of His love.³ And for Him, the Spouse, what is this same hour? It is one of harvest, one of vintage. It is then that the south-wind, the Holy Spirit who produces the sacred Mysteries, breathes upon the bride, who is the garden of Christ, and fills her with the fragrance of grace;⁴ the divine Spouse then comes down into this His garden, that He may eat the fruit of His trees, and gather the myrrh and spices that grow there, and drink the wine for which He so thirsted that it drew Him down from heaven;⁵ it is the love which we can so richly and warmly give Him;⁶ and He so loves our love, as to deign to call it the best of wine, worthy for the Beloved to drink, and for His divine lips to relish and enjoy.⁷

Then, let the soul prepare herself for the banquet of her Beloved, by making ready the feast which He expects from her. Let her rise early in the morning with this thought upon her, as He Himself does.⁷ Let her go down to the garden,⁸ to see if the flowers

¹ Ps. xli. 3. — ² Cant. i. 9. — ³ Ibid. i. 2, 13; ii. 3, 4.
⁴ Ibid. iv. 16. ⁵ Ibid. v. 1. ⁶ Ibid. v. 6.
⁷ Ibid. vii. 9. — ⁸ Ibid. vi. 12. — ⁹ Ibid. vi. 10.

be in order, and the lilies He loves so much be fresh;¹ let her go forth into the field, and gather for Him fruits both new and old;² let her examine the vineyard, which the Spouse values so highly as to reserve the vintage to Himself;³ let her see if the vineyard be in flower, and if the flowers be ready to bring forth fruit⁴ and give promise of those fragrant clusters which are so much sought after by her Lord.⁵ Then, finally, let her repair with Him into her mother's house, the holy Church, and there in the Sacrifice receive from Jesus the precious lessons of how to love God;⁶ and, like a new Esther, let her, in her turn, give to her Assuerus that generous wine which induces the King to lend her His own power, grant her requests, and destroy her enemies.⁷ The Psalmist tells us, in his bold language of inspiration, that there is an inebriation on God's part, and that He is then terrible to the powers of hell;⁸ but there is mention made also, in the sacred volume, of a cup of choice wine presented by the bride, in her mother's house, to the Spouse:⁹ it is the wine He Himself has left to His Church. For this purpose, wishing to proffer to her Spouse the wine which gladdens, and the bread which pleases His heart,¹⁰ the bride takes Him and leads Him to that house of her mother,¹¹ yea, into that blessed spot where she first received the life of grace and truth.¹²

There, in that sanctuary of love, Rebecca, the mother of the two people that are hostile one to the other,¹³ prepares for her spouse Isaac the food he loves so much,¹⁴ which is to induce him to impart his blessing to her favourite child. Esau is a type of

¹ Cant. ii. 16. ² Ibid. vii. 11-13. ³ Ibid. viii. 11, 12.
⁴ Ibid. vii. 12. ⁵ Ibid. vii. 8. ⁶ Ibid. viii. 2.
⁷ Esth. v. 4-8; vii. 1-10. ⁸ Ps. lxxvii. 65, 66.
⁹ Cant. viii. 2. ¹⁰ Ps. ciii. 14. ¹¹ Cant. viii. 2.
¹² Ibid. iii. 4. ¹³ Gen. xxv. 23. ¹⁴ Ibid. xxvii. 14.

the stiff-necked and carnal Jew, who despises the Church, and heeds not the spirit of the promises; he dwells at a distance from home; he is in pursuit of wild beasts, an image of his own fierce instincts. Jacob, on the contrary, is a peaceful man, and keeps with his mother at home,¹ and gives a helping hand to the valiant woman, who, with faith, carries out the design of heaven. Rebecca robes him in Esau's garments, the precious garments of the first-born, which are in the mother's keeping; they are the insignia of priesthood; and when Jacob is vested in them, he takes two kids from the flock, and immolates them. These, as the fathers tell us, are an image, both of the meekness of Christ² and of the two peoples, Jew and Gentile, which, by being made one in His Blood,³ have become the food of God.⁴ But it is Rebecca who guides Jacob in all he does;⁵ she receives from him the victim he has slain, and of it makes the food so loved by her spouse: in this, she represents the Church, who, in the holy Sacrifice, directs the priest and unites the people, and so prepares for her Lord the food she knows to be so dear to Him.

The same deep teaching had been given even earlier than this, and with as much clearness. It was under the oak of Mambre, and in the days of tent-life. Abraham, the father of believers, there received three guests; they represented the mystery of the holy Trinity. In the name of his countless children, he offers to the three mysterious guests a repast, which is full of symbolism, as it is described to us in the sacred volume.⁶ Penetrating into the mystery of Three in One, Abraham thus speaks to his three guests as though they were one: 'Lord! if I have

¹ Gen. xxv. 27. — ² St. Ambr. De Jacob et vit. beat. lib. ii., c. 2.
³ Eph. ii. 14-16. ⁴ Comm. in Gen., lib. ii. ap. Euch.
⁵ Gen. xxvii. ⁶ Ibid. xviii. 1-9.

thus found favour in thy sight, pass not away from thy servant.' He then presses them to take food; and they readily consent. Then Abraham made haste into the tent to Sara, and said unto her: 'Make haste! temper together three measures of flour, and make cakes upon the hearth.' He is full of considerateness, says St. Ambrose; he cannot think of depriving his wife of a share in the work of religion he has in hand; he would have her join him in all things; she is a type of the Church. Let man then hasten and kill the fatted calf, in figure of the Lord's Passion;¹ the woman's part is to prepare man himself, and make him the food of God;² for the three measures of flour, taken by Sara, signify the threefold posterity of Noe, which forms the three races of the human family. They are again mentioned, and with the same import, in the Gospel;³ and the woman, the Church, again appears, making the bread of heavenly wheat out of them;⁴ it is the Bread which is the Body of Christ; it is eaten by man in the Eucharistic banquet; and thus Christ and man become the food of God and the joy of the holy Trinity.

Oh! exclaims St. Ambrose, how happy the man who thus becomes sweet food to divine Wisdom!⁵ But this holy zeal, this earnestness of faith, this fervour of devotion, which, as the same saint says, should transform us spiritually into a nourishment which will give pleasure to God⁶—where are we to get them, if not from the Church, whose special work it is to provide us with all this in the sacred mysteries? And this preparation, both for the Head and His members, being the Sacrifice, could the Christian do better than let himself be led, in all simplicity, by this mother of the living? She will lead him to God

¹ Ambr. De Abr. lib. i. c. 5. ² Ap. Euch. Comm. in Gen. lib. ii.
³ St. Matt. xiii. 33. ⁴ St. John xii. 24. Ap. Ambr. Serm. 13.
⁵ In Ps. cxviii. Serm. 18. ⁶ Ibid.

by her sacred liturgy. Surely, he may unreservedly commit his spiritual direction to this holy mother Church, seeing that our Lord Himself has left everything to her, in what regards the administration of this Sacrament of His love. She is to regulate the ceremonies, the solemnity, the preparations, everything, in a word, which is to accompany the great Sacrifice, of which Communion is to be the completion and the issue.

The whole of this feast, which we have been celebrating during these eight days, tells us very eloquently that Communion is not a work of private devotion. Private devotion is not an adequate preparation for man's receiving this visit from his Lord—a visit whose scope is to bring us closer and closer into union with Christ our Head, and with all His members, who, in the immolation of the one universal Sacrifice, are all made one grand offering to the glory of the Father. For a soul that longs to be united to her Lord, and to gain that full Catholic point of view which is the one intended by God, by far the surest means is to have a clear understanding of what the sacred function is, and to follow attentively the holy ceremonies and formulas, as far as they come within the reach of the faithful. Let not that soul be afraid of having her recollection interfered with, or her love cooled, by taking the way of the Church for her own. She is quite right in being desirous to approach the holy table in the right dispositions; then let her do as the Church does. She will be all the more pleasing to Jesus who is coming to her, she will be all the better prepared for union with Him, as a member of His mystical body the Church, the more she is a faithful child of that Church; and if she be that, if she be a disciple of that great school, if she live under the mighty influence of the divine liturgy, she will never think of making her preparation for holy Communion by shutting her eyes and ears to what the Church does during the great Sacrifice; for she knows that unconscious egotism and narrow individualism are the ordinary results of private methods.

The apostles and their immediate disciples, the authorized founders of the liturgies of the first age of the Church, had no fear of lessening the devotion of the early Christians by the magnificent and gorgeous ceremonial, which they made inseparable from a participation in the sacred Mysteries. So was it also with our ancestors, the martyrs; when obliged by persecution to shelter in the catacombs, they had the Mass celebrated there with a solemnity such as we, now-a-days, never witness. Thus, when Pope Saint Xystus II. was martyred, he was seated on his throne in one of those glorious hiding-places; the Sacrifice of the Mass was being offered up, and the Pontiff, in apostolic majesty, was surrounded by the numerous ministers officiating in the holy function; they feared not to brave imperial edicts and persecutions, provided they could but keep up the solemnity of the Christian rites, for these gave the faithful to partake, in one same banquet, of the Bread of the strong, which united them all together, and gave each partaker courage. When the Church gained freedom by her triumph, she continued these solemn rites of her Sacrifice; nay, she even added to their solemnity, when gilded and brilliantly lighted basilicas had replaced the dark crypts and cemeteries. The fathers and holy doctors of the Church, the saints of the great times of her independence, all made this the habitual preparation for receiving the blessed Sacrament, viz: the magnificence of the liturgy, and the solemnity of the holy Sacrifice, at which all the people assisted, and all took that active participation in it which we have already described. And yet, we never hear that this obligatory crowded assistance, this exterior pomp, this sustained attention to the sacred ceremonies, ever impeded their fervour, or kept our Lord from having saints among His people. We never find anything to indicate that their appreciation of divine things was thereby dulled, or that their saintliness was impaired by it, or that society—of which they were the guides, respected and obeyed—was kept in a state of backwardness, or unfitted to bear comparison, in anything worth comparison, with our own times. But perhaps the Church of those ages would have shown more wisdom, and more spirituality, had she left these sons and daughters of hers all to themselves, to make their own meditations in silence and solitude? The thought would be a very untrue, not to say, a most impertinent one. Certainly, such an idea had not yet made way in the thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth century, when faith and genius built those glorious cathedrals which are still the pride of our Europe. They were built that the ceremonies of religious worship might have a more worthy development, and attract more abundant witnesses, and produce holiness in the children of the Church, who then preferred her ways to any others.

But may not these times of ours be happier ones for piety? May not the time have come, when, being made independent of the senses by improved systems of asceticism scarcely dreamt of in those earlier ages, the human soul, when it would go to God, has no further need of those exterior helps which were all very well for centuries when Augustine, or Leo the Great, or Hildegarde, or Bernard, lived, but are quite unnecessary for a generation so highly spiritual as our own? The fruits of a tree must decide whether it be a good or a poor one.¹ One should examine if there have been satisfactory results from abandoning the paths marked out by the Church, and so zealously kept to by our fathers in the faith.

The sixteenth century was made to witness hell triumphing over the ruins of altars in all the northern countries of Europe, especially in England. The long interruption of liturgical solemnity brought with it, amongst many of the faithful of these later times, a lowering, or even a total ignorance, of what the Mass is as a Sacrifice. The great mystery of the Eucharist seemed, to certain pious souls, to be nothing else than our Lord's presence, who abides among us for the purpose of receiving our private visits, and of Himself occasionally coming to be our guest in holy Communion. That was all that the Eucharist meant, as far as the practical knowledge of these people went! As to that part of the Eucharistic mystery, which consists in our Lord's being mystically immolated by the wonderful words of Consecration, and thereby expiating for the sins of men, and paying to His eternal Father, in our name, the great debts of adoration and thanksgiving; as to His daily receiving thereby the fervent supplications of our mother the Church, and, because of her suppliant worship in union with His own Sacrifice, His warding off from this poor world the chastisements it deserves: in a word, as to the Mass—it says much less to the hearts of these good people, than does Exposition, or Benediction, or Forty-Hours, or even a mere visit to the blessed Sacrament made very privately and very quietly. For them, Mass is but a preliminary condition for having something else which they look forward to; Mass, in their minds, is but a means for producing the real Presence. On this account, though

¹ St. Luke vi. 44.

the Church has formally discountenanced the practice of having the blessed Sacrament exposed during a low Mass, the Christians of whom we are speaking would far prefer being present at such a Mass, than at one where the Church's wishes are respected; and their reason is, that the Exposition gives them all they want, and all they expect from the Mass. As for High Mass, unless it happen to be one with Exposition, they would rather not go to it, for it is a distraction to them! Sometimes, however, they will go to a solemn Mass; but as to the powerful influence for good, which the heavenly agency of the liturgy would exercise upon them if they would but allow it, they have evidently no notion of such a fact; for you will see them giving all their attention to some book they have brought with them, and out of which they are taking reflections, which, though quite correct in themselves, have no relation to the great Sacrifice at which they are assisting. The Elevation-bell tells them nothing but this—that our Lord has descended upon the altar; they, of course adore; but they never think of uniting themselves with the divine Victim, or of offering themselves, together with the Church, for the sublime intentions which she expresses in her liturgy of each feast or season. If they intend to go to Communion on that day, they will perhaps lay aside, for some moments previous to approaching the rails, the prayer-book which they had been using, that they may sweetly occupy themselves with the sentiments excited by its reading. And thus are they occupied up to the moment when, having admitted them to the Sacrament of unity, our Lord must seek in the distant grace of their Baptism, rather than in their sentiments and thoughts of the moment, that intimate fellowship with the Church, which Communion demands of us, and which it is intended to confirm within us.

Is it, then, to be wondered at that, with very many souls, religion, whose true basis is sacrifice, rests on little but a vague sentimentality? This gradually effaces the fundamental notions of God's dominion, and sovereign justice; of worship, reparation, service, and homage, which are our first duties towards our Maker. Whence comes there, in so many Christians who are in the habit of going to the Sacraments, that weakness of faith, that total absence of the practical notion of the Church, which made itself so painfully felt to our bishops at the time of the Council? It is because, together with the grandeur of the liturgy, to which they are total strangers, public worship has lost its social character; Communion, consequently, has lost its full meaning, and leaves its receivers in their state of contented isolation; for it is not, as far as they are concerned, the bond of unity, through Christ the Head, with the whole body whereof they were made members by Baptism. To say nothing of those nominal Catholics, with whom the word Church seems to be a term one meets with in history, but which has no present objective existence, are there many, even among those who are frequent, or daily, communicants, who understand this axiom of Saint Augustine: 'The Eucharist is our daily Bread, for the virtue it implies is unity; and unity of the members in a body, is the health of that body, and the health of each member'?¹

Twice already had two sons of St. Benedict taken up the defence of the adorable Sacrament against its adversaries, when, in the thirteenth century, there came forward in the same cause a monk of Cluny,

¹ St. Aug. Serm. 57, 137. ² Paschasius Radbert and our Lanfranc, against Scotus Erigena, and Berengarius.

by name Algerus. He composed a volume worthy of its two predecessors; and though its dogmatic character excludes everything approaching to hyperbole, yet we find this same truth expressed thus forcibly: 'The Mystery of Christ's true Flesh in the Sacrament of the altar, is a profit to those only who, in the same Sacrament, receive also the mystery of His members, that is, union with the entire body, which is the Church; because, just as the head has no vital influence, when separated from the body, so Christ confers life upon no man, unless there be unity of the body of the Church: for, as Christ is inseparable from His mystical body, so He is never received in His Sacrament save in His entirety, that is, as incorporated with us by the mystery of His and our union.'¹

The doctrine here expressed is very profound. It enables us to appreciate the magnificence of such a sight as was to be seen, in former times, of the whole assembly of the faithful concluding the solemnity of the Sacrifice by all communicating of the divine Victim. This unanimous meeting at the holy table of all those who have been made members of the Church by Baptism, is a sight which we cannot expect to behold in an age like our own, which is so full of immorality, infidelity, and cowardly human respect. And those of the Church's children whose fervent assiduity at the divine banquet is a consolation to her amidst the general neglect, cannot always wait for the late hour of High Mass, though it would bring them closer into the spirit of the mystery of Communion, and would be more in accordance with the desires of the Church. They are generally prevented from such a practice by their delicate health, or by other obstacles, which are, no doubt, very difficult to be re-

¹ De Sacram. Corp. et Sang. Dom. lib. i. c. 3.

moved; and our loving mother the Church is quite aware of the moral impossibility of anything like a general return to the ancient practice. Still, we cannot forbear regretting the difficulty, and envying those happy times, when each of the faithful partook sacramentally of the Sacrifice which was celebrated in the presence of the whole congregation.¹ Yet she does not press her wishes in this regard, except for the sacred ministers, who are assistants at the Sacrifice; and even for them, she does not prescribe it as an express command: 'Let them know,' she says, in her Council of Trent, 'that it is extremely becoming, that, at least on Sundays and solemn feasts, they should receive holy Communion at the altar where they give their ministry.'² The fathers of the same Council thus admirably express the traditional teaching, which we have been putting before our readers: 'The holy Council, with fatherly affection, admonishes, exhorts, begs and implores, by the bowels of the mercy of our God, that all and each of those who bear the name of Christians, will, at length, be united to each other in this sign of unity, in this bond of charity, in this symbol of concord. Let them be mindful of the infinite majesty, and the wonderful love, of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave His beloved life as the price of our salvation, and His Flesh as our food. Let them believe and venerate these sacred mysteries of His Body and Blood with such constancy and resoluteness, with such devotion of soul, and love, and worship, as that they may frequently receive that supersubstantial Bread. May it be to them their true life, and the perpetual health of their soul! And being strengthened by its strength, may they go through the journey of this miserable life, and

¹ Conc. Trid. Sessio. 22 de Sacrif. Miss. c. 6.
² Sess. 23. de Reform. c. 13.

reach their heavenly country, where they may eat, unveiled, that same Bread of the angels, which they now receive under the sacred veils' (of the sacramental Species).¹

The Church of Armenia chants, even to this day, at the time of Communion, an admirable canticle, which is of the same character as the short, but sublime invitation to the sacred Table, which we gave yesterday from the ancient Church of Gaul.

DUM COMMUNICANT QUI DIGNI SUNT (Chorus modulatur hoc Canticum)

Mater fidei, sacer cœtus
Sponsorum, Et thalamus sublimis! Domus Sponsi immortalis Qui te exornavit in æternum!
Tu es secundum cœlum
mirabile De gloria in gloriam excelsum. Ad instar lucis nos parturis Per filiale baptisterium. Panem istum purificantem distribuis, Das ad bibendum sanguinem tuum tremendum, Trahis ad supernum ordinem Intelligibilium non factum. Venite, filii novæ Sion,
Accedite ad Dominum nostrum cum sanctitate. Gustate sed et videte Quia suavis est Dominus
Deus noster virtutum.

O mother of faith, sacred assembly and sublime nuptial couch of the marriage-feast! O house of the immortal Spouse, adorned by him with everlasting beauty!

Thou art the wonderful second heaven, whose majesty is from glory to glory! Thou, as light produces light, bringest us forth, by the font, which gives us to thee thy children.

Thou art distributing the Bread that purifies; thou art giving us to drink what thou possessest—the adorable Blood; thou art drawing us to that uncreated supernal order of things.

O come ye children of the new Sion, approach with holiness your Lord! Yea, taste and see that our Lord, the God of armies, is sweet.

¹ Sess. xiii. de Euch. c. 8.

Illa divisit Jordanem, Tu mare peccatorum mundi; Illa magnum ducem habuit Josue, Tu Jesum Patri consubstantialem. Antiqua figura tibi etiam similis, Altare supereminens. Illa confregit portas adamantinas, Tu inferni a fundamentis. Panis hic est Corpus Christi, Hic calix Sanguinis novi Testamenti. Occultum sacramentum nobis manifestatur, Deus in hoc a nobis videtur.
Hic est Christus Verbum Deus
Qui ad dexteram Patris sedet, Et hic sacrificatur inter nos, Tollit peccata mundi. Ille qui benedictus est in æternum
Una cum Patre et Spiritu, Nunc et magis in futurum Et sine fine semper in sæcula.

That Sion of old divided the waters of Jordan, thou breakest up the sea of sins; she of old had Josue as her leader; thou, Jesus, consubstantial with the Father.

The lofty altar, too, was an ancient figure of thee: it broke down the gates of adamant; thou, those of hell, even to its foundations.

This is the Body of Christ, this the chalice of the Blood of the new Testament. The hidden Sacrament is shown to us, and herein God is seen by us.

This is Christ the Word, God, who is sitting at the right hand of the Father: and he is sacrificed in our presence, and takes away the sins of the world.

It is he who is blessed for ever, together with the Father and the Spirit, now and ever more for time to come, and, without end, for everlasting ages.

Let us once more borrow from the liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions (Book viii). The following formula of thanksgiving after Communion will tell us what is the spirit of the Church, and what she would have us do at that precious time. We find that she is intent upon the great interests of Jesus, her Spouse. In this ecstasy of her love, in this moment of her intimate union with her God, she strives to keep her children from having narrow-minded thoughts, and intentions which look to nothing beyond self, the result of private devotion, so unseasonable for such grand acts of the Christian life as are the Sacrifice of Mass and Communion in the universal Victim, as we have heard the fathers express it. Scarcely, then, have the sacred Species been distributed, than the deacon cries out: Surgamus, let us rise!

Thereupon, all stand up, and unite in this prayer, which is read by the bishop:

INVOCATIO POST COMMUNIONEM

Domine Deus omnipotens,
Pater Christi tui, benedicti Filii; exauditor eorum qui recte invocant te, cognitor precum etiam eorum qui tacent: gratias agimus tibi, quod nos dignos censuisti qui participaremus sancta tua mysteria, quæ præbuisti
nobis ad plenam eorum quæ bene cognovimus persuasionem, ad custodiam
pietatis, ad remissionem delictorum; quoniam nomen Christi tui invocatum est super nos, et tibi adjuncti sumus.

O Lord God almighty, Father of Christ, thy blessed Son! who graciously hearest them that call upon thee in uprightness, who knowest the prayers of those even who are silent; we thank thee, for that thou hast deemed us worthy to partake of thy sacred mysteries: thou hast given to us, for fully strengthening our faith in those things which we so well know, for the preservation of piety, and for the forgiveness of our sins; for the name of thy Christ has been invoked upon us, and we have been joined to thee.

Qui segregasti nos ab impiorum communione, aduna cum iis qui tibi sunt consecrati, firma nos in veritate per sancti Spiritus adventum, quæ ignoramus
revela, quæ deficiunt supple, quæ novimus corrobora.

O thou that hast separated us from communion with the ungodly, unite us with them that are consecrated to thee; strengthen us in the truth, by the coming of the Holy Ghost; teach us the things we know not; supply our deficiencies; confirm us in the truths we already know.

Sacerdotes inculpatos conserva in cultu tuo. Reges tuere in pace; magistratus in justitia; aerem in temperie; fruges in ubertate; mundum in omnipotente providentia. Gentes bellicosas seda. Errantes converte. Populum tuum sanctifica; virgines conserva; conjuges custodi in fide; castos robora; infantes ad maturam ætatem perduc;
nuper initiatos firma; catechumenos erudi, ac dignos initiatione redde; nosque omnes congrega in regnum cœlorum, in Christo Jesu
Domino nostro:

Preserve thy priests blameless in thy service. Keep kings in peace; magistrates in justice; the air salubrious; the fruits in abundance; the world in thine almighty providence. Pacify nations that are waging war. Convert them that are astray. Sanctify thy people; preserve thy virgins; keep in fidelity them that are in wedlock; strengthen the chaste; lead little ones to mature age; confirm the newly initiated; teach the catechumens, and make them worthy of initiation; and gather us all together into the kingdom of heaven, in Christ Jesus our Lord:

Cum quo tibi gloria, honor, ac veneratio, et sancto Spiritui in sæcula. Amen.

To whom, together with thee, and the holy Spirit, be glory, and honour, and adoration for ever. Amen.

THURSDAY

THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus, qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.

Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations; who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.

This bright octave, consecrated to the glory of the blessed Sacrament, closes to-day; and although we began the subject three days before the feast itself, we have been able to do little more than slightly touch upon the sublime subject proposed for our consideration and love by the Church. The Memorial left us by our Lord of all His wondrous mercies! far exceeds the measure of our poor thoughts, and the capabilities of human language; such is the extremity of the infinite love, which God bears to His own creatures, that no possibility of ours could make it a return such as it deserves.

Eternal Wisdom was, even from His Father's bosom, betrothed to human nature. He came down into this world, which sin had marred, and there He found man, who had become the slave of sin; He assumed the nature of man: He was thus able to make a Sacrifice, which gives infinite glory and full satisfaction to God, and He perfected His union with His creature, by means of that divine banquet, at which, as food and drink, He Himself is served; for He is the divine Victim immolated on the cross and at our altars.

O man! O child of Adam, that wast formed of earthy slime,⁵ what art thou, that thou shouldst be remembered in the court of heaven!¹ Thou desired one of the everlasting hills!—for we may apply this name even to thee—what hast thou done, that thou shouldst thus be glorified?³ Yet doubt it not, thou hast had all these favours. 'Let not my few weak words stagger thee,' cries out St. Cyril, the brave defender at Ephesus of the sacred nuptials, of which the Eucharist is what the fathers call the glorious extension, 'heed not my unworthiness, but listen to the voice, respect the authority, of them that have gone before us, and have preached these truths. They were not men of the common sort, they were not men undeserving of notice, who went about, like hired criers, to proclaim these things on the highroads; no, they were such men as the Solomon, who was sent as the herald of the King of kings; he sat on his high throne, and proclaimed the mysteries of the Most High; he was clad in scarlet robes, and wore a diadem on his brow, and he was the one to publish the mandate of the God who makes and unmakes kings.'⁴

Christians! ye people of kings,⁵ who are to have crowns and thrones yonder in heaven, it is to you this Solomon speaks. Your dignity is great. Listen to this herald of God; learn whence comes your greatness, and live up to it. 'Hearken, ye kings, and understand! Give ear, ye kings! To you are these my words. If ye love your thrones and your sceptres, love wisdom, that ye may reign for ever. I preferred this wisdom before kingdoms and thrones; I loved her above all treasures, and health, and beauty, and chose to have her instead of light. What this wisdom is, and what her origin, I will declare, and I will not hide from you the mysteries of God; but will seek wisdom out from the beginning of her birth, and bring the knowledge of her to light, and will not pass over the truth. I have learned her without guile, and I communicate her to you without envy. Receive, therefore, instruction by my words, and it shall be profitable unto you.'¹

Would to God, that we had been able to tell the wonderful mystery we have been celebrating! Divine Wisdom Himself has been pressing us, during all these days, to study the excellencies of that sacred Bread, which yields delights to the kings, His guests.² The Church has kept close to the throne of her Jesus, that cloud in which He dwells out of love for us. She is full of love for Him; He has given her unity by the Sacrament of union; and she, like a strong compact city, summons her tribes of Israel,⁴ the holy nation, the people of the redeemed, the chosen race of the priests and kings,⁵ to come together again on this octave-day, that they may testify their faith, and sing their love, and be grateful for the peace which the holy Eucharist secures to them, and for the abundance of grace and blessing it gives to these her children.⁶ These days of universal joy and festivity around the holy Host were revealed by the Holy Ghost to the son of Sirach; and the vision made him exclaim: 'Wisdom shall praise her own self, and shall be honoured in God, and shall glory in the midst of her people, and shall open her mouth in the churches of the Most High, and shall glorify herself in the sight of His power. And in the midst of her own people, she shall be exalted, and shall be admired in the holy assembly. And in the multitude of the elect, she shall have praise, and among the blessed (of the Father) she shall be blessed.'¹

'Blessed the man,' continues the inspired writer, still speaking in the future, 'that shall dwell in wisdom! Blessed the man that considereth her ways in his heart, and hath understanding in her secrets, who goeth after her as one that traceth, and prepareth for her snares of love;² who looketh in at her windows, and hearkeneth at her door! Blessed is he that lodgeth near her house, and, fastening a pin in her walls, shall set up his tent nigh unto her, where good things shall rest in his lodging for ever. He shall set his children under her shelter, and shall lodge under her branches. He shall be protected under her covering from the heat, and shall rest in her glory.'³

O house of God, house of the feasting of kings, filled with the fragrance of sweetest incense!⁴ Better is one day in thy precincts, than a thousand elsewhere. It is a joy to my soul to think of days spent there!⁵ The poor bird that once was lonely, and sat moaning on a roof that could never give her rest,⁶ here, in the house of God, finds all she wants. The turtle-dove, having found at the altar of her Lord a nest for her young ones,⁷ has no further solicitude. In the secret of that little cloud, far from the conflicts and disturbances of the world, and where there is no contradiction of tongues—there, from early dawn, eternal Wisdom is pouring out upon souls the multitude of His light and sweetness;⁸ there, each of the Church's hours, choirs will be singing psalms and canticles of praise and joy around the tabernacle,⁹ wherein resides the Lamb who, though slain, is ever living,¹⁰ beautiful on His throne of love, the God of gods in our Sion.¹¹

Truly, He abides among us; our earth has received the mystery of the marriage-feast, of the divine espousals with human nature, and she ever possesses the Lord her God dwelling with her in the Eucharist. O thou gladness of morning!² O heavenly wine that bringest forth virgins!³ O happy moments, wherein the beauty of Jesus, whose full vision is the joy of the angels, gives itself under the sacramental veil to our souls, you leave behind you something more than a joyous recollection. The altar of Sacrifice, and the house of the great Banquet, both continue as the throne ever occupied by our King; they are the earthly abode of that Wisdom, who, though He is seated at the right hand of the Father in the brightness of the saints, and is loved by the Lord of all things,⁵ yet has not changed towards us poor children of men; He still delights to be with us, and keep up His loved union with us; and, as He tells us He did at the beginning, so He still loves this world of ours, and, to use His own word, He still plays with it.⁶ On the throne of His tabernacle, He, beautiful Wisdom, receives the adorations of them that rule this world, for it is from Him they have their crowns and sceptres; and when they have wisdom, it is from Him they have it, and they asked Him for it on bended knees.⁷ On that same throne He hears and grants the prayer of those little ones, little by humility and simplicity of heart, whom He so sweetly presses to go to Him;⁸ they are attracted to Him by His divine loveliness and riches;⁹ and they go to Him, that He may teach them how to love Him and fill their treasures to the brim.¹⁰

¹ Ps. lxxxiii. 8. ² Ps. xxix. 6. ³ Zach. ix. 17. ⁴ Ps. cix. 3. ⁵ Wisd. viii. 3. ⁶ Prov. viii. 31. ⁷ Ibid. 14–16. ⁸ Prov. ix. 4; St. Mark x. 14. ⁹ Ecclus. xxiv. 26. ¹⁰ Prov. viii. 21.

Glory be to the Lamb, whose Sacrifice has given us this wonderful Presence in the blessed Sacrament! To Him be power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and benediction, for ever and ever!¹ By His lovely light² let us, as a close to this day and the octave, respectfully contemplate what this ineffable permanence is, which thus secures to us in its fullness, to the end of time, the great mystery of faith.

How different is the divine Lamb of the true Passover, from that ancient one of the Jewish people, which we now so well understand!³ In prescribing the rites to be observed in the sacrifice of the figurative Paschal Lamb, which was to be eaten but once a year, Moses laid down this strict injunction: 'Neither shall there remain anything of it until morning;'⁴ nothing was to be left, all was to be consumed! Let us listen, now, to an apostle of the new Law: it is Andrew, brother of Peter; he is speaking to a Roman proconsul, and, through him, to all the Gentiles: 'Every day, I offer up to the almighty God, who is one and true, not the flesh of oxen, nor the blood of goats, but the spotless Lamb, upon the altar; of whose flesh the whole multitude of the people eat; and the Lamb that is sacrificed, remains whole and living.'⁵

'How can that be?' asks the proconsul. 'Become a disciple and thou shalt learn,' replies Andrew. But that could not be: the representative of the pagan world was officially appointed to persecute the crucified Jesus in His members; and as to the sublime dogma he had just heard, and which was the very basis of the religion proscribed by the State, he had but one way of dealing with it and its preacher: laugh at it, and hang Andrew on the cross. The apostle thus sealed his testimony by his death, leaving to the Holy Ghost, who had inspired him with the words he had spoken,¹ the future victory which that teaching was to win. His brother-apostles, who had been his fellow-guests at the last Supper, also laid down their lives for Jesus and His doctrine; and, by that sacrifice of themselves, they made themselves food to the same dear Lord. So did Andrew. He followed the counsel of the Wise Man: 'When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face, and lay this to thy heart, and know that it behoveth thee to give a like feasting to the prince.'² Having, therefore, been fed with Jesus' cross in the banquet of His Body at the last Supper, as St. Augustine expresses it,³ Andrew made a right noble return.

And so was it with the other martyrs, who came after him: the joy they showed, in the midst of their tortures, kept up the proof of the power that exists in the precious Wine and heavenly Bread, which can thus gladden man's heart and make it brave.⁴ The time would come, when the demonstration of the mystery of faith, so sublimely expressed by the apostle St. Andrew, would convince the world; not indeed by the force of argument, or by the clever sequel of learned deductions, but by the world itself becoming transformed from paganism to Christianity. That transformation was an impossibility, as far as the world's own misery and power were concerned; and yet it was an undeniable fact; and it was the result of an irresistible influence: the influence of the divine leaven, which, in the language of the Gospel, was put into the whole measure of flour at the last Supper. From south to north, from east to west, everywhere throughout the globe, the children of the Church now sing these words, which are but St. Andrew's expression that has triumphed over the world, won its faith, and is set to rhythm and music: 'Christ's Flesh is food, and His Blood is drink; yet is He whole under each Species. He is not cut by the receiver, nor broken, nor divided: He is taken whole. He is received by one, He is received by a thousand; the one receives as much as all; nor is He consumed, who is received. And when the Sacrament is broken, waver not, but remember that there is as much under each fragment as is hidden under the whole. Of the substance there is no division; it is but the sign that is broken; and He who is the Signified, is not thereby diminished, either as to state or stature.'¹

¹ St. Matt. x. 20. ² Prov. xxiii. 1, 2. juxta græc. ³ In Ps. c. ⁴ Ps. ciii. 15.

The Church's doctrine is this: that 'under each Species, and under each part of each Species, there is contained, truly, really, and substantially, the Body and the Blood, together with the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the whole Christ.'¹ ² Of themselves, it is true, the words of Consecration in the Sacrifice do but produce what they signify; and therefore, exclusively and isolatedly, under the twofold Species, produce the Body and the Blood; but our risen Lord, who liveth now for ever, remains indivisible. As the apostle teaches us, Christ, rising again from the dead, dieth now no more; for, in that He died to sin (that is, because of our sin), He died once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.³ "Therefore, wheresoever, in virtue of the words of consecration, there is the most holy Body, or the Blood of our Redeemer, there also, by an essential and necessary concomitance, is the whole entire sacred Humanity, united with the Word."

¹ Sequen. Lauda Sion. ² Conc. Trid. Sess. xiii. can. 1, 3.
³ Rom. vi. 9, 10.

And here, for the sake of greater precision, we are going to adopt the scholastic phraseology. And firstly, the change of bread into the Body, and of wine into the Blood, is one of substance into substance; but in this miraculous change, very appropriately, on that account, called trans-substantiation, the accidents or modes of the two terms of the change are in no way altered or destroyed. So that, being deprived of their natural subject, or support, the species, or appearances of bread and wine are immediately sustained by God's omnipotence, and they produce and receive the same impressions as they would do if they were joined to their own proper substances. They are the sacramental sign; and although they do not inform the Body of Christ, that is, do not give It their own qualities or properties, yet they determine and maintain Its presence, so long as these species are not essentially modified. As regards the Body of our Lord—which, in Its own true substance, is substituted for the substance alone of bread and wine—It is withdrawn, by the sacred formula, from those mysterious laws of extension, which are so far from being thoroughly understood by human science; It is whole under the whole species, and whole under each sensible portion of the species; and, in this, It resembles spiritual substances, such as, for instance, the soul of man, which is whole in his whole body, and whole in each member of the same. Such, then, is the mystery of the sacramental state: whilst present to us under the dimensions of the Host, and not beyond them, by reason of His substance being independent of our known laws of extension, Christ our Lord abides in Himself precisely what He is in heaven. As St. Thomas of Aquin expresses it: 'The Body of Christ, in the Sacrament, retains all Its accidents, as a necessary consequence; and Its several parts are just as they are in His sacred Body, although they are not subject to the conditions of external space.'¹

The very notion of Sacrifice required this passive appearance; in the same way that the idea of a banquet, in which He is received, determined what was to be the peculiar nature of the sacramental elements selected by our divine Lord. Of course, when we behold the sacred Host, we must banish every such thought as bondage, or actual suffering, or laborious virtues, on the part of the divine Guest who dwells under the sacred Species: under this external passiveness or apparent death, there abound life, and love, and the felicity of the Lamb, who has vanquished death, and who is the immortal King of ages.

He resides under the white Host, with all His power and brightness, the most beautiful of the children of men;² He has all those admirable proportions, and all the perfect finish of those divine members, which were formed from the flesh of the most beautiful of the daughters of Adam, and the purest of virgins. Let us venerate, with all the respect we are capable of, those feet, which were watered by the tears of the repentant Magdalene, and dried with her hair, and embalmed with the sweetest ointment,³ beforehand, as Jesus emphasised her act, when He praised it;⁴ those feet of our merciful Redeemer, more beautiful than the feet of them who bring us the tidings of His having come among us;⁵ they are bright, beyond the brightness of fine brass when in a burning furnace.⁶ Let us send our reverential kisses, beyond the veil, to those hands, which are spotless, and consecrated for the office of High Priest;⁷ those hands, which worked at the wood in Joseph's shop;

¹ P. 3. Q. lxxvi. a. 4; Sent. lib. 4. dist. 10, art. 2. — ² Ps. xliv. 3.
³ St. Luke vii. 37, 38. ⁴ St. Mark xiv. 8. ⁵ Is. lii. 7.
⁶ Apoc. i. 15. ⁷ Lev. xxi. 10.

those hands, which scattered blessings and miracles throughout the land of Israel; they are there, under that Host, just as the bride of the Canticle saw and described them, bright as gold, formed to the model of perfection, and full of something extremely precious, which she called hyacinths,¹ and which perhaps signify those wounds of which the prophet speaks, saying, 'horns are in His hands, and there is His strength hid.'² Would that we might look beneath the little cloud which hides from us that divine head, the admiration of the angels; that face, once disfigured, and buffeted, and covered all over with reproaches,³ out of love for us, but now resplendent as the sun when he shineth in his power!⁴ O mouth of our Jesus, thou instrument of the Word, whose voice is as the sound of many waters⁵ and whose breathing is death to the wicked!⁶ O lips, which our Scriptures tell us, are as lilies dropping choice myrrh!⁷ And you, O eyes, which shed tears over Lazarus,⁸ and now are lighting up with your brightness⁹ the abode of the saints! O that we might see all, see Thee Thyself, Jesus, beneath the mystery and the veil! But no! the mystery and the veil may not be removed; and surer are we, than if our eyes were the witnesses, that Thou, O Beloved of our hearts, art behind our wall, looking at us through the lattices;¹⁰ and this is enough to make us adore Thee. Verily the sweetest test to which Thou couldst put our love, was that we should have faith in this mystery of the adorable Sacrament!

¹ Cant. v. 14. ² Hab. iii. 4. ³ Lam. iii. 30.
⁴ Apoc. i. 16. ⁵ Ibid. 15. ⁶ Is. xi. 4.
⁷ Cant. v. 13. ⁸ St. John xi. 35. ⁹ Apoc. i. 14. ¹⁰ Cant. ii. 9.

O precious Blood, thou price of our ransom, shed profusely on this earth, but now again within the sacred veins of Jesus! thou art now, as during His years here below, diffusing thy life-giving qualities to His divine members, under the action of that sacred Heart, which we are so solemnly to honour to-morrow! Most holy Soul of Jesus, present in the Sacrament as form substantial¹ of that most perfect Body, which, through thee, is the ever-living Body of the Man-God, thou possessest within thee all the treasures of eternal Wisdom.² Thou hadst the office intrusted to thee, of putting into a varied and sensible language the ineffable beauty of that Wisdom of the Father, who was taken with love for the children of men, and desired, by a manifestation which they could understand, to secure their love to Himself! Every word, every step, of Jesus, every mystery of His public or hidden life, was a gradual revelation, to us men, of that divine brightness. Truly, as we have it in the Gospel, this Wisdom, like the grace that was within Him, advanced in His manifestation to the creatures,³ whose love He had come down from heaven to win. When, at length, He had achieved all His work—given us His teachings, and examples, and mysteries, those marvellous manifestations of His own infinite perfections—He gave them perpetuity, that so all ages to come might possess them and benefit by them; He fixed them, so to say, in the Sacrament of love, that abiding source of grace and light to men, that living Memorial, wherein divine love is ever ready to bestow upon us the graces of the wonderful works He has wrought by His Incarnation. 'The Flesh, the Blood of Christ, is the Word made manifest,' says St. Basil; 'it is Wisdom made visible by the Incarnation and by all that mystery of His life in the flesh, whereby He unfolds to us all moral perfection, and all the beautiful, both natural and divine. It is that which is the food of our soul, and which is preparing her, even in this world, for the contemplation of the divine realities.'⁴

¹ Concil. Vienn. ² Col. ii. 3. ³ St. Luke ii. 52.
⁴ Epist. viii, 3.

The solemn Exposition, during which the blessed Sacrament has been receiving our most fervent homage of adoration and love, is concluded, as it began, with a procession. As soon as the Vespers are over (and they are the same as those of the feast, page 273), the deacon takes the monstrance from the throne, and gives it to the priest. The sacred Host is once more carried outside the church, with the same holy ceremonies, and chants, and joyous worship of the faithful. Again It has all nature doing homage to the Creator; It sanctifies every place through which It is carried; drives away the hostile power which, as the apostle tells us, seeks to infest this air;¹ blesses our streets and our country lanes, and imparts to our fields a pledge of rich harvest. It is then brought back to the church, not to leave the hallowed precincts again, save for the sake of the dying, to strengthen them for their last long journey, or for the sick, that It may be administered to them, since they are not able to go to their Lord. The Benediction is then given to the adoring assembly, and the sacred Host is replaced in the tabernacle.

¹ Eph. ii. 2; vi. 12.

Whilst these sentiments of faith and love are so active within us, let us give them expression, by the beautiful hymn, Adoro te devote: it was composed by the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas of Aquin; and it is hard to say which of the two predominates in these verses, the theological science of the saint, or his humble and glowing love.

But when the tabernacle-door closes upon Jesus in His holy Sacrament, our hearts will still continue with Him. This octave always brings with it such an increase of light regarding the great Mystery! It has been so, this year. More than ever, for the future, will we love and reverence the Banquet which is, and produces, all that we have been considering during these days: we know so much better now, than formerly, the perfections of eternal Wisdom, who has given Himself to us in the Eucharist; we will let Him guide us into all grace and truth.

RHYTHMUS S. THOMÆ

Adoro te devote, latens Deitas, Quæ sub his figuris vere latitas:
Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit, Quia te contemplans totum deficit.

I devoutly adore thee, O hidden Deity, who truly liest concealed under these forms: to thee my whole heart subjects itself, because it finds itself quite lost in contemplating thee.

Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur, Sed auditu solo tuto creditur. Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius, Nil hoc verbo veritatis verius.

Sight, feeling, taste, tell us not of thy presence; but the hearing alone may be safely believed. I believe whatsoever the Son of God has spoken; nothing is more true than this word of truth.

In cruce latebat sola Deitas, At hic latet simul et humanitas; Ambo tamen credens atque confitens, Peto quod petivit latro pœnitens.

Upon the cross the divinity alone was concealed; but here the humanity also lies hid: but I believe and confess them both, and ask for what the penitent thief asked.

Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor, Deum tamen meum te confiteor. Fac me tibi semper magis credere, In te spem habere, te diligere!

I see not the wounds, as Thomas did; yet do I confess thee to be my God. Oh! grant that I may ever believe in thee, more and more, and put my hope in thee, and love thee.

O memoriale mortis Domini, Panis vivus, vitam præstans homini:
Præsta meæ menti de te vivere,
Et te illi semper dulce sapere.

O memorial of my Lord's death! O living Bread, that givest life to man! Grant that my soul may ever live on thee, and may ever relish thy sweetness.

Pie Pelicane, Jesu Domine,
Me immundum munda tuo sanguine, Cujus una stilla salvum facere Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.

O loving Pelican; Jesu Lord! cleanse me, an unclean sinner, with thy Blood, one drop whereof could save the whole world from all its guilt.

Jesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio, Oro fiat illud quod tam sitio: Ut te revelata cernens facie Visu sim beatus tuæ gloriæ. Amen.

O Jesus, whom I now see beneath a veil! I beseech thee, let that be done, for which I do so thirst: that I may see thine unveiled face, and be happy in the vision of thy glory. Amen.

The devout Ratpert, monk of St. Gall, friend of Notker, and, like him, a writer of liturgical compositions, shall provide us with an appropriate conclusion to this our octave of Corpus Christi, in the following devout hymn, which he composed for the faithful of the ninth century.

AD EUCHARISTIAM SUMENDAM

Laudes, Omnipotens, ferimus tibi, dona colentes Corporis immensi, Sanguinis atque tui.

We offer thee our praises, O almighty Lord, honouring the gifts bestowed upon us of the adorable Body and Blood.

Tangimus ecce tuam, Rector sanctissime, mensam: Tu licet indignis propitiare tuis:

Lo! we are approaching thy table, O most holy Ruler: be Thou propitious to Thine unworthy ones:

Here is repeated: Laudes, Omnipotens.

Propitiare pius, peccata absolve benignus: Prosit ut invictis appropiare sacris.

Here is repeated: Corporis immensi.

Angelus æthereis sanctus descendat ab astris,
Purificans corpus, cor pariterque pius.

Laudes, Omnipotens.

Hæc medicina potens cæli nos ducat in arces,
Interea terris dans medicamen opis.

Corporis immensi.

Quod colimus fragiles, respice clemens, Summeque pascentes protege Pastor oves.

Laudes, Omnipotens. Protege quas recreas, hostis ne proterat illas, Consolidans dono nos sine fine tuo. Corporis immensi. Nam sumus indigni quos ornes munere tali: Tu pietate tua, Rex, rege castra tua.

Laudes, Omnipotens. Hoc, Pater omnipotens,

table, O most holy Guide! have mercy on us thy servants, though unworthy ones.

Here is repeated: We offer thee.

Have mercy, O loving Lord! compassionately forgive us our sins: that our approaching these triumphant sacred Mysteries may be to our profit.

Here is repeated: Bestowed upon us.

May there descend upon us, from the high heavens, the holy angel who will lovingly cleanse both our body and soul.

We offer thee.

May this powerful remedy lead us to the heavenly abode, giving us meanwhile, here on earth, the restoring power.

Bestowed upon us.

O merciful Lord! look down upon us frail ones, who are honouring thy Majesty; O best of shepherds, protect us thy sheep, now feeding on it!

We offer thee.

Protect those whom thou refreshest, lest the enemy crush us; for ever strengthen us by the gift

Bestowed upon us.

For we are unworthy that thou shouldst honour us with such a gift: do thou in thy mercy, O King, rule thine own soldiers!

We offer thee.

O almighty Father, in thy clemency, grant our prayer, together with Christ and the all-powerful Spirit, the perfect Three and One giver of the gifts

Bestowed upon us.

cum Christo perfice, clemens, Spiritus atque potens, trinus et unus apex. Corporis immensi.

FRIDAY

AFTER THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

THE FEAST OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

A new ray of light shines to-day in the heaven of holy Church, and its light brings warmth. The divine Master given to us by our Redeemer, that is, the Paraclete Spirit, who has come down into this world, continues His teachings to us in the sacred liturgy. The earliest of these His divine teachings was the mystery of the Trinity; and we have worshipped the blessed Three: we have been taught who God is, we know Him in His own nature, we have been admitted, by faith, into the sanctuary of the infinite Essence. Then this Spirit, the mighty wind of Pentecost,¹ opened to our souls new aspects of the truth, which it is His mission to make the world remember;² and His revelation left us prostrate before the sacred Host, the Memorial which God Himself has left us of all His wonderful works.³ To-day it is the sacred Heart of the Word made flesh that this holy Spirit puts before us, that we may know and love and adore it.

There is a mysterious connexion between these three feasts, of the blessed Trinity, Corpus Christi, and the sacred Heart. The aim of the Holy Ghost, in all three, is to initiate us more and more into that knowledge of God by faith, which is to fit us for the face-to-face vision in heaven. We have already seen how God, being made known to us, by the first, in Himself, manifests Himself to us, by the second, in His outward works; for the holy Eucharist is the memorial, here below, in which He has brought together, and with all possible perfection, all those His wondrous works. But by what law can we pass so almost abruptly, from one feast, which is all directly regarding God, to another, which celebrates the works done by Him to and for us? Then again: how came the divine thought, the eternal Wisdom, from the infinite repose of the eternally blessed Trinity, to the external activity of a love for us poor creatures, which has produced what we call the mysteries of our redemption? The Heart of the Man-God is the solution of these difficulties; it answers all such questions, and explains to us the whole divine plan.

We knew that the sovereign happiness which is in God, we knew that the life eternal communicated from the Father to the Son, and from these two to the Holy Ghost, in light and love, was to be given by the will of these three divine Persons to created beings; not only to those which were purely spiritual, but likewise to that creature whose nature is the union of spirit and matter, that is, to man. A pledge of this life eternal was given to him in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. It is by the Eucharist that man, who has already been made a partaker of the divine nature¹ by the grace of the sanctifying Spirit, is united to the divine Word, and is made a true member of this only-begotten Son of the Father. Though it hath not yet appeared what we shall be, says St. John, still we are now the sons of God; we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him;¹ for we are called to live, as the Word Himself does, in the society of His eternal Father for ever and ever.²

But the infinite love of the sacred Trinity, which thus called us frail creatures to a participation in Its own blessed life, would accomplish this merciful design by means of another love, a love more like that which we ourselves can feel; that is, the created love of a human Soul, evinced by the beatings of a Heart of flesh like our own. The Angel of the great Counsel, who is sent to make known to the world the merciful designs of the Ancient of days, took to Himself, in order to fulfil His divine mission, a created, a human form; and this would enable men to see with their eyes, yea, and even touch with their hands, the Word of life, that life eternal which was with the Father, but appeared even unto us.³ This human nature, which the Son of God took into personal union with Himself, from the womb of the Virgin-Mother, was the docile instrument of infinite love, but it was not absorbed into, or lost in, the Godhead; it retained its own substance, its special faculties, its distinct will which ruled, under the influence of the divine Word, the acts and movements of His most holy Soul and adorable Body. From the very first instant of its existence, the human Soul of Christ was inundated, more directly than was any other creature, with that true light of the Word, which enlighteneth every man who cometh into this world;⁴ it enjoyed the face-to-face vision of the divine Essence; and therefore took in, at a single glance, the absolute beauty of the sovereign Being, and the wisdom of the divine decree which called finite beings into a participation of infinite bliss. It understood its sublime mission, and conceived an immense love for man and for God. This love began simultaneously with life, and filled not only His Soul, but likewise, in its own way, the Body too, the moment it was formed from the substance of the Virgin-Mother by the operation of the Holy Ghost. The effect of His love told, consequently, upon His Heart of true human flesh; it set in motion those beatings, which made the Blood of redemption circulate in His sacred veins.

For it was not with Him as with other men, the pulsations of whose hearts are, at first, the consequence of nothing but the vital power which is in the human frame; until, when reason has awakened, emotions produce physical impressions, which quicken or dull the throbbings of the heart. With the Man-God it was not so: His Heart, from the very first moment of its life, responded to the law of His Soul's love, whose power to act upon His human Heart was as incessant, and as intense, as is the power of organic vitality—a love as burning at the first instant of the Incarnation, as it is this very hour in heaven. For the human love of the Incarnate Word, resulting from His intellectual knowledge of God and of creatures, was as perfect as that knowledge, and therefore as incapable of all progress; though, being our Brother, and our model in all things, He, day by day, made more manifest to us the exquisite sensibility of His divine Heart.

At the period of Jesus' coming upon this earth, man had forgotten how to love, for he had forgotten what true beauty was. His heart of flesh seemed to him as a sort of excuse for his false love of false goods: his heart was but an outlet, whereby his soul could stray from heavenly things to the husks of earth, there to waste his power and his substance.¹ To this material world, which the soul of man was to render subservient to its Maker's glory—to this world, which, by a sad perversion, kept man's soul a slave to his senses and passions—the Holy Ghost sent a marvellous power, which, like a resistless lever, would replace the world in its right position: it was the sacred Heart of Jesus; a Heart of flesh, like that of other human beings, from whose created throbbings there would ascend to the eternal Father an expression of love, which would be a homage infinitely pleasing to the infinite Majesty, because of the union of the Word with that human Heart. It is a harp of sweetest melody, that is ever vibrating under the touch of the Spirit of love; it gathers up into its own music the music of all creation, whose imperfections it corrects, whose deficiencies it supplies, tuning all discordant voices into unity, and so offering to the glorious Trinity a hymn of perfect praise. The Trinity finds its delight in this Heart. It is the one only organum, as St. Gertrude calls it,¹ the one only instrument which finds acceptance with the Most High. Through it must pass all the inflamed praises of the burning Seraphim, just as must the humble homage paid to its God by inanimate creation. By it alone are to come upon this world the favours of heaven. It is the mystic ladder between man and God, the channel of all graces, the way whereby man ascends to God, and God descends to man.

The Holy Ghost, whose master-piece it is, has made it a living image of Himself; for although in the ineffable relations of the divine Persons, He is not the source of love, He is its substantial expression, or in theological language, the term; it is He who inclines the holy Trinity to those works outside Itself, which produce creatures; and having given them being, and to some life, He (the holy Spirit) pours out upon them all the effusion of their Creator's love for them. And so it is with the love which the Man-God has for God and Man: its direct and, so to say, material expression is the throbbing it produces upon His sacred Heart; and again, it is by that Heart, that, like the Water and Blood which came from His wounded Side, He pours out upon the world a stream of redemption and grace, which is to be followed by the still richer one of glory.

One of the soldiers, as the Gospel tells us, opened Jesus' Side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.¹ We must keep before us this text and the fact it relates, for they give us the true meaning of the feast we are celebrating. The importance of the event here related is strongly intimated, by the earnest and solemn way in which St. John follows up his narration. After the words just quoted, he adds: 'And he that saw it hath given testimony of it, and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith true, that ye also may believe; for these things were done, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.'² Here the Gospel refers us to the testimony of the Prophet Zacharias, who after predicting that the Spirit of grace would be poured out upon the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, says: 'They shall look upon Him whom they pierced.'³

And when they look upon His side thus pierced, what will they see there, but that great truth which is the summary of all Scripture and of all history: 'God so loved the world, as to give it His only-begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have eternal life!'⁵ This grand truth was, during the ages of expectation, veiled under types and figures; it could be deciphered but by few, and even then only obscurely; but it was made known with all possible clearness on that eventful day, when, on Jordan's banks, the whole sacred Trinity manifested who was the Elect, the chosen One, of the Father—the Son in whom He was so well pleased. It was Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary. But there was another revelation, of deepest interest to us, which had still to be made: it was—how, and in what way, would the eternal life brought by Jesus into the world, pass from Him into each one of us? This second revelation was made to us, when the soldier's spear opened the divine source, and there flowed from it that Water and Blood, which, as the Scripture tells us, completed the testimony of the blessed Three. 'There are three,' says St. John, 'who give testimony in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are One. And there are three that give testimony on earth: the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood: and these three are one,' that is, they are one, because they concur in giving the one same testimony. 'And this,' continues St. John, 'is the testimony: that God hath given to us eternal life, and that this life is in His Son.' These words contain a very profound mystery; but we have their explanation in to-day's feast, which shows us how it is through the Heart of the Man-God that the divine work is achieved, and how, through that same Heart, the plan which was conceived, from all eternity, by the Wisdom of the Father, has been realized.

¹ Acts ii. 2. ² St. John xiv. 26. ³ Ps. cx. 4.

¹ 2 St. Pet. i. 4.

¹ 1 St. John iii. 2. ² Ibid. i. 3. ³ Ibid. 2. ⁴ St. John i. 9.

¹ St. Luke xv. 13.

¹ Legatus divinæ pietatis; lib. ii. c. 23; lib. iii. c. 25.

¹ St. John xix. 34. ² Ibid. 35, 36. ³ Zach. xii. 10. ⁴ Ibid. as quoted by St. John xix. 37. ⁵ St. John iii. 16.

To communicate His own happiness to creatures, by making them, through the Holy Ghost, partakers of His own divine nature,⁴ and members of His beloved Son—this was the merciful design of the Father; and

¹ St. Luke iii. 21, 22. ² Is. xlii. 1.
³ 1 St. John v. 7, 8, 11. ⁴ 2 St. Pet. i. 4.

all the works of the Trinity, outside Itself, tend to the accomplishment of that same. When the fullness of time had come, there appeared upon our earth He that came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. The Spirit, who, together with the Father and the Son, has already on the banks of Jordan given His testimony, gives it here again, for St. John continues: 'And it is the Spirit which testifieth, that Christ is the truth;'¹ and that He spoke the truth when He said of Himself, that He is Life.² The Spirit, as the Gospel teaches us,³ comes forth with the water from the fountains of the Saviour,⁴ and makes us worthy of the precious Blood, which flows together with the water. Then does mankind, thus born again of water and the Holy Ghost, become entitled to enter into the kingdom of God;⁵ and the Church, thus made ready for her Spouse in those same waters of Baptism, is united to the Incarnate Word in the Blood of the sacred Mysteries. We, being members of that holy Church, have the same union with Christ; we are bone of His bones, and flesh of His flesh;⁶ we have received the power to be made adopted sons of God,⁷ and sharers, for all eternity, of the divine life, which He, the Son by nature, has in the bosom of the Father.

On, then, thou Jew! though ignorant of the nuptials of the Lamb, give the signal of their being accomplished. Lead the Spouse to the nuptial bed of the cross; He will lay Himself down on that most precious Wood, which His mother, the Synagogue, has made to be His couch; she prepared it for Him, on the eve of the day of His alliance, when from His sacred Heart His bride is to come forth, together

¹ St. John v. 6. ² St. John v. 26. ³ Ibid. vii. 37-39. ⁴ Is. xii. 3.
⁵ St. John iii. 5. ⁶ Gen. ii. 23; Eph. v. 30. ⁷ St. John i. 12.

with the Water which cleanses her, and the Blood which is to be her dower. It was for the sake of this bride, that He left His Father, and the bright home of His heavenly Jerusalem; He ran, as a giant, in the way of His intense love; He thirsted, and the thirst of desire gave Him no rest. The scorching wind of suffering which dried up His bones, was less active than the fire which burned in His Heart, and made its beatings send forth, in the agony in the garden, the Blood which, on the morrow, was to be spent for the redemption of His bride. He has reached Calvary, it is the end of His journey; He dies; He sleeps, with His burning thirst upon Him. But the bride, who is formed for Him during this His mysterious sleep, will soon rouse Him from it. That Heart, from which she was born, has broken, that she might come forth; broken, it ceased to beat; and the grand hymn which, through it, had been so long ascending from earth to heaven, was interrupted; and creation was dismayed at the interruption. Now that the world has been redeemed, man should sing more than ever the canticle of his gratitude: and the strings of the harp are broken! Who will restore them? Who will re-awaken in the Heart of Jesus the music of its divine throbbings?

The new-born Church, His bride, is standing near that opened side of her Jesus; in the intensity of her first joy she thus sings to God the Father: 'I will praise Thee, O Lord, among the people, and I will sing unto Thee among the nations.' Then, to her Jesus: 'Arise, Thou, my glory! my psaltery, my harp, arise!'¹ And He arose in the early morning of the great Sunday; His sacred Heart resumed its melody, and, with it, sent up to heaven the music of holy Church, for the Heart of the Spouse belongs to

¹ Ps. cvii. 1-4.

His bride, and they are now two in one flesh.¹

Christ, being now in possession of her who has wounded His Heart,² gives her, in return, full power over that sacred Heart of His, from which she has issued. There lies the secret of all the Church's power. In the relations existing between husband and wife, which were created by God at the beginning of the world, and (as the apostle assures us) in view of this great mystery of Christ and the Church,³ man is the head,⁴ and the woman may not domineer in the government of the family. Has the woman, then, no power? She has power, and a great power: she must address herself to her husband's heart, and gain all by love. If Adam, our first father, sinned, it was because Eve used, and for evil, her influence over his heart, by misleading him, and us in him. Jesus saves us, because the Church has won His Heart; and that human Heart could not be won, without the Divinity also being moved to mercy. And here we have the doctrine of devotion to the sacred Heart of Jesus, as far as regards the principle upon which it rests. In this its primary and essential notion, the devotion is as old as the Church herself, for it rests on this truth, which has been recognized in every age: that Christ is the Spouse, and the Church is His bride.

The fathers and holy doctors of the early ages had no other way, than this, of expounding the mystery of the Church's formation from Jesus' side; and the words they used—though always marked by that reserve which was called for by so many of their hearers being as yet uninitiated—were taken as the text for the sublime and fearless developments of later ages. 'The initiated,' says St. John Chrysostom, 'know the

¹ Gen. ii. 24; Eph. v. 31. ² Cant. iv. 9.
³ Eph. v. 32. ⁴ 1 Cor. xi. 3.

mystery of the Saviour's fountains; from those, that is, from the Blood and the Water, the Church was formed; from those same, came our Mysteries; so that, when thou approachest the dread chalice, thou must come up to it, as though thou wert about to drink of that very Side of Christ.'¹ 'The Evangelist,' says St. Augustine, 'made use of a word which has a special import, when he said: the soldier opened Jesus' Side with a spear. He did not say struck the Side, or wounded the Side, or anything else like that; but he said he opened Jesus' Side. He opened it; for that Side was like the door of life; and when it was opened, the Sacraments (the Mysteries) of the Church came through it. . . This was predicted by that door which Noe was commanded to make in the side of the Ark, through which were to go those living creatures which were not to be destroyed by the deluge; and all these things were a figure of the Church.'²

'Enter thou into the rock, and hide thee in the pit,'³ says Isaias; and what means this, but, 'enter into the Side of thy Lord?' as the expression is interpreted, in the thirteenth century, by Guerric, a disciple of St. Bernard, and Abbot of Igny.⁴ St. Bernard himself thus comments the thirteenth and fourteenth verses of the second chapter of the Canticle: 'Come my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall:'⁵ O beautiful clefts of the rock, wherein the dove takes safe shelter, and fearlessly looks at the hawk that hovers about! . . . And what may I see through that opening? The iron hath pierced His soul, and His Heart hath come near; so that, through the cleft, the mystery of His Heart is made visible, that great mystery of love, those bowels of the mercy of our God. . . . What else art thou, O Lord, but treasures of love,

¹ In Joan. Hom. lxxxiv. 5. ² In Joan. Tract. cxx. 2. ³ Is. ii. 10.
⁴ In Dom. Palm. Serm. iv. ⁵ Cant. ii. 13, 14.

but riches of goodness? . . . I will make my way to those full store-cellars. I will take the prophet's advice, and will leave the cities; I will dwell in the rock, and be like the dove that maketh her nest in the mouth of the hole in the highest place.¹ Sheltered there, as Moses was in the hole of the rock,² I will see my Lord, as He passes by.'³ In the next century, we have the Seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure, telling us in his own beautiful style, how the new Eve was born from the Side of Christ, when in His sleep; and how the spear of Saul was thrown at David, and struck the wall, as though it would make its way into Him, of whom David was but a type, that is, Christ, who is the rock,⁴ the mountain-cave where are salubrious springs, the shelter where doves build their nests.⁵

Our readers will not expect us to do more than give them this general view of the great mystery, and tell them how the holy doctors of the Church spoke of it. As far as St. Bernard and St. Bonaventure are concerned, the devotion to the mystery of Christ's side opened on the cross, is but a part of that which they would have us show to the other wounds of our Redeemer. The sacred Heart, as the expression of Jesus' love, is not treated of, in their writings, with the explicitness wherewith the Church would afterwards put it before us. For this end, our Lord Himself selected certain pious souls, through whose instrumentality He would bring the Christian world to a fuller appreciation of the consequences which are involved in the principles admitted by the whole Church.

It was on January 27 in the year 1281, in the

¹ Jerem. xlviii. 28. ² Exod. xxxiii. 22.
³ S. Bern. in Cant. Serm. lxi. ⁴ 1 Kings xviii. 10, 11.
⁵ 1 Cor. x. 4. ⁶ Lignum vitæ.

Benedictine monastery of Helfta, near Eisleben, in Saxony, that our divine Lord first revealed these ineffable secrets to one of the community of that house, whose name was Gertrude. She was then in the twenty-fifth year of her age. The Spirit of God came upon her, and gave her her mission. She saw, she heard, she was permitted to touch, and what is more, she drank of, that chalice of the sacred Heart, which inebriates the elect. She drank of it, even whilst in this vale of bitterness; and what she herself so richly received, she imparted to others, who showed themselves desirous to listen. St. Gertrude's mission was to make known the share and action of the sacred Heart in the economy of God's glory and the sanctification of souls; and, in this respect, we cannot separate her from her companion, St. Mechtilde.

On this special doctrine regarding the Heart of the Man-God, St. Gertrude and St. Mechtilde hold a very prominent position among all the saints and mystical writers of the Church. In saying this, we do not except even the saints of these later ages, by whom our Lord brought about the public, official worship, which is now given to His sacred Heart. These saints have spread the devotion, now shown to it, throughout the whole Church; but they have not spoken of the mysteries it contains within it, with that set purpose, that precision, that loveliness which we find in the 'Revelations' of the two saints, Gertrude and Mechtilde.

It was the beloved disciple, who had rested his head upon Jesus' breast at the Supper, and perhaps heard the beatings of the sacred Heart—the disciple who, when standing at the foot of the cross, had seen that Heart pierced with the soldier's spear— who announced to Gertrude its future glorification.

She asked him how it was that he had not spoken, in his writings in the new Testament, of what he had experienced when he reclined upon Jesus' sacred Heart. He thus replied: "My mission was to write, for the Church which was still young, a single word of the uncreated Word of God the Father, that uncreated Word, concerning which the intellect of the whole human race might be ever receiving abundant truth, from now till the end of the world, and yet would never fully comprehend it. As to the sweet eloquence of those throbbings of His Heart, it is reserved for the time when the world has grown old, and has become cold in God's love, that it may regain favour by the hearing such revelation." (The Legate of Divine Love. Bk. iv. ch. 4.)

Gertrude was chosen as the instrument of that revelation; and what she has told us is exquisitely beautiful. At one time, the divine Heart is shown to her as a treasure, which holds all riches within it; at another, it is a harp played upon by the Holy Spirit, and the music which comes from it gladdens the blessed Trinity, and all the heavenly court. It is a plenteous spring, whose stream bears refreshment to the souls in purgatory, strength and every other grace to them that are still struggling on this earth, and delights which inebriate the blessed in the heavenly Jerusalem. It is a golden thurible, whence there ascend as many different sorts of fragrant incense, as there are different races of men, for all of whom our Redeemer died upon the cross. It is an altar, upon which the faithful lay their offerings, the elect their homage, the angels their worship, and the eternal High Priest offers Himself as a sacrifice. It is a lamp suspended between heaven and earth. It is a chalice out of which the saints, but not the angels, drink, though these latter receive from it delights of varied

kinds. It was in this Heart that was formed and composed the Lord's Prayer, the Pater noster; that prayer was the fruit of Jesus' Heart. By that same sacred Heart are supplied all the negligences and deficiencies which are found in the honour we pay to God, and His blessed Mother and the saints. The Heart of Jesus makes itself as our servant, and our bond, in fulfilment of all the obligations incumbent on us; in it alone do our actions derive that perfection, that worth, which makes them acceptable in the eyes of the divine Majesty; and every grace, which flows from heaven to earth, passes through that same Heart. When our life is at its close, that Heart is the peaceful abode, the holy sanctuary, ready to receive our souls as soon as they have departed from this world; and having received them, it fixes them in itself for all eternity, and beatifies them with every delight!¹

By thus revealing to Gertrude the admirable mysteries of divine love, included in the doctrine which attaches to the sacred Heart of Jesus, the holy Spirit was, so to say, forestalling the workings of hell, which, two centuries later on, were to find their prime mover in that same spot. Luther was born at Eisleben, in the year 1483. He was the apostle, after being the inventor, of theories the very opposite of what the sacred Heart reveals. Instead of the merciful God, as known and loved in the previous ages, Luther would have the world believe Him to be the direct author of sin and damnation, who creates the sinner for crime and eternal torments, and for the mere purpose of showing that He could do anything, even injustice! Calvin followed; he took up the blasphemous doctrines of the German apostate, and rivetted the protestant principles by his own gloomy and merciless logic. By these two men, the tail of the dragon dragged the third part of the stars of heaven. In the seventeenth century, the old enemy put on hypocrisy in the shape of Jansenism; changing the names of things, but leaving the things unchanged, he tried to get into the very centre of the Church, and there pass off his impious doctrines; and Jansenism—which, under the pretext of safeguarding the rights of God's sovereign dominion, aimed at making men forget that He was a God of mercy— was a favourable system, wherewith the enemy might propagate his so-called Reformation. God, who so loved the world, beheld mankind discouraged or terrified, and behaving as though in heaven there was little mercy, and less love. This earth was to be made to see that its Creator had loved it with affectionate love; that He had taken a Heart of flesh in order to bring that infinite love within man's reach and sight; that He made that human Heart, which He had assumed, do its work, that is, beat and throb from love, just as ours do; for He had become one of ourselves, and, as the prophet words it, had taken the cords of Adam.² That Heart felt the thrill of joy when duty-doing made us joyous; it felt a weight and pang when it saw our sorrows; it was gladsome when it found that, here and there, there would be souls to love it in return. How were men to be told all this? Who would be chosen to fulfil the prophecy made by Gertrude the Great? Who would come forth, like another Paul or John, and teach the world, now grown old, the language of the divine throbbings of Jesus' Heart?

There were then living many men noted for their learning and eloquence; but they would not suit the purpose of God. God, who loves to choose the weak in order to confound the strong, had selected for manifesting the mystery of the sacred Heart, one whom the world knew not:—a religious woman, living in a monastery which had nothing about it to attract notice. As, in the thirteenth century, He had passed by the learned men, and even the great saints, who were then living, and selected the Blessed Juliana of Liége as instrument for bringing about the institution of the Corpus Christi feast, so in this present case: He would have His sacred Heart glorified in His Church by a solemn festival; and He imparts and intrusts His wish to the humble Visitandine of Paray-le-Monial, now known and venerated, throughout the world, under the name of Blessed Margaret-Mary. The mission thus divinely given to her, was to bring forward the treasure, which had been revealed to St. Gertrude, and which, all the long interval, had been known to only a few privileged souls. Sister Margaret-Mary was to publish the secret to the whole world, and make the privilege cease, by telling every one how to possess it. Through this apparently inadequate instrument, the sacred Heart of Jesus was a heavenly reaction offered to the world against the chilliness which had settled on its old age: it became a touching appeal to all faithful souls that they would make reparation for all the contempt, and slight, and coldness, and sins, wherewith our age treats the love of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus. 'I was praying before the blessed Sacrament on one of the days during the octave' (of Corpus Christi, June 1675) says Blessed Margaret, 'and I received from my God exceeding great graces of His love. And feeling a desire to make some return, and give Him love for love, I heard Him say: "Thou canst not make me a greater, than by doing that which I have so often asked of thee." He then showed me His divine Heart, and said: "Behold this Heart, which has so loved men, as that it has spared nothing, even to the exhausting and wearing itself out, in order to show them its love; and instead of acknowledgment I receive, from the greater number, nothing but ingratitude, by their irreverences and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt wherewith they treat Me, in this Sacrament of love. But what I feel most deeply is, that they are hearts consecrated to Me, which thus treat Me. It is on this account, that I make this demand of thee: that the first Friday after the octave of the blessed Sacrament be devoted to a special feast in honour of My Heart; that thou wilt go to Communion on that day; and give it a reparation of honour by an act of amendment, to repair the insults it has received during the time of its being exposed on the altar. I promise thee, also, that My Heart will dilate itself, that it may pour forth, with abundance, the influences of its divine love upon those who shall thus honour it, and shall do their best to have such honour paid to it".

By thus calling His servant to be the instrument of the glorification of His sacred Heart, our Lord made her a sign of contradiction, just as He Himself had been.¹ It took more than ten years for Blessed Margaret to get the better, by patience and humility, of the suspicions wherewith she was treated by the little world around her, and of the harsh conduct of the Sisters who lived with her in the same monastery, and of trials of every sort. At last, on June 21 in the year 1686, the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, she had the consolation of seeing the whole Community of Paray-le-Monial kneeling before a picture, which represented the Heart of Jesus as pierced with a spear; it was the Heart by itself; it was encircled with flames, and a crown of thorns, with the cross above it, and the three nails. That same year, there was begun, in the monastery, the building of a chapel in honour of the sacred Heart; and Blessed Margaret had the happiness of seeing it finished and blessed. She died shortly afterwards, in the year 1690. But all this was a very humble beginning: where was the institution of a feast, properly so called? and where its solemn celebration throughout the Church?

So far back as the year 1674, our Lord had, in His own mysterious way, brought Margaret-Mary to form the acquaintance of one of the most saintly Religious of the Society of Jesus then living; it was Father De la Colombière. He recognized the workings of the holy Spirit in this His servant, and became the devoted apostle of the sacred Heart, first of all at Paray-le-Monial, and then, later on, in England, where he was imprisoned by the heretics, and merited the glorious title of Confessor of the faith. This fervent disciple of the Heart of Jesus died in the year 1682, worn out by his labours and sufferings; but the Society, in a body, inherited his zeal for the propagation of devotion to the sacred Heart. At once, numerous confraternities began to be formed, and everywhere chapels were built in honour of that same Heart. Hell was angry at this great preaching of God's love. The Jansenists were furious at this sudden proclamation, at this apparition, as St. Paul would say, of the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour;¹ for it aimed at restoring hope to souls, in which they had sowed despondency. The big world must interfere; and it began by talking of innovations, of scandals, of even idolatry; at all events, this new devotion was, to put it mildly, a revolting dissecting of the sacred Body of Christ! Erudite pamphlets were published, some theological, some physiological, to prove that the Church should forbid the whole! Indecent engravings were circulated, and indignant witticisms were made, in order to bring ridicule upon those for whom the world had coined the name of Cordicole, or Heart worshippers.¹

But human wisdom, or human prejudice, or even human ridicule, cannot withstand God's purposes. He wished that human hearts should be led to love, and therefore worship, the sacred Heart of their Redeemer; and He inspired His Church to receive the devotion which would save so many souls, though the world

¹ In the year 1720, the city of Marseilles was visited by a plague.
It had been brought by a vessel that had come from Syria. As many as a thousand a day fell victims to the scourge. The Parliament, which was mainly composed of Jansenists, had, of course, fled; and there was nothing being done to stay the contagion from spreading. The bishop, Monseigneur de Belzunce, assembled such of his priests as had been spared; and, standing in the avenue which is now called by his name, he solemnly consecrated his diocese to the sacred Heart of Jesus. At once the plague abated, and gradually disappeared. Two years later, however, it again showed itself, and threatened to repeat its fierce onslaught; but it was arrested in consequence of the city magistrates binding themselves and their successors for all future ages, by a vow, to the solemn acts of public worship, which, up to the present day, have proved a protection and a glory to the city of Marseilles.

These events were noised throughout the world, and were the occasion of the feast of the sacred Heart being kept, not only as hitherto, in the monasteries of the Visitation Order, but in several dioceses of France.

That noble, but tried, kingdom, is now erecting a national monument in honour of the sacred Heart of Jesus; it is the splendid church now being built on Montmartre, near Paris. May that loving Heart of our Lord bless His devoted France, the eldest daughter of the Church! Like the Church, she is under terrible trials; and as they are companions in affliction, may they, through the mercy of the Heart of Jesus, be soon united in prosperity, and work together for the happiness of the world!

might not take heaven's view. The apostolic See had witnessed all this; and at last gave its formal sanction. Rome had frequently granted Indulgences in favour of the devotions privately practised towards the sacred Heart; she had published innumerable Briefs for the establishment of local confraternities, under that title; and in the year 1765, in accordance with the request made by the bishops of Poland and the arch-confraternity of the sacred Heart at Rome, Pope Clement XIII issued the first pontifical decree in favour of the feast of the Heart of Jesus, and approved of a Mass and Office which had been drawn up for that feast. The same favour was gradually accorded to other Churches, until at length, on August 23, 1856, Pope Pius IX of glorious memory, at the instance of all the bishops of France, issued the decree for inserting the feast of the sacred Heart on the calendar, and making obligatory its celebration by the universal Church.

The glorification of the Heart of Jesus called for that of its humble handmaid. On September 18, 1864, the beatification of Margaret-Mary was solemnly proclaimed by the same sovereign Pontiff, who had put the last finish to the work she had begun, and given it the definitive sanction of the apostolic See.

From that time forward, the knowledge and love of the sacred Heart have made greater progress, than they had done during the whole two previous centuries. In every quarter of the globe, we have heard of communities, religious Orders, and whole dioceses, consecrating themselves to this source of every grace, this sole refuge of the Church in these sad times. Thousands, from every country, have gone on pilgrimage to the favoured sanctuary of Paray-le-Monial, where it pleased the divine Heart to first manifest Itself, in its visible form, to us mortals.

We now put before our readers the Mass, which has been approved of for our feast.

MASS

In the liturgy of this feast, there is scarcely any mention made of the Heart of Flesh assumed by our Saviour. When, in the last century, there was question of approving a Mass and Office in honour of the sacred Heart, the Jansenists, who had zealous partisans even in Rome, excited so much opposition, that the apostolic See did not deem it prudent to speak openly, at that early period, on the points which some so angrily disputed. It, however, readily granted, both to Portugal and the Republic of Venice, an Office, in which the Heart of Jesus, victim of love, and pierced with a spear, was offered to the adorations of the faithful. But in the Mass and Office which Rome afterwards gave for the general use, she, out of a motive of prudence, kept to the glorification of our Redeemer's love, of which it could not reasonably be denied that His Heart of Flesh was the true and direct symbol.

¹ Preface to the Revelations of St. Gertrude translated into French
from the new Latin edition, published by the Benedictine Fathers of Solesmes.

² Osee xi. 4.

¹ St. Luke ii. 34.

¹ Tit. iii. 4.

¹ 1 Cor. i. 27.

Thus, the Introit, which is taken from Jeremias, extols the infinite mercies of Him, whose Heart has not cast off the children of men.

INTROIT

Miserebitur secundum multitudinem miserationum suarum: non enim humiliavit ex corde suo, et abjecit filios hominum: bonus est Dominus sperantibus in eum, animæ quærenti illum, alleluia, alleluia.

He will have mercy according to the multitude of his mercies: for he hath not willingly afflicted, nor cast off the children of men: the Lord is good to them that hope in him, to the soul that seeketh him, alleluia, alleluia.

Ps. Misericordias Domini in æternum cantabo: in generationem et generationem.

Ps. The mercies of the Lord I will sing for ever: to generation and generation.

℣. Gloria Patri. Miserebitur.

℣. Glory, etc. He will have mercy.

The Church, deeply moved with gratitude for the immense blessings brought to her by the sacred Heart, prays, in her Collect, that her children may have the grace to appreciate those divine benefits, and receive, with holy joy, the fruits they are intended to produce.

COLLECT

Concede, quæsumus omnipotens Deus: ut, qui in sanctissimo dilecti Filii tui Corde gloriantes, præcipua in nos caritatis ejus beneficia recolimus, eorum pariter et actu delectemur et fructu. Per eumdem.

Grant, we beseech thee, O almighty God, that we, who glory in the most sacred Heart of thy beloved Son, and celebrate the singular benefits of his love towards us, may rejoice both in their accomplishment, and in the fruit they produce. Through, etc.

EPISTLE

Lectio Isaiæ Prophetæ Cap. xii.

Lesson from the Prophet Isaias. Ch. xii.

Confitebor tibi, Domine, quoniam iratus es mihi: conversus est furor tuus, et consolatus es me. Ecce Deus Salvator meus, fiducialiter agam, et non timebo: quia fortitudo mea, et laus mea Dominus, et factus est mihi in salutem. Haurietis aquas in gaudio de fontibus Salvatoris, et dicetis in die illa: Confitemini Domino, et invocate nomen ejus: mementote quoniam excelsum est nomen ejus. Cantate Domino quoniam magnifice fecit: annuntiate hoc in universa terra. Exsulta, et lauda, habitatio Sion: quia magnus in medio tui Sanctus Israel.

I will give thanks to thee, O Lord, for thou wast angry with me; thy wrath is turned away, and thou hast comforted me. Behold, God is my Saviour; I will deal confidently, and will not fear: because the Lord is my strength, and my praise, and he is become my salvation. You shall draw waters, with joy, out of the Saviour's fountains, and you shall say, in that day: Praise ye the Lord, and call upon his name: remember that his name is high. Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath done great things: show this forth, in all the earth. Rejoice, and praise, O thou habitation of Sion: for great is he that is in the midst of thee, the Holy One of Israel.

'My people have done two evils,' said God, in the ancient Covenant: 'they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.'¹ How wonderful is this complaint! It is made by infinite love, on seeing His proffered benefits refused. And what is still more wonderful, the God thus slighted by His ungrateful children, who pretend to find their happiness in something which is not Himself, overlooks the insult, to consult for the remedying of their misery. He is touched at seeing these poor mistaken children trying to get their burning thirst quenched by created things, whereas He alone can quench it. Material goods, and outward beauty, have misled them, and made them slaves to their sensual appetites: their soul, which was created for infinite good, has thought it might find its rest in those feeble and flittering reflections of the sovereign beauty—reflections and images which were intended to lead them to the divine reality. How lead back to the living fountain the poor creature who has been made a dupe of the mirage of the desert, and is rushing on deeper and deeper into the scorching sands? O Israel! sing praise to thy Lord! And thou, Sion, bless thy God for His infinite mercy towards thee! Water has sprung forth from the Rock which thou hast met in the wilderness, where the madness of thy guilty fever kept thee a wanderer. On the very steep which was precipitating thee downwards towards the flesh, thou hast met thy Jesus; He has made Himself thy companion on the way of this earth's life; He is God, but He has been made Flesh, that so, for thy soul's good, He might draw thee as the prophet foretold, with the cords of Adam, that is, by the love and loveliness of that Heart of Flesh, lead thee to the object which was to satisfy thine own heart, and for which thou wast created. Thus made captive to the Infinite by the bands of this love which Jesus showed thee, thou hast found thyself within reach of the fountain of water, which springeth up into life everlasting;² and thy joy at finding thy Saviour's fountains has made thee loathe the muddy water of the broken cisterns of old. Thy thirst keeps on, but the water is ever there for thee to drink in as deeply as thou willest: thou hast the sacred Heart, which was opened for thee by the soldier's spear. Thirst, and drink, and both for ever!

¹ Jerem. ii. 13.
² St. John iv. 14.

The immense love which fills the Heart of the Man-God, and has led Him to undergo unparalleled sufferings in order to save us; the meekness and humility of that divine Heart, which He Himself would have us take as the chief characteristic of His whole life: these are the mysteries proposed by the Gradual and Alleluia-verse, that we may know them, and let them influence our conduct.

GRADUAL

O vos omnes, qui transitis per viam, attendite, et videte, si est dolor sicut dolor meus.

O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.

℣. Cum dilexisset suos, qui erant in mundo, in finem dilexit eos.

℣. Having loved his own, who were in the world, he loved them unto the end.

Alleluia, alleluia.

℣. Discite a me, quia mitis sum et humilis corde: et invenietis requiem animabus vestris. Alleluia.

℣. Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart: and ye shall find rest to your souls. Alleluia.

GOSPEL

Sequentia sancti Evangelii secundum Joannem.

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to John.

In illo tempore: Judæi (quoniam Parasceve erat) ut non remanerent in cruce corpora Sabbato (erat enim magnus dies ille Sabbati) rogaverunt Pilatum ut frangerentur eorum crura, et tollerentur. Venerunt ergo milites: et primi quidem fregerunt crura, et alterius, qui crucifixus est cum eo. Ad Jesum autem cum venissent, ut viderunt eum jam mortuum, non fregerunt ejus crura; sed unus militum lancea latus ejus aperuit, et continuo exivit sanguis et aqua. Et qui vidit testimonium perhibuit: et verum est testimonium ejus.

At that time: the Jews, (because it was the Parasceve), that the bodies might not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath-day, (for that was a great Sabbath-day), besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. The soldiers therefore came: and they broke the legs of the first, and of the other that was crucified with him. But after they were come to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs; but one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water. And he that saw it, hath given testimony: and his testimony is true.

We have already explained this passage of St. John's Gospel; and, in doing so, we brought it into juxtaposition with certain texts from the first Epistle of the same apostle, which throw such light on what the Gospel relates regarding the opening of Jesus' side. Let us imitate our mother the Church, who hears these mysterious words with such profound attention. This Gospel tells us of the beautiful path by which she first came: she was born from the Heart of the Man-God. She could not have had any other beginning than this; for she is the work, by excellence, of His love; and it is for this His Bride, that He has accomplished all His other works. Eve was taken from Adam's side, in figure of a future mystery; but, for the very reason of its being a type and a prediction, no trace was to be left of the fact itself. But in the mysterious fulfilment of the figure, that is, in Jesus' side being opened that His Bride the Church might come forth, the trace was to remain for ever. As often as she looks at this wound, she is reminded of her glorious origin; and that open side is like a ceaseless reminder that she has but to go to that sacred Heart, and there she will find everything she needs for her children.

The Offertory is taken from Psalm cii, that magnificent hymn of love and gratitude, which extols the numberless favours and infinite mercies of God.

OFFERTORY

Benedic, anima mea, Domino: et noli oblivisci omnes retributiones ejus: qui replet in bonis desiderium tuum, alleluia.

Bless the Lord, O my soul: and never forget all he hath done for thee: who satisfieth thy desire with good things, alleluia.

Let us, in the Secret, unite with the Church in imploring of our Lord to enkindle within our souls the flames of His holy love, that thus our hearts may be in unison with that of our great High Priest, who offers a Sacrifice which is both His own and ours.

After the Secret, follows the Preface; it is that of the holy cross. Jesus was still attached to the sacred Wood, when His Heart was pierced and opened. The choice of such a Preface was an act of reverential love paid, by our holy mother, to the glorious instrument which gave her life by working her redemption.

SECRET

Tuere nos, Domine, tua tibi holocausta offerentes: ad quæ ut ferventius corda nostra præparentur, flammis adure tuæ divinæ caritatis. Qui vivis.

Defend us, O Lord, who offer to thee thy holocaust: and, that our hearts may be more fervently prepared for it, enkindle within them the flames of thy divine charity. Who livest, etc.

PREFACE

Vere dignum et justum est, æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper, et ubique gratias agere, Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus: qui salutem humani generis in ligno crucis constituisti: ut unde mors oriebatur, inde vita resurgeret: et qui in ligno vincebat, in ligno quoque vinceretur: per Christum Dominum nostrum. Per quem majestatem tuam laudant Angeli, adorant Dominationes, tremunt Potestates. Cœli, cœlorumque Virtutes, ac beata Seraphim, socia exsultatione concelebrant. Cum quibus et nostras voces, ut admitti jubeas deprecamur, supplici confessione dicentes: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, etc.

It is truly meet and just, right and available to salvation, that we should always and in all places give thanks to thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God: who hast appointed that the salvation of mankind should be wrought on the wood of the cross: that from whence death came, thence life might arise: and that he, who overcame by the tree, might also by the Tree be overcome: through Christ our Lord. By whom the Angels praise thy majesty, the Dominations adore it, the Powers tremble before it. The Heavens and the heavenly Virtues, and the blessed Seraphim, with common jubilee glorify it. Together with whom, we beseech thee, that we may be admitted to join our humble voices, saying: Holy, Holy, Holy, etc.

In order to excite in her children the sentiments of reparation to the sacred Heart, which are so much in the spirit of this feast, the Church, at the moment of Communion, reminds them how their Jesus was abandoned, when in the midst of the sufferings which He endured out of love for us.

COMMUNION

Improperium exspectavit cor meum, et miseriam: et sustinui qui simul contristaretur, et non fuit: et qui consolaretur, et non inveni, alleluia.

My heart hath expected reproach and misery: and I looked for one that would grieve together with me, but there was none: and for one that would comfort me, and I found none, alleluia.

The Church, who has just been so closely united with her Spouse in these sacred Mysteries, is able to understand, all the more fully, the lessons given to her by the sacred Heart. She prays that her children may increase in true humility, may abhor the pride which is so rife in this fallen world, and prove themselves to be the disciples of Him, who was meek and humble of heart.

POSTCOMMUNION

Pacificis pasti deliciis, et salutaribus Sacramentis, te supplices exoramus, Domine Deus noster: ut qui mitis es et humilis corde, nos a vitiorum labe purgatos, propensius facias a superbis sæculi vanitatibus abhorrere. Qui vivis.

Being fed with peaceful delights, and life-giving Sacraments, we suppliantly beseech thee, O Lord our God, that thou, who art meek and humble of Heart, wouldst make us to be clean from the stain of every vice, and more steadfastly to abhor the proud vanities of the world. Who livest, etc.

We here give the three hymns of this feast; they are full of beauty and sublime teaching.

HYMN FOR VESPERS

Auctor beate sæculi,
Christe Redemptor omnium, Lumen Patris de lumine, Deusque verus de Deo.

O blessed Creator of this world, Christ, Redeemer of all men, Light of the Father's Light, and true God of God!

Amor coegit te tuus Mortale corpus sumere, Ut novus Adam redderes Quod vetus ille abstulerat:

Ille amor almus artifex Terræ, marisque et siderum,
Errata patrum miserans, Et nostra rumpens vincula.

Non corde discedat tuo Vis illa amoris inclyti: Hoc fonte gentes hauriant Remissionis gratiam.

Percussum ad hoc est lancea, Passumque ad hoc est vulnera, Ut nos lavaret sordibus Unda fluente et sanguine.

Decus Parenti et Filio, Sanctoque sit Spiritui: Quibus potestas, gloria, Regnumque in omne est sæculum.
Amen.

It was thy love compelled thee to assume a mortal body, that thou, the new Adam, mightest restore what the old one had taken from us.

That gracious love, which had created this earth, and sea and stars, had pity on the sins of our first parents, and broke our chains.

Let not the vehemence of thine admirable love depart from thy Heart; and let all nations come to this fount, and thence draw the grace of pardon

For this it was struck by the spear, for this it suffered the wounds, that it might cleanse us from our defilements, by the Water and Blood which flowed from it.

Be honour to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost! To whom are power, glory, and the kingdom, for all ages!

Amen.

HYMN FOR MATINS

En ut superba criminum

Oh! see how the haughty

Et sæva nostrorum cohors and savage host of our sins has

Cor sauciavit innocens

wounded the innocent Heart

Merentis haud tale Dei.

of our God, who deserved far other treatment!

Vibrantis hastam militis Peccata nostra dirigunt, Ferrumque diræ cuspidis
Mortale crimen acuit.

It is our sins that direct the spear of the soldier who brandishes it; and deadly sin it is, that sharpens the steel of the cruel lance.

Ex corde scisso Ecclesia Christo jugata nascitur: Hoc ostium arcæ in latere est
Genti ad salutem positum.

From this wounded Heart is born the Church, the bride of Christ: this opened Side is the door set in the side of the Ark for the salvation of his people.

Ex hoc perennis gratia, Ceu septiformis fluvius; Stolas ut illic sordidas Lavemus Agni in sanguine.

From this there flows a perennial grace, like a sevenfold stream; that there, in the Blood of the Lamb, we may wash our sullied robes.

Turpe est redire ad crimina, Quæ cor beatum lacerent;
Sed æmulemur cordibus
Flammas amoris indices.

It is a crying shame if we repeat our sins, which wound that blessed Heart; yea, rather let us strive to kindle within our hearts the flames which burn round his, and are symbols of its love.

Hoc, Christe, nobis, hoc Pater, Hoc, sancte, dona, Spiritus, Quibus potestas, gloria, Regnumque in omne est sæculum.

Give us this grace, O Jesus! give it us, thou, O Father! and thou, O holy Spirit! To whom are power, glory, and the kingdom, for all ages!

Amen.

HYMN FOR LAUDS

Cor arca legem continens, Non servitutis veteris, Sed gratiæ, sed veniæ,
Sed et misericordiæ.

O Heart! thou ark holding within thee the Law, not of the old bondage, but of grace, and of pardon, and of mercy.

Cor sanctuarium novi Intemeratum fœderis,
Templum vetusto sanctius,

O Heart! Thou spotless sanctuary of the new covenant! thou temple, holier than the

Velumque scissum utilius.

one of old! Thou veil, that wast torn, but by a tearing of such great boon to us.

Te vulneratum caritas Ictu patenti voluit, Amoris invisibilis Ut veneremur vulnera.

It was thy love that would have thy Heart wounded with this open wound, that we might see (through it) the wounds of thine unseen love, and venerate them.

Hoc sub amoris symbolo Passus cruenta et mystica, Utrumque sacrificium Christus sacerdos obtulit.

Under this symbol of love, Christ, our High Priest, having suffered both cruelly and mystically, offered the twofold Sacrifice.

Quis non amantem redamet? Quis non redemptus diligat, Et corde in isto seligat Æterna tabernacula?

Who would not love the Saviour who loves him? Who would not love him, by whom he has been redeemed? Who would not wish to take up his abode for ever in this his Jesus' Heart?

Decus Parenti et Filio, Sanctoque sit Spiritui: Quibus potestas, gloria, Regnumque in omne est sæculum.

Be honour to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost! To whom are power, glory, and the kingdom, for all ages!

Amen.

THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

MASS

Thy faithful soul has now witnessed in the holy liturgy the close of the mysteries of our redemption. The Holy Ghost has come down to support her during this second portion of her career, by forming and developing within her the fullness of the Christian life as taught by her divine Saviour when on earth. He begins by teaching her how to pray. Prayer, said our Lord, must be continual: we ought always to pray, and not to faint.¹ We know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the holy Spirit helpeth our infirmity, and Himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings.²

In the Introit and the whole Mass for this Sunday, we are taught that prayer must have, amongst its other requisite qualities, that of humble repentance for our past sins, and of confidence in God's infinite mercy.

This is the Third Sunday after Pentecost; it is the first that has no rubrical connexion with the great feasts we have been solemnizing; it is a Sunday with all the simplicity of the Office of the Time.

INTROIT

Respice in me, et miserere mei, Domine, quoniam
unicus et pauper sum ego; vide humilitatem meam, et laborem meum: et dimitte omnia peccata mea, Deus
meus.

Look thou upon me, and have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am alone and poor; see my abjection and my labour; and forgive me all my sins, O my God.

Ps. Ad te, Domine, levavi
animam meam: Deus meus,
in te confido, non erubescam. Gloria Patri. Respice.

Ps. To thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul: in thee, O my God, I place my trust, let me not be ashamed. Glory, etc. Look thou.

COLLECT

Protector in te sperantium, Deus, sine quo nihil
est validum, nihil sanctum: multiplica super nos misericordiam tuam; ut, te rectore, te duce, sic transeamus per bona temporalia, ut non amittamus æterna. Per Dominum.

O God, the protector of those who hope in thee, without whose aid, nothing is strong, nothing holy: increase thy mercy towards us; that under thy direction and conduct, we may so pass through the blessings of this life, as not to lose those which are eternal. Through, etc.

SECOND COLLECT

A cunctis nos quæsumus,
Domine, mentis et corporis
defende periculis; et intercedente beata et gloriosa semper Virgine Dei Genitrice Maria, cum beato Joseph, beatis apostolis tuis Petro et Paulo, atque beato N. et omnibus sanctis, salutem nobis tribue benignus et pacem; ut destructis adversitatibus et erroribus universis, Ecclesia tua secura tibi serviat libertate.

Preserve us, O Lord, we beseech thee, from all dangers of soul and body: and, by the intercession of the glorious and blessed Mary, the ever Virgin Mother of God, of blessed Joseph, of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, of blessed N. (here is mentioned the titular saint of the church), and of all the saints, grant us, in thy mercy, health and peace; that, all adversities and errors being removed, thy Church may serve thee with undisturbed liberty.

The third Collect is left to the priest's own choice.

EPISTLE

Lectio Epistolæ beati Petri
Apostoli.

I. Cap. v.

Carissimi, humiliamini sub potenti manu Dei, ut vos exaltet in tempore visitationis: omnem sollicitudinem vestram projicientes in eum, quoniam ipsi cura est de vobis. Sobrii estote, et vigilate: quia adversarius vester diabolus tanquam leo rugiens circuit, quærens
quem devoret: cui resistite fortes in fide; scientes eamdem passionem ei, quæ in
mundo est, vestræ fraternitati fieri. Deus autem omnis gratiæ, qui vocavit nos
in æternam suam gloriam
in Christo Jesu, modicum passos ipse perficiet, confirmabit, solidabitque. Ipsi gloria, et imperium in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Lesson of the Epistle of Saint

I. Ch. v.

Dearly beloved: be ye humbled under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in the time of visitation. Casting all your care upon him, for he hath care of you. Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist ye, strong in faith; knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little, will himself perfect you, and confirm you, and establish you. To him be glory and empire for ever and ever. Amen.

The miseries of this present life are the test to which God puts His soldiers; He passes judgment upon them, and classifies them, according to the degree of courage they have shown. Therefore is it, that we all have our share of suffering. The combat has commenced. God is looking on, watching how each of us comports himself. The day is not far off, when the Judge will pass sentence on the merits of each combatant, and award to each one the recompense he has won. Combat now; peace and rest and a crown, then. Happy they who, during these days of probation, have recognized the mighty hand of God in all the trials they have had, and have humbled themselves under its pressure, lovingly and confidingly! Against such Christians, who have been strong in faith, the roaring lion has not been able to prevail. They were sober, they were watchful, during this their pilgrimage. They were fully convinced of this, that every one has to suffer in the present life; they therefore never sighed and moaned, as though they were the only sufferers; they did not assume the attitude of victims, and call it resignation; but they took each trial as it came, and, without talking to every one about it, they quietly and joyously united it with the sufferings of Christ. O true Christians! you will be joyous for all eternity, when there will be made the manifestation of that eternal glory in Christ Jesus, which He will pass on to you, that you may share it with Him for ever!

The Gradual keeps up the same strain: it encourages the faithful soul to confidence. Let her cast all her care upon her heavenly Father; has He not always graciously heard her in all her troubles and necessities? As to enemies, let her cast away the thought; God will think of that, and, if it so please Him, will avenge the soul they persecuted.

GRADUAL

Jacta cogitatum tuum in Domino: et ipse te enutriet.

Cast thy care upon the Lord: and he shall sustain thee.

℣. Dum clamarem ad Dominum, exaudivit vocem
meam ab his qui appropinquant mihi.

℣. When I cried out to the
Lord, he graciously heard my voice against those who were coming upon me.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Alleluia, alleluia.

℣. Deus judex justus,
fortis et patiens, numquid irascitur per singulos dies? Alleluia.

℣. God is a just judge,
strong and patient; is he angry every day? Alleluia.

GOSPEL

Sequentia sancti Evangelii
secundum Lucam. Cap. xv.

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to Luke. Ch. xv.

In illo tempore, erant appropinquantes ad Jesum publicani et peccatores, ut audirent illum. Et murmurabant pharisæi, et scribæ, dicentes: Quia hic peccatores
recipit, et manducat cum illis. Et ait ad illos parabolam istam, dicens: Quis ex vobis homo, qui habet centum oves: et si perdiderit unum ex illis, nonne dimittit nonaginta novem in deserto, et vadit ad illam, quæ perierat, donec inveniat eam? Et cum
invenerit eam, imponit in humeros suos gaudens: et veniens domum, convocat amicos, et vicinos, dicens illis: Congratulamini mihi quia inveni ovem meam quæ perierat! Dico vobis quod ita
gaudium erit in cœlo super
uno peccatore pœnitentiam
agente, quam super nonaginta novem justis, qui non indigent pœnitentia. Aut quæ
mulier habens drachmas decem, si perdiderit drachmam unam, nonne accendit lucernam, et everrit domum, et quærit diligenter donec inveniat? Et cum invenerit,
convocat amicas et vicinas, dicens: Congratulamini mihi quia inveni drachmam, quam perdideram? Ita dico vobis, gaudium erit coram angelis Dei super uno peccatore pœnitentiam agente.

At that time: the publicans and sinners drew near unto him to hear him. And the pharisees and scribes murmured, saying: This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. And he spoke to them this parable, saying: What man of you that hath a hundred sheep, and if he shall lose one of them, doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which was lost until he find it? And when he hath found it, lay it upon his shoulders rejoicing: and coming home call together his friends and neighbours, saying to them: Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost? I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance. Or what woman having ten groats: if she lose one groat, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently until she find it? And when she hath found it, call together her friends and neighbours, saying: Rejoice with me, because I have found the groat which I had lost? So I say to you there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance.

The parable of the sheep that is carried back to the fold on the shepherd's shoulders was a favourite one with the early Christians; and they made representations of it at almost every turn. The same is put before us in to-day's Gospel, that our confidence may be strengthened in God's infinite mercy. It reminds us, in its own beautiful way, of our Lord Jesus; whom we contemplated, a few weeks back, ascending triumphantly into heaven, carrying thither, in His arms, the fallen human family, which He had won back from satan and death and sin. For, as St. Ambrose says, "who is the Shepherd of our parable? It is Christ, who carries thee, poor man, in His own Body, and has taken all thy sins upon Himself. The sheep is one, not by number, but by its kind. Rich Shepherd this, of whose flock all we human beings form but the hundredth part! for He has the Angels, and Archangels, and Dominations, and Powers, and Thrones, and all the rest; all those other countless flocks, whom He has left yonder up the mountain, that He might run after the one sheep He had lost."¹

But it is from St. Gregory the Great that the Church, in her Matins of this Sunday, took the commentary on this Gospel. And in the sequel of his homily, the holy doctor gives us the explanation of the parable of the woman and the ten groats. "He," says St. Gregory, "that is signified by the shepherd is also meant by the woman. Jesus is God; He is the Wisdom of God. And because good coin must bear the image of the king upon it, therefore was it that the woman lost her groat, when man, who had been created after God's image, strayed from

¹ St. Luke xviii. 1.
² Rom. viii. 26.

that image by committing sin. But the woman lights a lamp; the Wisdom of God hath appeared in human flesh. A lamp is a light which burns in a vessel of clay; and Light in a vessel of clay, is the Divinity in our flesh. It is of the vessel of His Body, that this Wisdom says: My strength is dried up like a potsherd.¹ For, just as clay is made hard by the fire, so His strength was dried up like a potsherd, because it has strengthened unto the glory of His resurrection, in the crucible of sufferings, the Flesh which He (Wisdom) had assumed. . . . Having found the groat she had lost, the woman calleth together her friends and neighbours, saying: Rejoice with me! because I have found the groat which I had lost. Who are these friends and neighbours, if not the heavenly spirits, who are so near to divine Wisdom by the favours they enjoy of the ceaseless vision? But we must not, meanwhile, neglect to examine why this woman, who represents divine Wisdom, is described as having ten groats, one of which she loses, then looks for, and again finds. We must know, then, that God made both angels and men, that they might know Him; and that having made both immortal, He made both to the image of God. The woman, then, had ten groats, because there are nine orders of angels, and man, who is to fill up the number of the elect, is the tenth groat; he was lost by his sin, but was found again, because eternal Wisdom restored him, by lighting the lamp, that is, by assuming his flesh, and through that working wonderful works, which led to his recovery.²

The Offertory is an outpouring of gratitude and love for the God who dwelleth in Sion; He does not abandon them that seek Him; He does not forget the poor man's prayer.

¹ Ps. xxi. 16. ² St. Greg. Homil. xxxiv. in Evangelia.

OFFERTORY

Sperent in te omnes, qui noverunt nomen tuum, Domine: quoniam non derelinquis quærentes te: psallite Domino, qui habitat in Sion, quoniam non est oblitus orationem pauperum.

Let them trust in thee, O Lord, who know thy name: for thou hast not forsaken them that seek thee. Sing ye to the Lord who dwelleth in Sion: for that he hath not forgotten the prayer of the poor.

SECRET

Respice, Domine, munera supplicantis Ecclesiæ: et saluti credentium perpetua sanctificatione sumenda concede. Per Dominum.

Look down, O Lord, on the offerings of thy suppliant Church; and grant that thy faithful may always worthily partake thereof in order to their salvation. Through, &c.

SECOND SECRET

Exaudi nos, Deus Salutaris noster: ut per hujus Sacramenti virtutem, a cunctis nos mentis et corporis hostibus tuearis, gratiam tribuens in præsenti, et gloriam in futuro.

Graciously hear us, O God our Saviour: that by virtue of this Sacrament, thou mayst defend us from all enemies, of both soul and body: grant us grace in this life, and glory in the next.

The third Secret is left to the priest's own choice.

The Preface is that appointed for all Sundays during the year, page 45; unless a feast is being kept which has a proper one assigned to it.

The Communion-anthem recalls to our minds, and with much appropriateness, the merciful teaching of to-day's Gospel, now that eternal Wisdom has regained full possession of the lost groat, by means of the sacred Banquet, which He Himself had given to the repentant prodigal.

COMMUNION

Dico vobis: gaudium est angelis Dei, super uno peccatore pœnitentiam agente.

I say to you: there is joy among the angels of God over one sinner doing penance.

POSTCOMMUNION

Sancta tua nos, Domine, sumpta vivificent: et misericordiæ sempiternæ præparent expiatos. Per Dominum.

May thy sacred mysteries, O Lord, which we have received, give us life; and cleansing us from our sins, make us worthy of thy eternal mercy. Through, etc.

SECOND POSTCOMMUNION

Mundet et muniat nos, quæsumus, Domine, divini Sacramenti munus oblatum, et intercedente beata Virgine Dei Genitrice Maria, cum beato Joseph, beatis apostolis tuis Petro et Paulo, atque beato N. et omnibus sanctis, a cunctis nos reddat et perversitatibus expiatos, et adversitatibus expeditos.

May the oblation of this divine Sacrament, we beseech thee, O Lord, both cleanse and defend us; and by the intercession of blessed Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, of blessed Joseph, of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, of blessed N. and of all the saints, free us from all sin, and deliver us from all adversity.

The third Postcommunion is left to the priest's own choice.

VESPERS

The psalms, capitulum, hymn, and versicle, as above, pages 71-79.

ANTIPHON OF THE MAGNIFICAT

Quæ mulier habens drachmas decem, et si perdiderit drachmam unam, nonne accendit lucernam, et everrit domum, et quærit diligenter donec inveniat?

What woman having ten groats, if she lose one groat, doth not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and seek diligently until she find it?

OREMUS

Protector in te sperantium, Deus, sine quo nihil est validum, nihil sanctum: multiplica super nos misericordiam tuam; ut, te rectore, te duce, sic transeamus per bona temporalia, ut non amittamus æterna. Per Dominum.

LET US PRAY

O God, the protector of those who hope in thee, without whose aid, nothing is strong, nothing holy: increase thy mercy towards us; that under thy direction and conduct, we may so pass through the blessings of this life, as not to lose those which are eternal. Through, etc.

END OF FIRST VOLUME TIME AFTER PENTECOST

THE APOSTLES' CREED

Credo in Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem cæli et terræ.

Et in Jesum Christum

I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ his

Filium ejus unicum, Dominum nostrum: qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine, passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus et sepultus: descendit ad inferos, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis: ascendit ad cœlos, sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis: inde venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos.

Credo in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam, sanctorum communionem, remissionem peccatorum, carnis resurrectionem, vitam æternam. Amen.

only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God the Father almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.

After having thus made the profession of your faith, unite with holy Church, who hails each morning the rising of the day-star, who is her Jesus, 'the light of the world,'¹ and the Sun of justice. To this end you may recite the following beautiful hymn, composed by St. Ambrose:

HYMN

Splendor Paternæ gloriæ,
De luce lucem proferens, Lux lucis, et fons luminis, Diem dies illuminans.

Verusque sol illabere, Micans nitore perpeti: Jubarque Sancti Spiritus Infunde nostris sensibus.

Votis vocemus et Patrem, Patrem perennis gloriæ,

O Brightness of the Father's glory! bringing light from the light! Thou light of light, and fount of light, and day that illuminest the day!

O thou true sun! pour forth thy rays on us, shining upon us with unfading splendour! O radiance of the Holy Ghost, be thou infused into our senses and powers.

Give us also to invoke the Father, the Father of eternal

¹ St. John viii. 12.

Patrem potentis gratiæ,
Culpam releget lubricam.

Confirmet actus strenuos, Dentes retundat invidi: Casus secundet asperos, Donet gerendi gratiam.

Mentem gubernet et regat, Casto, fideli corpore; Fides calore ferveat, Fraudis venena nesciat.

Christusque nobis sit cibus, Potusque noster sit fides: Læti libamus sobriam
Ebrietatem Spiritus.

Lætus dies hic transeat,
Pudor sit ut diluculum, Fides velut meridies, Crepusculum mens nesciat.

Aurora cursus provehit, Aurora totus prodeat, In Patre totus Filius, Et totus in Verbo Pater.

Deo Patri sit gloria, Ejusque soli Filio, Cum Spiritu Paraclito, Et nunc, et in perpetuum. Amen.

glory, the Father of mighty grace, that he would drive from us sin and its allurements.

May he give energy to our deeds and strengthen them; may he break the teeth of the envious serpent; may he support us when we rudely fall, and give us the grace to act.

May he govern and rule our mind, in a chaste and faithful body; may our faith be fervent in warmth, void of the poisons of error.

May Christ be our food, and faith our drink; may we in gladness quaff the sober inebriation of the Spirit.

May this day be one of joy; modesty its dawn, faith its noon; and no night to dim the mind.

The aurora is swiftly advancing; O may the full aurora come, the whole Son in the Father, and the whole Father in his Word!

To God the Father, and to his only Son, and to the Paraclete Spirit, be glory for ever and ever.

Amen.

After having thus paid your homage to your divine mediator, next make a humble confession of your sins, for this was the general formula made use of by the Church.

THE CONFESSION OF SINS

Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatæ Mariæ semper

I confess to almighty God, to blessed Mary ever Virgin, to

Virgini, beato Michaeli archangelo, beato Joanni Baptistæ, sanctis apostolis Petro et Paulo, et omnibus sanctis, quia peccavi nimis, cogitatione, verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, beatum Michaelem archangelum, beatum Joannem Baptistam, sanctos apostolos Petrum et Paulum et omnes sanctos, orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum.

Misereatur nostri omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis nostris, perducat nos ad vitam æternam. Amen.

Indulgentiam, absolutionem et remissionem peccatorum nostrorum tribuat nobis omnipotens et misericors Dominus. Amen.

blessed Michael the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed; through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.

Therefore I beseech blessed Mary ever Virgin, blessed Michael the archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints, to pray to the Lord our God for me.

May almighty God have mercy on us, and, our sins being forgiven, bring us to life everlasting. Amen.

May the almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution and remission of our sins. Amen.

This is the proper time for making your meditation, as, no doubt, you practise this holy exercise. It may be the case with some souls that their assiduous application to the mysteries of the holy liturgy has produced upon them this, among other effects—that it has opened to them the way of prayer, properly so called. Let, then, each one commune with God under the influence of the Holy Spirit. During this long period, which never lasts less than six months, the Christian is free to choose the subject of his communings with God, for he has been enlightened as to all things, by the words and works of his Lord, who came down from heaven to earth that He might teach us all truth. So that, whether he stay to ponder over the mysteries which have been revealed to him, according to the attraction which he feels for them; or fix his attention upon the perfections of that divine model, in whom there are, so resplendently, all the marks of the second Adam come down from heaven; or our Lord point out to him those miseries and imperfections which are in him, and keep him still so far from his model: all will tend to enlighten him, to inflame him, and to unite him with his God. When a soul is continually being influenced by her contact with the Church through the liturgy, it is impossible for the spirit of prayer not to grow within her, and, either imperceptibly or suddenly, produce in her a transformation into Him, who, being God, has united Himself to our nature, in order that, through Him, we might be united with God.

Your meditation or prayer ended, or deferred on account of your not having leisure to make it at this hour of the morning, you will next address this prayer to God, begging Him to grant you the grace to avoid, during this day, every kind of sin, and to perform all manner of good works. Say, then, this prayer of the Church, for her prayers are the best:

℣. Domine, exaudi orationem meam,

℟. Et clamor meus ad te veniat.

℣. O Lord, hear my prayer,

℟. And let my cry come unto thee.

OREMUS — LET US PRAY

Domine, Deus omnipotens, qui ad principium hujus diei nos pervenire fecisti, tua nos hodie salva virtute, ut in hac die ad nullum declinemus peccatum; sed semper ad tuam justitiam faciendam nostra procedant eloquia, dirigantur cogitationes et opera. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Almighty Lord and God, who hast brought us to the beginning of this day, let thy powerful grace so conduct us through it that we may not fall into any sin; but that all our thoughts, words, and actions may be regulated according to the rules of thy heavenly justice, and tend to the observance of thy law. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

During the day you would do well to use the instructions and prayers which you will find in these volumes, both for the proper of the time and the proper of the saints. In the evening you may use the following prayers.

NIGHT PRAYERS

After having made the sign of the cross, adore that sovereign Lord, who now offers you repose after the labours of the day. Beg His protection on these hours of sleep and night; to this end, you may recite this beautiful hymn of St. Ambrose, which was so great a favourite with St. Augustine, his disciple.¹

HYMN

Deus, Creator omnium
Polique rector, vestiens Diem decoro lumine, Noctem soporis gratia.

Artus solutos ut quies Reddat laboris usui, Mentesque fessas allevet, Luctusque solvat anxios.

Grates, peracto jam die, Et noctis exortu, preces, Voti reos ut adjuves, Hymnum canentes, solvimus.

Te cordis ima concinant, Te vox sonora concrepet, Te diligat castus amor,

O God, Creator of all things, and ruler of the heavens, 'tis thou that clothest day with beautiful light, and night with the boon of sleep.

'Tis sleep that restores our wearied limbs to the toil of work. Sleep gives repose to the mind when tired, and takes away the anxious-making grief.

The day is spent, and night is come; we offer thee our thanks and prayers, singing our hymn, that thou mayst help us, thy servants.

May our inmost heart sing thy praise, and tuneful voices sound forth thy name; may

¹ Confessions, Bk. ix., ch. 12.

Te mens adoret sobria.

Ut, cum profunda clauserit Diem caligo noctium, Fides tenebras nesciat Et nox fide reluceat.

Dormire mentem ne sinas, Dormire culpa noverit; Castos fides refrigerans Somni vaporem temperet.

Exuta sensu lubrico Te cordis alta somnient; Nec hostis invidi dolo Pavor quietos suscitet.

Christum rogemus et Patrem, Christi Patrisque Spiritum: Unum, potens per omnia, Fove precantes, Trinitas. Amen.

our chaste affection love, and our sober mind adore thee.

And when the night's deep gloom shall shut out the day, may our faith know nought of darkness, and the very night be day by faith.

Let not our soul, but only sin feel sleep; let faith keep us chaste, and by its refreshing power, check the vapours of sleep.

May our heart's deepest self, unshackled by the allurements of sense, dream of thee; nor let the fear of the enemy, whose envy is ever laying snares, disturb us when at rest.

Let our prayer ascend to Christ and to the Father, and to the Spirit of Christ and of the Father: O Trinity, one in essence, and all-powerful, be merciful to us, who pray to thee.

Amen.

After this hymn, say the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Apostles' Creed, as in the morning.

Then make the examination of conscience, going over in your mind all the faults committed during the day. Think, and humble yourself at the thought, how sin makes us degenerate from the divine adoption. Then make a resolution to avoid sin for the time to come, to do penance for it, and to shun the occasions which might again lead you into it.

Having concluded the examination of conscience, recite the Confiteor (or 'I confess') with heartfelt contrition; and then give expression to your sorrow by the following act, which we have taken from the venerable Cardinal Bellarmine's catechism.

ACT OF CONTRITION

O my God, I am exceedingly grieved for having offended thee; and, with my whole heart, I repent of the sins I have committed: I hate and abhor them, above every other evil, not only because, by so sinning, I have lost heaven, and deserve hell, but still more because I have offended thee, O infinite Goodness, who art worthy to be loved above all things. I most firmly resolve, by the assistance of thy grace, never more to offend thee for the time to come, and to avoid those occasions which might lead me into sin.

You may then add the acts of faith, hope, and charity, to the recitation of which Pope Benedict XIV. has granted an indulgence of seven years and seven quarantines for each time.

ACT OF FAITH

O my God, I firmly believe whatsoever the holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church requires me to believe: I believe it, because thou hast revealed it to her, thou who art the very truth.

ACT OF HOPE

O my God, knowing thine almighty power, and thine infinite goodness and mercy, I hope in thee that, by the merits of the Passion and death of our Saviour Jesus Christ, thou wilt grant me eternal life, which thou hast promised to all such as shall do the works of a good Christian; and these I resolve to do, with the help of thy grace.

ACT OF CHARITY

O my God, I love thee with my whole heart and above all things, because thou art the sovereign Good: I would rather lose all things than offend thee. For thy love also, I love, and desire to love, my neighbour as myself.

Then say to our blessed Lady the following solemn anthem, which the Church says, in her honour, till Advent.

ANTHEM TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN

Salve, Regina, mater misericordiæ: vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.

Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevæ;

Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrymarum valle.

Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte.

Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exsilium ostende;

O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo Maria!

℣. Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix,

℟. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

OREMUS

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui gloriosæ Virginis Matris Mariæ corpus et animam, ut dignum Filii tui habitaculum effici mereretur, Spiritu Sancto cooperante præparasti: da, ut cujus commemoratione lætamur, ejus pia intercessione ab instantibus malis, et a morte perpetua liberemur. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy; our life, our sweetness, and our hope, all hail!

To thee we cry, poor banished children of Eve;

To thee we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us;

And, after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus;

O merciful, O kind, O sweet Virgin Mary!

℣. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,

℟. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

. Àmen. . The Lord be with you. Er. And with thy spirit. Y. Let us bless the Lord. Ry. Thanks be to God. May the almighty and mer- ciful Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, bless and pre- serve us.

H. Amen.

ANTHEM TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN

Salve, Regina, mater mi- sericordis.

Vita, dulcedo, et spes no- stra, salve.

Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevea;

Ad te suspiramus, gemen-

Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy. Our life, our sweetness, and our hope, all hail! To thee we cry, poor banish- ed children of Eve: To thee we send up our

--- PAGE 100 --- COMPLINE

tes et flentes in hac lacry- marum valle.

Eis, ergo, advocata no- stra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte;

Et Jesum benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exilium ostende;

O clemens,

Opi

O dulcis Virgo Maris.

y. Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix.

Br. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

OREMUB

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui gloriose Virginis
Matris Maris corpus et ani- mam, ut dignum Filii tui habitaculum effici merere- tur, Spiritu sancto coope- rante, rasti: da ut cujus commemoratione le- famur, ejus pia interces- sione ab instantibus malis et a morte perpetua libere- mur. Per eumdem Chri- stum Dominum nostrum.

y Amen. . Divinum auxilium ma- neat semper nobiscum.

E. Amen.

sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

Turn, then, most gracious advocate! thine eyes of mercy towards us,

And, after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus;

O merciful,

O kind,

O sweet Virgin Mary!

T. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,

Er. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

LET US PRAY

O almighty and everlasting God, who by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, didst pre- pare the body and soul of Mary, glorious "Virgin and Mother, to become the worthy habitation of thy Son: grant that we may be delivered from present evils, and from ever- lasting death, by her gracious intercession, in whose com- memoration we rejoice. Through the same Christ our Lord.

. Amen. . May the divineassistance remain always with us.

E. Amen.’

Then in secret Pater, Ave, and Credo; page 12.

! In the monastic rite this response is as follows:

By. Et cum fratribus no- siris absentibus. Amen.

Br. And with our absent brethren. Amen.

--- PAGE 101 --- 90 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

FEAST OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

Ow the day of Pentecost the holy apostles received, as we have seen, the graoe of the Holy Ghost. In ao- cordance with the injunction of their divine Master,! they will soon start on their mission of teaching all nations, and baptizing men in the name of the Sly Trinity. It was but right, then, that the solemnity which is intended to honour the mystery of one God in three Persons should immediately follow that.of Pentecost, with which it has a mysterious connection. And yet, it was not until after many centuries that it was inserted in the cycle of the liturgical year, whose completion is the work of successive ages.

Every homage paid to God by the Church's liturgy has the holy Reinity as its object. Time, as well as eternity, belongs to the Trinity. The Trinity is the scope of all religion. Every day, every hour, belongs to It. The feasts instituted in memory of the mys-

* teries of our redemption centre in It. The feasts of the blessed Virgin and the saints are but so many means for leading us to the praise of the God who 1s One in essence, and Three in Persons. The Sunday’s Office, in a very special way, gives us, each week, a most explicit expression of adoration and worship of this mystery, which is the foundation of all others, and the source of all ;

This explains to us how it is that the Church was go long in instituting a special feast in honour of the

1 St. Matt. xxviii. 19.

--- PAGE 102 --- TRINITY SUNDAY 91

holy Trinity. The ordinary motive for the institution of feasts did not exist in this instance. A feast is the memorial of some fact which took place at a certain time, and of which it is well to perpetuate the remem- brance and the influence. How could this be applied to the mystery of the Trinity? From all eternity, be- fore any created being existed, God liveth and reign- eth, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If a feast in honour of that mystery were to be instituted, it could only be by fixing some one day in the year, whereon the faithful would assemble for offering a more than usually solemn tribute of worship to the mystery of Unity and Trinity in the one same divine Nature.

The idea of such a feast was first conceived by some of those pious and recollected souls, who are favoured from on high with a sort of presentiment of the things which the Holy Ghost will achieve, at a future period, in the Church. So far back as the eighth century, the learned monk Alcuin had had the happy thought of composing a Mass in honour of the mystery of the blessed Trinity. It would seem that he was prompted to this by the apostle of Germany, Saint Boniface. That this composition is a beautiful one, no one will doubt that knows, from Aleuin's writings, how full its author was of the spirit of sacred liturgy; but, after all, it was only a votive Mass, a mere help to pe devotion, which no one ever thought would

ead to the institution of a feast. This Mass, however,

became a great favourite, and was gradually ecircu- lated through the several Churches; for instance, it was approved of for Germany by the Council of Selingenstadt, held in 1022.

In the previous century, however, a feast properly so called of holy Trinity had been introduced into one of the Churches of Belgium—the very same that was to have the honour, later on, of procuring to the. Church's calendar one of the richest of its solemnities.

--- PAGE 103 --- 92 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

Stephen, bishop of Liége, solemnly instituted the feast of holy Trinity for his Church, in 920, and had an entire Office composed in honour of the mystery. The Church's law, which now reserves to the holy See the institution of any new feast, was not then in existence; and Riquier, Stephen’s successor in the See of Liége, kept up what his predecessor had hs. 57

The feast was gradually adopted. The Benedictine Order took it up from the very first. We find, for instance, in the early part of the eleventh century, that Berno, the abbot of Reichna, was doing all he could to propagate it. At Cluny, also, the feast was established at the commencement of the same century, as we learn from the Ordinarium of that celebrated monastery, drawn up in 1091, in which we find men- tion of holy Trinity day as having been instituted long before.

Thicker the pontificate of Alexander II, who reign- ed from 1061 to 1073, the heh of Sou, mie has uently sanctioned the usages of parti rade by herself adopting them, was led to judgment upon this new institution. In one of his decretals, the Pontiff mentions that the feast was then kept in many places; but that the Church at Rome had not adopted it, and for this reason: that the adorable Trinity is, every day of the year, unceasing- ly invoked by the repetition of the words: Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritus sancto; as likewise by several formulas expressive of praise.’

Meanwhile, the feast went on gaining ground, as we pee from the Micrologus ; and, in the early part of the twelfth century, we have the learned abbot Rupert, who may justly be styled a dootor in litur- gioal science, explaining the appropriateness of that

1 De feriis. Cap. Quomiam. This decretal has been erroneously attributed to Alexander III.

--- PAGE 104 --- TRINITY SUNDAY 93

feast’s institution in these words: ‘Having celebrated the solemnity of the coming of the Holy Ghost, we, at onoe, on the Sunday next following, sing the glory of the holy Trinity ; and rightly is this arrangement ordained, for, after the coming of the same holy Spirit, the faith in, and confession of, the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, immediately be to be preached, and believed, and celebrated in Baptism."!

In our own country, it was the glorious martyr, St. Thomas of Canterbury, that established the feast of holy Trinity. He introduced it into his archdio- cese, in the D 1162, in memory of his having been consecrated bishop on the first Sunday after Penteoost. As regards France, we find a Council of Arles, held in 1260 under the presidency of archbishop Floren- tinus, solemnly decreeing, in its sixth canon, the feast of holy Trinity to be observed with an octave. The Cistercian Order, which was spread throughout Europe, had ordered it to be celebrated in all its houses, as far back as the year 1230. Durandus, in his Rationale, gives us grounds for concluding that, during the thirteenth century, the majority of the Latin Churches kept this feast. Of these Churches, there were some that celebrated it, not on the first, but on the last, Sunday after Pentecost; others kept it twioe: once on the Sunday next following the Pentecost solemnity, and a second time on the Sun- ony immediately preceding Advent.

t was evident, from all this, that the apostolic See would finally give its sanction to a practice, whose universal adoption was being prompted by Christian instinct. John XXII, who sat in the Chair of Saint Peter as early as the year 1334, completed the work by a decree, wherein the Church of Rome accepted the feast of holy Trinity, and extended its observance to all Churches.

1 De divinis Oftciis, Lib, xi. Cap. 1,

--- PAGE 105 --- 94 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

As to the motive which induced the Church, led as she is in all things by the Holy Ghost, to fix one special day in the year for the offering of a solemn homage to the blessed Trinity, whereas all our adorations, all our acts of thanksgiving, all our peti- tions, are ever being presented to It: such motive is to be found in the change which was being introduced, at that period, into the liturgical calendar. Up to about the year 1000, the feasts of saints askay on the general calendar, and universally kept, were very few. From that time, they began to be more nume- rous; and there was evidence that their number would go on increasing. The time would come, when the Sunday’s Office, which is specially consecrated to the blessed Trinity, must make way for that of the saints, as often as one of their feasts occurred on a Sunday. As a sort of compensation for this cele- bration of the memory of God’s servants on the very day which was sacred to the holy Trinity, it was considered right that once, at least, in the course of the year, a Sunday should be set apart for the exclusive and direct expression of the worship which the Church pays to the great God, who has vouch- safed to reveal Himself to mankind in His ineffable Unity and in His eternal Trinity.

The very essence of the Christian faith consists in the knowledge and adoration of one God in three Persons. This is the mystery whence all others flow. Our faith centres in this as in the master-truth of all it knows in this life, and as the infinite objeot whose vision is to form our eternal happiness; and yet, we know it only because it has Lr God to reveal Himself thus to our lowly intelligence, which, after all, can never fathom the infinite perfections of that God, who necessarily inhabiteth light inaccessible.!

11 Tim. vi. 16,

--- PAGE 106 --- TRINITY SUNDAY 95

Human reason may, of itself, come to the knowledge of the existence of God as Creator of all beings; it may, by its own innate power, form to itself an idea of His perfections by the study of His works; but the knowledge of God’s intimate Being can come to us only by means of His own gracious revelation.

ja was God's good-pleasure to make known to us His essence, in order to bring us into closer union with Himself, and to prepare us, in some way, for that face-to-face vision of Himself which He intends to give us in eternity. But His revelation is gradual: He takes mankind from brightness unto brightness, fitting it for the full knowledge and adoration of Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. During the period preceding the Incarnation of the eternal Word, God seemed intent on inouleating the idea of His Unity, for polytheism was the infectious error of mankind; and every notion of there being a spiritual and sole cause of all things would have been effaced from the earth, had not the infinite goodness of God watched over its preservation.

Not that the old Testament Books were altogether silent on the three divine Persons, whose ineffable relations are eternal; only, the mysterious passages, which spoke of them, were not understood by the people at large; whereas, in the Christian Church, & child of seven will answer those who ask him, that, in God, the three divine Persons have but one and the same Nature, but one and the same Divinity. When the Book of Genesis tells us that God spoke in the plural, and said: ‘Let Us make man to Our image and likeness,’! the Jew bows down and be- lieves, but he understands not the sacred text; the Christian, on the contrary, who has been enlightened by the complete revelation of God, sees, under this

1 Gen. i. 26,

--- PAGE 107 --- 96 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

expression, the three Persons acting together in the formation of man; the light of faith develops the great truth to him, and tells him that, within himself, there is & likeness to the blessed Three in One. Power, understanding, and will, are three faoulties within him, and yet he himself is but one being.

In the Books of Proverbs, Wisdom, and Ecclesias- ticus, Solomon s,in sublime language, of Him who is eternal Wisdom; he tells us—and he uses every variety of grandest expression to tell us—of the divine essence of this Wisdom, and of His being & distinot Person in the Godhead ; but how few among the people of Israel could see through the veil! Isaias heard the voice of the Seraphim, as they stood around God's throne; he heard them singing in alternate choirs, and with a joy intense because eternal, this hymn: ‘Holy! Holy! Holy! isthe Lord !*! But who will explain to men this triple Sanctus, of which the echo is heard here below, when we mortals pe praise to our Creator? So, again, in the Psalms, and the prophetic Books, a flash of light will break suddenly upon us; a brightness of some mysterious Three will dazzle us; but it passes away, and obsou- rity returns seemingly all the more palpable; we have but the sentiment of the divine Unity deeply impressed on our inmost soul, and we adore the Incomprehensible, the sovereign Being. ℟. Deo gratias.

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to Luke.

At that time: Jesus said to his disciples: Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over shall they give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you shall mete withal, it shall be measured to you again. And he spoke also to them a similitude: Can the blind lead the blind? do they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one shall be perfect, if he be as his master. And why seest thou the mote in thy brother's eye; but the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not? Or how canst thou say to thy brother: Brother, let me pull the mote out of thy eye, when thou thyself seest not the beam in thy own eye? Hypocrite, cast first the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to take out the mote from thy brother's eye.

℟. Thanks be to God.

VESPERS

Ant. Gloria tibi, Trinitas æqualis, una Deitas, et ante omnia sæcula, et nunc et in perpetuum.

Ant. Glory be to thee, O equal Trinity, one Deity, both before all ages, and now, and for ever.

Ps. Dixit Dominus, page 72.

Ant. Laus et perennis gloria Deo Patri, et Filio, sancto simul Paraclito, in sæculorum sæcula.

Ant. Praise and perpetual glory be to God, Father and Son, together with the holy Paraclete, for ever and ever.

Ps. Confitebor tibi, page 73.

Ant. Gloria laudis resonet in ore omnium Patri, genitæque Proli; Spiritui sancto pariter resultet laude perenni.

Ant. Let the glory of praise sound in every mouth to the Father, and to the Son begotten of him; to the Holy Ghost, also, let perpetual praise be given.

Ps. Beatus vir, page 74.

Ant. Laus Deo Patri, parilique Proli, et tibi sancte studio perenni Spiritus, nostro resonet ab ore omne per ævum.

Ant. Let praise be given to God the Father, and to his equal Son; and may our lips celebrate thee unceasingly, O holy Spirit, for all ages.

Ps. Laudate pueri, page 75.

Ant. Ex quo omnia, per quem omnia, in quo omnia: ipsi gloria in sæcula.

Ant. From whom are all things, by whom all things, in whom all things—to him be glory for ever.

Ps. In exitu Israel, page 76.

CAPITULUM

O altitudo divitiarum sapientiæ et scientiæ Dei: quam incomprehensibilia sunt judicia ejus, et investigabiles viæ ejus!

O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God; how incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways!

HYMN

Jam sol recedit igneus, Tu lux perennis Unitas, Nostris, beata Trinitas, Infunde amorem cordibus.

Te mane laudum carmine, Te deprecamur vespere; Digneris ut te supplices Laudemus inter cœlites.

Patri simulque Filio, Tibique sancte Spiritus, Sicut fuit, sit jugiter Sæclum per omne gloria.

Amen.

℣. Benedictus es, Domine, in firmamento cœli.

℟. Et laudabilis et gloriosus in sæcula.

Now is the burning sun retreating; do thou, O everlasting Unity, O blessed Trinity, our Light, pour forth love into our hearts.

It is to thee we pray, at morn and eve, in our songs of praise: grant us, thy suppliants, that we may praise thee in the company of the citizens of heaven.

To thee, O God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! may glory be, as it hath ever been, for ever and for endless ages. Amen.

℣. Blessed art thou, O Lord, in the firmament of heaven;

℟. And worthy of praise, and glorious for ever.

ANTIPHON OF THE MAGNIFICAT

Te Deum Patrem ingenitum, te Filium unigenitum, te Spiritum sanctum Paracli-

Thee God the Father unbegotten, thee the only-begotten Son, thee the Holy Ghost the

* In the monastic rite, it is given thus, and is preceded by a responsory:—

℟. breve.— Benedicamus Patrem, et Filium, * Cum sancto Spiritu. Benedicamus.

℣. Laudemus et superexaltemus eum in sæcula. Cum. Gloria Patri, etc. Benedicamus.

O Lux beata Trinitas, Et principalis Unitas, Jam sol recedit igneus, Infunde lumen cordibus.

Te mane laudum carmine, Te deprecamur vespere; Te nostra supplex gloria Per cuncta laudet sæcula.

Deo Patri sit gloria, Ejusque soli Filio, Cum Spiritu Paraclito Et nunc et in perpetuum. Amen.

tum, sanctam et individuam Trinitatem, toto corde et ore confitemur, laudamus, atque benedicimus: tibi gloria in sæcula.

Comforter, holy and undivided Trinity, with all our heart and mouth, we confess, praise, and bless: to thee be glory for ever.

OREMUS

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui dedisti famulis tuis in confessione veræ fidei æternæ Trinitatis gloriam agnoscere, et in potentia majestatis adorare Unitatem; quæsumus ut ejusdem fidei firmitate, ab omnibus semper muniamur adversis. Per Dominum.

LET US PRAY

O almighty and everlasting God, who hast granted thy servants, in the confession of the true faith, to acknowledge the glory of an eternal Trinity, and, in the power of majesty, to adore an Unity: we beseech thee that, by the strength of this faith, we may be defended from all adversity. Through, &c.

COMMEMORATION OF THE SUNDAY

Ant. Nolite judicare, ut non judicemini: in quo enim judicio judicaveritis judicabimini, dicit Dominus.

℣. Dirigatur, Domine, oratio mea,

℟. Sicut incensum in conspectu tuo.

Ant. Judge not, that ye be not judged: for, with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, saith the Lord.

℣. Let my prayer, O Lord, be directed,

℟. As incense in thy sight.

OREMUS

Deus in te sperantium fortitudo, adesto propitius invocationibus nostris: et quia sine te nihil potest mortalis infirmitas, præsta auxilium gratiæ tuæ, ut in exsequendis mandatis tuis, et voluntate tibi et actione placeamus. Per Dominum.

LET US PRAY

O God, the strength of such as hope in thee: mercifully hear us calling on thee: and, since mortal weakness can do nothing without thee, grant us the assistance of thy grace; that, in observing thy commandments, we may please thee both in will and action. Through, &c.

The middle ages have left us several sequences for the feast of the blessed Trinity. They are much overladen with scholastic terms, and, for the most part, have but little melody or poetry in them. They give us the language of the Schools, with so much roughness, that they would scarcely find any readers now-a-days to relish them. There is one, however—the one composed by Adam of Saint Victor—which we here insert, as it maintains, even in its scholastic phraseology, all the majesty and melody which characterize the compositions of that great poet.

SEQUENCE

Profitentes Unitatem Veneremur Trinitatem Pari reverentia, Tres personas asserentes Personali differentes A se differentia.

Hæ dicuntur relative,
Quum sint unum substantive, Non tria principia. Sive dicas tres vel tria, Simplex tamen est usia, Non triplex essentia.

Simplex esse, simplex posse, Simplex velle, simplex nosse, Cuncta simplicia. Non unius quam duarum Sive trium personarum Minor efficacia.

Pater, Proles, sacrum Flamen, Deus unus: sed hi tamen
Habent quædam propria.
Una virtus, unum numen, Unus splendor, unum lumen, Hoc una quod alia.

Patri Proles est æqualis,
Nec hoc tollit personalis Amborum distinctio.

Patri compar Filioque, Spiritalis ab utroque Procedit connexio.

Non humana ratione Capi possunt hæ personæ,
Nec harum discretio. Non hic ordo temporalis, Non hic situs, aut localis Rerum circumscriptio.

Nil in Deo præter Deum,
Nulla causa præter eum
Qui creat causalia. Effectiva vel formalis Causa Deus, et finalis,
Sed nunquam materia.

Digne loqui de personis Vim transcendit rationis Excedit ingenia. Quid sit gigni, quid processus, Me nescire sum professus: Sed fide non dubia.

Qui sic credit, ne festinet, Et a via non declinet Insolenter regia. Servet fidem, formet mores, Nec attendat ad errores Quos damnat Ecclesia.

Nos in fide gloriemur, Nos in una modulemur, Fidei constantia: Trinæ sit laus Unitati,
Sit et simplæ Trinitati
Coæterna gloria!
Amen.

Confessing the divine Unity, we venerate the Trinity with one and the same worship; we acknowledge three Persons, differing from each other by a personal difference.

They have their names from their relations, for they are substantially one, and not three principles. When speaking of them as Three, thou must remember, that their Nature is one, and that their Essence is not threefold.

Their being, and power, and will, and knowledge, all are simple: the power of one is not less than that of two, or of three, Persons.

Father, Son, holy Spirit, one God, and yet have they certain things proper. One power, one deity, one splendour, one light: what one hath, another hath.

The Son is equal to the Father; neither is that equality destroyed by the personal distinction existing between them. Equal to the Father and the Son is the spiritual Bond, who proceedeth from both.

Man's reason cannot comprehend these three Persons, nor their distinction. In this mystery, there is no order of time, no position of place, no boundaries of space.

There is nought in God but God; and, besides him, there is no cause that causeth things produced. God is cause, efficient, and formal, and final; but never cause material.

It is beyond the power of reason or genius to speak worthily of the three Persons. I confess that I know not what divine Generation and Procession are; and yet do I believe them with undoubting faith.

Let him who thus believes, have patience; and not imprudently stray from the royal path. Let him keep his faith, correct his manners, and go not over to those errors which the Church condemns.

Let us glory in our faith; let us sing our hymns, in the constancy of one same faith; be praise to the trinal Unity, and coeternal glory to the simple Trinity!

Amen.

O indivisible Unity! O Trinity distinct in one only Nature! Infinite God, who hast revealed Thyself unto men! graciously bear with us, while we dare to make our adorations before Thee, and pour forth our heart's thanksgiving, feeling ourselves overwhelmed by the vision of Thy majesty. O Unity divine! O divine Trinity! we have not, as yet, seen Thee; but we know that Thou art, for Thou hast vouchsafed to reveal Thyself unto us. This earth, whereon we are living, has the mystery distinctly proclaimed to it, every day of its existence: that same august mystery, whose vision is the source of the happiness enjoyed by the blessed, who are glorified, and are united with Thee in closest union. The human race had to wait long ages, before the divine formula was fully revealed; happy we, who live in its full possession, and can, and do, delightedly proclaim Unity and Trinity in Thine infinite Essence! There was a time, when an inspired writer spoke an allusion to this grandest of truths; but his words flashed across the minds of his hearers, as lightning traverses a cloud, and then leaves it darker than before. "I have not learned Wisdom," said he, "and have not known the science of saints. Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended? Who hath held the wind (the storm) in his hands? Who hath bound up the waters together, as in a garment? Who hath raised up all the borders of the earth? What is his name? and what is the name of his Son, if thou knowest?"¹

Thanks to Thine unbounded mercy, O Lord God! we now know Thy name. Thou art called the Father; and He whom Thou begettest from all eternity is named the Word and Wisdom. We know, too, that from the Father and the Son proceeds the Spirit of love. The Son, clad in our flesh, has dwelt on this earth, and lived amongst men; then came down the Spirit, and He abides for ever with us, till the destinies of the human race are accomplished here below. Therefore do we dare to confess the Unity and the Trinity; for we have heard the divine testimony, and have believed; and, having believed, we have spoken, with all certainty.² Accept, then, this our confession, O Lord, as Thou didst that of Thy brave virgin and martyr, Cecilia, who, when the executioner had thrice struck her neck with the sword, and her noble blood flowed in streams from her wound, expressed her faith, as she breathed forth her soul, and confessed, by the position of her hands, the Unity of Thy Nature and the Trinity of Thy Persons.

The hymn of Thy Seraphim has been heard here on earth: "Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God of hosts!"³ We are but mortals; we are not prophets, as was Isaias; and yet we have a happiness which he had not: we can repeat the song of those blessed spirits, with fulness of knowledge, and can say unto Thee: "Holy is the Father, holy is the Son, holy is the Spirit!" Those same Seraphim flew with two of their wings; with two they hid their face; and with two they covered their feet. So it is with us: strengthened, as we are, by the divine Spirit who has been given to us, we strive to lighten the heavy weight of our frail mortality, and raise it aloft on the wings of desire; we hide our sins by repentance; and veiling the weakness of our intellectual vision beneath the cloud of faith, we receive the light which is infused into our souls. Docile to the revealed word, we submit to its teachings; and it imparts to us not merely a distinct, but even an enlightened, knowledge of that mystery, which is the source and centre of all others. The angels and saints in heaven contemplate it with that inexpressible reserve, which the prophet describes by saying that they hide their face with their wings. We poor mortals have not, and cannot have, the sight of the great truth; but we have the knowledge of it; and this knowledge enlightens our path, and keeps us firm in the truth. We have a dread of presuming to be searchers of Thy majesty, lest we should be overwhelmed by glory; but, humbly treasuring up what heaven has vouchsafed to reveal to us of its secrets, we dare thus to address Thee:

¹ Prov. xxx. 3, 4.
² Ps. cxv. 10; 2 Cor. iv. 13.
³ Is. vi. 3.

. Àmen. . The Lord be with you. Er. And with thy spirit. Y. Let us bless the Lord. Ry. Thanks be to God. May the almighty and mer- ciful Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, bless and pre- serve us.

H. Amen.

ANTHEM TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN

Salve, Regina, mater mi- sericordis.

Vita, dulcedo, et spes no- stra, salve.

Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevea;

Ad te suspiramus, gemen-

Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy. Our life, our sweetness, and our hope, all hail! To thee we cry, poor banish- ed children of Eve: To thee we send up our

--- PAGE 100 --- COMPLINE

tes et flentes in hac lacry- marum valle.

Eis, ergo, advocata no- stra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte;

Et Jesum benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exilium ostende;

O clemens,

Opi

O dulcis Virgo Maris.

y. Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix.

Br. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

OREMUB

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui gloriose Virginis
Matris Maris corpus et ani- mam, ut dignum Filii tui habitaculum effici merere- tur, Spiritu sancto coope- rante, rasti: da ut cujus commemoratione le- famur, ejus pia interces- sione ab instantibus malis et a morte perpetua libere- mur. Per eumdem Chri- stum Dominum nostrum.

y Amen. . Divinum auxilium ma- neat semper nobiscum.

E. Amen.

sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

Turn, then, most gracious advocate! thine eyes of mercy towards us,

And, after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus;

O merciful,

O kind,

O sweet Virgin Mary!

T. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,

Er. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

LET US PRAY

O almighty and everlasting God, who by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, didst pre- pare the body and soul of Mary, glorious "Virgin and Mother, to become the worthy habitation of thy Son: grant that we may be delivered from present evils, and from ever- lasting death, by her gracious intercession, in whose com- memoration we rejoice. Through the same Christ our Lord.

. Amen. . May the divineassistance remain always with us.

E. Amen.’

Then in secret Pater, Ave, and Credo; page 12.

! In the monastic rite this response is as follows:

By. Et cum fratribus no- siris absentibus. Amen.

Br. And with our absent brethren. Amen.

--- PAGE 101 --- 90 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

FEAST OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

Ow the day of Pentecost the holy apostles received, as we have seen, the graoe of the Holy Ghost. In ao- cordance with the injunction of their divine Master,! they will soon start on their mission of teaching all nations, and baptizing men in the name of the Sly Trinity. It was but right, then, that the solemnity which is intended to honour the mystery of one God in three Persons should immediately follow that.of Pentecost, with which it has a mysterious connection. And yet, it was not until after many centuries that it was inserted in the cycle of the liturgical year, whose completion is the work of successive ages.

Every homage paid to God by the Church's liturgy has the holy Reinity as its object. Time, as well as eternity, belongs to the Trinity. The Trinity is the scope of all religion. Every day, every hour, belongs to It. The feasts instituted in memory of the mys-

* teries of our redemption centre in It. The feasts of the blessed Virgin and the saints are but so many means for leading us to the praise of the God who 1s One in essence, and Three in Persons. The Sunday’s Office, in a very special way, gives us, each week, a most explicit expression of adoration and worship of this mystery, which is the foundation of all others, and the source of all ;

This explains to us how it is that the Church was go long in instituting a special feast in honour of the

1 St. Matt. xxviii. 19.

--- PAGE 102 --- TRINITY SUNDAY 91

holy Trinity. The ordinary motive for the institution of feasts did not exist in this instance. A feast is the memorial of some fact which took place at a certain time, and of which it is well to perpetuate the remem- brance and the influence. How could this be applied to the mystery of the Trinity? From all eternity, be- fore any created being existed, God liveth and reign- eth, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If a feast in honour of that mystery were to be instituted, it could only be by fixing some one day in the year, whereon the faithful would assemble for offering a more than usually solemn tribute of worship to the mystery of Unity and Trinity in the one same divine Nature.

The idea of such a feast was first conceived by some of those pious and recollected souls, who are favoured from on high with a sort of presentiment of the things which the Holy Ghost will achieve, at a future period, in the Church. So far back as the eighth century, the learned monk Alcuin had had the happy thought of composing a Mass in honour of the mystery of the blessed Trinity. It would seem that he was prompted to this by the apostle of Germany, Saint Boniface. That this composition is a beautiful one, no one will doubt that knows, from Aleuin's writings, how full its author was of the spirit of sacred liturgy; but, after all, it was only a votive Mass, a mere help to pe devotion, which no one ever thought would

ead to the institution of a feast. This Mass, however,

became a great favourite, and was gradually ecircu- lated through the several Churches; for instance, it was approved of for Germany by the Council of Selingenstadt, held in 1022.

In the previous century, however, a feast properly so called of holy Trinity had been introduced into one of the Churches of Belgium—the very same that was to have the honour, later on, of procuring to the. Church's calendar one of the richest of its solemnities.

--- PAGE 103 --- 92 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

Stephen, bishop of Liége, solemnly instituted the feast of holy Trinity for his Church, in 920, and had an entire Office composed in honour of the mystery. The Church's law, which now reserves to the holy See the institution of any new feast, was not then in existence; and Riquier, Stephen’s successor in the See of Liége, kept up what his predecessor had hs. 57

The feast was gradually adopted. The Benedictine Order took it up from the very first. We find, for instance, in the early part of the eleventh century, that Berno, the abbot of Reichna, was doing all he could to propagate it. At Cluny, also, the feast was established at the commencement of the same century, as we learn from the Ordinarium of that celebrated monastery, drawn up in 1091, in which we find men- tion of holy Trinity day as having been instituted long before.

Thicker the pontificate of Alexander II, who reign- ed from 1061 to 1073, the heh of Sou, mie has uently sanctioned the usages of parti rade by herself adopting them, was led to judgment upon this new institution. In one of his decretals, the Pontiff mentions that the feast was then kept in many places; but that the Church at Rome had not adopted it, and for this reason: that the adorable Trinity is, every day of the year, unceasing- ly invoked by the repetition of the words: Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritus sancto; as likewise by several formulas expressive of praise.’

Meanwhile, the feast went on gaining ground, as we pee from the Micrologus ; and, in the early part of the twelfth century, we have the learned abbot Rupert, who may justly be styled a dootor in litur- gioal science, explaining the appropriateness of that

1 De feriis. Cap. Quomiam. This decretal has been erroneously attributed to Alexander III.

--- PAGE 104 --- TRINITY SUNDAY 93

feast’s institution in these words: ‘Having celebrated the solemnity of the coming of the Holy Ghost, we, at onoe, on the Sunday next following, sing the glory of the holy Trinity ; and rightly is this arrangement ordained, for, after the coming of the same holy Spirit, the faith in, and confession of, the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, immediately be to be preached, and believed, and celebrated in Baptism."!

In our own country, it was the glorious martyr, St. Thomas of Canterbury, that established the feast of holy Trinity. He introduced it into his archdio- cese, in the D 1162, in memory of his having been consecrated bishop on the first Sunday after Penteoost. As regards France, we find a Council of Arles, held in 1260 under the presidency of archbishop Floren- tinus, solemnly decreeing, in its sixth canon, the feast of holy Trinity to be observed with an octave. The Cistercian Order, which was spread throughout Europe, had ordered it to be celebrated in all its houses, as far back as the year 1230. Durandus, in his Rationale, gives us grounds for concluding that, during the thirteenth century, the majority of the Latin Churches kept this feast. Of these Churches, there were some that celebrated it, not on the first, but on the last, Sunday after Pentecost; others kept it twioe: once on the Sunday next following the Pentecost solemnity, and a second time on the Sun- ony immediately preceding Advent.

t was evident, from all this, that the apostolic See would finally give its sanction to a practice, whose universal adoption was being prompted by Christian instinct. John XXII, who sat in the Chair of Saint Peter as early as the year 1334, completed the work by a decree, wherein the Church of Rome accepted the feast of holy Trinity, and extended its observance to all Churches.

1 De divinis Oftciis, Lib, xi. Cap. 1,

--- PAGE 105 --- 94 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

As to the motive which induced the Church, led as she is in all things by the Holy Ghost, to fix one special day in the year for the offering of a solemn homage to the blessed Trinity, whereas all our adorations, all our acts of thanksgiving, all our peti- tions, are ever being presented to It: such motive is to be found in the change which was being introduced, at that period, into the liturgical calendar. Up to about the year 1000, the feasts of saints askay on the general calendar, and universally kept, were very few. From that time, they began to be more nume- rous; and there was evidence that their number would go on increasing. The time would come, when the Sunday’s Office, which is specially consecrated to the blessed Trinity, must make way for that of the saints, as often as one of their feasts occurred on a Sunday. As a sort of compensation for this cele- bration of the memory of God’s servants on the very day which was sacred to the holy Trinity, it was considered right that once, at least, in the course of the year, a Sunday should be set apart for the exclusive and direct expression of the worship which the Church pays to the great God, who has vouch- safed to reveal Himself to mankind in His ineffable Unity and in His eternal Trinity.

The very essence of the Christian faith consists in the knowledge and adoration of one God in three Persons. This is the mystery whence all others flow. Our faith centres in this as in the master-truth of all it knows in this life, and as the infinite objeot whose vision is to form our eternal happiness; and yet, we know it only because it has Lr God to reveal Himself thus to our lowly intelligence, which, after all, can never fathom the infinite perfections of that God, who necessarily inhabiteth light inaccessible.!

11 Tim. vi. 16,

--- PAGE 106 --- TRINITY SUNDAY 95

Human reason may, of itself, come to the knowledge of the existence of God as Creator of all beings; it may, by its own innate power, form to itself an idea of His perfections by the study of His works; but the knowledge of God’s intimate Being can come to us only by means of His own gracious revelation.

ja was God's good-pleasure to make known to us His essence, in order to bring us into closer union with Himself, and to prepare us, in some way, for that face-to-face vision of Himself which He intends to give us in eternity. But His revelation is gradual: He takes mankind from brightness unto brightness, fitting it for the full knowledge and adoration of Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. During the period preceding the Incarnation of the eternal Word, God seemed intent on inouleating the idea of His Unity, for polytheism was the infectious error of mankind; and every notion of there being a spiritual and sole cause of all things would have been effaced from the earth, had not the infinite goodness of God watched over its preservation.

Not that the old Testament Books were altogether silent on the three divine Persons, whose ineffable relations are eternal; only, the mysterious passages, which spoke of them, were not understood by the people at large; whereas, in the Christian Church, & child of seven will answer those who ask him, that, in God, the three divine Persons have but one and the same Nature, but one and the same Divinity. When the Book of Genesis tells us that God spoke in the plural, and said: ‘Let Us make man to Our image and likeness,’! the Jew bows down and be- lieves, but he understands not the sacred text; the Christian, on the contrary, who has been enlightened by the complete revelation of God, sees, under this

1 Gen. i. 26,

--- PAGE 107 --- 96 TIME AFTER PENTECOST

expression, the three Persons acting together in the formation of man; the light of faith develops the great truth to him, and tells him that, within himself, there is & likeness to the blessed Three in One. Power, understanding, and will, are three faoulties within him, and yet he himself is but one being.

In the Books of Proverbs, Wisdom, and Ecclesias- ticus, Solomon s,in sublime language, of Him who is eternal Wisdom; he tells us—and he uses every variety of grandest expression to tell us—of the divine essence of this Wisdom, and of His being & distinot Person in the Godhead ; but how few among the people of Israel could see through the veil! Isaias heard the voice of the Seraphim, as they stood around God's throne; he heard them singing in alternate choirs, and with a joy intense because eternal, this hymn: ‘Holy! Holy! Holy! isthe Lord !*! But who will explain to men this triple Sanctus, of which the echo is heard here below, when we mortals pe praise to our Creator? So, again, in the Psalms, and the prophetic Books, a flash of light will break suddenly upon us; a brightness of some mysterious Three will dazzle us; but it passes away, and obsou- rity returns seemingly all the more palpable; we have but the sentiment of the divine Unity deeply impressed on our inmost soul, and we adore the Incomprehensible, the sovereign Being. Amen. The Lord be with you. Amen. And with thy spirit. Let us bless the Lord. Thanks be to God. May the almighty and merciful Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, bless and preserve us.

Amen.

ANTHEM TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN

Salve, Regina, mater misericordis.

Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.

Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevae;

Ad te suspiramus, gemen-

Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy. Our life, our sweetness, and our hope, all hail! To thee we cry, poor banished children of Eve: To thee we send up our

tes et flentes in hac lacrymarum valle.

Eis, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte;

Et Jesum benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exilium ostende;

O clemens,

Opi,

O dulcis Virgo Maris.

Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix.

Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

OREMUS

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui gloriose Virginis Matris Maris corpus et animam, ut dignum Filii tui habitaculum effici meretur, Spiritu sancto cooperante, rasti: da ut cuius commemoratione lefamur, ejus pia intercessione ab instantibus malis et a morte perpetua libere-mur. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum.

Amen. Divinum auxilium manet semper nobiscum.

Amen.

Then in secret Pater, Ave, and Credo; page 12.

In the monastic rite this response is as follows:

Et cum fratribus nostris absentibus. Amen.

And with our absent brethren. Amen.

FEAST OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

On the day of Pentecost the holy apostles received, as we have seen, the grace of the Holy Ghost. In accordance with the injunction of their divine Master, they will soon start on their mission of teaching all nations, and baptizing men in the name of the Holy Trinity. It was but right, then, that the solemnity which is intended to honour the mystery of one God in three Persons should immediately follow that of Pentecost, with which it has a mysterious connection. And yet, it was not until after many centuries that it was inserted in the cycle of the liturgical year, whose completion is the work of successive ages.

Every homage paid to God by the Church's liturgy has the holy Trinity as its object. Time, as well as eternity, belongs to the Trinity. The Trinity is the scope of all religion. Every day, every hour, belongs to It. The feasts instituted in memory of the mysteries of our redemption centre in It. The feasts of the blessed Virgin and the saints are but so many means for leading us to the praise of the God who is One in essence, and Three in Persons. The Sunday’s Office, in a very special way, gives us, each week, a most explicit expression of adoration and worship of this mystery, which is the foundation of all others, and the source of all;

This explains to us how it is that the Church was so long in instituting a special feast in honour of the holy Trinity. The ordinary motive for the institution of feasts did not exist in this instance. A feast is the memorial of some fact which took place at a certain time, and of which it is well to perpetuate the remembrance and the influence. How could this be applied to the mystery of the Trinity? From all eternity, before any created being existed, God liveth and reigneth, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If a feast in honour of that mystery were to be instituted, it could only be by fixing some one day in the year, whereon the faithful would assemble for offering a more than usually solemn tribute of worship to the mystery of Unity and Trinity in the one same divine Nature.

The idea of such a feast was first conceived by some of those pious and recollected souls, who are favoured from on high with a sort of presentiment of the things which the Holy Ghost will achieve, at a future period, in the Church. So far back as the eighth century, the learned monk Alcuin had had the happy thought of composing a Mass in honour of the mystery of the blessed Trinity. It would seem that he was prompted to this by the apostle of Germany, Saint Boniface. That this composition is a beautiful one, no one will doubt that knows, from Alcuin's writings, how full its author was of the spirit of sacred liturgy; but, after all, it was only a votive Mass, a mere help to deep devotion, which no one ever thought would lead to the institution of a feast. This Mass, however, became a great favourite, and was gradually circulated through the several Churches; for instance, it was approved of for Germany by the Council of Selingenstadt, held in 1022.

In the previous century, however, a feast properly so called of holy Trinity had been introduced into one of the Churches of Belgium—the very same that was to have the honour, later on, of procuring to the Church's calendar one of the richest of its solemnities.

Stephen, bishop of Liége, solemnly instituted the feast of holy Trinity for his Church, in 920, and had an entire Office composed in honour of the mystery. The Church's law, which now reserves to the holy See the institution of any new feast, was not then in existence; and Riquier, Stephen’s successor in the See of Liége, kept up what his predecessor had done.

The feast was gradually adopted. The Benedictine Order took it up from the very first. We find, for instance, in the early part of the eleventh century, that Berno, the abbot of Reichna, was doing all he could to propagate it. At Cluny, also, the feast was established at the commencement of the same century, as we learn from the Ordinarium of that celebrated monastery, drawn up in 1091, in which we find mention of holy Trinity day as having been instituted long before.

During the pontificate of Alexander II, who reigned from 1061 to 1073, the Pope has usually sanctioned the usages of partridge by herself adopting them, was led to judgment upon this new institution. In one of his decretals, the Pontiff mentions that the feast was then kept in many places; but that the Church at Rome had not adopted it, and for this reason: that the adorable Trinity is, every day of the year, unceasingly invoked by the repetition of the words: Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritus sancto; as likewise by several formulas expressive of praise.

Meanwhile, the feast went on gaining ground, as we see from the Micrologus; and, in the early part of the twelfth century, we have the learned abbot Rupert, who may justly be styled a doctor in liturgical science, explaining the appropriateness of that feast’s institution in these words: ‘Having celebrated the solemnity of the coming of the Holy Ghost, we, at one, on the Sunday next following, sing the glory of the holy Trinity; and rightly is this arrangement ordained, for, after the coming of the same holy Spirit, the faith in, and confession of, the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, immediately be to be preached, and believed, and celebrated in Baptism.'

In our own country, it was the glorious martyr, St. Thomas of Canterbury, that established the feast of holy Trinity. He introduced it into his archdiocese, in the 1162, in memory of his having been consecrated bishop on the first Sunday after Pentecost. As regards France, we find a Council of Arles, held in 1260 under the presidency of archbishop Florentinus, solemnly decreeing, in its sixth canon, the feast of holy Trinity to be observed with an octave. The Cistercian Order, which was spread throughout Europe, had ordered it to be celebrated in all its houses, as far back as the year 1230. Durandus, in his Rationale, gives us grounds for concluding that, during the thirteenth century, the majority of the Latin Churches kept this feast. Of these Churches, there were some that celebrated it, not on the first, but on the last, Sunday after Pentecost; others kept it twice: once on the Sunday next following the Pentecost solemnity, and a second time on the Sunday immediately preceding Advent.

It was evident, from all this, that the apostolic See would finally give its sanction to a practice, whose universal adoption was being prompted by Christian instinct. John XXII, who sat in the Chair of Saint Peter as early as the year 1334, completed the work by a decree, wherein the Church of Rome accepted the feast of holy Trinity, and extended its observance to all Churches.

As to the motive which induced the Church, led as she is in all things by the Holy Ghost, to fix one special day in the year for the offering of a solemn homage to the blessed Trinity, whereas all our adorations, all our acts of thanksgiving, all our petitions, are ever being presented to It: such motive is to be found in the change which was being introduced, at that period, into the liturgical calendar. Up to about the year 1000, the feasts of saints ask on the general calendar, and universally kept, were very few. From that time, they began to be more numerous; and there was evidence that their number would go on increasing. The time would come, when the Sunday’s Office, which is specially consecrated to the blessed Trinity, must make way for that of the saints, as often as one of their feasts occurred on a Sunday. As a sort of compensation for this celebration of the memory of God’s servants on the very day which was sacred to the holy Trinity, it was considered right that once, at least, in the course of the year, a Sunday should be set apart for the exclusive and direct expression of the worship which the Church pays to the great God, who has vouchsafed to reveal Himself to mankind in His ineffable Unity and in His eternal Trinity.

The very essence of the Christian faith consists in the knowledge and adoration of one God in three Persons. This is the mystery whence all others flow. Our faith centres in this as in the master-truth of all it knows in this life, and as the infinite object whose vision is to form our eternal happiness; and yet, we know it only because it has Lord God to reveal Himself thus to our lowly intelligence, which, after all, can never fathom the infinite perfections of that God, who necessarily inhabiteth light inaccessible.

Human reason may, of itself, come to the knowledge of the existence of God as Creator of all beings; it may, by its own innate power, form to itself an idea of His perfections by the study of His works; but the knowledge of God’s intimate Being can come to us only by means of His own gracious revelation.

It was God's good-pleasure to make known to us His essence, in order to bring us into closer union with Himself, and to prepare us, in some way, for that face-to-face vision of Himself which He intends to give us in eternity. But His revelation is gradual: He takes mankind from brightness unto brightness, fitting it for the full knowledge and adoration of Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. During the period preceding the Incarnation of the eternal Word, God seemed intent on inculcating the idea of His Unity, for polytheism was the infectious error of mankind; and every notion of there being a spiritual and sole cause of all things would have been effaced from the earth, had not the infinite goodness of God watched over its preservation.

Not that the old Testament Books were altogether silent on the three divine Persons, whose ineffable relations are eternal; only, the mysterious passages, which spoke of them, were not understood by the people at large; whereas, in the Christian Church, a child of seven will answer those who ask him, that, in God, the three divine Persons have but one and the same Nature, but one and the same Divinity. When the Book of Genesis tells us that God spoke in the plural, and said: ‘Let Us make man to Our image and likeness,’ the Jew bows down and believes, but he understands not the sacred text; the Christian, on the contrary, who has been enlightened by the complete revelation of God, sees, under this expression, the three Persons acting together in the formation of man; the light of faith develops the great truth to him, and tells him that, within himself, there is a likeness to the blessed Three in One. Power, understanding, and will, are three faculties within him, and yet he himself is but one being.

In the Books of Proverbs, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus, Solomon, in sublime language, of Him who is eternal Wisdom; he tells us—and he uses every variety of grandest expression to tell us—of the divine essence of this Wisdom, and of His being a distinct Person in the Godhead; but how few among the people of Israel could see through the veil! Isaias heard the voice of the Seraphim, as they stood around God's throne; he heard them singing in alternate choirs, and with a joy intense because eternal, this hymn: ‘Holy! Holy! Holy! is the Lord!’ But who will explain to men this triple Sanctus, of which the echo is heard here below, when we mortals praise to our Creator? So, again, in the Psalms, and the prophetic Books, a flash of light will break suddenly upon us; a brightness of some mysterious Three will dazzle us; but it passes away, and obscurity returns seemingly all the more palpable; we have but the sentiment of the divine Unity deeply impressed on our inmost soul, and we adore the Incomprehensible, the sovereign Being.